The
Iron Ministry
(2014/Icarus DVD)/Road To
The Big Leagues
(2008/IndiePix DVD)/This
Changes Everything
(2015/VSC Blu-ray)/Top
Spin (2014)/Welcome
To Leith (2015/both First
Run DVDs)
Picture:
C/C+/B-/C/C Sound: C/C+/B-/C/C Extras: C-/C/C+/C/C+
Documentaries: C+/C+/B/B-/B-
Here's
a new group of documentaries for you to know about...
J.P.
Sniadecki's The
Iron Ministry
(2014) is a dark look at public transportation in China of all
things, how despite all the hype of the China of tomorrow, people are
struggling there, the trains are filthy and not kept well. The
citizens are seen in all varieties and even all classes as they watch
their country through the windows of the trains change (like an
endless TV show) and not always for the better, so we meet all kinds
of people and it is not always a pleasant trip.
The
parts that don't try so hard are the ones that work best, but the
film takes forever to start (the screen is purposely all black in the
beginning for no good reason for more than a few minutes to make a
point only the director apparently understands) and we get other
spells of pretension that backfire on the project. I could only get
through this one once, but it is a document that has its moments and
due to the politics of the country, might still get its makers killed
or jailed for life.
Jared
Goodman's Road
To The Big Leagues
(2008) is a surprisingly decent documentary on how the Dominican
Republic produces the most major baseball players next to the U.S.
and the hopes and dreams that brings to the country, though there is
also heartache, that makes it the top sport almost on a religious
level. It is amazing how much they love baseball and though this
runs about an hour or so, is not bad, but it is not as easy a sit if
you are not as big a fan of baseball. Otherwise, it is a look at a
country, place and people we don't see enough and ought to see more
of.
Avi
Lewis' This
Changes Everything
(2015) is the latest documentary about how much of an environmental
emergency we are all in and though it may overlap with some other
known and accomplished documentary releases in the cycle in and
recent years, it is as important and really tells it like it is.
Based on a book and shot over a 211-day tour of several areas, we see
blatant pillaging and destroying of lands and property of others not
even owned by said companies (my favorite is when greedy corporate
reps say they will returned the land to 'normal' when they are
finished when that land took thousands of years if not longer to
form, meaning what they say is totally a lie and impossible to do) go
in and could care less.
They
go overseas too, expanding the scope of things, but this gets real
interesting when a couple is visited trying to hold onto their land
as a company (or two) tear up much of the land around them, offering
to buy it and piping petroleum through pipes on it. They said no to
this company very clearly, only to wake up one morning to find oily
water all over their land from a pipeline leak. The news reports it
as an 'accident' but it really seems to have been done on purpose to
hurt them and punish
them for not selling. The condescending behavior on the part of the
companies is blatant, ignorant, highly disrespectful and tells us all
we need to know of the ignorance and blatant disregard for everything
in their way. Thus, you cannot have enough of these documentaries,
enough journalism covering this (as our mainstream media has failed
miserably to cover all this) and the red alerts in this solid work
can never be underestimated!
That
brings us to our last entry, Sara
Newens & Mina T. Son's Top
Spin
(2014), which is an examination of competitive table tennis, the big
money and skill actually involved in it and focuses on four
extraordinarily talented young people possibly going for the Olympics
for it. Thus, the 81 minutes (wish this was a bit longer) glides
nicely between players Ariel Hsing, Michael Landers, Lily Zhang and
some of their highly competitive competitors. If you ever though
this was a joke (meaning you likely don't know how to play in the
first place), then this is proof otherwise.
We
meet them as fans, people and we're lucky to see them be fortunate
enough to have true family support, but also be very likable without
any phony enhancements and that makes this one of the best sports
documentaries we've seen in a while. Impressive and very pleasant.
Finally
we have Michael Beach Nichols & Christopher K. Walker's Welcome
To Leith
(2015), about the small town in North Dakota that use to thrive
decades ago via industrial business, but has dwindled down to two
dozen for a population. Suddenly, an unknown old man (Craig Cobb)
shows up and starts buying property cheap for seeming no reason, uses
his real name (the officials never look him up?) and he turns out to
be a white supremest trying to build an 'all-white' town to create a
'pure white' colony in the town by taking over the government and
establish some kind of separatist state. Crazy as that sounds, that
what he and some name hatemongers try to do, but the town slowly
fights back and the results are interesting, including one who made
the national news for a mass killing.
This
runs a very rich 86 minutes and is very well researched, edited and
the makers manage to really deliver the story that we (again!) have
not heard enough of in the main press, though in this case, some news
outlets feel (not always rightly, but somewhat understandably) that
the fewer stories about these hate groups and their activities, the
better because any publicity is far too much and that may be
valid to some extent. However, these people live up to the
gun-toting stereotypes and the good people in Leith are to be
congratulated for standing up to this insanity.
Picture
quality is sometimes rough on all these releases, but the HD-shot
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Changes
has non-HD footage in several places and going for a scope frame in
less than state-of-the-art HD hinders the picture quality further.
Still, this is the best playback performer, followed surprisingly by
the letterboxed 1.78 X 1 on Road,
with the next best color throughout. You still get flaws and
softness, but somehow, the remaining DVD with their anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image presentation are too soft and disappointing
throughout when they should have all outperformed Road.
In all cases, the oldest footage can suffer digital and/or analog
videotape flaws, video noise, video banding, telecine flicker, tape
scratching, cross color, faded color and tape damage.
As
for sound, all have location audio instances that are flawed, but the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on
Changes
is the best presentation overall, but hardly always uses its
multi-channels to their furthest effect. Leith
has what should be the next best soundtrack with a lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, but it can only do so much with rough and
sometimes dangerously-obtained audio, so with the rest of the DVDs
only offering
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo at best, Road somehow also has the
second-best sound as the makers cleaned up the sound the best they
could and though not perfect, sounds good under the circumstances.
Be careful of volume switching and high volume son all DVDs just the
same.
Extras
on all releases, save Road,
offer Deleted and/or Extended Scenes, with Road
still adding three extra interviews and a Behind The Scenes
featurette, Changes
adds more Interviews and an Original Theatrical Trailer, Spin
and Leith
add text Biographies and Leith
also adds more key Interviews.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
