By: Henry J. Fromage –
I’ve been chipping away at too-early-to-tell-you-about Cannes coverage this week, so around that were some streaming and documentary picks.
302. Thrash
Sony chose to drop this straight to Netflix instead of theaters in August as originally planned, which probably wasn’t a bad call, but I could see its unselfconscious ridiculousness playing fine in theaters. This one brings the sharks to the people instead of vice-versa as storm surge from a massive hurricane both puts a small North Carolina town under water and sends a pack of ravenous bull sharks their direction. You needn’t bother any more than the filmmakers did with the plot or characters- the ones who’ll end up chum and the ones who’ll make it through are clearly telegraphed right from their introductions. The fun’s all in the journey, and frankly it’s pretty fun. Three Beers.
303. Balls Up
The latest Peter Farrelly comedy joint (this time penned by Deadpool writers Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick) is on more or less the same wavelength as his last, Rick Stanicky. Like that one, the humor here stems more from the committed performances (here odd couple pairing Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser) and the occasional “did they really go there” shock moment (look up what a ‘carandiru’ is and go ahead and imagine the worse). It certainly doesn’t come from the writing or the direction, which is as workmanlike as you can imagine in this story of a pair of condom salesman who manage to draw the ire of the entire nation of Brazil (the one way you could- think World Cup finale) and need to figure out how to escape with their hides intact. Four Beers.
304. American Dharma
Errol Morris has never shied away from a tough interview, but perhaps met his match in Steve Bannon, a man who has based his entire career on “lie until they believe it”. This is as polished a film as Morris has made, full of snippets of the films they clearly both grew up on and drew different life lessons from. Bannon is an erudite and seductive speaker, but Morris is unafraid to challenge him, unfortunately making him look more flappable than the polished political operator he’s trying to pin down to truth- any truth. That, unfortunately, is not something you’re ever going to get out of Steve Bannon. Two Beers.
305. Man on the Run
This Morgan Neville-directed documentary about Paul McCartney hones in on one period of his storied life and career- the period right after the breakup of The Beatles, which he was at the time blamed for, despite John Lennon announcing his intentions of going solo first, just not publicly. He at first stuck to his strangely modest sheep farm in rural Scotland, spending time with his family and drinking. He’d eventually find musical inspiration again along with his non-professional yet lovely talent in her own way wife Linda, then form Wings. The rest is history, told with sensitivity yet candor by McCartney and those in his life at that time. Two Beers.
306. The Cult of NatureBoy
You may have a conception of what a Cult is in your head, but the unfortunately commonplace yet somehow often unerringly effective techniques that can be used to create one have proved effective across all races and creeds. Eligio Bishop, aka NatureBoy, was an African American influencer whose energetic posts about rejecting America and modern society and returning to nature gained traction with a group of particularly Black youth in the era of George Floyd and rampant racist violence. In the end, though, he was depressingly mundane, a criminal who used retread mind control techniques to lord over his followers, rape and abuse them, and spiral out into unchecked Id-driven destruction. Two Beers.
307. Burden of Guilt: Haunted by Lies
This Paramount + true crime series examines the case of Tracyraquel Berns, who was led to believe for her entire childhood that she was the one responsible for her just a few years young infant brother Matthew’s death. Years later in early adulthood she discovers there was much she was never told about that night, or indeed about the kind of man her father was. A well-constructed, devastating excavation of family secrets and betrayals. Two Beers.
308. The Dark Wizard
This HBO documentary series profiles all-around daredevil Dean Potter, an incredibly talented climber who made his name scaling the stark cliffs of Yosemite like none had before him, at least until a new precise and professional generation embodied by Alex Honnold superseded him. In some degree of response, he moves to other, as or even more dangerous pursuits, such as BASE jumping and highwire-walking (and even combining disciplines). A portrait of an undeniably, to some degree disturbingly driven athlete. Two Beers.
