During the 1960s and 1970s, Madeline Anderson broke racial and gender barrier in nonfiction filmmaking through her work as a director, producer and editor. This DVD gathering of three of her short documentaries offers a fascinating consideration of how Anderson used her medium to spotlight the tumultuous fights for civil and women’s rights.
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The Fish Curry (Maacher Jhol) (India) (2017)
A man about to come out to his more traditional Indian father cooks him a fish curry, his favorite meal, as a way to soften the blow. In this short directed by Abhishek Verma and written by Jayesh Bhosale and Abhishek Verma, the traditional and the new meet in a clash of beliefs. The way this is done on screen is beautifully animated and the emotional impact of the man coming out to his father. It also shows the power of a good meal and the love of a family in accepting each other for who they are. On a last note, the film’s music by Ers 126 is beautiful and fits the story and its images perfectly. The film has a touch of whimsy that helps deliver its message of acceptance and love.
In this documentary, the viewer follows Grace Jones as she records a new album, performs, travels to visit family, and generally talks about life and her inner thoughts.
This documentary follows filmmaker German Alonso and his crew as they attempt to put together a feature film version of Alonso’s MexMan through proof of concept, trials and tribulations, and issues cropping up at every turn.
Once upon a time a very popular Stephen King novel was made in to a hit movie and it became influential among many horror buffs. That’s about the extent of drama or intriguing Hollywood back story you’ll get with “Unearthed & Untold.” I’m sure it would make for a wonderful extra in its initial release, but I don’t know per se if it granted its own special release on Blu-Ray. The oddly celebrated horror drama is a movie that wasn’t much of an underdog like “Nightmare on Elm Street,” and didn’t garner weird supernatural coincidences like the set of “Poltergeist.” It was just a movie that was made thanks to a book that scared its own author to the core…
BOOTLEG FILES 628: “The Jungle” (1967 documentary made by a Philadelphia street gang).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Murky rights issue.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It’s possible.
Movies about street gangs rarely resonate with any degree of honesty, if only because filmmakers have a tendency to sanitize or glamorize the gangs with the hope that something good can be found in their bad boy behavior. However, there was one strange little film that attempted to get a street level view of gang behavior, and what made it so unusual was having real gang members on both sides of the camera.
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A young woman is given the ok to remove her burka to pursue her dream of becoming a professional cricket player. As she fights to get her dream in one way or another, her sisters also fight to get their lives to where they can be happy. As challenges and problems keep coming, they keep fighting to get the best lives they can, even against all odds at times.