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Category:    Home > Reviews > Fandom > Fiction > Biography > Design > Logos > Commerce > Corporations > Moviegoing > Theaters > Cinema > Behind The Bucket: A Garrison Story (2022/MVD DVD)/Modernism Inc. (2023/First Run DVD)/Scala!!! (2023/Severin Blu-ray)

Behind The Bucket: A Garrison Story (2022/MVD DVD)/Modernism Inc. (2023/First Run DVD)/Scala!!! (2023/Severin Blu-ray)



Picture: B-/C+/B Sound: B-/C+/B Extras: D/D/B Documentaries: C+/B/B-



Now for some documentaries that will not bore you....



Star Wars fans (and especially cosplayers) will want to check out this heartwarming documentary, Behind The Bucket: A Garrison Story (2022), which focuses on The 501st Legion - an elite group of costumed fans from around the world. However, the documentary seems to mostly focus on a group of fans in the midwest.


These fans aren't your normal cosplayers looking to win a costume contest at a comic convention. These passionate folks get their costumes up to spec and screen accurate, joining a force of good that helps out the community with their passion for Star Wars. Whether it's visiting a sick child in a hospital, appearing in a parade, or any other special public appearance - The 501st Legion are ''bad guys that do good'' as their slogan proclaims.


Some of the more dramatic moments of the doc explore some of the fans that have been touched by these performers. A few sad stories highlight the doc including a man with very bad fire wounds and a young fan with brain tumors - both of which were touched by the cause. In lighter moments we see a few stars from the films pop up during some of the comic con highlights including Ray Park, who played the iconic villain Darth Maul, and a few clips from the highly esteemed Star Wars Celebration convention.


The only Special Feature is a trailer.


Behind the Bucket is a little long, but gets the point out about the mission of The 501st legion and how everyday Star Wars fanatics have stepped up to make the less fortunate a bit happier in extreme situations. Hats off to the brave folks who dedicate the time and money to spread joy to those in need in addition to being a shining star for fans at fun events.



Jason Andrew Cohn's Modernism Inc. (2023) is part of a very welcome cycle of occasional docs on the arts, media, images, logo, fonts and design that include innovation, change and how non-language ideas communicate many things. With welcome overlap with many other such releases, this focuses on the innovative work of Eliot Noyes, who created new ways to visually and graphically organize and iterate such things in the mid-1950s for IBM. His work helped them create a more effective identity and influenced countless business and corporations.


It becomes yet another biography of the man, his world, U.S. business, the U.S. itself and so much more. Once you start watching it, you become curious, then surprised, then engrossed, especially if you know some of this history, have seen the other such documentaries and know about what you can still see of all this work and innovation today. I consider this a must-see documentary and highly recommend it, especially at a packed 79 minutes.


There are sadly no extras, but back in 2011, Cohn also gave the equally excellent Eames: The Architect & The Painter and we reviewed the DVD at this link:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11498/Eames:+The+Architect+&+The+Painter+(2011/Firs



Jane Giles And Ali Catterall's Scala!!! (2023) is yet another-all-too-rare program about the movie-going experience in movie theaters, how it can lead to communities and how some theaters become iconic, stand out and prove to be one-of-a-kind places to be. Some like the title locale in London, especially from 1978 to 1983, when this place exploded with all kinds of classic, indie and underground films, plus hit movies and shorts.


Running 96 minutes, it is packed with interviews, rare photos, remarkably surviving footage and the kinds of groups that landed up forming out of have such a pro-film place to go where the people loving the film and had scholarly knowledge of it were often the same people. In this early era of streaming, especially post-pandemic, 4K HDTVs and some shockingly bad big budget films, it is a vital record of the great effects cinema can have and what some of it has been, is and will always be all about.


Similar to several tales of such places in the U.S., et al, the energy and fun is immediately apparent and though we get a few down moments or overlap with other such programs or reflections, it is definitely one everyone should check out, especially if they have not seen such a documentary before. The decline of such places sadly, very slowly started with home video and cineplexes with multiple screens, but the very slow replacement of people who loved film and knew how to make them with penny-pinchers who are clueless has reached a new low as this review posts. Scala!!! celebrates all this and that includes a ton of extras to give you a better idea of things.


Full content and extras include a full poster and faux theater ticket, plus (per disc and the press release):
Disc 1

  • Audio Commentary With Co-Directors Jane Giles And Ali Catterall

  • Introduction From The UK Premiere At The 2023 BFI London Film Festival

  • Introduction To SCALA by Director Michael Clifford

  • SCALA (Michael Clifford, 1990)

  • SCALA CINEMA (Ali Peck/Victor de Jesus, 1992)

  • Director Commentary For SCALA CINEMA

  • Scala Programs 1978 - 1993

  • Cabinet Of Curiosities: Inside The Scala Archive

  • Extended Interviews

  • Mary Harron Outtakes

  • Nick Kent Outtakes

  • Thurston Moore Outtakes

  • John Waters Outtakes

  • Cartoons By Davey Jones

  • Osbert Parker's SCALA!!! Animation Experiments And Outtakes

  • Primatarium Animation

  • Scala Programs Animation

  • Tentacles Animation

  • Trailer


Disc 2: Short Films

  • DIVIDE AND RULE - NEVER! (Newsreel Collective, 1978)

  • DEAD CAT (David Lewis, 1989)

  • David Lewis Remembers DEAD CAT

  • THE MARK OF LILITH (Bruna Fionda/Polly Gladwin/Zachary Nataf, 1986)

  • RELAX (Chris Newby, 1991)

  • BOOBS A LOT (Aggy Read, 1968)

  • KAMA SUTRA RIDES AGAIN (Bob Godfrey, 1971)

  • COPING WITH CUPID (Viv Albertine, 1991)

  • ON GUARD (Susan Lambert, 1984)


Disc 3: Documentaries

  • THE ART OF THE CALENDAR (Kier-La Janisse, 2024)

  • SPLATTERFEST EXHUMED (Jasper Sharp, 2024)

  • Short Films

  • MANIAC 2: MR. ROBBIE (Buddy Giovinazzo, 1986)

  • Audio Commentary For MANIAC 2: MR. ROBBIE With Buddy Giovinazzo

  • HORRORSHOW (Paul Hart-Wilden, 1990)

  • Audio Commentary For HORRORSHOW With Director Paul Hart-Wilden

  • CLEVELAND SMITH: BOUNTY HUNTER (Josh Becker, 1982) Original Cut

  • CLEVELAND SMITH: BOUNTY HUNTER (Josh Becker, 1982) Producer's Cut

  • Audio Commentary For The Producer's Cut Of CLEVELAND SMITH:

  • BOUNTY HUNTER With Producer Scott Spiegel

  • MONGOLITOS (Stephane Ambiel, 1988)

  • Audio Commentary For MONGOLITOS With Director Stephane Ambiel

  • and The Legendary H.G. Lewis Speaks: 1989 Scala Appearance By The Godfather Of Gore.



Now for playback performance. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Scala!!! has all kinds of film and video sources as expected, but looks pretty good overall and is easily the image champ on the list, as is the lossless PCM 2.0 Stereo sound, pretty well recorded and mixed.


Behind the Bucket is presented in standard definition (480i) on DVD with an anamorphically enhanced, 1.78 X 1 widescreen aspect ratio and an average stereo audio mix. The standard definition transfer is fine considering that this is a low budget documentary and heavily reliant on cinematic style. The film is shot pretty good for the most part, a few dips in audio here and there due to quality of the source, but nothing too jarring. Of course no John Williams Star Wars music is used as that would violate copyright (too expensive to license) so we have some stock music cues here and there with a few tracks that are repeated and tend to pass their welcome at moments. Overall, for a low budget documentary it comes across fine in standard definition.


The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Modernism is about as good as Bucket, also with some older, sometimes rougher sources, but they play and are edited together just fine, while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has at least as much vintage mono sound as new stereo, but is just fine for the old format.



- Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (Bucket)

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/



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