I'm really tired. This has been a year of highs and lows, and these last few months have been rough for me. Not as bad as last year, but it still wasn't that easy to handle, with anxiety being a constant menace, especially in terms of writing. Nevertheless, this is my yearly tradition, and since I cover every film I see, it would feel incomplete with the documentaries. So, here we are. Just a recap: I do all documentaries I saw this year, whether or not they actually came out this year. I rank them from highest to lowest recommendation. That said, I've laxed on other documentaries, at least as far as I can remember, and I don't feel like digging to find other documentaries I may missed. Again, anxiety, don't feel like writing. So, without further ado,
Apollo 11 (2019)
Yeah, yeah, big surprise this is my number one for the year. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landings, the documentarians decided instead to take hours of achive footage from television broadcasts and the mission cameras (including previously unreleased 70 mm from NASA's archives) to make a play-by-play recreation of the mission, from its launch from Cape Canaveral to its landing entirely from it, eschewing the normal documentary cliche's of talking heads and recreations. This makes for a very tense experience, which makes you feel like you are with Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins as they go on their mission. Even for a big space nut like me, I could feel tense as I went along, saw the clock, the distance, the velocity. It is easily the most captivating experience I've had in a theater in a while, documentary or otherwise.
Amazing Grace (2018)
This comes a close second though. Filmed all the way back in 1972, this film about Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace live album performance at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles went through years of development due to technical difficulties and legal trouble, before it was released some months after Franklin's tragic death. Aretha Franklin is, of course, a talent of the ages, with an incredibly powerful voice that really grabs and holds your attention no matter what she is singing. This film really captures the feeling of being in the audience at that church, completely captivated by the performance and feeling the energy of it coming through. It's really hard to capture in words. I recommend watching the doc itself to see exactly what I mean by it
Fyre/Fyre Fraud (2019)
Yes, the year of two Fyre documentaries. Netflix had hyped their take for months. Then, a few days before it was released, Hulu dropped its own Fyre documentary. If you don't remember, Fyre Festival was a complete disaster of a music festival, conceived by con man Billy McFarlane and rapper and punchline Ja Rule to promote some app to have celebrities play at events, I think, which was supposed to be elite, but ended with FEMA tents and styrofoam boxes with sandwiches. Anyway, these two put together really give a full picture of the scale of failure that facilitated such a disaster of this scale. While compromised by their own producers and/or associations (which is why they're roughly equal on this list), it shows the chronology of hyping up this exclusive music festival on social media, getting interest despite suspicions, and the increasingly insane choices that went into planning and executing this festival, and just who the various characters were who made these decisions despite all opposition, all leading to the day when everything just went kaput. Really, both should be watched to gain a fuller context, of everything that went down. I look forward to another few years when narrative films are made based on this. It is too insane to be true. Yet it is.
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
Peter Jackson decided to upend the usual view of World War I as an ancient war recorded in black and white, by making feel real. Taking hours of footage and interviews archived in London's Imperial War Museum, Jackson colorized the footage to the finest detail, and set the interview audio over it, cutting both to make a general experience of the average British soldier within the trenches. It is highly emotional, especially both in the calm moments in the trenches and the brutal battles and the haunting imagery it invokes. It is clearly very personal to Jackson (whose grandfathers served in the war), and helps make history feel realer and more intimate than merely reading it on the page.
Red Gringo (2016)
I've been fascinated for a while by the story of Dean Reed, a Colorado born singer who ultimately defected to the Soviet Union and became something of a Red Elvis. This Chilean documentary primarily focuses on the period in-between, when he used his inexplicable Latin American success to pursue larger career opportunities in Chile. Interact with Reeds rise with the Chilean music listening public is his growing political awareness, especially with his friendship with socialist singer-songwriter Victor Jara and the election of socialist Salvatore Allende. Allende would signal a hope and dream of an equal, prosperous Chile. A dream undone by reactionary backlash and Allende's overthrow by General Augusto Pinochet, whose reign would see thousands imprisoned and killed (including Jara) and the Chilean economy wrecked by disastrous Chicago School economics. Disillusioned by Jara's death, Reed would leave for East Germany. The documentary is fascinating into that promising period of Chilean history and a fascinating historical figure that existed alongside it.
Milius (2013)
Regardless of what you think of his politics, John Milius is an incredibly fascinating filmmaker. His philosophy of machismo and conservative, pro-militarism oozed into every project he was involved with, from Dirty Harry to Conan the Barbarian to Red Dawn. This film so aptly captures the man, his movies, and how his quixotic, oddball personality and sometimes contradictory, but ultimately very reactionary politics were captured in his film. Even for someone with very left-leaning politics like me, it gives reason to show Milius as a filmmaker worth paying attention to, and his work an indication of brazen, outspoken personality
Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (2019)
I'm a big fan of the documentaries of Mark Hartley, which take a look at the underreported parts of international film with a ton of energy and style which keeps the viewer interested, along with bizarre or intriguing anecdotes from some of the participants. This film from Serge Ou (apparently having the same producer as Hartley's documentaries) captures that same energy to discuss the history of kung fu movies. While light on the actual participants and sputtering out towards the end, the film manages to interweave the actual production of seminal kung fu films with the general direction of the Hong Kong film industry and some of its biggest stars, including Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, doing so with gusto and style that keeps the viewer interested throughout, and shows why kung fu movies have had such an enduring appeal.
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008)
An old favorite of mine, directed by the aforementioned Mark Hartley. Same deal as above, except with the low budget Australian "Ozploitation" movies of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Always fascinating to watch, especially all the bizarre, diverse films to come from the Land Down Under, from horror to gross-out comedy and their influence, especially on American schlock connoisseurs like Quentin Tarantino. It really is NSFW, so be warned.
ReMastered: The Lion's Share (2019)
Earlier this year, I learned the interesting international history of the old song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." It was, in fact, based on a song called "Mbube" by South African singer Solomon Linda, which was then covered by famed folk singer Pete Seeger as "Wimoweh" (Seeger had misheard the Zulu phrase in the song "Uyimbube" or "You are a lion"), and was given lyrics by George Weiss, and given to the Tokens to be released as the song well-known today. However, Linda himself would never see any money from the explosion of his song (despite attempts by Seeger to ensure that payment was sent), and despite Disney using the song in the Lion King franchise, the Linda struggled in poverty. The documentary covers this entire history, including a massive team-up of South African lawyers and politicians against the mega-Disney empire, and the bittersweet ending of royalties given to Linda's children. It is fascinating, and it ultimately leaves you upset at the byzantine wranglings and confusing precendents that prevent something that was seemingly so obvious (that the writer of the original melody and his descendants deserved a share of the song's massive success) from truly benefitting those that need it.
Studio 54(2018)
This is the lowest recommendation, because the first half was considerably weaker than the last one. This was mainly because the middle dragged with the standard depiction of the titular nightclub being a celebrity hangout during the late 1970's, which really adds nothing new to the thousands of similar celebratory depictions in other media. However, where it really shines is showing the relationship at the center of both Studio 54 as an institution and the documentary, that being the two co-founders, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. Seeing them deal with the law, the actual running of the nightclub, the fallout of their eventual arrest and sale of Studio 54, and their other ventures, showed a lot more of a interesting story that rarely explored, and has a lot more to say about the two and their vision than a standard depiction normally would.
---------------
So, that's that. I do recommend all of these, since each cover their own topics well. Stay tuned for my list of 2019 films in the next few days.
Apollo 11 (2019)
Yeah, yeah, big surprise this is my number one for the year. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landings, the documentarians decided instead to take hours of achive footage from television broadcasts and the mission cameras (including previously unreleased 70 mm from NASA's archives) to make a play-by-play recreation of the mission, from its launch from Cape Canaveral to its landing entirely from it, eschewing the normal documentary cliche's of talking heads and recreations. This makes for a very tense experience, which makes you feel like you are with Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins as they go on their mission. Even for a big space nut like me, I could feel tense as I went along, saw the clock, the distance, the velocity. It is easily the most captivating experience I've had in a theater in a while, documentary or otherwise.
Amazing Grace (2018)
This comes a close second though. Filmed all the way back in 1972, this film about Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace live album performance at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles went through years of development due to technical difficulties and legal trouble, before it was released some months after Franklin's tragic death. Aretha Franklin is, of course, a talent of the ages, with an incredibly powerful voice that really grabs and holds your attention no matter what she is singing. This film really captures the feeling of being in the audience at that church, completely captivated by the performance and feeling the energy of it coming through. It's really hard to capture in words. I recommend watching the doc itself to see exactly what I mean by it
Fyre/Fyre Fraud (2019)
Yes, the year of two Fyre documentaries. Netflix had hyped their take for months. Then, a few days before it was released, Hulu dropped its own Fyre documentary. If you don't remember, Fyre Festival was a complete disaster of a music festival, conceived by con man Billy McFarlane and rapper and punchline Ja Rule to promote some app to have celebrities play at events, I think, which was supposed to be elite, but ended with FEMA tents and styrofoam boxes with sandwiches. Anyway, these two put together really give a full picture of the scale of failure that facilitated such a disaster of this scale. While compromised by their own producers and/or associations (which is why they're roughly equal on this list), it shows the chronology of hyping up this exclusive music festival on social media, getting interest despite suspicions, and the increasingly insane choices that went into planning and executing this festival, and just who the various characters were who made these decisions despite all opposition, all leading to the day when everything just went kaput. Really, both should be watched to gain a fuller context, of everything that went down. I look forward to another few years when narrative films are made based on this. It is too insane to be true. Yet it is.
They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)
Peter Jackson decided to upend the usual view of World War I as an ancient war recorded in black and white, by making feel real. Taking hours of footage and interviews archived in London's Imperial War Museum, Jackson colorized the footage to the finest detail, and set the interview audio over it, cutting both to make a general experience of the average British soldier within the trenches. It is highly emotional, especially both in the calm moments in the trenches and the brutal battles and the haunting imagery it invokes. It is clearly very personal to Jackson (whose grandfathers served in the war), and helps make history feel realer and more intimate than merely reading it on the page.
Red Gringo (2016)
I've been fascinated for a while by the story of Dean Reed, a Colorado born singer who ultimately defected to the Soviet Union and became something of a Red Elvis. This Chilean documentary primarily focuses on the period in-between, when he used his inexplicable Latin American success to pursue larger career opportunities in Chile. Interact with Reeds rise with the Chilean music listening public is his growing political awareness, especially with his friendship with socialist singer-songwriter Victor Jara and the election of socialist Salvatore Allende. Allende would signal a hope and dream of an equal, prosperous Chile. A dream undone by reactionary backlash and Allende's overthrow by General Augusto Pinochet, whose reign would see thousands imprisoned and killed (including Jara) and the Chilean economy wrecked by disastrous Chicago School economics. Disillusioned by Jara's death, Reed would leave for East Germany. The documentary is fascinating into that promising period of Chilean history and a fascinating historical figure that existed alongside it.
Milius (2013)
Regardless of what you think of his politics, John Milius is an incredibly fascinating filmmaker. His philosophy of machismo and conservative, pro-militarism oozed into every project he was involved with, from Dirty Harry to Conan the Barbarian to Red Dawn. This film so aptly captures the man, his movies, and how his quixotic, oddball personality and sometimes contradictory, but ultimately very reactionary politics were captured in his film. Even for someone with very left-leaning politics like me, it gives reason to show Milius as a filmmaker worth paying attention to, and his work an indication of brazen, outspoken personality
Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks (2019)
I'm a big fan of the documentaries of Mark Hartley, which take a look at the underreported parts of international film with a ton of energy and style which keeps the viewer interested, along with bizarre or intriguing anecdotes from some of the participants. This film from Serge Ou (apparently having the same producer as Hartley's documentaries) captures that same energy to discuss the history of kung fu movies. While light on the actual participants and sputtering out towards the end, the film manages to interweave the actual production of seminal kung fu films with the general direction of the Hong Kong film industry and some of its biggest stars, including Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, doing so with gusto and style that keeps the viewer interested throughout, and shows why kung fu movies have had such an enduring appeal.
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008)
An old favorite of mine, directed by the aforementioned Mark Hartley. Same deal as above, except with the low budget Australian "Ozploitation" movies of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Always fascinating to watch, especially all the bizarre, diverse films to come from the Land Down Under, from horror to gross-out comedy and their influence, especially on American schlock connoisseurs like Quentin Tarantino. It really is NSFW, so be warned.
ReMastered: The Lion's Share (2019)
Earlier this year, I learned the interesting international history of the old song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." It was, in fact, based on a song called "Mbube" by South African singer Solomon Linda, which was then covered by famed folk singer Pete Seeger as "Wimoweh" (Seeger had misheard the Zulu phrase in the song "Uyimbube" or "You are a lion"), and was given lyrics by George Weiss, and given to the Tokens to be released as the song well-known today. However, Linda himself would never see any money from the explosion of his song (despite attempts by Seeger to ensure that payment was sent), and despite Disney using the song in the Lion King franchise, the Linda struggled in poverty. The documentary covers this entire history, including a massive team-up of South African lawyers and politicians against the mega-Disney empire, and the bittersweet ending of royalties given to Linda's children. It is fascinating, and it ultimately leaves you upset at the byzantine wranglings and confusing precendents that prevent something that was seemingly so obvious (that the writer of the original melody and his descendants deserved a share of the song's massive success) from truly benefitting those that need it.
Studio 54(2018)
This is the lowest recommendation, because the first half was considerably weaker than the last one. This was mainly because the middle dragged with the standard depiction of the titular nightclub being a celebrity hangout during the late 1970's, which really adds nothing new to the thousands of similar celebratory depictions in other media. However, where it really shines is showing the relationship at the center of both Studio 54 as an institution and the documentary, that being the two co-founders, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. Seeing them deal with the law, the actual running of the nightclub, the fallout of their eventual arrest and sale of Studio 54, and their other ventures, showed a lot more of a interesting story that rarely explored, and has a lot more to say about the two and their vision than a standard depiction normally would.
---------------
So, that's that. I do recommend all of these, since each cover their own topics well. Stay tuned for my list of 2019 films in the next few days.
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