Into
The Weeds (2022/Film
Movement DVD)/Las Leonas
(2022/Distrib/Icarus DVD)/Mondo
New York (1988/MVD
Blu-ray w/CD)/There Goes
The Neighborhood
(2022/IndiePix DVD)
Picture:
C+/C/B-/C+ Sound: C+/C/B-/C+ Extras: C+/C-/B/C- Films:
B/B-/C+/B-
Now
for the
latest documentary releases....
Jennifer
Baichwal and Dewayne ''Lee'' Johnson's Into
The Weeds (2022) is yet
another look at how bad the weed killer commercially known as
'Roundup' is, made by plastics and genetically engineered food maker
Monsanto (now part of Bayer) and how they lied to sell it when they
apparently knew it caused cancer. That included seeds with the
substance in them so growing whatever the seed was would make for
less weeds in advance, but instead, made growing areas even more
cancerous.
Johnson
had used a professional-grade version of the substance under the
'Ranger Pro' name and when he landed up getting the specific cancer
known as Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and the weed killer was first
identified as being a carcinogen, he sued the makers. The
documentary combines interviews, facts, courtroom footage, the ugly
effects on the body, news footage and much more to make a permanent
record of how bad this was, is and could still be considering how
much of it is in the ground worldwide. Going further than most news
broadcasts, the results are comprehensible, priceless, archival and
will only grow in importance as this disaster continues to ruin
lives, poison land, poison food and kill people. Definitely
recommended, especially if you have not heard enough about this to
understand the situation.
Extras
include a music video for the song 'Monster'
and two featurettes: Into
The Weeds Epilogue Call
and Bees, Guts and
Glyphosate.
Isabel
Achaval and Chiara Bondi's Las
Leonas (2022) is part of
a fine cycle of behind the scenes sports documentaries, this time
covering women from other countries coming to Italy to join one of
six soccer leagues there and what it takes and took them to make it
in, sometimes just not too easily. Though even fictional sports
movies show struggle, this documentary has some unique situations and
features the real gals doing what they can to make it and make their
mark.
Sure,
there is overlap, with this one even reminding me of some
documentaries on ballet dancers of all things, but that also gives
you an idea of the hard work that goes into the kind of unique
performance you need in one of the most popular sports around. Of
course, there is still some sexism towards female soccer leagues
(known simply as football overseas, as you might know, despite the
U.S. version that is a totally different game) and we get that, so
these women, no matter where they are from, are breaking ground and
glass ceilings every day. This documentary does a decent, honest job
of capturing that.
Trailers
are the only extras.
Harvey
Keith's Mondo New York
(1988) is part of a cycle of unrelated films with the word 'mondo' in
them that promises a raw, uncensored, even graphic, ugly and
disgusting look at life at its worst and grossest. That also means
such films are exploitation films, but by accident, this one becomes
a portrait of a dirty New York City of the past with XXX theaters,
junkies, burnouts, mentally ill people and before corporations moved
into Times Square and 'cleaned things up' relatively speaking.
Singer/performer
Lydia Lunch shows up here, as well as performance artist Ann
Magnuson, Joey Arias and Joe Coleman among the names of the time.
Some footage is sexually and physically graphic enough that this
unrated film could get an NC-17 today, but it is not quite as bad as
some of the more ridiculous 'mondo' films that are just absolute
junk. The legendary club CBGBs is also here, along with the streets
of a highly urban New York in general, which helps offset some of the
wackiness of the city that helped give us disco, punk and rap/hip hop
music, the latter of which was just getting into full gear at the
time.
This
is not a film for everyone, but even if it does not sound like your
cup of tea, those who love New York, the arts or history will want to
give it a look. That is even if some of it is hard to watch.
Extras
(per the press release) include:
Interview
with Joe Coleman (HD, 49:33)
Interview
with Joey Arias (HD, 49:48)
Interview
with Shannah Laumeister (HD, 36:16)
Interview
with producer Stuart Shapiro (HD, 27:20)
Photo
Gallery
Soundtrack
CD in decent stereo
High
quality, well-illustrated 18-Page Booklet
Original
Theatrical Trailer (SD, 1:28)
Reversible
Artwork
and
a Collectible 2-Sided Mini-Poster
Ian
Phillips' There Goes The
Neighborhood (2022) is
another documentary on the once unthinkable phenomenon of rich people
and wealthy interests moving into older neighborhoods once given up
for dead or for the poor, then spending millions to rebuild key parts
of it so they can live there. This process, known (a term
originating in the 1960s!) as gentrification, usually results in
property values skyrocketing, the poor and vulnerable being forced to
move and long-established communities being watered down or
eliminated. Save a few who might own their homes and might want to
cash in, though others are build into it or made to uncomfortably
choose, as changes can include tax hikes, this often happens without
most people there being able to stop it or have a say about it.
Director
Phillips thinks things are so bad in their particular case of giant
skyscrapers being built nearby his neighborhood, that he has called
it 'hyper-gentrification' and does a series of interviews and pieces
showing the people fighting it, the effects of strangers with much
money coming it and not even talking directly with anyone and just
how bad the cold way things are being handled happens.
Without
any illicit appeals to pity, you can understand why lifetime
residents who have only had so much in life feel challenged,
uprooted, disturbed and even offended in all this. This is not to
say that any time a big building or set of upscale new homes are
built, it is destructive in itself, you have to have more
construction, but these particular cases could be dealt with better
and short-but-rich 72 minutes here show the way the builders and real
estate people probably should not go about things. Though there are
no easy answer, hard questions like the ones asked here need to be
asked and the film does a solid job of asking them and showing the
human beings affected.
Trailers
are the only extras.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 1.78
X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Mondo
can show the age of the materials used, but color is good and the 2K
scan (from either 16mm or 35mm color negative that was only so good,
who knows what stocks they chose, not knowing how they would hold up)
captures the look of the film. It is grainer than you might expect,
but there are plenty of nighttime sequences or indoor sequences, so
film stocks were only so clear then, especially when you have little
budget and are on location. Even when some of the performances are
by performers who know they are being filmed.
Originally
in theatrical mono sound, the PCM 2.0 Stereo sound is a nice upgrade,
but is simple at best and shows its age, something not quite as bad
on the PCM 16bit/44.1kHz bonus music CD also included, but even that
shows its age. The combination is as good as can be expected.
All
three DVD are here in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image that all
look good, but Las Leonas is a little softer (along with its
limited sound being the poorest here) throughout for whatever reason,
though its color is not bad. All DVDs offer lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo, save Weeds, which adds a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1
option. The resulting combination is as good as they can play in
this format, though I wonder how much better they could be on
Blu-ray. Hmmmm.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
