29

Jul

“Crime After Crime” is a moving documentary about a woman’s perseverence, and the sausage-making in “justice”

“Crime After Crime,” a feature-length documentary by Yoav Potash, about a troubled young woman, Deborah Peagler, who was convicted of homicide more than 25 years ago.  This, after having asked neighborhood gangsters to make her abusive lover stop beating and terrorizing her.  While a 2003 California law would only demand six years of her life in prison, her 1983 sentence took more than 25.  This is her story.

This suspenseful true story will show at the Film Society of Minneapolis/St. Paul starting on July 29th.

Ms. Deborah Peagler awaits justice and freedom (courtesy Sundance)

Two lawyers, Nadia Costa and Joshua Safran, stepped up to take her case, pro bono, after a 2003 California law was passed that changed the game for victim/survivors of domestic abuse who are convicted of homicide, and free her.  In doing so they found a sympathetic client, and a District Attorney’s office, run by Steve Cooley, that has committed and is committing “Crime After Crime,” as Mr. Safran described their conduct, to save face and keep careers.

When you picture justice, this isn’t it: not “Crime After Crime.”  It’s a spectacular story, where the themes and stakes will remind some of you of the activist 1970s movie trend with such titles as 1980′s “Brubaker,” 1979′s “…And Justice for All,” and 1975′s “Dog Day Afternoon,” of the underdog.

Winston Churchill, an extraordinary political icon of the United Kingdom, once said that “Democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms…”  As it goes with that, so this seems to with justice: she was denied parole at least thrice.  At one point Safran describes how the parole and appellate process work in ways, which ignore or preclude the convict’s promise for doing good.  Ms. Deagler had been an ideal inmate, had earned a two-year degree, become a mentor to junior inmates and served far more time than 2000s laws demanded.  So the case requires Herculean efforts even when the law, precedent and rhetorical are on their side.

Lawyers Josh Safran and Nadia Costa guide Ms. Peagler toward freedom, if not justice (courtesy Berkeley Side)

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office does so many things that clash with the public’s interests or Ms. Peagler’s.  It makes you wretch and doubt America’s commitment to justice, or equal justice.  Originally she was sentenced via a legal perspective that lumped women, who lash out is desperation at their abusive husbands or lovers, with those women who kill in cold blood.

The stakes, offenses and perversions of justice, and morals in this story make it a crackerjack whodunit.  What makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand is that “Crime After Crime” trains its crosshairs, more and more, on the prosecutors misconduct.  The DA’s office conceals a pivotal document, uses unreliable and impotent witness testimony and reneges on compassionate agreements.

California's masses support Peagler's cause (courtesy LATimes.com)

“Crime After Crime” boasts as many plot twists and is as fast-paced as a sweeps week episode of “Law & Order.”  In some ways this is similar to 1993′s “In the Name of the Father,” even though that drama, which was based on a true story, exonerates justice in the United Kingdom.  In both stories, convicts languish in prison for crimes, and with sentences, more heinous than the evidence warranted.

Ms, Peagler’s odyssey is even more trying and dramatic than another documentary, POV’s “Presumed Guilty,” from 2010.  That  indicts the Mexican version of justice – and a very non-Western.  That candid and uncomfortable exposé provides excellent and telling comparison to Ms. Peager’s story.

Alongside being a splendid true crime drama, this documentary pushes us to consider several uncomfortable questions: what is justice?  what color is it?  why must it not only have a price, but one that makes our noses bleed?  Finally, what do we expect from it vs. what America’s founders wanted us to expect from it.

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African-American/documentary/feminist/independent/national politics/suspense & thriller

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29

Jul

“How to Live Forever,” a baby boomer’s light-hearted documentary on aging, which offers sparse chuckles

America isn’t obsessed with youth, living longer or forever, but it probably seems so.  As fashion expert Tim Gunn has lamented, models aren’t yet fully developed women, and still the masses look to them as a standard of beauty.  In the public’s imagination youth rules.  Young beauty, that is.

101 year-old Buster mugs for the movie

A documentary feature, “How to Live Forever” from middle-aged filmmaker, Mark Wexler, is coming to the Lagoon Cinema on Friday July 29th.  His effort is a look at how we consider age and what do to about it, avoid death and in general try to beat the odds.

The story is peculiar in that Mr. Wexler starts off with funeral director’s convention in Las Vegas; this opening bodes poorly.

“How to Live Forever” almost seems to last that long.  It’s interesting and amusing, but only entertains, amuses or informs once in a while; when you find yourself sitting back in a recliner, nodding off for a bit, and feeling sure that, when you open your eyes, you missed nothing, something wrong.

Mid-20th-Century fitness icon Jack Lalanne is one of the highlights.  Others include a 70-something Japanese male porn star, a beauty competition for women over age 60 and a high school class that visits a retirement home.  That final one is remarkable: the youths confront their own preconceived ideas about how depressing, off-putting or gross old people might be.  But Mr. Wexler also speaks to more than a few 100+ year-old women.  Strangely he doesn’t mix men among them.  When’s the last time you asked yourself what 100 years looks like?  105 yrs?  110 yrs?  Or 114?

What does longevity look like? (courtesy Flickr)

“How to Live Forever” is interesting and sweet, but is also clearly an amateur’s work; it’s long and even indulgent.  It has two vital problems:  Wexler has made an incoherent narrative from his footage.  The point of his story, and what he wants us to find in it, are vague.  If he’s disinterested in a clear narrative, then so be it, but that’ll chafe viewers who expect more.  The lack of organization harkens somewhat to the way the vignette format that Spike Lee used in his autobiographical “Crooklyn;” but that choice worked because the sequences were connected in a nearly explicit way.

Also Mr. Wexler rarely engages or excites as a host; he looks and acts tired and run-down, which seems to be one of his motivations for examining “How to Live Forever.”  He isn’t having much fun throughout the story; that tone, which he set, rubs off on viewers.

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documentary/Film/independent

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22

Jul

“If a Tree Falls” preaches to the leftist choir as it tells us about a group of “environmental terrorists”

“If a Tree Falls” is a feature-length documentary, by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman, about a group of environmental activists who go way beyond the call of duty – to a violent edge of it.  They are the Earth Liberation Front. “If a Tree Falls” clearly sympathizes with this group, which the FBI calls “domestic terrorists.”

The Environmental Liberation Front acts (courtesy Oscilloscope Laboratories)

This film doesn’t run down a history of the movement, or even the psychology behind that.  It describes some incidents that led to the domino-effect arrests of a cell.  The film concentrates on the cell’s principal personalities: Dan McGowan, Suzanne Savoie, Jake Ferguson, and one or two other outstanding ones.  This story tells of the offenders on the extreme left, and not the offended.  Those offenders may feel that the mainstream media had taken their foes’ side.  The question of who’s the offended may be disputable.  But those whom the ELF attacked are barely heard.

“If a Tree Falls” may be righteous.  But also self-righteous.  This film shows at Minneapolis’ Lagoon Cinema for a week starting on July 22nd.

A clear bias toward the extreme leaves the film’s point-of-view weak. The bias is about 60-40 or even 70-30 in voices in favor of the extremists or terrorists.  The centrist viewers, who are against violence with this cause, are left with valid, yet open questions. Those centrists won’t be convinced by a tale of how a docile McGowan slipped into this conviction.  Objective, non-partisan voices would keep viewers’ attention.  How will they respond when they find that in fact, with one battle, McGowan, Savoie and their compatriots torched a lumber location based on false information?

Mr. McGowan describes a few cracks in his reasoning and decision-making.  Several voices, including his, explain why he, the focal character, decided that confrontation was a superior, more potent path to waking-up the offenders than mid-20th-Century tactics: marching, singing, chanting, picketing and the like.

Poster image (courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories)

Only a few voices discuss the innocents who are bunched in with the worst violators, and hurt.  Only a couple of voices consider the lumber industry’s efforts to do good.  Some of the best documentaries may not carry an agenda, but instead a reportorial, objective point of view.  This one informs, entertains and might enlighten viewers, especially in terms of “preaching to the choir.”  The want for a moderate and balanced voice is disappointing.

With the film’s faults, it’s a good, clear, almost well told story of this sect’s work.  This film is worth watching, but DVD will suffice.

It’s easy to sympathize with the zealots’ desire for faster, more satisfying results: those, which are more progressive and aggressive than typical 20th-Century tactics.  Faster than diplomacy.  But it takes a certain gut and heart to move from the fantasy of revenge to urban or guerilla combat.  I doubt that many or even most viewers share that one with these former ELF members.

“If a Tree Falls” uses interview footage with the characters almost exclusively.  It’s a late 20th-Century story of violent protestors; other than news clips, there isn’t archival or behind-the-scenes footage.  It provides reenactments of specific details shots; it uses animation, in lieu of banal, traditional live-action reenactments of some criminal scenes, in an amusing, playful, refreshing way.

This film poses large ideological, legal and moral questions: who is a terrorist?  What is terrorism?  Does each form of terrorism pose an equal threat.

672 days ago Short URL Comments

criticism/documentary/Film/independent

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08

Jul

“Rejoice and Shout” spreads the good news – Gospel’s history

“Rejoice and Shout” is a feature-length documentary, from director Don McGlynn, about the history of Gospel music.  It’s described as a rhythmic, ancestral pillar that African-Americans used to sustain themselves and to keep sane during their centuries in slavery.  It told the audience that, at least at church, beyond the anglo gaze, “I am Somebody!”

One of the Blind Boys groups (courtesy Magnolia Pictures)

A staple of the documentary genre is cutting between archival and interview footage.  This film does that.  It tells an interesting, surprising and entertaining story, omitting any dogma that you might expect.  It runs down the time-line of the genre and its innovations, some typical, others “unholy.”

It shows at the Edina Cinema for a week starting on July 8.  This documentary provides a who’s who of the indelible and most potent Gospel artists, also dredging up memories of folks who time might have forgotten.  “Rejoice and Shout” makes clear that as long as the music is understood as honoring God, then it should please Him and in-turn his followers.

It tells about Gospel music’s pivotal personalities, trends and game-changing innovations, it tells about clashing sensibilities of faith and styles of music.  At the heart of some innovations  is a question:  isn’t it unholy marry rap with gospel, or blues with gospel, or any popular music with that pious one?

Mavis Staples (courtesy Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

This story tells us how Thomas A. Dorsey, while ultimately revered, caught hell for having mixed the blues with Gospel, making what some considered heretical.  (Ray Charles had similar clashes when he took those chances.)  It tells us how Rosetta Tharpe, who may be less known than Mavis Staples, inspired the latter to take up the guitar; before Ms. Tharpe did it, Ms. Staples hadn’t known that it was possible.  And without the Dixie Hummingbirds, The Temptations might not’ve been.

Many documentaries are more creative, with editing, location and other choices, and take chances with their storytelling.  “Rejoice and Shout” is a strong, competent film.

686 days ago Short URL Comments

African-American/documentary/Film

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