By: Henry J. Fromage –
This week I was able to track down another couple Oscar-nominated shorts (only two left!) and keep the documentaries coming.
92. Wander to Wonder
This Oscar-nominated British animated short is an odd one indeed, positing that the small creatures a Mr. Rogers-like children’s show host is interacting with are actually little people, who find themselves in quite the quandary indeed when he dies on them, leaving them trapped in his modest apartment. The stop-motion animation here is superb, and the subject matter is unique and unafraid (multiple clay penises factor in). I liked it. Two Beers.
93. The Last Ranger
The last of the Live-Action shorts I needed to track down, this one is set in a South African game reserve, where just two rangers safekeep the wildlife living there, particularly the rhinos whose horns remain a temptation to poachers feeding a still-thriving international black market. While the story of the brave ranger and the resourceful young girl who tags along with her one fateful afternoon is fictionalized, the disturbing actions of the poachers they seek to stop is very real, up to and including the experiences of its rhino star. Two Beers.
94. Escape from Kabul
This harrowing documentary brings us back to the nadir of the Biden presidency (although precipitated by Trump’s), in which America’s exit from Afghanistan becomes a horrific affair for civilians and soldiers alike when the Taliban take Kabul with startling speed and seemingly half of the city immediately wants to catch one of the last planes out, up to the unforgettable imagery of men clinging to the landing gear of a departing plane despite the certain death that meant. One of the most shameful episodes in recent American history, although one with no simple or likely any viable solution once the end was there. Two Beers.
95. La Liste: Everything or Nothing
That tiny speck there is a skier, either Jérémie Heitz or Sam Anthamatten, two “free skiers” who don’t just climb some of the world’s most foreboding peaks, but then ski down them. This documentary follows them through thick and thin (it turns out a fall of any kind at the speeds they get up to can be a dire affair indeed). These are two men living on they very edge, and acutely aware of what that could mean. Two Beers.
96. Jesus Camp
As a Christian myself, I had avoided watching this for years, assuming it’d paint with too broad a brush- but I was wrong. It opens with a Christian radio host openly speculating how anyone who’d every pick up a Bible could use it to justify the militaristic and jingoistic messaging coming out of the Evangelical Christian scene circa 2006 (it’s, of course, only gotten so much worse). The transition to the openly propagandistic “Jesus Camp” for children, in which they put on military facepaint and talk about destroying their enemies, is a shocking one. It’s bad, as the camp leader justifies what she does because, essentially, “those Muslims are teaching kids to shoot guns and blow themselves up, so why aren’t we brainwashing our own?” See the burgeoning Christian Nationalist movement before it even had those words to describe what they’re after- terrifying. A Toast.
97. Hummingbirds
On the other end of the political spectrum is this PBS POV portrait of a couple of young Latinx women in a small Texas bordertown where there’s no Wall nor even in some places a river to separate them from the land their parents came from. They’re a couple of firecrackers, intent on making their mark and insisting on they and their fellow outsider friends’ places in this community. Two Beers.
98. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Shaun the Sheep franchise has left me rather lukewarm, so it’s good to see Aardman getting back to its original breakout characters. Here Wallace presents Gromit with a helper of his own, a perhaps too-efficient robotic garden gnome who soon catches the eye of the neighbors and gets a bunch of copies made. When silent master villain penguin Feathers McGraw flips their programming from Good to Evil in a bid to get his clutches on the purloined diamond Wallace & Gromit denied him previously, adorable British hell breaks loose. Just goofy, lovingly animated fun. Three Beers.
