Heinrich Schmieder,
Luca Valentino Tommassini,
Mark Lutz,
S.R. Bindler, state of
Samantha Petretti, state of
Simon Pegg,
Takashi Saitô,
Todd Brunswick,
Willemijn Verloop,
Here is a baseball side’s worth of Valentine’s Day babies. My sympathies are with all of them: what a strange holiday to share with one’s birthday. It’s probably okay if you’re a kid; the exchange of schoolteacher-mandated valentine cards must be a bit less forced if it’s also your birthday. But, man oh man, as an adult, what a rough scenario. The healthy dollop of egotism that ought to attend the occasion cannot be freely indulged. After all, if one is in love, one has an obligation to make one’s partner the focus. And if one is (involuntarily) single: loneliness squared. Either way, a proper same-day birthday evening out with one’s friends is functionally impossible.
When facing today’s honorees, I find myself faced with a comparably prickly conundrum. To begin with, it must be said that this is by far the most distinguished collection of personages yet to turn forty on the same day in 2010. The name that leaps out is the extremely funny and charming Simon Pegg. While by no means incapable of missteps, the double whammy this past decade of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz would guarantee him unimpachable Winner status at least 360 days out of any given year. So too, the cagey and distinguished bullpen sensei Takashi Saitô would also take the cake most days, offering as he would the bonus opportunity for me to rhapsodize about my love affair with Japanese baseball. Hell, even Heinrich Schmieder would have had a breakeven shot most days, solely on the basis of the language you’ll find in this depiction of his hometown, which I heartily recommend to fans of all things hilariously Germanic.
Alas, Pegg and friends have the random misfortune to share a birthday with Robb Bindler, the man who can claim responsibility for the >>cough<< hands-down >>cough<< greatest documentary of the past 20 years*, Hands On A Hard Body.
I’m pretty sure I have only seen Hands On A Hard Body once. Which is significant, because of how indelibly much of it lingers in my memory. It’s a full-fledged cinematic feature, yet it prefigures the entire tawdry multitentacled reality show behemoth that engulfed American culture conclusively in the decade just past. It evinces both classic documentary form (a real-life event that unfolds gradually and dramatically, builds to a dizzying anticlimax, and allows for a poignant and large-hearted dénouement) and classic documentary texture (the voices of a distinct and tangy subculture: in this case, the pluckiest residents of a no-‘count, yet aptly named,
About what? See the movie to find out. Oh wait, you can’t, at least not very easily: it presently languishes in a purgatory of Netflix unavailability. The difficulty of seeing it only burnishes its dusty luster. As for Mr. Bindler himself, well, his failure to generate any career for himself excluding his surfing buddy Matthew McConaughey does not detract from this singular, towering achievement.
So my choice of a champion seemed set…until I came to the person who’s last in alphabetical order, either by first or last name. When I dug a little more deeply into the biography of Willemijn Verloop, it became clear to me that I had to reconsider my initial position. In her twenties was instrumental in founding a charity that uses musical and cultural programs to rebuild the shattered lives of children caught in the crossfire of the world’s senseless wars. For lending a fleeting degree of adequacy to lives of the young people the world has damaged the most, let’s hear it for Today’s Winner.
* The list of the last two decades’greatest documentaries also includes (in no order whatsoever):
Crumb
Lessons Of Darkness
When The Levees Broke
Man On Wire
When We Were Kings/Soul Power (two halves of the same mind-blowing movie)
Spellbound
Capturing The Friedmans
Swear To Tell the Truth
The Gates
The Filth And The Fury
Mr. Death
Hell House
Russian Ark (a documentary of sorts, if you ask me)
King Of Kong
American Movie
Anvil
Be Here To Love Me
The Kid Stays In The Picture
Have I left out anything crucial? If so, please say so in the comments below.
A fine list. I especially like the 400 lb. gorilla wearing a baseball hat in the room that you left out.
ReplyDeleteI'd also nominate these two-
Life and Debt (2001)
On the Ropes (1999)
Simon Pegg is one of those celebrities that I found I like less, the more I'm exposed to him (was much more omnipresent in Engerland ofcourse). Think of how great a Sarah Silverman might seem if you didn't live in the US.
But those two movies were great as is this TV series-
http://sharetv.org/shows/spaced_uk/season_1
Here are two more for your list -
ReplyDeleteWe Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen (2005)
Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)
Oh, wait, one more (I'm a dork for font) -
Helvetica (2007)
Paradise Lost 1 and 2
ReplyDeleteLittle Dieter Needs to Fly
Waltz with Bashir
Some Kind of Monster
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
I'd like to add THE STAIRCASE to the list. Fantastic Doc about a college prof who might very well have murdered two of his wives by tossing them down a flight of stairs... or he might not have. The multi part doc follows the course of his second trial and at times (to the viewer), the community is just as much on trial. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteAlso LOST IN LA MANCHA
didn't see the Tyson Doc, but I have a fondness for James Toback that most people don't seem to share. Also Spike (arguably a far more accomplished documentarian than feature filmmaker) did a pretty good doc about Jim Brown a few years back (was 4 LITTLE GIRLS within the appropriate time frame?) and of course how could I leave out A HOLE IN A FENCE...