Documentary Shorts - all 5 Nominees

 

From the Patron Saint of modern documentary film, we have the ABCs of Book Banning wherein the producers give voice to the people who haven't had a voice in the debate about book banning, the children who are being restricted from reading. As expected, this excellent film was enraging as they alternated between featuring children who are truly bewildered as to why these books are banned, challenged, or restricted and then animating excerpts of these books and talking to the authors who wrote them.  Did you know that a book can be banned because ONE parent lodges a complaint? The film reminds us the last book banners - the Nazis. Is this really who we want to model our laws and policies after? This is what we do in democracies? After the film, the producer shared that in Tennessee, a law was just enacted that if a book is banned from schools and the library, and a person has this book at home and welcomes a child into the home as a guest, the owner of the banned book could be charged with a felony. A FELONY. For owning a book. I don't often get political in this blog, but there are elements of the Republican Party trying to turn America into a theocracy and basically making Christian sharia law, and I for one am furious about it.

This was an incredible documentary! Arlo Washington is a leader in every sense of the word. He sees the economic disparity in Little Rock and the ways that neighborhoods have been redlined to disadvantage people of color.  He notes that in an area with over 30,000 people, there are zero banks and the banks in the white neighborhoods won't make loans to people of color anyway.  In addition to running a bank to help people launch businesses to create generational wealth, he also runs a barber school to help young people start their lives with a trade.  He teaches them how to cut hair, but also how to launch a business, and most especially to value themselves and become more than their worst mistakes.  This documentary is a must watch if you want to claim that there is no such thing as systemic racism, but it will also uplift you to know that there's someone who is not complaining and instead is doing something about it.

Now here was a fascinating short, through the eyes of a young filmmaker from Taiwan.  Though he grew up primarily in the US, he moves back to Kinmen Island, just a few miles across the sea from China (you can literally see China from the shore) and how Taiwan's history of defending themselves against communism can be summarized in this one location.  Here is one person who has three passports, but the one from Taiwan is considered illegal by the Chinese.

My favorite of the documentaries (and that is saying something, this year they were all so wonderful), this film follows the small repair shop in downtown Los Angeles that services and repairs the 80,000 instruments being used in LAUSD schools.  The film features young students who find their voices through their instruments, and four of the repair workers who themselves have fascinating life stories. Kris Bowers (A Concerto is a Conversation... I'm still mad that film didn't win the Oscar, and of course the incredible composer of the movie Soul) is one of the producers, and he composes a finale piece for this film that assembles 80 musicians - both children who are in the LAUSD system today, and alumni from high schools all across Los Angeles.  What an incredible gift for the school system to maintain its commitment to music education, something that school systems across the country are heartbreakingly abandoning.

Honestly, I'm not sure that this film is really an Oscars level movie, but it is engaging and adorable.  Two grandmother best friends who live together make a film about their lives with their grandson (who moves in with them for a time).  They are in their 80s and 90s, and have hilarious conversations about farts, they dress up and do skits, they dance, and they live their lives with so much joy. What a gift to their grandson was this whole endeavor, ending appropriately with him leaving their house and one turns to the other and says, "Frickin brat."  This movie is all about joy.

Jim: The James Foley Story - 1 nomination and Trolls - 1 nomination

*Just a brief reminder that due to the Oscars' shortened timeline from nomination announcements to broadcast, I have to combine reviews of many films.  Today I present two nominees for Original Song. The tone of the two films and the two nominees couldn't be more opposite to each other, but the other song nominees have been reviewed in other posts - see Animated Feature for the song from Moana, and La La Land for the two nominated songs from that film.

Trolls

Original Song - "Can't Stop the Feeling" - Music and Lyric by Justin Timberlake, Max Martin and Karl Johan Schuster

ADORABLE little Trolls tells the story of a community of Trolls who escaped certain destruction by the Bergens, evil giants who love to eat them!  After a 20 year exile from their home, trolls just wanna have fun and sing and dance and party and they forget that when you make too much noise, the Bergens can find you. They make just this mistake and the majority of the troll community is swept up and taken back to the Bergen village to be eaten, and to allow the goofy king to have his first taste of delicious troll.  But little Polly the troll (Anna Kendrick), who was not swept up in the mayhem is determined to rescue her friends, and she makes her begrudging, doomsday planning friend Branch (Justin Timberlake) help her.  The cast of talented singers make this animated musical a true delight.  I'm not sure that it will work for other adults - I'm pretty easily delighted - and when I saw this film, my son pointed out that I was laughing at more of the jokes than the kids in the theatre, but having said that, your average kid will love the film, and with all of the wonderful songs in it, you just might also.

Jim: The James Foley Story

Original Song - "The Empty Chair" - Music and Lyric by J. Ralph and Sting

This documentary follows the extraordinary life of James Foley who was a "conflict photojournalist," or someone who specialized in traveling to war torn places to document what was happening.  This kind of work took him to the most dangerous places in the world - Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq - all the places you think of when you think of countries decimated by fighting.  He put himself in precarious situations, but was beloved by his friends, fellow journalists, and, of course, his family.  In 2012, Jim was captured by ISIS and eventually beheaded.  This film recounts that story in vivid detail.  The song, "The Empty Chair," is beautiful and haunting and truly a standout.  This film's nomination almost begs to recognize HBO, a true leader in the world of the documentary genre.  In the last several years, you'd be hard pressed to find an Oscars nomination season that doesn't include HBO in its list.  For those of us who love documentaries, we owe a great debt of gratitude to Sheila Nevins and her team.