Author Topic: DOCember Group Marathon 2015  (Read 16672 times)

oldkid

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #20 on: December 04, 2015, 01:32:06 AM »
Amy

It's pretty rare that I just love a documentary.  Even more so to love a doc about a celebrity.  I mean, really, can't we find someone who hasn't been focused on for a decade to do a doc on?

But for Amy Winehouse, the celebrity culture is the focus-- it was her downfall.  She was an easy person to take shots of because she did embarrassing things in public.  But what if her uncontrolled actions was a direct result of the fact that she had no private space?  What if the whole concept of celebrity destroys?

By the end of this film, I was weeping.  Not just because of the loss of a great talent, but because we keep finding new ways to destroy people.

Thus far, this is my favorite movie of the year.  4.5/5
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

1SO

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #21 on: December 04, 2015, 02:32:38 AM »
we keep finding new ways to destroy people.
Well-phrased sentiment. I couldn't help thinking while watching that Amy Winehouse is hardly the first celebrity to kill herself with drugs or that she was using to deal with issues the film is only able to scratch the surface of, but like the common cold, each case manages to be just unique enough that in the end you feel the outcome could not be prevented. By the time her problem was detected she had already spiraled too far down the drain.


Bondo

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #22 on: December 04, 2015, 02:41:32 AM »
The baggage that comes with celebrity didn't kill Amy Winehouse, but it was the weapon her pre-existing weaknesses used to finish the job.

Bondo

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #23 on: December 04, 2015, 01:49:20 PM »
Matt Shepard Is A Friend Of Mine (2014)

I feel a bit like a traitor to my kind, but this documentary just felt kind of flat to me. As a Golden Brick nominee, Adam touted how the film gets to the ordinary man behind the name that would become synonymous with an issue. That is admirable, but I mean, he was pretty ordinary (special in the way all ordinary people are). In focusing on this aspect, it just doesn't feel newsworthy. It may be an important venture for those who knew him and are making the film, but it didn't necessarily connect to me as a member of the audience. Obviously other members of the audience were struck by it.

C-

Other than Slow West, I've had a pretty shockingly bad response to the seven Golden Brick nominees I've seen. Hoping Tangerine turns things around.

Junior

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #24 on: December 04, 2015, 01:55:39 PM »
The Wolfpack.

What begins as an interesting look at a family of isolated teenagers who only know of the real world through movies turns into, well, nothing. And that's the problem. You've got great subjects for a documentary. There are obviously things in their backstory that would do with some investigation, but none of that happens. Crystal Moselle, the director, is content to just film the kids' reenactments of famous movies and not dig much deeper than the surface level to understand why they have been put in the situation they're in and what it has done to them. Some of this the audience can intuit, but a better director would have poked and prodded everybody involved a bit more to get at something really revelatory rather than just kind of boring.

C+.
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oldkid

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #25 on: December 04, 2015, 05:54:47 PM »
The baggage that comes with celebrity didn't kill Amy Winehouse, but it was the weapon her pre-existing weaknesses used to finish the job.

That's not how I read the information in the documentary.  I know many, many people with the same weaknesses as Amy, but they don't end up destroying themselves.  It is the weaknesses plus the goldfish-bowl syndrome that destroyed her.  She could have had hope with one or the other, but not both.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

chardy999

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #26 on: December 05, 2015, 07:09:33 AM »
The baggage that comes with celebrity didn't kill Amy Winehouse, but it was the weapon her pre-existing weaknesses used to finish the job.

Disagree completely.

Oldkid has hit precisely on the points why but it is worth emphasising that weak people can make successful celebrities and successful people.

It's also not what the documentary is showing.
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Bondo

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #27 on: December 05, 2015, 08:51:52 AM »
I guess I didn't think I was implying that celebrity inherently crushes weak people.

PeacefulAnarchy

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #28 on: December 05, 2015, 12:11:00 PM »

Sweetgrass (2009) 7/10
A lyrical portrait on sheep herding in Montana. I think it does what it sets out to do very well. There are some beautiful shots and we get to see the ups and downs of life for both the sheep and the ranchers. The film's fly on the wall style is a great match for the mostly lonely existence it depicts, with most scenes going on for quite a bit but generally always with at least a little thing to focus on. That said, it's still a film where much of the time is spent watching sheep herd grazing and running, and there's only so much of that I really want to see. I much preferred the first 20 minutes on the farm,

philip918

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Re: DOCember Group Marathon 2015
« Reply #29 on: December 05, 2015, 06:18:08 PM »
Oh man, that guy's whiny phone call home to his mom was one of my favorite film moments of that year. So funny. I'm sure I'd call home to whine too.

Have you seen Leviathan or Manakamana? Leviathan is on my all-time great docs list.