In any given year there may be one decent documentary at the most. This year there were several pretty good ones -- ranging in topics from professional basketball to the Prison Industrial Complex. I guess it makes sense judging by how many lame scripted movies were released in 2016.
5. Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall
Now, this is Michael Jackson for those of us who like him brown-skinned, makeup-free and with short hair -- or at least with hair that's too short to put in a ponytail. This is 1970s Michael Jackson: before the glove, before the drama -- even before Thriller. Come to think about it, this is your
4. This Magic Moment
"What does it say about the human condition?" "Why is it so high on the list?" Because it's the most fun movie of the year. Chill out. Iron Man and Captain America? Nah, gimme Shaq and Penny. An hour and a half of broken backboards and Lil' Penny? I'll take it. This is Shaq and Kobe before Shaq ever met Kobe.
3. Fantastic Lies
Fantastic Lies is the first of two great documentaries to be released this year about race, police corruption, sports and sexism. Except, this one exposes far more misandry than misogyny. Lies takes a look at the 2006 case in which members of the Duke University lacrosse team were accused of gang-raping a young woman at a house party. The fallout included: calls for the dissolution of the team; the ouster of the head coach; and the criminal indictment of three players. The problem was, the rape had never happened in the first place.
In a sort of race and class reversal of the Central Park Five case, in which five African-American young men were wrongly convicted of sexually assaulting a white woman in New York City, a district attorney seeking re-election, a corrupt police detective, a private DNA lab, an exotic dancer and escort, the news media, and a horde of unwitting social activists conspired to scapegoat a group of privileged, student athletes. While the film doesn't tackle it head-on, it does shed light on a certain pervasive and zealous disdain for conventional masculinity in modern America that the co-conspirators clearly counted on. In the words of one of the accused, "If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they'd do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves."
2. 13th
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery in this country. This abolition had to be an amendment because the protection of slavery as an institution had been incorporated into the Constitution at its inception.
13th, directed by Ava Duvernay (who also directed 2014's Selma), centers on a loophole built into the amendment which has been used to justify legal human bondage ever since its ratification in 1865. The amendment reads: " Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." The film illustrates how that highlighted section has allowed convicted criminals to be effectively enslaved to this very day. One of the many things the documentary points out is the fact that no distinction whatsoever is made between horrendous crimes and petty misdemeanors. 13th explores the varied interrelated institutions at play including: racism; the relationship between the government and the private for-profit prison industry, which depends on criminal convictions for its survival; the "War on Drugs"; and the powerful, yet secretive coalition between U.S. politicians and Corporate America - ALEC.
ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is a forty-year-old organization comprised of conservative, mostly Republican, lawmakers and corporation heads that has been responsible for drafting legislation aimed at furthering right-wing, corporate agendas for decades. This is roughly the way it works: Group members (both political and private sector) propose bills, which the legislators introduce to their respective legislative bodies, without ever divulging the true origin of said bills. During the 1980s, ALEC opposed U.S. efforts to end apartheid in then-segregated South Africa. Past members include: former Speaker of the House John Boehner; Ohio governor John Kasich; and North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms. While ALEC was effectively outed in 2011 by The Nation and later The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek and "The Daily Show", 13th points out that it continues to thrive and remains largely unknown to the American public. After it was dragged out of the shadows, many of ALEC's corporate members cut their ties for fear of fallout from the association, including: Wal-Mart; Google; Facebook; Coca-Cola; Blue Cross and Blue Shield; Wendy's; McDonald's; Amazon; Apple; GE; Procter & Gamble; Ebay; Yahoo!; Microsoft; BP; T-Mobile; and CCA.
CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), the largest owner and manager of private prisons in the country, profits from crime bills it promoted as a member of ALEC before rescinding its membership. The aforementioned crime bills, including the federal three-strikes Law, mandatory minimums, and stop-and-frisk policies insured a steady influx of inmates, largely African-American and Hispanic, into their institutions. The film also points out that ALEC introduced the controversial stand-your-ground law, which allowed the then-29-year-old George Zimmerman to legally pursue and kill unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Pfizer, AT&T, ExxonMobil and State Farm Insurance are still active ALEC members.
Duvernay interviews dozens of people on all sides of the issues covered here, including: politicians, including Charles Rangel and Newt Gingrich; professors; social activists, including Angela Davis; former inmates; and social pundits, both conservative and liberal. Video footage (filmed years prior to their canditorial declarations) of the two current presidential front-runners, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, is presented in which each one gives an argument for incarcerating African-American men. Trump is featured in a clip decrying the Central Park 5 -- a group of African-American teenagers who were coerced by NYPD detectives into confessing to raping and violently assaulting a white female jogger, Trisha Meili, in New York's Central Park. He took out full-page ads in New York's four major newspapers advocating capital punishment for the teens. The young men were ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence after having served between six to 13 years in prison. Clinton gives her now-infamous speech labeling African-American teens as "super-predators". It's a wonder that so much ground is covered in the doc's scant 100-minute running time.
One of the most surprising moments of the film is Republican power-broker and Trump-supporter Gingrich declaring that white Americans have no idea what it's like to be African-American.
13th was filmed in secret and on September 30, 2016, became the first documentary to open the New York Film Festival. 13th's subject matter is not common knowledge - but it should be. See it immediately. If you have a Netflix account you can do just that.
1. O.J.: Made in America
Made in America isn't just about the O.J. trial, it's a comprehensive biography of Simpson as a public figure. The 11-month trial itself is complex enough, but this film goes even further and provides context for who he became and why the trial became so politically-charged. It also examines the wide philosophical and political gulf separating Simpson from many other famous African-American sports figures of his era. There's also plenty of attention paid to the stark contrasts between the Heisman-winner and most other African-American Angelenos. The doc is particularly timely in light of the current racial tensions in this country and the near-daily revelations of police misconduct (in some cases, murder) caught on video. There's a reason that America is in the title. It's worth noting that Made currently holds a 100% rating on the review site Rotten Tomatoes.
Everyone involved is represented here: the prosecution; the defense team; the LAPD; LA civil rights activists; the Goldman and Brown families; the jurors; and even Simpson's life-long friends. The filmmakers were wise enough to not take a side. What they did do was to provide something infinitely more valuable: much-needed insight.
- Ran Britt
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