Doc A Day : Vernon, Florida (1981, Errol Morris)

Have I Seen It Before : Nope Viewed Via : Netflix Not having much time , you do have to pay attention to your kids every now and then, I stumbled across a 30 minute short from Errol Morris on Netflix, and it fully examines in its short span why Florida has its own tag on Fark. Morris intended to create a film entitled "Nub City", because folks in Vernon have a thing for losing a limb on purpose to collect insurance. Yep, that's a thing people do. But, and I'm not kidding, FEARING FOR HIS LIFE, Morris decides to instead just film some of the folks in Vernon talking about their day to day life and thoughts. From the couple with a jar of sand to the old men in front of the hardware store. From the swamp hunters to a preacher who gives his sermon on the word "therefor" , Morris just gets out of the way. The film feels and looks like an unmarked VHS tape you found in a box. There is no narrative to speak of, but it doesn't matter. The short run time and selection of interviews is just right. Just remember, all those little places along the interstate you drive past on vacation, are full of these folks. And not just in Florida.

Doc A Day : When The Levees Broke (2006, Spike Lee)

Have I Seen It Before : Yep Viewed Via : DVD Subtitled "A Requiem In Four Acts" , Spike Lee's naked look at Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that it, and the inaction of the US Government, caused New Orleans , is at once heartbreaking and hopeful. Lee tells the story of the storm through raw eyewitness footage and interviews conducted in the aftermath. Be they "someone famous" or not, they are all true citizens of this city and tell their tales honestly, full of emotion that Lee refuses to turn away from. I always liked Spike Lee, but at some point (Somewhere around Girl 6/Summer of Sam), he seemed to "slip". Gone was a passion that had ignited Malcolm X and Do the Right Thing. But this and 25th Hour brought it back full force. Lee is going to show you everything, no matter how hard it may be to see. Its hard to imagine a nation this rich, this well equipped would allow some of its own people to float, dead and bloated down the middle of the street they called home. But there it is , all through Lee's unblinking eye. 255 minutes seems too short when something is done this well.

Doc A Day : Sound City (2013, Dave Grohl)

Proving he can indeed do anything , Dave Grohl directs a documentary about the California recording studio, Sound City. Chances are you have heard/owned/loved more than a few records that were born at Sound City. From Fleetwood Mac to Nirvana, from Johnny Cash to Dio and all roads in between. The reason Grohl succeeds is because he isn't worried about "how" to make a film , or even telling a story (although he does, and very well), but because he has one goal : he wants you to know why he and everyone involved loved the dingy Sound City and its custom Neve Board. In turn he tells you, or reminds you why you love rock and roll. Of why we cherish songs, why some of us used to pour over liner notes. Sound City's story flows from Fleetwood Mac and the seventies heyday, the bleak eighties , the resurgence (along with that of rock n roll) after Nirvana's Nevermind was crafted there (16 days!), and yes, digital "ruins" everything. I can tell you that Grohl and the musicians/Sound City employees he interviews succeed in being compelling. why? Because you will pull out a mix tape/CD/LP , or yes , a MP3 of a song you love after seeing it. Via Amazon steaming/BluRay/DVD also airing on Palladia.

Doc A Day : Circus Rosaire (Robyn Bliley, 2007)

Have I Seen It Before : Nope Viewed via : Netflix streaming I remember always going to the Shriner's Circus as a kid. We were not able to afford the Ringling Bros., so the Shriner's Circus was the next best thing. I loved the circus, at least as a child. I was enthralled by the bios in the programs, how far these performers had brought their talents. All the way from Russia to the Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga Tennessee. What must a Russian bear have thought about pulling in to our small, southern city? Circus Rosaire showcases what has become of the nine generation Rosaire circus family. They, like so many Circus performers, find their way to Florida, traveling the world, raising their bears, chimps and big cats, basking in the fame that was the Circus life. That is until the Berlin wall comes down and "cheaper" outside performers make their way over. Add to this the rise in the animal rights movement and the Circus has become outdated, losing its luster an celeb cache. Despite nearly every man, woman and child having experienced it at some point. Now the Rosaire's find themselves taking work when they can get it, trying to run an animal sanctuary and keeping everyone fed. Seems there were plenty of abandoned big cats in Florida after the drug lords went belly up. And yes, while PETA has a point (I'm pretty sure elephants don't WANT a spandex clad lady in feathers balancing on them), if it weren't for the former circus folks sanctuaries, where would these animals wind up? The Rosaire's reminded me of a long lost 70's rock band, plenty of hits but who wants to see them now? Still traveling, playing smaller places because they love what they do and still need to make a living. Playing the old standbys for those that'll gather,hoping to pick up some new followers along the way. Well directed, at times funny and tragic. Circus Rosaire shows you where the stars go when when tents get smaller. Available via Netflix Streaming/Amazon Instant/DVD

Doc A Day : Confessions of A SuperHero (2007,Matthew Ogens)

Have I Seen It Before : Yep. We all want to believe that anyone can be who or what they want to be. That with the right amount of determination and hard work, and a dose of good luck, we can all be stars. But in watching Matthew Ogens' "Confessions Of A Superhero", we all know at about ten minutes in that none of the costumed hopefuls will show up listed on a movie poster. They walk a small square of Hollywood Boluvard, treading the line between "tips" and "panhandling". Dressed in costumes that vary from spot on to weak Halloween sauce. Heros trying to stay on the right side of the LAPD, while posing with tourists for pictures. Each and everyone believes they will , someday, be discovered. Superman claims, but the film casts some doubt, that he is the long lost son of actress Sandy Dennis. That he is destined to be a star while sharing a small LA apartment that is Superman Hording central with his girlfriend, whom he has molded into the likeness of Crystal Gayle. Batman, claims a dark, mob past. Again, the film casts doubt. Also, he looks , "too much like Clooney", which costs him work. Indeed, he looks like Clooney, after going a round or two with Jake LaMota. The Hulk was homeless and Wonder Woman gets married in Vegas while trying to land a commercial. Ogens' film is a few days in the life of all of these characters. Making up or avoiding their pasts, while trying to scrape out a famous future. Punctuated by beautiful still photos of his subjects, Ogens' style is clean and unobtrusive, putting these stories on full display. At times funny and said, you can't help but hit up IMBD after a watch to see where they are now. And they haven't done too bad. Wonder Woman even has a few tv credits (True Blood, The New Girl). And despite the odds, you have to respect the fact that these heroes at least dared to dream. Available via Netflix streaming and on dvd. Holds up to repeat viewings.

Doc A "Day" Mega Catch Up Short Form Run Down (8,9,10,11,12)

#8 : Finding Shawn : a filmmaker goes back to San Francisco to find a child of hippies all grown up....into a totally normal, regular guy.....interesting , but not enough for repeat viewings. #9 : Shut Up Little Man : Two friends secretly audio record their neighbors fighting, underground tape trading fuels some fame. Amazingly, at one point there were three movies being developed. You will feel terrible when they locate one of the living neighbors years later. Offering them a hundred bucks, while one of the guys who made the recordings still sells merch....he should feel terrible too... #10: Hoop Dreams : Yes its "THE" Doc, but still. No matter how many times I watch it, I have to watch till the end, as if I don't know how its going to all wind up. More compelling than most fiction films. Just watch it.... #11 : Don't Divorce Me! : short doc from HBO where kids talk about divorce. Yep, there's a "luncheon" group of three kids who get together weekly to discuss divorce.... #12 : Americans In Bed : also from HBO Docs. It is it what it says. You will be annoyed by some, borded by one or two. But you will fall in love with the couple married for 71 years. Their life story should be a movie.

Doc A Day #6 & #7 :Gasland 1 & 2 (2010/2012) Directed by Josh Fox

If you ask someone about Gasland you may get : "Its the one where they light tap water on fire." And indeed it is. Most coverage of the film highlighted the flaming tap water that was said to be contaminated due to fracking operations by energy companies to extract natural gas. (Just Google it......but be prepared to see rebuttals to rebuttals.) But Josh Fox's film, and its follow up, Gasland 2 (Electric Boogaloo) are more than the Flame On! of docs. Fox begins his one man band doc after recieving an offer to allow fracking on his family's land, in return for a handsome payday. Fox begins seeking out others who sold drilling rights only to find water contamination, land that can't be sold, and most shocking of all : Big Oil/Gas Can't Be Trusted..... Oh, and Dick Cheney is Satan... Of course even if Fox treads familiar ground, one could reason if we know these things to be true, why haven't we done anything about it? Gasland (s) are activist docs but they sidestep the snark that sometimes bogs down (or saves) other docs of its ilk. Fox's style and strength is just pointing the camera at people and letting them talk, telling their stories. They are OpEds, they do present a particular point of view, no doubt skewed to Fox's side of the story. But they are valid and deserve to be heard. Gasland 2 is more of the same, but its still compelling and worthy of your attention. What Fox lacks in "film language" he more than makes up for with his desire. His need to tell his, and a lot of people's side of this complex story. And he has done what all good Docs do. He has brought about conversation about a subject most were unfamilar with, and now we must face. And he has done it without the budget a big energy company uses to make those shiny , happy commercials, full of shiny happy people. Available via Netflix/HBOGo

Doc A Day #5 :Jay-Z : Picasso Baby 2013

Alright, this is a bit of a cheat. The write up may be longer than the "doc", but hey, HBO is including this with their fine Summer of Docs section so why not. Is it art? what is art? Can music....nevermind. Look, as ambitious and thought out as it may be, its a glorified music video/promo piece for Jay-Z. And you know what? That's perfectly ok. Just call it a video and be done with it. In July Jay-Z took over the Pace Gallery in New York and performed his song,Picasso Baby, over and over again for individuals who packed the gallery. Some "performed" along with him, some watched, others just giggled and took what I assume will be pictures that flooded their Facebook page for the next month. Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) directed the performance, but it really it might as well have been directed by anyone. Note : I'm not hating, Romanek is very talented and I could watch One Hour Photo and his Johnny Cash "Hurt" video a thousand times over. Numerous people come to watch and participate, but Romanek concentrates on famous people, Juda Apatow ( who frankly steals his portion of the show), Jim Jarmusch and other art luminaries. Frankly its all a little too.....cool. Jay-Z the hipster if you will. The Jigga man is clearly having a good time, but why not take him somewhere else to put on the piece? If music, hip-hop in particular have taught us anything, its that art can exist outside of the gallery. Take Jay-Z on some surprise visits to middle or high school music and art classes. A pop in performance piece in front of kids from Brooklyn to the heartland maybe. I'd be more interested in their reactions than those from New York's art elite.

Doc A Day #4 : The Queen of Versailles (2012)

When I was a kid my mostly absentee father took my mother and I on a tour of a time share, knowing good and well we had no money to purchase a share of the mountain condo. We simple went and endured the "pitch" to get a free lunch, some gifts and a day in the mountains. I remember the salesman doing his scripted pitch because he had to, not because he thought he had a chance of getting a sale. That salesman never would have made it at one of David Seigel's Westgate properties. "Always Be Closing", Seigel and his family pitched vacation dreams and sold them , not caring if people could afford it. Seigel's family is the subject of Lauren Greenfield's (THIN) The Queen of Versailles. Seigel and his younger wife Jackie have built their fortunes through the sub prime selling of dreams all the while slipping further into their own reality. A reality that included the building of what would be the largest private home in the US, 90,000 square feet of Charles Foster Kane like excess in Orlando Florida. You may also remember Seigel as the CEO who e-mailed his employees that if Mitt Romney didn't win the Presidential election, he might start having to lay off people. Hint, hint. Despite his "rags to riches to rags" story the Seigel's do not make it easy to root for them. Sure, Seigel shows some regrets when having to lay off call center employees when the recession hits and the banks came calling. But that's clearly outweighed by the trips to McDonald's wife Jackie likes to take in the family limo, the private flights (at one point they have to fly with the "regular" people, try not to cry for them.", the stuffed pets, the lizard no one remembers to feed, the servent who lives in a forgotten playhouse and on and on. Not to mention David Seigel's creepy "let's have the Miss America contestants over to leer at" party, where he "jokes" about replacing Jackie with a younger beauty queen or two. Even when Jackie visits her hometown, reflecting on her past and helping a friend out who was on the verge of foreclosure, any sympathy is lost when she asks the dumbfounded Hertz rental guy what "her driver's name is", having never had to rent a car she would have to drive herself. Its at this point, the downfall, that Greenfield makes the viewer feel like a bit of a horrible person. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun to watch the strange spiral into reality the Seigels take. Greenfield stays the course, lingering on the crumbling empire. Its almost delightful to watch Jackie and David go from happily pointing out all of their excesses to trying to explain them away. It is in this delight you realize that in a way, you may be as "bad" as the Seigels. No matter how detached from reality they were, is it fair to want someone to lose it all? Greenfield does a good job of exploring this world from all sides, and takes hold of a concept that too many doc film makers fail to grasp. When your subject's story takes a turn, let the camera roll and go with it. Don't worry though, the family has managed to right themselves and the palace in Orlando is finished and still their home and not the bank's. They have been able to get back to having more than two servants and even tried to sue Greenfield. The kingdom is a bit smaller now, but its still a kingdom. Maybe its ok to root against them, just a little. Available via streaming and blu ray/dvd.

Doc A Day # 3 : The Woodmans (2010)

The Woodmans (C.Scott Willis) is the examination of how a family of artists deal with the suicide of their daughter Francesca at the age of 22. George and Betty, Francesca's parents interviews make up the bulk of the film, with a few words (not enough , frankly) from her video artist brother, Charles. The remainder are Francesca's ghostly black and white photos, often of herself. These along with her downward spiral journal notes run as a second movie almost, the one in which her parents seem somewhat detached and dumbfounded by her suicide, Francesca flung herself from a window in New York. To be fair, as a parent, I don't know how one deals with a child, no mater how "adult" she was, deciding she wanted no more of this world. Like most creative people, Francesca dealt with her inner demons through her art. Exposing herself, physically and emotionally, through her photos. And despite a long list of admirers and appreciators of her art and spirit, no one seemed to be around for her in the end. Least of all George and Betty, both seemingly consumed with their art. But not in the "throwing myself into my art to deal with my child's death" kind of way. Maybe its not wanting to be open about the tragedy or their own parental failings, which is understandably. But they both seem to be "promoting" themselves more than anything. George has even begun photographing young, often nude, women, mirroring his late daughter's work. A way to keep her memory close maybe? It doesn't seem like it. It seems almost as if they have decided that all art is born from tragedy and Francesca's death was a product of it. Her greatest success coming after her death, her photos selling for thousands. Willis does an excellent job letting the family and friends of the lost artist just speak, and in letting Francesca's words and art speak for her as a counterpoint. His choices of quiet and darkness are well placed, and well timed in between the interviews with family and friends. The ultimate sadness is that had Francesca lived, her art may not have become so popular, and her parents not as notable. One wonders if her parents would have noticed either way. Well made and touching, worth seeking out via Netflix and other streaming services.

Doc A Day # 2 : Tabloid/Errol Morris (2010)

I promise I'll get caught up....one a day...one a day... I could just say that the main subject of Tabloid,Joyce McKinney, at one point claims her small dog named Booger has made a Christ like sacrifice, and be done. Really that statement in a nutshell is all you need to know. Tabloid, depending on who you believe, is one or more stories that may or may not be true, that involve plenty of sex, Mormons, possible kidnapping, and British journalists who are giddy at the sleaziness of the whole affair.It is a Coen Brothers movie waiting to happen. McKinney is , of course, a polite Southern beauty queen madly in love with a man who , according to her, is brainwashed by the Mormons and whisked away from her to England. She manages to charm a couple of guys into bodyguarding/piloting her to England to rescue her Prince. According to McKinney, they manage to save him from his brainwashing the only way she knows how : she straps him to a bed and bangs the Mormon out of him. Upon his "escape" McKinney becomes tabloid popular and England is enthralled by the details as she prepares to be put on trial. Until, and I could not make this up, she jumps bail and escapes in disguise through the airport posing as a deaf mute..... The Tabloid press however, unearths S&M lite nude pictures from McKinney's past and all may not be as it seems. Its hinted at more than once that McKinney is either crazy obsessed, a kidnapper who chained a man to her bed and raped him , and/or a prostitute. Morris, as always, lets his subject tell their stories. False , sleazy, good and bad, its all entertaining, simply because other than some old news footage and tabloid clips, Morris never lets anything get in his way of these folks simply talking. Morris can even be heard laughing along in a "can you believe this?" manner during interviews, just as you will when watching. It is this simple step of Morris', don't get in the way of the subject telling their tale, that is as genius as a sweeping Scorsese crane shot. Despite the fact that McKinney probably did become obsessed, tracking a man across the world, and despite the fact that the Mormon (Kirk Anderson, who is never interviewed, and presumed to be living a quite life), probably ran off with Mckinney, had some fun and regreted it, thus the "kidnapping tale", neither comes off as bad as the British tabloid press. Still to this day they delight in the naked pictures they "found", chuckle at McKinney enjoying her brief fame then being crushed by it. These are grown men who are just giggling schoolboys with a dirty magazine in the end. Every part of the tale probably has some truth to it, but we'll never know everything I'm sure. which is Morris's point. Just like the Tabloids, there is some truth in the salcious details, and we all feel a bit dirty for knowing it. Tabloid is available via streaming and well worth the watch. Oh, and Booger the dog gets cloned.....

A Doc A Day : Man With A Movie Camera (1929)

Man With A Movie Camera (Russia, Dziga Vertov) may be the purist form of "documentary" style film. Presented as "a day in Russia" if you will, with no "actors", but still full of characters. There is no story , but the set up presents this reality as pure film. There's the curtain, the seats ready to watch, the theater ready to show this Russian Reality. The film is an editing masterpiece (edited by Vertov's wife). , but it exposes itself, showing The Man with the movie camera getting into his set ups.Under a train, on a truck, a motorcycle. The film is shown being made and edited as you are watching it, its more a documentary about making a documentary about making a film..... And if you want to break Russia circa the mid 20's down (according to Vertov) : Hats, lots of hats, Street cars and buses, Booze, Smokestacks, Dirt/Grime, Sad Old People, Gears....all of Russia is made up seemingly of a Steampunk Cosplayer's wet dreams. The film is without a doubt beautiful, any one of its many frames could be frozen and hung on the wall proudly. Its well worth watching, readily available via Netlix, or via the public domain.