Mr. Death: Fred A. Leuchter Jr. - 1999 - 4½ Stars

Director: Errol Morris

Subject: Fred Leuchter, constructor of execution equipment

I don't know how Errol Morris finds these fascinating subjects, and I know even less about how he gets them to appear in his documentaries. The story of Fred Leuchter is a great study in epistemology - how what we know can very often mislead us if there's one key fact we're omitting. We can be even more misled if we are purporting to use rigor - our rigor may lead us right off a logical cliff.

I won't spoil what this documentary eventually turns into, but it's completely unbelievable. I wish I hadn't spoiled it for myself by looking at the Netflix movie jacket. A must-see for fans of Morris.

Barry Lyndon - 1975 - 4 Stars

Actors: Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berensen

Director: Stanley Kubrick

There's a popular Internet podcast entitled How Did This Get Made? that discusses legendarily awful films. While Barry Lyndon is not an awful film by any stretch, the same question applies quite well to it. How did Stanley Kubrick convince anyone to let him make this movie the way he made it? It's 3 hours long, it's a period drama, Ryan O'Neal is not really a leading man, and it's also directed by Stanley Kubrick. The costumes and settings are all first-rate. Kubrick no doubt did a million takes of everything, as he tends to do. I'd like to thank whatever studio took a gigantic bath on this film for wasting their money.

Barry Lyndon is an amazing technical achievement - the synthesis of image, dialogue, and music is incredible, perhaps unmatched in any movie I've seen. The film is filled with picturesque shots - Kubrick will often pull back to reveal an even more picturesque backdrop. However, this is my second time through the film, and while I certainly enjoyed it, I was far less moved. Story is this film's greatest downfall - I don't really know what to take away from Barry Lyndon.

I Am Comic - 2010 - 3½ Stars

Director: Jordan Brady

Subject: Stand-up comedy

Near the beginning of I Am Comic, Dave Attell wonders why comedy documentaries have to be so fucking serious. Jordan Brady seems to have taken his cue from that comment - there's not much discussion of the sad clownery and non-quiet desperation that goes into being a successful stand-up comedian. There's instead loose stories about bad clubs, bad hecklers, joke theft, drug use, and so forth.

I Am Comic spends its first half generally interviewing comedians about their experiences, then switches during the second half as a guy who was run out of the business at the end of the comedy boom tries to regain his stage presence. I think watching him struggle is supposed to demonstrate just how difficult it is to go on stage and tell jokes to crowds of strangers. Still, there didn't seem to be very much at stake here, and the documentary seems to leave off with no conclusion to this tale. Regardless, it ties together something that would just be 80 minutes of talking heads. I recommend it, but only if one is interested in stand-up comedy.

Sanjuro - 1961 - 4½ Stars

Actors: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Is there a greater filmmaker than Akira Kurosawa? I ask this in all earnestness. I think Kurosawa's detractors, like Spielberg's, declare him to be oversentimental and obvious. These are legitimate criticisms - ones which I think it's difficult to answer if one doesn't speak Japanese. Kurosawa could be accused of focusing on a certain historical period in Japan, except that Ikiru is set in modern times (and I think some of his other films are as well).

Sanjuro is the sequel to Yojimbo, and it features Mifune in the titular role as an itinerant disgraced samurai. Sanjuro is alternately bored and cunning, as well as an exceptional fighter. He is like a modern man dropped into feudal Japan - in a land bound by honor and God, he has neither. The film almost comes off like noir - Sanjuro is comparable to, say, Nicholson's J.J. Gittes. He's a natural wiseass who gets by on his own wits.

Kurosawa meticulously stages each scene. Notice where Sanjuro is placed in each scene, and how his nine followers arrange themselves relative to him. See the way the nine followers move together in a way that Sanjuro doesn't. Kurosawa understands that filmmaking is primarily a visual medium - it's about time some of our modern filmmakers figured this out.

Midnight Run - 1988 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Robert Deniro, Charles Grodin

Director: Martin Brest

It's the 80's! Where Charles Grodin can get second billing, and Yaphet Kotto can get third billing, where a breezy, annoying Danny Elfman soundtrack conveys whimsy even during the darkest moments, where plots about estranged wives and children get thrown into a mismatched buddy road movie, and where smoking was still allowed in restaurants, airports, and on planes.

Midnight Run is overstuffed, to be sure. I don't know this, I am only speculating, but Midnight Run feels like one of those first-time scripts that someone finds at the bottom of a pile and says 'This would make a great picture!' And somehow it gets made with DeNiro attached to it and a huge budget.

All in all, it's an entertaining film, with fun set pieces, good character actors, and DeNiro puts an A effort into B material. Still, there's no excuse for this film to be 125 minutes long.

Theremin: An Electric Odyssey - 1993 - 3 Stars

Subject: Leon Theremin, his life, and the musical instrument he invented

Director: Steven M. Martin

I'm probably being too harsh on this intriguing documentary - I shouldn't read people's biographies on Wikipedia before I watch a documentary about them. Leon Theremin is the inventor of the instrument that carries his namesake, and he's had a fascinating life. I would've liked to have seen a little more about how his instrument affected electronic music in general.

Note: Minor Spoilers Below

One of the biggest cringe-inducing moments in a documentary or television show for me is a reunion after a very long time apart. There's one here - now perhaps the people being studied in the documentary felt it important that this be recorded. Still, these people haven't seen each other in half a lifetime, why have cameras there? What would compel someone to do this? I've never understood it, plus the subjects usually come off as awkward or rehearsed, making it even worse.

Source Code - 2011 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan

Director: Duncan Jones

Clunky exposition has done in many a sci-fi film. Source Code drops us right into the middle of the action and uses moments of diminished tension to explain what the hell is going on. It trusts itself, which is really the hallmark of a good film - it doesn't necessarily have to be 100% believable (and Source Code most certainly is not), but it has to trust that the world it has created exists. Show, don't tell, etc.

Duncan Jones also directed Moon, and many of the same themes are at play here - the dehumanization that comes with technological advancement, servitude to distant masters, and an exploration of the forces that sustain us through difficult times. Jones needs commending for being able to jam these themes into a Hollywood-friendly film - I hope the movie does good business. There's room in Hollywood for science-fiction films that aren't enormous blockbusters.