Homo-Say-What
(*)/Land
Of Little Rivers
(*both 2019/Cinema Libre)/Nazi
Junkies
(2019/Film Movement)/The
Sequel
(2018/Bulldog**)/System
Error
(2018/**both Icarus/all DVDs)
Picture:
C+/B-/C+/C/C+ Sound: C+/B-/C+/C+/C Extras: C-/C/D/D/D
Documentaries: B/B/C+/B-/B
Here's
another group of intriguing, even important documentaries for you to
know about...
We
start with Craig Bettendorf's Homo-Say-What
(2019) about how the current form of ultra-hateful, hatemongering and
murderous homophobia was started by ultra-conservative political
forces, particularly in the 1960s, leading to the AIDS epidemic
unstopped, endless murders, hate, lies and much more. A solid
companion to The
Celluloid Closet,
the strong, rich 76 minutes identifies the worst of this now in a new
ugly, hysterical peak as we post this in mid-2020. Starting with
propaganda films, political incidents, hate-advocates hiding behind
things like the Bible and U.S. flag, it shows it all up for what it
really is with relentless accuracy.
I
had forgotten some of this history and did not know how bad other
parts were, but you can see why it led to a Civil Rights Movement
early on (i.e., the Christopher Street riots) and how sad more people
did not reach out, step up and fight and defend persons who were just
being themselves and had done NOTHING wrong. Oddly, some of this
rings of White Supremacy, but also goes far beyond that. This one is
as timely as possible and worth going out of your way for.
The
title refers to a gay-baiting trick to insult and even hurt people,
so it is a perfect title for this release.
Trailers
for other releases are the only extras.
Land
Of Little Rivers
(2019) is
a very interesting documentary about New York's Catskill Mountains -
a place where many fly fishermen call their second home. The doc is
informative and entertaining with insightful interviews and a group
of people truly passionate for the sport.
Directed
by Aaron Weisblatt, the film interviews several fishermen (and women)
including Dave Brant, Bruce Concors, Rachel Finn, Rob Lewis, Ben
RInkler, Joan Salvato Wulff, Cathy Beck, Barry Beck, Gary Borger, Joe
Demalderis, Captain Adrian LaSorte, and Bob Popovics.
Special
Features include:
Deleted
Scenes and a Trailer
If
you have an interest in fly fishing, then this is the documentary for
you! Very well done and recommended.
Made
in two parts for TV, Nazi
Junkies
(2019) may be a little exploitive in its slick 'reality TV'-like
approach and unintentionally funny (on line with a piece we reviewed
a few years ago about Hitler being gay) and yet, it discusses the
kinds of drugs Hitler was using, having other soldiers (ala the SS)
use and how it helped hype them up to kill and believe in his radical
vision of genocide and war. The stock footage is not bad, even if
its condition can be rough, but even with a few parts being
speculation (more than a bit), this is all mostly believable or at
least feasible.
As
Nazis have become more 'tolerable' to and mainstreamed' by certain
extremists in the last 3.5 years, it is a reminder of the madness
that they represented from day one and always will so, thus they were
ahead of their time in depravity, hate, murder and this shows enough
why they had to be stopped. History is repeating itself, so its
timely enough.
There
are no extras.
Peter
Armstrong's The
Sequel
(2018) features just over an hour of excellent, timely, vital
observations by scientist, scholar, historian, expert David Fleming
on how the planet developed millions (NOT a few thousand) years ago
and how that amazing stretch of progress, EVOLUTION and natural
growth is now being horrifically erased in only recent decades,
especially since the Industrial Revolution. Now we know how we have
been severely lied to since the environmental movements of the later
1960s and the criminal suppression that followed.
Fleming
is extraordinarily smart, thorough and on the money about everything
he is talking about here, especially since the current political
situation made things even severely and swiftly more critical in
killing the planet and all life on it in the mere two years since
this this was released. How the U.S. Government has blatantly killed
all protections, like lead into the drinking water (the economy in
the face of the pandemic is the excuse this time) and the war against
it all is so arrogantly now up front. Fleming is extremely accurate
indeed.
There
are no extras.
Finally,
we have Florian Opitz's System
Error
(2018) shows how share-the wealth capitalism from the post-WWII era
became hateful late capitalism via globalism, oppressing all kinds of
people who were lied to and/or had no true say in their lives, with
corporations and too many government people worldwide doing what they
could to kill unions, wages, worker protections and any hope of a
living wage to protect some very wealthy people and create ignorant
new rich people who could care less what happened to anyone else.
Part
of this was to start focusing on economic 'growth' and not what was
really going on, which is why the United States as of 1980 went from
the greatest creditor nation to the greatest debtor one. Now, could
we be on the verge of total collapse? A fine companion with the
Capitalism
TV mini-series documentary we reviewed elsewhere on this site, the
usual suspects show up telling what they think as they rob and
pillage, while experts who know they are full of it point the finger
at them with more accuracy than they themselves could have imagined.
No one knew about the pandemic and partial-collapse just ahead in a
few years, but it is interesting to see them do their best to explain
their positions. Be sure to check this one out too.
There
are no extras.
Land
of Little Rivers
is presented here in anamorphically
enhanced, standard
definition on DVD with a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio, while the
rest are here in 1.78 X 1 anamorphically
enhanced, standard
definition and all look about as good, though Little
has the most new footage and polder footage in them can have
digititis form digital or analog video sources, plus analog
videotape flaws including video noise, video banding, telecine
flicker, tape scratching, cross color, faded color and tape damage.
This is par for the course in all such documentary releases.
As
for sound, Land
has both lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 English audio mixes. There
some nice photography here with sweeping aerial shots and great
footage of the fishermen in action. The rest of the DVDs only offer
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (save Homo
with PCM 2.0 Stereo and some vintage monophonic sound).
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James
Lockhart (Land)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
