Anvil: The Story of Anvil

Posted on October 6, 2009 at 3:40 pm

If this story wasn’t true, they’d have to invent it. Indeed, they already did. “This is Spinal Tap,” one of the most outrageous, influential, and utterly hilarious movies ever made, is a “mockumentary,” a fake documentary about a heavy metal rock group on a disastrous tour in support of a disastrous new album. “Anvil: The Story of Anvil” is an actual documentary about an actual heavy metal rock group on a disastrous tour in hopes of making a new album and it is hilarious and touching and completely captivating.

Like all great documentaries, this is the story of a passionate dream. Guitarist Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner (not to be confused with one-b Rob Reiner, who directed “This is Spinal Tap”) met as teens in a small town near Toronto and have been performing together for four decades. They had a brief brush with success in the 1970’s, when they performed at a festival with acts that have since gone one to sell hundreds of millions of CDs, and their Metal on Metal album is considered seminal to the genre. But for some reason, they never made it despite subsequent alliterative albums like Worth the Weight and Hard n Heavy. The eternally optimistic Lips has a day job delivering school lunches. But when a European fan calls to say she has booked them on a tour, they drop everything and go. Everything goes wrong. But, as Lips says, at least they have a tour for things to go wrong on.

There are some nice little bows to “Spinal Tap” — a producer whose amps go to 11, a drive by Stonehenge. And the inspired title lets you know from the beginning that it is cheekily subversive, even of its own pretensions. It never takes itself or the band too seriously. But the passion of its characters for rocking out hard and for the partnership they share is perfectly suited to rock as the ultimate affirmation of life in the face of The Man in all forms, from club managers who don’t pay to recording executives who don’t get it to time that goes by too fast. The support of their families and their unquenchable commitment to the music is ineffably moving. It is funny and surprising but filled with heart.

Related Tags:

Documentary Musical

The Providence Effect

Posted on September 24, 2009 at 9:29 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild thematic elements
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to poverty and other challenges faced by children and their families
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	September 25, 2009

You often hear the expression “feel-good movie” and it usually refers to a heart-warming romantic comedy or maybe something with penguins. This is a real feel-good movie because it is a real story. A man with a passionate commitment to children, to education, and to his community took a school on the brink of being closed down and made it into a place where teachers and students set, meet, and exceed the highest of standards for achievement in all categories, including character.

The students at Providence St. Mel do not have fancy computers or calculators. They live in a community that struggles with gangs, drugs, and poverty. But they have families who work several jobs to pay a portion of the school’s tuition (every student in the school has a scholarship) and they have teachers who feel lucky to be there and make the students feel lucky, too.

An unabashed valentine to the school, Providence St. Mel, and its driving force, civil rights activist Paul J. Adams III, and at times it feels more like an infomercial than a movie. But it is a genuine privilege to spend time with these passionate, committed students and teachers. We follow the principal through the halls. We sit in circle time with seven-year-olds whose teacher has them not just participating but conducting the session. We see a graduating class that is sending 100 percent of the seniors to top colleges. And we see graduates returning to talk about how Providence St. Mel gave them what they needed to succeed in college, grad school, and the working world. We see their genuine excitement in learning, their pride in their sense of mastery, and the way that the confidence their teachers and parents have in them inspires them to learn. And that may just be the most important lesson that Providence St. Mel has to teach, turning all of us who watch this film into students who want to learn more.

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Documentary Movies -- format

Nursery University

Posted on September 8, 2009 at 7:29 am

Ingredients:

1. Too many toddlers
2. Not enough preschools
3. Parents who will do anything for their children
4. Parents whose top priority is their children’s education
5. Parents who recognize the substantial social and educational advantages of the few very top Manhattan preschools
6. New York City and its tendency to increase overall stress (meaning both emphasis and pressure)

Result: a sort of combustible insanity as on the day after Labor Day every year some of the most ambitious, aggressive, status-oriented, and very highly motivated people in the world rev up for one of the most cut-throat competitions in America, admission to preschool in Manhattan. You think I’m exaggerating? Then remember that just a few years ago a scandal that brought down some of the biggest names in Wall Street had a top securities analyst changing his recommendation on a company in exchange for a contribution that eased his twins’ entry into a posh preschool. As he noted in his email on the subject, admission was statistically harder than getting into to Harvard. And yes, we are talking about 2 and 3-year olds. As the film-makers put it, “Cue the tears, hysterics and breakdowns–and that’s just the parents.”

“Nursery University” is a frank but not-unsympathetic look at what pretty much everyone agrees is the insanity of the process of applying to preschool in Manhattan, from the pricey consultants to the interviews of both parents and toddlers. The intricacies of pushing without being pushy, of conveying a family’s ability to provide support without sounding like you are name-dropping or trying to buy your way in, the challenges for families who are not wealthy are all here. The focus is on five applicants and their parents, from the speed-dial madness that begins today just to get the privilege of being permitted to apply to those are-they-thick-or-thin envelopes that arrive in the spring.

Bonus features on the DVD include deleted scenes and interviews with the parents and admission experts and even some advice for parents who may be entering this process themselves.

Related Tags:

Documentary Parenting

It Might Get Loud

Posted on September 3, 2009 at 3:50 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for mild thematic elements, brief language and smoking
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 4, 2009

It goes to 11.

Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) has made a documentary featuring three generations of guitar gods: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2), and Jack White (The White Stripes). But it is not about the musicians. It is about guitars, and passion, and hearing, and sticking it to the man, and art, and music, and the sublime that brings all of those things together. It is a joyous yowl from the depths of existence that soars to the ears of the celestial choirs, where it makes them pause and smile and, if such a thing is possible for angels, envy the humans who get to make such sounds and even those of us who get to listen to them.

We spend time with each of these musicians. The archival clips are surprising and delightful and it is pure pleasure to see these men return to places and instruments that are especially meaningful to them and to listen in as they talk to each other and demonstrate their comments with riffs and techniques. They say that successful musical performers fall into three categories: rock star, performance artist, and musician. These three men are above all musicians. At times they seem to embody music itself, with aural imperatives mortals can only gasp at. Their utter commitment is moving and inspiring. Rock on.

Related Tags:

Documentary Movies -- format Music

Woodstock

Posted on August 24, 2009 at 8:00 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for drug content, nudity and language
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drug use, drug references
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	1970
Date Released to DVD:	August 25, 2009
Amazon.com ASIN:	B001NXDSLQ

Forty years ago, it seemed for one brief moment as though a disastrous, mud-soaked music festival that attracted so many people it had a larger population than all but one city in the state could be the beginning of a new world of peace and cooperation. That dream was quickly battered but still lives on in the magic that its name and its songs still evoke: Woodstock. This week, a new movie from Ang Lee covers the impact of the festival on the community that was its not-entirely-welcoming host. But the truly indispensible memento of the three days of peace and music is the award-winning original documentary from director Michael Wadleigh. A new 40th-anniversary edition is being released this week with additional footage from from Paul Butterfield, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Johnny Winter & Mountain and interviews from participants including Wadleigh and concert producer Michael Lang. Whether you remember the warning about the brown acid and the interview with the porta-john guy and the nun flashing the peace sign or whether you have yet to experience the “Fixin’ to Die” rag or Hendrix’s stunning “Star Spangled Banner,” this is a brilliant film about an extraordinary moment.