Ascent
Of Evil: The Story Of Mein Kampf
(2018/MVD)/Food Coop
(aka Food
Co-op/2015*)/Henry
Miller: Asleep & Awake
(2007/IndiePix)/Paying The
Price For Peace: The Story Of S. Brian Wilson
(2016**)/Plastic Parade:
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
(2014/*both Bullfrog)/The
UnAmerican Struggle
(2017/**both Cinema Libre/all DVDs)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D/D/C/C/D/D Main Programs:
B-/B/B-/B-/B-/B-
The
news and time is moving faster than ever, so the following
documentaries might not always be up to date, but they have important
moments and serious substance that make them all worth your time...
We
start with Frederic Montell's Ascent
Of Evil: The Story Of Mein Kampf
(2018) looking at the infamous work by Adolf Hitler that became the
model for his Third Reich and continues to inspire radicals to kill
and try other insane things. At a healthy 62 minutes, we see how the
book has been banned, idiotically celebrated in some countries and is
now particularly unbound in the cyber-era, but it also shows its
origins by showing Hitler's life early on and his prison stay where
he got to write it.
Though
it has been addressed often, it was time of ran update about the
books effects, afterlife and sadly, new life, especially since this
was just released. Cheers to the accurate research, key stills and
key film footage. It is a book more people need to know about and
more about, so this is a good place to start. The interviews are a
plus and they shoot new location footage...
For
more, try the 1961 film called Mein
Kampf
we reviewed at this link...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2626/Mein+Kampf+(VCI/DVD-Video)
Tom
Boothe's Food
Coop
(2015) is not about a coop but co-ops, businesses owned by the
employees and those who buy memberships into it (not
like Cosco or Sam's Club either) that were very popular in the 1960s
ands 1970s before they sadly dissipated. Fortunately, they still
have existed somewhere or another since, if not in the big numbers
they used to have, but that may be changing a bit.
The
Park Slope Co-op in Brooklyn, New York has 16,000 members and was
originally established in 1973, so it is one of the big survivors of
the earlier era and we see the whole place, interview all kinds of
people and get a fine look at how all this works. I really enjoyed
what I saw here, it brought back childhood memories and yet, is not
nostalgia. Especially with the ways the economy and employment are
so unstable these days, everyone should catch this fun documentary.
Tom
Schiller's
Henry
Miller: Asleep & Awake
(2007) is a short 35mm film where the director (the son of a major
figure on the hit I
Love Lucy
TV series, et al) visits the writing legend and they land up in his
bathroom that is plastered with all kinds of photos and he tells us
all about events in his life just from that collection. Needless to
say for him, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
It
is also a rare chance to see the legend discuss his life and fans
familiar with his work in particular might find more here than most.
I like how this was shot too.
Bo
Boudart's Paying
The Price For Peace: The Story Of S. Brian Wilson
(2016) is the story of a one-time soldier who became a protester and
peace advocate after serving in the disastrous Vietnam conflict, who
in 1987 in the face of years of Reaganism) laid his body on train
tracks to stop an arms shipment and was run over, losing both of his
legs instead. Did anyone care? Yes.
These
were arms meant for the U.S. Government-sponsored 'Contra' fighters
in Latin America (specifically Nicaragua) which many were protesting
at the time. The man sure lived his convictions and we are
re-reminded of that fiasco to, narrated by actor Peter Coyote, who is
great at this. Alice Walker, Oliver Stone, Martin Sheen, Daniel
Ellsberg, Ron Kovic and Joan Baez also show up, some for interviews
and it is an important story worth telling as much now as ever with a
new suppression of protests going on worldwide as a new surge in
protests occur.
Angela
Sun's Plastic
Parade: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
(2014) has the director's investigation of the origins of plastic,
how there is way too much of it around, way too much still being
produced, how it is ruing our world & lives when it is out of
control and what we can do to change all that. Not that she gets any
help from the oil companies behind its production and makes the
always-vital point it never degrades or goes away.
She
goes through great trouble to interview people and great trouble to
travel to places that show how bad the situation is, and mind you
this was made a few years ago, so the problem still continues. When
we look back, this will be one of the most important records on the
subject and no one will be able to say no one knew or recorded the
facts.
Finally
we have Ric Osuna's The
UnAmerican Struggle
(2017) which is a work about the early assault by The Trump
Administration on immigrants, especially of color, but this was sadly
just the very beginning and the provocative cover with a Muslim woman
wrapped in a U.S. Flag is interesting but a bit misleading as it is
not just 106 minutes of one religion being attacked, though they are
included among the many who were already under attack before the
highly underreported southern internment camps at the Mexican Border
started popping up quietly, hideously and disastrously.
Osuna
is proudly happy to be autobiographic when talking about his family
and it is a really honest moment that makes its points about hatred
of immigrants (especially about a country of immigrants) that is
echoed before and after in the other lives he shows and discusses. I
bet he's happy he made this before things got worse (they continue to
do so as of this posting) and I was glads to see this.
I
expect he'll be working on a sequel or major supplement update now,
but see this if you're interested because it is as good as any
release on the subject.
The
1.33 X 1 image transfer on Miller
can show the age of the materials used, but its 16mm origin (likely
shot on Eastman
Color/Kodak film) is a somewhat older video master, but looks good
for the format. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the
remaining five DVDs are all equally fine (again for the format) and
play well, though they also all feature older analog videotape with
the usual flaws that include video noise, video banding, telecine
flicker, tape scratching, cross color, faded color and tape damage.
Otherwise they play just fine and as expected.
As
for sound, all feature lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound with some
older monophonic audio some sometimes, location audio issues, but
Miller
is lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, yet nicely recorded.
Extras
rarely exist on any of these fine releases, but Miller
has a brief 10 minutes piece by Director Schiller and Price
has the title subject visiting Nicaragua in 2014.
-
Nicholas Sheffo