Culture Representation: Taking place at La Seine Musicale in Paris during the autumn of 2023,the concert documentary film “Usher: Rendezvous in Paris” has a racially diverse group of people (black, white, Asian, and Latin) who are on stage and in the audience.
Culture Clash: American superstar Usher performs in Paris during Paris Fashion Week.
Culture Audience: “Usher: Rendezvous in Paris” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Usher and people who like high-energy concert documentaries and don’t mind seeing dance moves and song performances that have adult sexual themes.
Usher in “Usher: Rendezvous in Paris” (Photo courtesy of AMC Theatres Distribution and Trafalgar Releasing
“Usher: Rendezvous in Paris” delivers exactly what you think it should for a high-energy, sexually suggestive concert documentary of Usher performing in Paris. It’s a competently made film but iit has no surprises and isn’t extraordinary. This is a movie made for Usher’s fans who want familiarity, include the expected set list of his greatest hits.
Directed by Anthony Mandler, the documentary was filmed during Paris Fashion Week (September 25 to October 3) in 2023, when Usher (the Atlanta native whose full name is Usher Raymond) did a concert stint at La Seine Musicale. The concert, which is divided into six chapters, has filmed interludes of Usher walking around in a fedora on the streets of Paris (sometimes with smoke effects on the streets), with voiceover narration of Usher saying poetry-like ramblings about a mystery woman who’s on his mind.
These interludes come across as both a little bit pretentious and a little corny, but fortunately, these interludes are short and don’t take away from the main attraction: seeing Usher perform in concert. About 85% of the audience consists of women, most of whom seem to be in adoring awe.
Usher knows he’s a sex symbol and plays it up to the hilt, including simulating sexual foreplay and doing a lot of grinding with several of his female backup dancers. One dancer, clad in a G-string and dominatrix gear, outright simulates S&M sex with Usher. During “Bad Girl,” the female dancers perform on stripper poles and twerk. It would probably be more offensive to some if most of the audience consisted of children, but the concert audience in this movie are mostly women in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
Some viewers might notice that Usher’s female dancers, not his male dancers, are the once who have to prance and strut around on stage, often scantily clad. But it’s all very calculated: If Usher had his male dancers be too much eye candy the audience, that would take attention away from him, the star of the show. One of the concert highlights is when Usher and his backup dancers glide and twirl around on roller skates, which is a lot harder than it looks.
Usher’s vocals are in fine form, as he belts out his hits like a seasoned pro. He’s also not afraid to work up a sweat. The set list includes several hits spanning his entire career so far, including “Caught Up,” “My Boo,” You Remind Me,” “You Make Me Wanna…,” “You Got It Bad,” “Nice and Slow,” “Let It Burn,” “Confessions” and “OMG.” Predictably, Usher saves his biggest hit (“Yeah!”) for near the end of the set. Unpredictably, he ends the set by performing David Guetta’s “Without You.” Simply put: “Usher: Rendezvous in Paris” is the concert equivalent of sexy comfort food for people who know exactly what they’re getting.
AMC Theatres Distribution and Trafalgar Releasing released “Usher: Rendezvous in Paris” in U.S. cinemas for a limited engagement from September 12 to September 15, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in the Colorado municipality of Lakewood and briefly in the Los Angeles area, from 2021 to 2023,the documentary film “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” has a predominantly white group of people (with a few Latin people and African Americans) who are connected in some way to Casa Bonita, a theme park-styled Mexican restaurant in Lakewood.
Culture Clash: “South Park” and “The Book of Mormon” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone buy Casa Bonita out of bankruptcy and encounter many high-priced obstacles in their quest to re-open the restaurant.
Culture Audience: “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Parker and Stone and are interested in watching a documentary about reviving a beloved business.
“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” (which means “Pretty House My Love!” in Spanish) is a predictable but enjoyable documentary about the challenges that Trey Parker and Matt Stone had in re-opening the Colorado restaurant Casa Bonita. Parker makes the movie amusing, but aspects of the eatery’s Mexican heritage get sidelined for his antics. It’s also a movie about persistence and the power of childhood nostalgia.
Directed by Arthur Bradford, “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, where it won the Audience Award in the documentary category. “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” (which was filmed from 2021 to 2023) takes place primarily in Lakewood, Colorado, the municipality where Casa Bonita is located and is one of the top tourist attractions in the Denver area. Lakewood is about nine miles southwest of Denver. As of the 2020 U.S. census, Lakewood’s population was reported as 103,355 people, with 66% identifying as white and 23% identifying as Hispanic/Latin of any race. Hispanics/Latin people are the fastest growing ethnic group in Lakewood.
Casa Bonita, which has live entertainment and amusement attractions, has been called “the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants.” The size of the venue (whose exterior is painted in “dusty pink”) is about 52,000 square feet and includes a labyrinth of man-made caves and indoor grottos. Casa Bonita was founded in 1973 by spouses Bill Waugh and Frances Waugh, who then sold the restaurant in 1982 for $32.5 million to a United Kingdom-based company called Wingate, which let Casa Bonita decline into dangerous disrepair because Wingate didn’t want to spend money on the necessary maintenance.
“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” has a brief interview with Frances Waugh, who says that she and husband Bill (who died in 2015 at age 79) immediately regretted selling Casa Bonita and thought about buying it back, but it was too late. The documentary has archival footage of Bill doing a TV interview where he expresses the same remorse about selling Casa Bonita. In the late 2010s, before the COVID-19 pandemic destroyed many hospitality businesses, Casa Bonita (despite being run-down and having low-quality food) was getting about 5,000 customers a day. Casa Bonita shut down in 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And then, Casa Bonita declared bankruptcy.
Parker and Stone (the award-winning creators of the animated comedy series “South Park” and the stage musical “The Book of Mormon”) grew up in the Lakewood/Denver area and frequented Casa Bonita during their childhoods. “South Park” has had references to Casa Bonita and the Lakewood area in multiple episodes. In 2021, Parker and Stone announced that they had purchased Casa Bonita and planned to re-open it. “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” chronicles this turbulent journey, which includes the original re-opening budget of $6.5 million soaring to $40 million because of all the costs to repair the extensive damage and disrepair in Casa Bonita.
It’s important to have all of this background information (which the documentary includes) because there’s significant discussion in “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” about Parker and Stone wanting to preserve the restaurant’s original themes that highlighted Mexican heritage. (For example, mariachi bands have been a vital part of Casa Bonita’s live entertainment.) The documentary shows Parker traveling to Mexico with Dana “Loca” Rodriguez, who was hired to be the executive chef of the re-opened Casa Bonita, so that Parker can learn more about Mexican food, drinks and culture.
However, the documentary shows that in the months leading up to restaurant’s re-opening in June 2023, Parker (who is more personally involved than Stone in re-opening Casa Bonita) is more concerned about the very Anglo-American aspects of the entertainment at Casa Bonita. He fixates on small details, such as changing an animatronic cowboy’s wardrobe to wear a Farrah Fawcett T-shirt when Parker makes an inconvenient decision to suddenly revamp the cowboys in Casa Bonita to be from the 1970s instead of the 1870s. This decision is a direct result of Parker’s childhood memories of going to Casa Bonita when he was a kid in the 1970s.
In another scene in the documentary, Parker is shown getting inspiration for Casa Bonita not from native Mexican culture but from hearing that Elvis Presley starred in a 1963 movie called “Fun in Acapulco.” “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” predictably includes clips from the movie but repeatedly erase native Mexican culture from the documentary. If not for the name of the restaurant, you could watch this documentary and think that it’s not even a Mexican restaurant because of how Mexican culture is diminished or ignored in the movie.
“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” has a few scenes that briefly show some Mexican-themed entertainment and decor, such as a mariachi band and some Day of the Dead decorations and props. However, “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” fails to mention what Parker learned from his trip or trips to Mexico. Instead, the documentary shows Parker making a series of joking quips every time he gets more bad news about something that will delay or increase the cost of re-opening Casa Bonita.
Casa Bonita executive chef Rodriguez is the only person of color who is shown in a leadership role for Casa Bonita. She has an interesting background that is quickly mentioned in the documentary. In a documentary interview, Rodriguez (who immigrated from Mexico the United States in 1998) says that she applied for a dishwasher job at Casa Bonita shortly after moving to the area. She was rejected because she was told she wasn’t qualified. Rodriguez says she got her nickname Loca (which means crazy female in Spanish) when she went on a rant against a racist who scolded her for speaking Spanish in an incident that didn’t take place at Casa Bonita.
Years later, Parker says in the documentary that Rodriguez was his first choice to hire as the re-opened Casa Bonita’s executive chef, based on recommendations and his “gut instinct.” When she was hired for the re-opened Casa Bonita, Rodriguez had become the James Beard-nominated owner/executive chef of Cantina Loca. (Cantina Loca closed for business in 2024). Rodriguez going from being a rejected dishwasher applicant to an executive chef at Casa Bonita is an ironic and incredible comeback story that “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” seems to dismiss by only showing Rodriguez attending Casa Bonita staff meetings or being a travel guide for Parker during their trip to Mexico.
For a documentary about the re-opening of a restaurant, executive chef Rodriguez and her staff don’t get as much screen time as they should. The documentary features several interviews with unnamed customers who say they want the re-opened Casa Bonita to have better food than the original Casa Bonita. And yet, the items on the menu and the dynamics of the kitchen and server staff are never detailed. (Showing a plate of soft tacos being served doesn’t count.)
There are a few short scenes where an unidentified kitchen manager shows concerns about how the computer-operated machines were not working correctly in taking custom orders, so those glitches needed to be corrected. There are no scenes of Rodriguez training any kitchen staff or showing how she created the revamped Casa Bonita’s new menu. She did all of that, of course, but it’s just not in this movie.
Instead, “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” spends a lot of time showing construction manager Scott Shoemaker fretting and fuming about all the costs and delays involved in renovating Casa Bonita. (An epilogue in the movie mentions that Shoemaker and Rodriguez fell in love and became a couple, but whatever romance they had is not in the documentary.) Casa Bonita art director Chris Spellman, Dan Jennison of Jennison Studios, Charles S. McQuerry of Show Construction and project electrician Steve Bender are among those who provide commentary about the renovations.
Also featured are Casa Bonita entertainment director Ben Schrader and Casa Bonita entertainment manager Amber Blais, who supervise the costumed entertainers who depict characters in the restaurant. When Parker admittedly causes chaos by making drastic changes on short notice, Blais is seen tactfully navigating these changes and saying that they can make the adjustments. (After all, she’s not going be foolish enough to go on camera to complain about one of the owners of the place that’s employing her.)
“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” shows in great detail how Parker and Stone see firsthand that they bought a dump filled with safety violations and health hazards. When Parker visits the closed Casa Bonita after becoming a co-owner, he quips that the restaurant still has the same familiar smell of “chlorine and beans.” Parker is more hands-on in the renovation process, which Stone freely admits he is more comfortable letting Parker handle. “He’s a romantic,” Stone says of Parker’s attitude about revamping Casa Bonita. “The kid in him is very much alive.”
Stone and Parker, who are based in the Los Angeles area, are shown commuting to Casa Bonita in between doing their work for “South Park” in Los Angeles. The documentary includes some footage of the duo recording some “South Park” voice sessions. South Park” and “The Book of Mormon” executive producer Anne Garefino provides some short commentary about Parker and Stone having to juggle their “South Park” jobs with the Casa Bonita commitments.
Among the problems encountered in renovating Casa Bonita includes an indoor diving pool where the diver employees had a very unsafe area to change outfits where they could’ve easily been electrocuted. The restaurant had a lot of outdated electrical wiring and deteriorating equipment. One of the most alarming discoveries was a massive structure beam that had no foundation (there was literally a hole where the floor should’ve been to hold up the beam), and this defective beam would’ve caused the building to collapse if there had been an earthquake-level shake-up to the building.
The documentary includes interviews with several former associates of Casa Bonita, including Phil Phillips, the restaurant’s original designer and builder. He remembers the reaction when people saw and heard about the flamboyantly pink Casa Bonita: “Every single person from Denver said, ‘Why are you doing this? This is not going to work. Nobody is going to come here.” Proving the skeptics wrong, Casa Bonita became an immediate hit, although the restaurant’s eventual decline tarnished its reputation.
An eclectic mix of other former Casa Bonita employees also give sound bites in the documentary interviews. The former employees include Paul Vinyard, who was Casa Bonita’s president from 1975 to 1981; Paul Lang, Casa Bonita’s first art director; and Don Shannon, who worked for Casa Bonita from 1981 to 1990. Some of them have fond memories of Casa Bonita, while others do not. Chad Wonder, who was a Casa Bonita magician in 2015, says: “The cave smelled like urine.” Jim “JB” Brown, who was a Casa Bonita employee from 1974 to 1980, says he became so disgusted by the slovenly conditions at Casa Bonita, he contacted corporate headquarters to request that his name be removed from the employee honor roll that was listed at the restaurant.
Also interviewed in the documentary, with only quick comments shown, are Don Whitcomb, author of “The Casa Bonita You Never Knew”; Ramiro Cazaux, art director of Park County; Carly Pric, company manager of Park County; Bethel Lindsley, Casa Bonita dive team leader; and Casa Bonita employee Luis Barron Elias, who says of Casa Bonita: “We like to say it’s our restaurant because it’s our family.”
“¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” includes a few appearances by Colorado governor Jared Polis, who obviously has a friendly relationship with Parker and Stone. Polis is shown during an on-stage speaking appearance at a “South Park” 25th anniversary concert in 2022, at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. Polis half-jokingly comments on stage that Colorado went from having the 9th lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. to the 4th lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. because of the contractors and subcontractors working at Casa Bonita.
Despite all the trials and tribulations, Parker and Stone show determination in seeing things through, even though their Casa Bonita investment is considered to be a “money pit.” Parker says repeatedly that his commitment to the project has everything to do with wanting people to get the same feeling from Casa Bonita that he had as a child but make it an even better experience with big improvements from the original Casa Bonita. The documentary also features brief appearances from Trey’s father Randy Parker and Trey’s daughter Betty Parker, who give their reactions to the renovated Casa Bonita.
Because the outcome of this renovation is already well-known, there is no suspense in “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!,” a documentary that is essentially another marketing tool for Casa Bonita. This documentary is from the perspective that makes it almost look like “The Trey Parker Show,” while everyone else is a supporting character. If people don’t mind seeing a very filtered look at what went into renovating and reopening this well-known restaurant, “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” can be entertaining enough to watch, even when you can tell that a lot of interesting things were left out of the movie.
MTV Documentary Films released “¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor!” in Denver on September 6, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cities on September 13, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the documentary film “Look Into My Eyes” features a racially diverse group of people (white, African American, Asian and Latin) who are involved in some way in giving or receiving psychic readings.
Culture Clash: The seven psychics featured in the movie grapple with their own emotional baggage, trauma and self-doubt while they are in the business of comforting others.
Culture Audience: “Look Into My Eyes” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching documentaries about human psychology, whether viewers believe in psychics or not.
Per Erik Borja (pictured at right) with a client in “Look Into My Eyes” (Photo courtesy of A24)
“Look Into My Eyes” is not a journalistic exposé about people who claim to be psychics. This empathetic documentary about seven self-proclaimed psychics in New York City ignores the reality that con artists can use personal information that people put on social media. This movie is mostly about people wanting emotional validation from strangers. Skeptics might be amused by some of the guessing games and performances that show the so-called psychics fumbling to say things that their customers want to hear. Believers will be enthralled and will be reluctant to question the credibility of the self-appointed psychics. It’s perhaps no coincidence that all of the psychics featured in this documentary are aspiring or failed entertainers.
Directed by Lana Wilson, “Look Into My Eyes” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary is a series of scenes that alternate between two types of footage: (1) readings that the seven psychics do for their customers, who are not identified by their names in the documentary and (2) interviews and leisure time with the psychics, who talk about their own personal lives. All of the psychics featured in “Look Into My Eyes” claim to be able to see and communicate with the dead.
What the documentary uncovers about these seven psychics is that almost all of them are deeply insecure, emotionally damaged, and struggling with various issues, such as mental health, addiction recovery and/or financial instability. But they are also very good at talking and giving people the type of comfort that these customers are seeking, which is the real motivation for anyone to take a psychic seriously. “Look Into My Eyes” does not have interviews with the clients of these so-called psychics.
It’s open to debate whether or not psychic abilities exist in human beings. The seven psychics in “Look Into My Eyes” certainly don’t do much to remove skeptical doubt that they have psychic abilities because of all the inaccurate guessing that they have in their psychic readings. The documentary also never questions, investigates, or mentions if the so-called psychics could have researched their clients’ personal lives before the meeting sessions.
The seven psychics who are the focus of the documentary are:
Per Erik Borja, an aspiring actor who happens to be openly gay.
Eugene Grygo, an aspiring actor/screenwriter who happens to be openly gay.
Nikenya Hall, a writer who also claims to be an energy healer.
Phoebe Hoffman, a high-school dropout and TV-watching enthusiast whose specialty is mind reading of animal pets who are dead or alive.
Michael Kim, an aspiring actor who says he began having paranormal experiences in the late 2010s.
Sherrie Lynne, an entertainer who hires herself out for events and dresses in stereotypical psychic clothes when she does readings.
Ilka Pinheiro, a social justice warrior who brings her progressive views into her psychic readings.
All of the so-called psychics in the documentary were in their 30s, 40s or 50s when this documentary was made, except for Lynne, who appears to be in her 70s. The male psychics are all soft-spoken, while the female psychics all have outspoken personalities. The documentary gives the most screen time to Grygo and the least amount of screen time to Lynne.
Some of the scenes are kind of pathetic, such as Grygo showing he has no singing talent when he warbles off-key during his singing lessons, or when Lynne tries to scrounge up some business by asking random people if they want to hire her to be a psychic at their next party. Most of these psychics live in cramped and cluttered apartments and directly or indirectly admit that the money they make as psychics is to fund their aspirations to become professional entertainers, either in acting and/or screenwriting, because they don’t want to work in regular “9 to 5” jobs.
Out of the seven psychics, Kim (who speaks in a calm, mediatative voice) is the one who gives the most accurate readings, but he also appears to be the most skilled in figuring out the right things to say to his customers at any given moment. He rarely gets flustered when his guesses are wrong. And that could have a lot to do with his background training as an actor.
Viewers of “Look Into My Eyes” will see Hoffman talk about her troubled past in her 20s, when she became a shut-in and addicted to cocaine while living with and doing drugs with her father, who also had cocaine addiction issues. Hoffman, who says she is now clean and sober, claims she’s known about her psychic abilities since she was a teenager. But considering she says she also started abusing drugs when she was a teen, it’s hard to know how much of her “psychic visions” were drug-induced. Hoffman mentions that she’s still struggling with social anxiety and other issues, which is one of the reasons why she says she can’t have a “regular job.”
The sob stories continue. Borja gets teary-eyed when remembering how an ex-boyfriend broke his heart. Grygo breaks down and cries when discussing the ongoing emotional pain of grieving over his brother dying by suicide. The documentary doesn’t have the psychics explain if they feel like they were born psychic or if they suddenly developed psychic skills when they needed a side hustle to supplement their incomes.
Coincidence or not, even though these psychics talk about many things in their personal lives, they don’t talk about their marital status or how being a so-called psychic affects their love lives. The psychics in this documentary all come across as being lonely and unlucky in love. Apparently, their psychic skills don’t extend to being able to find the right romantic partner.
Some of the psychics say that they are more attuned to troubled souls than most people are because of their own personal experiences of feeling like an outsider. Kim says he feels a deep connection to a young female client who was born in China and was adopted by Americans but she wants to know more about her Chinese birth mother, who gave her up for adoption. Kim says that he was also adopted by white parents.
Hall talks about being originally from a conservative, religious community in Oklahoma, where she says she felt like a misfit. Hall says she only felt comfortable where she lived when she moved to New York City. Hall also gives a mini-tour of her apartment in a scene that didn’t need to be in this documentary. Viewers really don’t need to know what kinds of figurines and knickknacks she collects when a more interesting story would be her life experiences that led her to make money by claiming to be a psychic.
“Look Into My Eyes” doesn’t reveal much more background information about the psychics except that Kim used to be an actor student at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute in New York City. At the end of the documentary, he has a session with a woman who was a Strasberg classmate and who wants Kim to contact her deceased male best friend, who was also a Strasberg classmate. Coincidence or not? We might never know, but Strasberg gets plenty of free publicity mentions in this documentary.
As for the psychic readings in “Look Into My Eyes,” most of them are not as convincing as these self-proclaimed psychics would like you to think they are, especially in this day and age when it’s so easy to find out information about people by doing an Internet search. People who are skilled in human psychology can see how the readings mainly consist of picking up on visual clues from the customers, such as body language and physical appearance. The psychics start off with vague statements until the customers reveal more information so the psychics can make better guesses.
Some of the readings are laughably bad because they just involve some common sense and guessing. In one of the readings, Pinheiro states the obvious when she does a reading for a young man with blue-streaked hair who wants to know what the future holds, in terms of his career. Her “psychic” diagnosis is that she tells him that he’s a creative type who doesn’t want to work in an office job. You don’t have to be a psychic to know that people who dye their hair blue are not conventional people and probably don’t want to be hired in an office where employees are expected to wear their hair and clothes in a conservative manner.
Even more cringeworthy is a session where Borja makes all the wrong guesses and asks to start over in the session, but he still makes the wrong guesses. In an interview after this disastrous “psychic reading,” an embarrassed Borja admits that he often doesn’t know what he’s doing in these “psychic readings.” The filmmakers of “Look Into My Eyes” should be given credit for putting this major mess-up in the documentary, but it might leave some skeptic viewers feeling unmoved and wondering why someone with questionable psychic skills is being showcased in this documentary in the first place.
Skeptics will never be able to get this question out of their minds when the psychic statements about deceased loved ones are fairly accurate: Who’s to say that these psychics didn’t look up information and photos about these clients and their deceased loved ones before the readings happened? Most obituaries are available on the Internet. The documentary has no information on whether or not these psychics knew the names of these customers before the sessions, which look like appointments, not walk-in sessions. Because “Look Into My Eyes” refuses to address these information, this omission lowers the quality of the documentary.
The pet psychic sessions have the least credibility. It’s not that difficult to tell someone who lost a pet that the pet is speaking and asking the grieving pet owner to be in a better emotional place. You don’t have to be a psychic to tell someone whose pet has been missing for years that the pet is probably dead. The dubious psychic part comes in when the “psychic” says that the dead pet who went missing is now speaking and wants the pet owner to know that the pet is not suffering anymore. And you just know the pet owner will start to cry.
As a so-called pet psychic, some of Hoffman’s psychic readings sound more like pet training tips that she could’ve gotten from watching pet shows on Animal Planet or any of the National Geographic channels. For example, in one of Hoffman’s sessions, she has a woman customer who is concerned about her Boston Terrier named Dottie, who is unruly and resistant when Dottie has to walk on a leash. (The dog is not there during this “psychic reading” session.) Hoffman’s answers to this client consist of basic dog psychology and training advice—in other words, things that a famous dog trainer such as Cesar Millan could’ve easily said too—and he doesn’t claim to be psychic.
Even though “Look Into My Eyes” has a lot of flaws and omitted information, it’s still a compelling look at people’s willingness to believe that there is life after death and that a connection with deceased loved ones is still possible. Instead of debunking these psychics, this documentary is more interested in showing how people who are troubled in some way will seek out counseling from strangers. Psychics, whether genuine or not, are unofficial therapists and counselors. And if people want to pay others to get this type of therapy in order to feel good, then people should have the freedom to do so, as long as they don’t think they’re getting conned and ripped off in the process.
A24 released “Look Into My Eyes” in select U.S. cinemas on September 6, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and in Europe, from 2019 to 2022, the documentary film “Fly” features a group of predominantly white people (and a few people of Asian/Pacific Islander heritage) who are connected in some way to the sport of BASE jumping, which is jumping off of very high, stationary places with usually only a parachute and/or wing suit for support equipment.
Culture Clash: Professional BASE jumpers experience personal rewards and refuse to have conventional lives, but the risk is very high that they will die or get seriously injured while BASE jumping.
Culture Audience: “Fly” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching documentaries about people whose lives revolve around extreme sports.
Scotty Bob Morgan and Espen Fadnes in “Fly” (Photo courtesy of Reel Peak Films/National Geographic Documentary Films)
With breathtaking cinematography and even more poignant human stories, “Fly” is an unforgettable documentary about the dangerous sport of BASE jumping. The documentary shows in unflinching ways how the sport can be as fulfilling as it is addicting. BASE is an acronym for the four possible types of stationary jumping-off points in BASE jumping: buildings, antennas, spans and earth. In “Fly,” the BASE jumpers are all seen jumping off from earth areas, usually cliffs.
“Fly” should be seen on the biggest screen possible. However, viewers who get vertigo from watching things filmed from extreme heights should be warned that “Fly” might induce dizziness and nausea in several scenes that show human flight at vertiginous heights and breakneck speeds. (The sound design for “Fly” is excellent in giving viewers a sense of the high-velocity speed involved in BASE jumping.) Beyond these scenes that will thrill many viewers and will make others feel a little sick, “Fly” has moments that are truly tearjerking because of what happens to some of the people featured in the movie.
Directed by Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau (who are also “Fly’s” main cinematographers), “Fly” was filmed from 2019 to 2022, in various parts of the United States and Europe, such as Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Switzerland, France, and Norway. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival before screening at 2024 edition Hot Docs and the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. Six BASE jumping people (three couples) are the focus of “Fly,” which explores the physical aspects of BASE jumping, along with the emotional toll that the sport takes on the lives of participants who devote most of their time to BASE jumping.
“Fly” might get some comparisons to “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” a 2024 documentary about a Russian couple engaging in rooftopping: a dangerous and usually illegal sport of climbing extremely high structures without ropes, nets or other safety measures. Unlike rooftopping, which almost always involves trespassing, BASE jumping is considered a legitimate sport, but not any less dangerous than rooftopping. Professional BASE jumpers can compete in international competitions and often get sponsors.
In “Fly,” the six BASE jumping people (three couples) who get the spotlight are:
Jimmy Pouchert and Marta Empinotti, a married couple who co-founded Apex BASE, a California-based company that sells BASE jumping equipment and gear, teaches BASE jumping classes, and hosts BASE jumping events. Pouchert and Empinotti—who were a childless couple in their 50s and living in Moab, Utah, when this documentary was filmed—started BASE jumping in their late teens or 20s. Pouchert (an American) is jovial and has a daredevil personality. Empinotti (originally from Brazil) is more pragmatic and cautious than Pouchert. They co-founded an annual get-together in Las Vegas for BASE jumpers (many of them current and former Apex BASE trainees) to let loose and party.
Scotty Bob Morgan and Julia Botelho Morgan (both in their 30s)—the biggest risk-taking couple in the documentary—were dating and got married during the course of making this documentary. Morgan (an American) is a former U.S. Marine who served in the Iraq War and overcame a troubled past to devote himself to professional BASE jumping. Botelho Morgan (originally from Brazil) was an attorney who quit the law profession to become a skydiver in the Brazilian Army and then became a professional BASE jumper. The spouses operate a California-based training course called Bob’s BASE Academy, although Apex BASE is the main focus of the BASE jumping training that is shown in “Fly.”
Espen Fadnes (in his 40s) and Amber Forte (in her 30s) are a married couple living in Norway, which is Fadnes’ native country. Forte is originally from the United Kingdom. Fadnes, who is considered a pioneer in wingsuit BASE jumping, is a former World Cup champ for the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI)/World Air Sports Federation. He has been featured in the Netflix documentary “Wingmen.” Just like the other couples featured in this documentary, this European BASE jumping couple say that they are lucky to have found each other because it’s rare to find a romantic partner who shares the same passion for BASE jumping. Fadnes is very open about how nothing is more important to him than BASE jumping, and he won’t stop BASE jumping, even if people close to him die from it. Forte says she’s less of a risk-taker than Fadnes and she gets more thrills from feeling like flying than feeling like she’s risking her life.
“Fly” begins wth a captioned quote from Leonardo da Vinci: “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward.” It certainly describes how die-hard BASE jumpers feel about this sport that they say they can’t live without. Unlike many other sports where professional athletes are expected to retire by the time they’re in their 50s, the “Fly” BASE jumpers say that there really is no age limit for adults to continue BASE jumping.
Fadnes comments on what people get out of BASE jumping: “We feel enormous joy … We are dreamers. There is value in that.” Fadnes also express deep admiration for Morgan, whom Fadnes considers to be one of the best BASE jumpers in the world. Pouchert adds, “A lot of people have said that base jumping has saved their life. It’s a form of absolute bliss.”
On the flip side, Morgan and Fadnes are among the BASE jumpers who say more than once in the documentary that being a professional BASE jumper requires a lot of selfishness. Because of the sport’s high-risk demands, most professional BASE jumpers are obsessed with the sport and make BASE jumping more important than most relationships in their lives. Professional BASE jumpers also have to brush aside concerns from loved ones who are worried that the BASE jumpers will die from this sport.
Morgan says in a separate interview about why he became hooked on BASE jumping: “It was love at first jump.” Morgan adds that he BASE jumps every week. “It’s been good for me,” he states. “It’s therapeutic.” Morgan explains that BASE jumping has helped him with his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and got him through some rough patches in his life, such as when he had drug abuse issues and “ran into some legal trouble.”
Pouchert jokes, “I could be the only person in the world who was taught to jump by his wife.” Remarkably, Empinotti says she has never had a serious injury while BASE jumping. She later opens up about how she dealt with the trauma of a having a boyfriend who died from BASE jumping when she was in her late teens. She also confesses that Pouchert’s tendency to be a jokester in serious situations used to bother her but she grew to accept that was part of his personality.
In addition to putting their lives in danger, the BASE jumpers featured in “Fly” are candid in showing how people who make a commitment to this unconventional lifestyle usually have to lead nomadic existences without a steady income. Professional BASE jumpers often choose not to have children. They also have to accept the reality that many of their friends and/or family members who are BASE jumpers could most likely die from BASE jumping.
Issues of life and death are never far from the focus of the documentary. By the end of the documentary, one of the younger couples in this documentary will bring new life into world when they become parents. (The woman in the couple even BASE jumps when she’s at least six months pregnant.) Someone in another couple experiences near-fatal injuries while BASE jumping. And another couple has the worst possible outcome to the couple’s love story.
It’s impossible not to notice that most people involved in BASE jumping are of a certain demographic. The documentary doesn’t really offer an explanation for why BASE jumping is not a racially diverse or socioeconomically diverse sport, although the clues are there. It’s similar to why race car driving, tennis, golf and skiing are not racially diverse or socioeconomically diverse sports: Getting lessons and traveling in these sports have financial expenses that many people cannot afford. Participants who are not affluent have to make a lot of financial sacrifices to stay in the sport.
Most “daredevil” sports also tend to be dominated by men. “Fly” makes it clear that the women who co-star in the documentary were skilled BASE jumpers long before they met their male romantic partners. Forte explains her perspective of being a female in a sport where the majority of participants are male: “I never wanted to be a boy. I just wanted to be able to do what the boys could do.”
If there’s any shortcoming in “Fly,” it’s that the documentary could have had a little more variety by giving more screen time to professional BASE jumpers who aren’t in a committed relationship with a romantic partner. There’s a glimpse of how lonely this life can be, early in the documentary when Morgan says that he’s essentially homeless and sleeping on friends’ couches because he doesn’t see the point of paying rent for a place where he won’t be living for most of the year. Later, after Morgan and Botelho Morgan are married, he says that being married has changed his mind about putting down roots somewhere.
Morgan’s mother Julie Maxwell Morgan says she often gets asked if she’s worried about her son dying while BASE jumping. She says yes, but his happiness is more important to her. “I don’t think Scotty can be happy unless he can fly,” Maxwell Morgan comments. She also says she feels slightly envious that he’s found a passion for something in his life and has accomplished a lot with this passion, which is something that she was never able to do in her own life.
Also featured in the documentary are two scruffy BASE jumpers who are close friends of Pouchert and Marta Empinotti: Jason “Jay Mo” Moledzki is a native Canadian who is a co-founder and creative director of Flight-1, a Florida-based company that teaches canopy flight skills. Ben “Dicko” Dixon is a long-haired Australian native/Utah resident who looks like he could also be a bohemian surfer. Other BASE jumpers in the documentary are shown in fleeting moments, with nothing about their personal lives revealed. The movie has good use of its soundtrack songs, which includes Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” and Avicii’s “The Lights.”
“Fly” is the type of documentary that is as effective as it is because it was filmed over several years. There are moments of exhilaration and moments of agony that will stay with viewers after the movie is over. Regardless of how viewers feel about BASE jumping, “Fly” serves as an example of what it means to take bold and non-traditional risks. These risks in BASE jumping aren’t for everyone, but the risks are ultimately about living life to the fullest and being fortunate to have the privileged freedom to do so.
National Geographic Documentary Films released “Fly” in select U.S. IMAX cinemas for a limited engagement on September 2 and September 3, 2024. The movie will premiere on the National Geographic Channel on September 24, 2024.
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Gary” features a group of white and African American people discussing the life and career of actor Gary Coleman, who died of complications from a head injury in 2010, at the age of 42.
Culture Clash: Coleman rose to massive fame as the star of the sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes,” but his life was plagued by health problems and turmoil in his personal relationships.
Culture Audience: “Gary” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of “Diff’rent Strokes” and are interested in watching documentaries about former child stars.
Shannon Price in “Gary” (Photo courtesy of Peacock/Raw TV Ltd.)
There seems to be a never-ending fascination with stories about former child stars who have tragic outcomes in their lives. “Gary” chronicles one of these stories. This watchable documentary about Gary Coleman doesn’t reveal anything new but it exposes how he had questionable judgment in choosing so-called “close friends” who gained financially from him. The movie needed more investigation about crime allegations. The only people who will be surprised by anything in this documentary are those who are unaware of all the previous media coverage about Coleman’s personal problems and his 2010 death at the age of 42.
The cause of Coleman’s death was a head injury, which happened in his home in Santaquin, Utah. He was taken off life support after being in a coma for two days at a hospital in Provo, Utah. A medical examiner’s report and a police investigation ruled that the cause of Coleman’s death was accidental. His ex-wife Shannon Price, who was still living with Coleman after their divorce, has maintained her story that Coleman’s injury was caused by him falling down the stairs in their home. She says that she was in another room at the time that he fell down the stairs.
Directed by Robin Dashwood, “Gary” has a major advantage that other news reports and documentaries about Coleman don’t have: The “Gary” documentary features interviews with just about everyone who was very close to Coleman in his life, including rare interviews with his parents Willie Coleman and Sue Coleman, who were estranged from Gary for years because of accusations that they stole money from him when they were managing his earnings. Price is also interviewed, as well as some of Gary’s friends and former colleagues. The documentary also has audio and video clips of archival interviews that Gary did.
Dion Mial, a former Michael Jackson impersonator, is the friend who gets the most screen time in the documentary. Mial met Gary when Gary was 10, and Mial was 14. Their friendship lasted for the rest of their lives, even after Gary moved on to a new set of friends when he relocated from California to Utah in the mid-2000s. In the documentary, Mial talks very fondly of Gary and shows how he has kept a lot of Gary’s personal possessions in storage in his garage.
Gary’s former agent Victor Perillo, who represented Gary from 1975 to 1987, is interviewed in the documentary. Perillo, like many others who knew Gary as a child, describe him as unusually mature and funny for his young age. Gary got his first significant break as an actor by starring in a Harris Bank commercial in 1977. It led to guest appearances on sitcoms such as “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times.” And then came his breakthrough starring role on the TV comedy series “Diff’rent Strokes,” which was on the air from 1978 to 1986.
Diff’rent Strokes,” which was created by Jeff Harris and Bernie Kukoff, was about two orphaned brothers in New York City—Arnold Jackson (played by Gary Coleman) and Willis Jackson (played by Todd Bridges)—who are adopted by wealthy businessman Phillip Drummond (played by Conrad Bain), who employed the Jackson brothers’ widowed mother as a housekeeper for many years. The mother of Arnold and Willis had asked on her deathbed for Phillip to adopt her sons. Phillip is a widower whose daughter Kimberly (played by Dana Plato) is raised with Arnold and Willis. (Plato died of a drug overdose in 1999, at the age of 34. Bain died in 2013, at age 89.)
“Diff’rent Strokes” was groundbreaking for being the first primetime American TV series about an interracial adoptive family. (The Jackson brothers were African American, and the Conrads were white.) “Diff’rent Strokes” co-star Bridges and “Diff’rent Strokes” casting director Eve Brandstein, who are interviewed separately in the “Gary” documentary, say that “Diff’rent Strokes” got some complaints and hate mail from white viewers and black viewers who didn’t like seeing this type of interracial family on TV. Coincidentally, Gary (who was born in 1968, in Zion, Illinois) was adopted in real life, but he was not raised with any siblings.
Bridges, who says that Gary was a like a younger brother to him, comments on the accusation that Phillip Drummond was a “white savior” character: “It wasn’t that it was a white savior there. It was just a man trying to save two kids from ending up being on the streets. No matter what the hate mail was on both sides, we knew what we were doing was right. The thing that our show proved was that love conquers all.”
“Diff’rent Strokes” made Gary a huge star around the world. His catch phrase from the show (which he would deliver with a playful pout) was “Whatchu talkin’ about?” It was a line that Gary would come to hate in his adult years because people who met him always expected him to say that line, like a talking puppet.
Gary’s persona of being a “grown man in a little boy’s body” resulted from his kidney disease and medical treatment that stunted his growth (he was only 4’8″ as an adult) and made him have puffy cheeks. His mother Sue explains that Gary was born with a rare kidney disease and had a kidney transplant at the age of 5. The surgery didn’t stop his exuberance and energy level, says Sue: “Two weeks after the surgery, he was standing on his head.”
The immunosuppressant medication that Gary was given after the kidney transplant caused him to have the size of a child throughout his entire life. Gary would have painful dialysis treatments that also affected him. He also lived without any kidneys for the last 25 years of his life. Even with these health issues, Perillo remembers Gary being intensely focused on his work. Perillo says that as a child, Gary would watch episodes of “Diff’rent Strokes” and take notes.
Friends and former colleagues also describe Gary as having a big interest in writing fiction stories, especially about outer space. It was an interest he had from a young age and stayed with him for his entire life. The documentary never explains or mentions why Gary didn’t pursue success as a fiction writer when his career as an actor was on a decline.
Gary’s physical appearance made him famous, but it also prevented him from getting the types of roles he wanted to play, such as action heroes or villains. When he reached his teen years on “Diff’rent Strokes,” the show was still having him do storylines where he had to act like a pre-teen child. Gary openly expressed his frustration at not being able to have his Arnold Jackson character mature as Gary was doing in real life.
But as Gary got older, his ego problems got bigger. Gary became extremely difficult and demanding after becoming famous, according to former “Diff’rent Strokes” hair stylist Joan Stafford-Chaney. She puts it bluntly when talking about Gary’s change in attitude after he became a major star: “He went from being cute to ugly. He picked up all the ugliness from his dad.” Stafford-Chaney says, “Nobody wanted Willie on set because he created havoc.” She describes Willie as a bully who used Gary and Gary’s fame to make outrageous demands.
The documentary has conflicting accounts of how much Gary was pushed into doing work that put his health in jeopardy. Willie Coleman and Perillo both say that Gary was never over-worked. Perillo says that he turned down lucrative offers for Gary because Gary was undergoing dialysis. By contrast, Bridges says he saw many instances where Gary was dangerously pushed to the brink of extreme exhaustion by the people handling his business affairs.
Speaking of Gary’s business affairs, the documentary gives well-known and public details about the legal disputes between Gary and his parents, who still claim they did nothing deliberately wrong in mismanaging his money. In 1987, Gary fired his parents and his entire business team and hired Mial to be his manager. Mial says that Gary also cut himself off from almost all of the showbiz friends that Gary had at the time. The documentary doesn’t mention Gary’s failed and short-lived attempt at becoming a rapper when he and Mial teamed up as a musical duo for a 1987 single called “The Outlaw and the Indian,” which was released on 12″ vinyl and was a big flop.
In 1989, Gary sued his parents and his former business manager Anita DeThomas (who died in 2006) and accused them of stealing money from him. It’s estimated that Gary made about $18 million at the height of his fame, but he didn’t receive the vast majority of the money, which went mostly to people who worked for him, including his parents. The outcome of this lawsuit is mentioned in the documentary. Gary’s parents don’t have much to say about this lawsuit but seem to blame Mial for influencing Gary to turn against his parents. Willie is vehement that he and Sue had Gary’s best interests at heart, and he claims it was other people in Gary’s management team who were the unscrupulous ones.
In the documentary, Mial says Mial was the who was always looking out for Gary’s best interests. Mial claims Gary’s parents not only knew about the embezzlement but he says that Gary’s parents were also willing participants. Mial admits he was inexperienced at the time he became Gary’s manager, but he says that he was one of the few people whom Gary could trust. Years later, Mial stopped being Gary’s manager, but they remained close friends.
Gary is not presented as a saintly victim. He had a nasty temper and could act like an egotistical tyrant, according to what several people say in the documentary. There are also clips of Gary being difficult during interviews when he is asked questions that he doesn’t like. He had a love/hate relationship with his fame as an actor. According to Mial, Gary wanted to quit the entertainment business after “Diff’rent Strokes” ended. And yet, Gary never really permanently left showbiz, even when Gary complained and said he wanted to quit.
The documentary also doesn’t shy away from examples of Gary having a violent side to him. Price (who was married to Gary from 2007 to 2008) and other people in the documentary admit that she and Gary were physically abusive to each other during their relationship. She downplays this violence by describing it as something that can be expected when couples argue. Gary and Price were both arrested in 2009 for domestic violence against each other. The documentary includes photos of their arrest mug shots.
Former “Diff’rent Strokes” hair stylist Stafford-Chaney says Gary once rudely told her that he wanted to slap her, and she stood up for herself and told him she would hit him back in self-defense. Stafford-Chaney says that although Gary found fame and fortune in comedy, “He wasn’t happy.” Mial hints that Gary had a tendency to indulge in self-pity: “He constantly referred to himself as ‘God’s punching bag.'” Mial said at the lowest points of Gary’s life, Gary had suicidal thoughts and depression. However, the documentary also points out that a lot of Gary’s misery came from his own terrible actions and his own bad choices.
As expected, the documentary has a section about Gary’s 1998 arrest in California, for assaulting a fan named Tracy Fields. She asked for his autograph, he refused her request, and when she commented on his “has-been” status, he punched her in the eye. Gary was working as a security guard at the time but was off-duty when the assault happened. Gary pleaded no contest and received a 90-day suspended jail sentence. He was also ordered to pay Fields’ $1,665 hospital bill and to take anger management classes. The late 1990s was also a rough period for Gary financially: In 1999, he filed for bankruptcy.
Price is presented in the documentary as the biggest villain in Gary’s life, because several of his friends and associates believe that she is a greedy gold digger who hasn’t been honest about what caused Gary’s head injury that led to his death. Price met Gary in 2005, when she was an extra on the Utah set of his movie “Church Ball,” released in 2006. She says that Gary immediately flirted with her and asked for her phone number. On their first date, she says she was flattered because he brought her takeout food from Olive Garden, a low-priced Italian restaurant. Soon after making “Church Ball” and getting involved with Price (who was in her late teens at the time), Gary moved permanently to Utah, where he lived with Price.
In the documentary, Price tries to portray herself as someone who was desperate for love because her mother died when she was a child. But several of Gary’s friends and associates say that Price’s main interest in Gary was money that she could get from him. Randy Rester, who was Gary’s Utah attorney, describes the relationship between Gary and Price as “tumultuous” with raging fights and tearful reconciliations. Rester also says that he is sad that Gary never followed through on talking about get a restraining order against Price.
Price explains why she agreed to be interviewed for this documentary: “This is probably the last that I can actually speak truth because I’ve had a lot to absorb over the years.” Price makes a telling comment when she says, “The thing I liked most about Gary was he treated me like a queen.” Nowhere in the documentary does she say that she loved Gary. She also defends her decision to take a selfie photo of herself and Gary while he was in a coma and dying in a hospital bed. This photo ended up being published by a tabloid. Mial says with disgust that Price probably sold the photo to this tabloid.
Brandi Buys, a friend of Gary’s in Utah, says that Gary once commented to her about Price: “All she wants is money.” Shiela Erickson Rolls, Gary’s Utah-based theatrical agent, says that Price was intensely interested in getting Gary to work as much as possible. “The only thing that mattered to Gary was Shannon,” Erickson Rolls adds. The documentary includes footage of Gary and Price arguing about his work and money in an unaired pilot episode of a reality show that the couple wanted to star in together.
Also interviewed in the documentary is Anna Gray, who says she and Gary dated for seven years, beginning in the late 1990s, when he lived in California. Gray says she moved in with Gary about two weeks after meeting him. According to her documentary interview, she and Gary never sexually consummated their non-monogamous relationship because he was self-conscious about some physical issues. Gray says she had planned to move to Utah to be with Gary until she found out that he had fallen in love with Price.
Gray describes the tension she felt the first time she met Price. Gray says she never trusted Price and thinks Gary died under suspicious circumstances. Darren Nord is another person interviewed in the documentary who is identified as Gary’s “friend” who doesn’t like Price, although it’s not mentioned how he met Gary and how long they were friends. Also interviewed is California-based attorney Drew Ryce.
Mial and other friends of Gary say there was “too much blood” at the scene for Gary to have fallen down the stairs. However, the documentary fails to follow up on those suspicions by investigating further. Did the “Gary” documentary filmmakers make any attempt to interview the medical examiner or any of the first responders who were at the injury scene? Were there any measurements taken of the stairs to prove or disprove the theory that a fall down those stairs couldn’t cause the head injury that Gary had? Those questions were never answered in the documentary.
Another flaw in the documentary is some of the timeline editing, which seems a bit jumbled and could have been told in a more cohesive way. Suspicions and online gossip about Price are rushed into the last 15 minutes of the documentary. She still denies having anything to do with causing Gary’s head injury. Price also defends her decision not to follow the 911 operator’s advice to try to stop Gary’s bleeding because Price says she was in shock at the time and wanted to wait until medical professionals arrived.
“Gary” is a letdown as a documentary when it just repeats speculation and innuendo about Gary’s death possibly not being accidental, without revealing any new or helpful information. There is also no information about whether or not Gary wanted or sought out professional help for his mental health issues. However, the documentary’s interviews are compelling to watch, even when some of the people who are interviewed seem to be less than honest and have no self-awareness of how dodgy they look. It’s too bad that Gary Coleman couldn’t be a better judge of character of the people he chose to be close to him.
Viewers watching this documentary will notice how many people in Gary’s life accuse each other of taking advantage of him or not looking out for his best interests. It’s a sad commentary on what type of life he had that the people who claim to be closest to him also have a lot of bitter in-fighting about who really cared about him or not. Some of the “friends” whom Gary let into his life seem more impressed with knowing Gary as a “celebrity” than knowing Gary as a person. The “Gary” documentary can be seen as a cautionary tale that fame isn’t as wonderful as it appears to be, especially when fame robs that person of having healthy and happy relationships.
Culture Representation: Taking place in various places, mostly in the United States, from 1996 to the early days of 2000, the documentary film “Time Bomb Y2K” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans, Latin people and Asians) who are talk about the Y2K computer transition, where computers had to adjust to the years 2000 and beyond.
Culture Clash: Many people had fears that this Y2K computer transition would be disastrous if the problem was not corrected in time.
Culture Audience: “Time Bomb Y2K” will appeal mainly to people who interested in watching archival documentaries that show a chronicle of people’s hopes and fears of the future and computer technology.
A scene from “Time Bomb Y2K” (Photo by RTS/HBO)
“Time Bomb Y2K” isn’t as exciting as the title suggests. “Time Capsule Y2K” is a more accurate title for this all-archival documentary that looks back at the fears and preparations for computer operations transitioning to the year 2000. It’s not a bad movie, but it could’ve been better with hindsight interviews.
Directed by Brian Becker and Marley McDonald, “Time Bomb Y2K” has archival footage from 1996 to the early days of 2000. The movie is formatted like a countdown, with footage shown in chronological order by year, in order to show the growing sense of urgency (and often panic) that computer scientists and other members of the public had about the Y2K transition. Because the outcome of the Y2K transition is already known, there’s not much suspense when watching this documentary, but it’s an interesting study in sociological fears.
In the simplest of terms, for those who don’t know about the Y2K transition: In the mid-1990s, computer scientists and other experts noticed that most computers were not coded to understand years go past 1999. The theory was that on January 1, 2000, computers and computer programs would malfunction or stop working because of this inability to understand a year in the 21st century or beyond. There was an intense rush to have computers and computer programs recoded to be capable of understanding years beyond 1999, in order to prevent any computer-related catastrophes.
The leading expert who warned of the potential Y2K disasters was computer consultant/alarmist Peter de Jager, who is seen in several TV interviews in the documentary’s archival footage. This footage includes a contentious “Crossfire” interview with de Jager, where de Jager gets very defensive and angry when he is accused of unscrupulously profiting from his doomsday predictions. Also prominently featured in the documentary is John Koskinen, who was the leader of the President’s Council on Y2K Conversion.
Bill Clinton (who was president of the United States at the time) and Al Gore (who was vice president of the United States at the time) are seen in multiple segments showing them talking about testing new computer technology in the years leading up to Y2K. There’s some footage from 1996 of Clinton and Gore visiting Freepoint Elementary School in Sacramento, California, and testing what was an early version of webcam technology.
The documentary also has some acknowledgement of Grace Hopper, the U.S. Navy admiral/computer scientist who coined the term “computer bug,” which was literally inspired by an insect bug that accidentally got caught in a computer and caused a malfunction. Famous technology moguls such as Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon) are seen in some interview and news footage, talking about how their companies are preparing for the future.
There’s also a lot of archival interviews and footage of a diverse array of everyday people giving their opinions on Y2K and what they think it means to them. Some of the more memorable comments are from young people who talk about their hopes for the future and what they think computer technology will impact people’s lives. Online chat room existed in 1999, so there’s also some foreshadowing of social media and how it can be addicting.
People who took their Y2K fears to the extreme get a lot of screen time in this documentary. Militia groups and fundamentalists Christians were among the most ardent doomsday preppers who stocked up on food, water, weapons and other survivalist resources. A farmer named Candace Turner talks about selling all of her assets to prepare for Y2K. Also featured is John Trochman, a militia man from Montana who peddled Y2K paranoia.
One of the documentary’s noticeable flaws is that it is very much focused on what was going on in the United States. There is very little screen time given to how people living outside the U.S. reacted to Y2K, even though the Y2K computer problem was said to be one that would be disastrous on a worldwide level. Toward the end of the documentary, there is a montage of what New Year’s Eve celebrations looked like in certain places around the world on December 31, 1999, and what happened when it became January 1, 2000, in those places. And this is not a spoiler alert: Nothing disastrous happened with computers worldwide when the Y2K transition actually happened.
People who will appreciate “Time Bomb Y2K” the most are those who were alive during the Y2K panicking and can remember all the doom and gloom forecasts that predicted apocalyptic-type computer malfunctions if the problem wasn’t fixed in time. It can be argued that the Y2K disaster potential was over-hyped. It can also be argued that the Y2K disaster potential was real but was prevented due to the work of untold numbers of people who toiled diligently behind the scenes. “Time Bomb Y2K” is not the movie that is going to give viewers all the technical data or personal stories about the people who were in the trenches of it all. However, the documentary is a fairly good historical compilation of how the Y2K transition affected people who were mostly in the United States at the time.
HBO and Max premiered “Time Bomb Y2K” on December 30, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Las Vegas, the documentary film “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” (filmed from 2020 to 2021) features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans) who are connected in some way to the Montreal-based live performance company Cirque du Soleil.
Culture Clash: The team behind Cirque du Soleil’s long-running “O” show prepares to make a comeback in Vegas after being shut down for more than a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Culture Audience: “Cirque Du Soleil: Without a Net” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of Cirque du Soleil, acrobatic live performances, and documentaries about how businesses recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.
A scene from “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” (Photo courtesy of Prime Video)
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” is exactly what it appears to be: It’s a feel-good, occasionally dull promotional documentary about Cirque du Soleil’s “O” show return to Las Vegas after the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a few performers get personal profiles. Therefore, som viewers might be bored. This is the type of movie that should be seen on the biggest screen possible or viewers might quickly lose interest. Most of the documentary’s appeal is in the climactic scenes showing the spectacular results of the rehearsal footage that takes up most of the film.
Directed by Dawn Porter, “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” (which was filmed in 2020 and 2021) had its world premiere at the 2022 edition of DOC NYC but wasn’t released until nearly two years later on Prime Video. The movie’s epilogue wasn’t updated and still has wording as if 2023 is in the future. “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” also seems outdated in other areas too. The human stories behind the “O” show comeback hold the movie together when the footage about the show’s technicalities becomes repetitive and not very surprising.
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” begins by explaining that “O” isn’t just the longest-running Cirque du Soleil show, but it’s also the highest-grossing show in live entertainment. Most people who’ve seen “O” probably wouldn’t be able to tell you what the show’s story is about, but they usually rave about the spectacle of it all. There really is no plot to “O,” which has themes of surrealism and romance inspired by water and by European and Eastern cultures.
It’s a performance extravaganza of acrobats, artistic swimmers, trapeze artists, bike riders and dancers doing eye-popping and difficult stunts in an elaborate production set, including a massive stage filled with water. Documentary viewers are told that “O” needs about 2,000 costumes—just to give you an idea of how big the production is. The music of “O” (composed by Benoit Jutras) has a blend of classical Western and world instrumentation.
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” begins in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused shutdowns and quarantines worldwide. As most people know, businesses that require in-person interactions and were deemed “non-essential businesses” were hit the hardest by the pandemic. All of Cirque du Soleil’s shows around the world suddenly came to a halt and were cancelled. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cirque du Soleil (which is headquartered in Montreal) had to lay off more than 90% of its employees. The company also filed for bankruptcy.
Daniel Lamarre, who was Cirque du Soleil’s president/CEO at the time, is seen commenting during the start of these shutdowns: “I never felt in my life we’d have no shows—nothing … For a moment, I thought this was the end.”
It wasn’t the end, of course, but it was a very long hiatus: about 400 days. During this hiatus, many Cirque du Soleil employees had to find other jobs. Some could not return to the company when Las Vegas lifted many quarantine and mask policies, and live shows were allowed to resume. (Lamarre stepped down as Cirque du Soleil’s president/CEO in December 2021, and he was replaced by Stéphane Lefebvre.)
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” shows the preparations made for “O” to resume in Las Vegas, with the re-opening set for August 2021. The “O” performers whose personal lives are featured include:
Amber Basgall, an acrobat who took gymnastics as a child to help cope with her attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Danut Coserat, an artist coach who is a single father to two children.
Emma Garrovillo, an aerialist whose husband Jeffrey Garovillo is a Cirque du Soleil technician.
Rob Knowles, a dancer who fondly remembers his formative years when he and his brother would take dance classes together.
Bill May, an artistic swimmer who hopes to someday compete in the Olympics if or when men are allowed in artistic swimming for the Olympics.
Basgall has the most compelling personal story. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was going through a difficult divorce. She also opens up about how the death of her brother (an Iraq War veteran who died when she was a teenager, after he returned home to the U.S.) has had a profound and lasting effect on her. She will only say that her brother died by gun violence. And during rehearsals, Basgall was dealing with anxiety issues, as well as some friction with her boyfriend Dre Brown.
Also featured in the documentary Cirque du Soleil employees who are not performers, such as senior artistic director Pierre Parisen, human performance manager Dan Niehaus, manager Joe Walsh, director of public relations Ann Paladie, hair/makeup technician Roger Stricker and senior company manager Tony Ricotta. The documentary only shows the personal lives of a select number of performers. And even then, it’s only fleeting, except for Basgall.
Most of the Cirque du Soleil employees who are identified by name in the documentary do not get enough screen time for viewers to find out anything meaningful about them as people. Also shown in “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” are acrobat Pierre Cottin, coach Al Light, carpentry supervisor Steve Dietrich, writer Franco Dragone, coach Kari Kreitzer, artistic director Christina Jones, acrobat Andriy Marchuk, diver Jorge Coseru, acrobat Artur Akhtiamov and coach Didier Antoine.
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” shows the technicalities that go into producing the “O” show, but there’s nothing surprising about the behind-the-scenes preparations. Even the “race against time” to get the show running again in less than a month doesn’t seem too suspenseful. Watching “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” is a perfectly fine way to pass the time for people interested in this subject matter, but this is a very “play it safe” documentary that doesn’t go beyond what you might expect from a corporate-approved movie.
Prime Video premiere “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” on July 25, 2024.
Ivan “Vanya” Beerkus and Angela Nikolau in “Skywalkers: A Love Story” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)
“Skywalkers: A Love Story”
Directed by Jeff Zimbalist
Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of Europe and Asia, from 2015 to 2022, the documentary film “Skywalkers: A Love Story” features a predominantly white group of people (with some Asians) who are connected in some way to Russian daredevil skyscraper climbers Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau.
Culture Clash: Beerkus and Nikolau, who became a couple in real life, have their relatonship and other aspects of their life tested as they increase the stakes of of their skyscraper climbing, also known as rooftopping.
Culture Audience: “Skywalkers” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching a well-edited documentary about daredevil athletes and the complexities of couples who work together.
Angela Nikolau and Ivan “Vanya” Beerkus in “Skywalkers: A Love Story” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)
With stunning cinematography, “Skywalkers: A Love Story” (about rooftopping couple Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau) is an absorbing documentary that shows the parallels between the highs and lows in the couple’s skyscraper stunts and in their relationship. People who get queasy at seeing views from extreme heights, be warned: If you watch this documentary on the biggest screen possible, you might feel uncomfortable or even feel some sort of vertigo. The journey is worth seeing if you have an interest in watching true stories about unconventional people doing extreme stunts.
Directed by Jeff Zimbalist, “Skywalkers: A Love Story” was filmed from 2015 to 2022. The documentary had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Some of the footage was previously filmed archival footage from Russian couple Beerkus (whose nickname is Vanya) and Nikolau, who became a couple because of their shared passion for rooftopping, the daredevil (and often illegal) athletic stunt of climbing to the top of extremely tall buildings or structures without using ropes, nets or other safety measures.
Nikolau and Beerkus give voiceover narration to talk about their personal background, how they met and fell in love, and how they feel when their relationship goes through its ups and downs. The footage that was filmed exclusively for “Skywalkers: A Love Story” features cinematography by Renato Borrayo Serrano. Drones were used for much of the documentary’s exclusive and archival footage. The documentary begins by showing Nikolau and Beerkus attempting to do their most extreme and most dangerous stunt at the time: climbing the Merdeka 118, a skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Merdeka 118 was under construction at the time the couple decided to do this stunt in 2022. With a total height of 2,227 feet (or 678.9 meters), the Merdeka 118 is the second-tallest building in the world. After showing a glimpse of Nikolau and Beerkus starting this stunt, the movie flashes back to the beginning of their love story and shows how their relationship developed and some of their rooftopping stunts in countries such as France, China, and Thailan. “Skywalkers: A Love Story” then circles back to the Merdeka 118 stunt for the documentary’s very dramatic, tension-filled climax.
Nikolau opens up about some childhood turmoil that she experienced that might explain why she chose such an unconventional profession. Her parents, who were circus performers, split up when she was a child because her father abandoned the family. Nikolau says after this breakup, her mother became severely depressed and was unable to be an emotionally present mother. Nikolau was then raised primarily by her grandmother, whom Nikolau decribes as “a caretaker who taught me to be strong.”
Nikolau adds, “For years, I didn’t let myself cry. I didn’t know who I was. I was searching for who I was.” She adds that having a tough exterior helped when she found a passion in rooftopping but got resistance and prejudice from the male-dominated group of rooftoppers who didn’t accept her because they think women can’t be just as skilled as men in rooftopping. Nikolau comments, “I don’t want to prove a woman is strong like a man. We have our own strength in femininity.”
As for Beerkus, his parents remained together, but he says he turned to climbing buldings as an escape from when he would hear his parents arguing. Beerkus (just like Nikolau) describes himself as an eccentric loner. However, he met his match with Nikolau, whom he credits for opening up his mind to being more artful in rooftopping photos and videos. It wasn’t long before Nikolau and Beerkus began collaborating and documenting their work together on social media. The documentary has some scenes of Nikolau interacting with her loving grandmother and Beerkus interacting with his supportive parents.
“Skywalkers: A Love Story” has a disclaimer in the beginning of the movie that says these stunts are illegal and should not be done by the average person. As seen in the documentary, the issue of possibly getting arrested is an essential part of rooftoppers’ planning, since they often have to find ways to avoid security employees and security equipment. The documentary has footage from 2017 of Beerkus and Nikolau getting arrested in Paris for climbing the Eiffel Tower. Beerkus and Nikola spend the night in jail before beng released. It’s mentioned multiple times that other countries have much harsher punishments than France for illegally climbing buildings and other structures.
Even though rooftoppers often trespass or break other laws to get to the top of these structures, they can still make a living from what they do from sponsors who seek out extreme athletes. Such was the case with Beerkus and Nikolau, who were able to make a full-time income from the rooftopping activities. The documentary shows how the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative effect on their income and put a strain on their relationship. A minor flaw of the documentary is that some of the editing of the couple’s arguments is very much like melodramatic reality TV. It doesn’t ruin the tone of the movie, but it’s noticeable.
“Skywalkers: A Love Story” also shows how the physical danger of rooftopping often isn’t as risky or as scary as the psychological or emotional effects of these extreme stunts. One of the people in this daredevil couple starts to have panic attacks and has doubts about staying in the relationship. “Skywalkers: A Love Story” isn’t just about looking about a couple climbing tall structures. The bigger picture is about how trust and honest communication are essential in order for a relationship to stay healthy and survive.
Netflix released “Skywalkers: A Love Story” in select U.S. cinemas on July 12, 2024. The movie premiered on Netflix on July 19, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in various states in the United States, from 2022 to 2023, the documentary film “Majority Rules” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans, Asians, and Native Americans) who discuss voting reforms in the United States.
Culture Clash: The documentary examines what voting and elections look like in states where there is “open voting” that allows all registered voters to vote for whichever candidates they want in primary elections, regardless of party affiliations of the voters and candidates.
Culture Audience: “Majority Rules” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching a documentary that explores ways of voting in primary elections that don’t restrict U.S. voters to only vote for candidates from one party.
Sarah Palin (center) in “Majority Rules” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)
The informative documentary “Majority Rules” is mostly adept at tackling a big issue: voting reforms that don’t restrict voters to choose candidates from only one political party. The movie looks at the pros and cons of this issue. Because “Majority Rules” was filmed in 2022 and 2023, much of what’s in the documentary will inevitably become outdated. However, “Majority Rules” serves as a capable chronicle of this particular time in American history when voter frustrations have led to a growing movement to reform voting laws in the United States.
Directed by AJ Schnack (who also does the documentary’s lively and engaging voiceover narration that he wrote), “Majority Rules” travels to various states to look at this voter reform issue. Case studies are shown or mentioned in Alaska, Nebraska, Maine, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Most of the documentary’s screen time examines Alaska’s 2022 elections for the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, because it was the first year that Alaska implemented a new system of open voting for these primary and general elections.
“Majority Rules” begins with narration from Schnack saying, “A lot of us have had the experience of going to vote and feeling like we have to settle—having to pick the lesser of two evils from either of the two major political parties, fearful that if we chose someone else, we’ll be handing over the election to a candidate we really don’t want.” Schnack uses a restaurant menu as an analogy to explain why he thinks voters are better off when voters are able to have choices from different categories (political parties) instead of being resticted to choose from one category.
At the time this documentary was made, the voting laws in most U.S. states are that the only people who can vote in primary elections are those who are registered for a political party, and they can only vote for candidates in that political party. It’s a system that excludes voters who are not registered with a political party, voters who are registered as independents, and voters who are registered for a party that does not have a candidate on the ballot. The winner of the primary election for that area’s dominant party (Republican or Democrat) is most likely to win in the general election.
As explained in “Majority Rules,” the problem is that the primary elections typically have a low voter turnout (about 8%, on average), which means a very small percentage of voters have a huge influence on which candidates go on to the general elections. It has led to candidates appealing to extreme factions of a political party (also known as a “party base”), since these extremists tend to be the most active in voting during the primaries. Furthermore, this rigid primary system prevents voters from voting across party lines if they think a candidiate from an opposing party is the best person for the job.
In 2022, Alaska passed a law that shook up the way that most other U.S. states vote. First, Alaska allowed “open voting” in primaries that do not segregate voters to only choose candidates from one political party. All voters choose from a ballot that lists all the candidates (regardless of party affiliation) in the primary election, with write-in votes allowed. The top four candidates who get the most votes in this open voting then go on to the general election. If any candidate of the top four candidates drop outs before the general election, that dropout candidate is not replaced.
In the general election in Alaska, voters choose from the eligible candidates through ranked preferential voting, which has each voter ranking the candidates in order of preference, from first choice to last choice. There is no obligation to rank all of the candidates, but voters must choose at least one candidate on the ballot. The winning candidate is the one who gets the majority of votes through ranked preferential voting, which is designed to avoid expensive runoff elections.
This voting reform in Alaska was implemented for the first time 2022. “Majority Rules” follows four elections in Alaska that happened in 2022 with Republican and Democratic candidates:
(1) A special election to replace the deceased Don Young, a Republican who was a longtime U.S. House Representative. Young served in this position from 1973 until his death in March 2022. The top four candidates who got the most votes in the primary election were in descending order:
Sarah Palin, a Republican who is a former Alaska governor and former U.S. vice presidential candidate
Nick Begich, a Republican who comes from an Alaskan political family dynasty of mostly Democrats
Al Gross, an independent candidate who dropped out of the race before the general election
Mary Peltola, a Democrat who had represented the Bethel region in the Alaska State Legislature
(2) A regular election where the winner of the special election finished out Young’s final term and then ran for re-election to keep that seat. This election was a rematch between Peltola, Palin and Begich.
(3) A regular election for U.S. Senate. The “Majority Rules” documentary focuses on two Republican candidates for this election: Lisa Murkowski (the incumbent) and her more right-wing primary election challenger Kelly Tshibaka.
(4) A regular election for Alaska State Senate. Cathy Giessel, a Republican incumbent who lost in a 2020 primary election, is followed in the documentary as she tries to win back her seat from Ron Holland, the Republican candidate who defeated her in the 2020 primary election and went on to win the general election in 2020.
“Majority Rules” features interviews with Peltola, Palin, Begich, Murkowski, Tshibaka and Giessel. People who follow Alaska politics probably know the outcomes of these four elections already. But for viewers who don’t know, “Majority Rules” has a well-edited behind-the-scenes chronicle of each of these candidates’ campaigns. The journey has a few unexpected twists and turns.
Viewers will get a solid sense of each candidate’s personality too. Peltola is soft-spoken, humble and deeply caring about the fishing communities in her district. Palin still uses her famous “mama bear” persona when campaigning. Begich comes across as somewhat entitled to win because he comes from a family of Alaska politicians.
Murkowski is pragmatic about the pros and cons of being perceived as a moderate Republican who is willing to work with Democrats and sometimes vote against the majority of her Republican peers. Tshibaka, a political newcomer who was endorsed by Donald Trump, has less funding than Murkowski, but Tshibaka markets herself to voters as more of a “real” Republican than Murkowski. Giessel is the candidate who shows the most insecurities, since she still seems emotionally hurt that she was voted out of office in 2020.
If “Majority Rules” had focused on just these elections in Alaska, it would have been more than enough for this documentary. However, “Majority Rules” starts to come dangerously close to being scattered and unfocused when it goes off on other tangents to look at voting reforms in other states. The movie admittedly jumps all over the place by going back and forth between telling the story of the 2022 elections in Alaska and what’s going on in other states. As a result, “Majority Rules” becomes a little overstuffed with talking head interviews, many of which are just reduced to short soundbites. The people interviewed range from political professionals to journalists to activist voters to “regular” voters.
In Alaska, the people interviewed include Scott Kendall, a Republican attorney who is the architect of Alaska’s Ballot Measure 2 that led to Alaska’s open voting reform; Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat state senator for Alaska; Alex Ortiz, a former chief of staff for the late congressman Young; Gail Fenumiai, director of Alaska division of elections; and voters Sam Berlin and Rachel Epchook.
In other states, among those interviewed are Stephanie Houghton, managing director of Fair Vote WA; Nathan Leach, executive director of Nonpartisan Nebraska; Rob Sand, state auditor of Democrat Iowa; Sandra Cosgrove, executive director Vote Nevada/history professor; Nevada attorney Bradley Schrager; Emily Persaud Zamora, executive director of Silver State Voices; Nevada lobbyist A’esha Goins; Sol Mora, an Oregon voter reform advocate; Pauline Ng Lee, former president of the Nevada Republican party.
Past and present elected officials who comment on voter reform include Jim Jones, a Republican former Idaho state supreme court chief justice; Butch Offer, a Republican former Idaho governor; Edward Polewarcyzk, a Republican state representative from Maine; Daniel Riemer, a Democratic state representative from Wisconsin; and Ron Tusler, a Republican state representative from Wisconsin.
Journalists interviewed for “Majority Rules” are Nathaniel Herz of the Washington Post, Jessica Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Iris Samuels of the Alaska Daily News, Danielle Allen of the Washington Post, April Corbin Girnus of the Nevada Current, and Liz Riskin and Lori Townsend of Alaska Public Media. Also weighing in with their thoughts are Democratic political consultant David Axelrod are Republican political consultant Mike Murphy.
Interviewees also include Michael Thorning, director of structural democracy at Bipartisan Policy Center; Elaine Kamarck, political scholar/senior fellow at Brooking Institute; Lisa Saywell of Wisconsin Historical Society; John Updyke, president of Open Primaries; Barry Burden, director of Elections Research Center; Jill Douglas of Battle Born Republican Women; Rob Richie, president of Fair Vote; Colin Woodard, author of “American Nations”; philanthropist Katherine Gehl; and voters Gloria Enriquez and Deborah Boykins.
No matter what people think of open voting or other voter reforms, almost everyone agrees that it’s an uphill battle to get states to change their voting laws. The people who want voter reforms say that these reforms will be more inclusive to all voters, not just those who are affiliated with the Democratic Party or Republican Party. The people opposed to these reforms are those who prefer a system where party candidates are rewarded for getting partisan loyalty from voters.
As for ranked preferential voting, it’s even more controversial than open voting. In “Majority Rules,” some people agree with Alaska politician Palin, who complains that preferential ranked voting obliterates the traditional concept of a voter being allowed to vote for only one candidate for an elected position where there can only be one winner for that position for that election. Other people agree with Maine politician Polewarczyk, who says: “We need to go back to plurality voting on everything.” Regardless of how people feel about these political issues, “Majority Rules” gives a clear picture of what some voting alternatives are if U.S. voters feel that the current voting systems in their respective states need to change.
Abramorama released “Majority Rules” in New York City on June 28, 2024, and in Los Angeles on July 12, 2024.
Directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie
Culture Representation: Taking place in the Canadian province of British Columbia (and briefly in Vatican City, Italy), the documentary film “Sugarcane” features a predominantly Indigenous group of people (with some white people) who are connected in some way to the now-defunct, Catholic Church-owned residential schools for Indigenous people in Canada.
Culture Clash: Several former students at these schools tell harrowing stories of experiencing or witnessing abuse, racism and suspected murder, with most victims never getting justice from law enforcement.
Culture Audience: “Sugarcane” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about Indigenous culture that give personal accounts of a shameful period in North American history.
Whitney Spearing and Charlene Belleau in “Sugarcane” (Photo by Emily Kassie/National Geographic Documentary Films)
“Sugarcane” is a personally intimate examination of the abuse and suspected murders in Canada’s Indigenous residential schools. Some of the investigative elements come up short, but this documentary is a powerful testament to survivor resilience. “Sugarcane” also tells a memorable story of how one particular family has been trying to heal from the generational wounds inflicted by abusers and systemic biases.
Directed by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, “Sugarcane” features several members of Julian Brave NoiseCat’s family, including his father Ed Archie NoiseCat; Ed’s mother Kyé7e; and Ed’s aunt Martina Pierre. Julian is also featured prominently in the movie, which includes several poignant scenes of Julian and Ed going on a father-son road trip together. “Sugarcane” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where Kassie and Julian Brave NoiseCat won the Sundance grand jury’s Directing Award for U.S. Documentary. Kassie is also a cinematographer and a producer for “Sugarcane,” which is the feature-film directorial of Julian Brave NoiseCat and Kassie.
“Sugarcane” begins with a memorable image of a statue of the Virgin Mary holding an infant Jesus outside of one of these now-defunct schools. The statue is splattered with an unidentified red substance that looks like blood but could be paint or something else. Whatever the red substance is, this striking image is symbolic of the documentary’s undeniable message: The clergy who operated these schools and committed heinous crimes and/or helped cover up these crimes have blood on their hands and have seriously damaged untold numbers of people.
An introduction caption in Sugarcane” gives a very brief summary of what these schools (which also existed in the United States) were about: “Beginning in 1894, the Canadian government forced Indigenous children to attend segregated boarding schools. The schools were designed to ‘get rid of the Indian problem.’ Most were run by the Catholic Church. For years, students spoke of abuse and whispered about missing classmates.” The documentary includes black-and-white archival footage clips of these residential schools in the 1950s and 1960s.
The main community that is the focus of this documentary is Sugarcane Indian Reserve near Williams Lake in British Columbia. Several of Sugarcane’s residents (including members of the NoiseCat family) were Shuswap tribe members and students at St. Joseph Mission Residential School, which operated from 1891 to 1981. It’s mentioned that at schools like St. Joseph’s Mission, Shuswap students were ordered not to speak Secwépemc, the native language of Shuswap people, and were forced to speak English instead.
The documentary also features three people who are active investigators into the abuse and other crimes committed at St. Joseph’s Mission: Willie Sellars, the chief of the Williams Lake First Nations; investigator Charlene Belleau; and investigator/archaeologist Whitney Spearing. Each investigator has uncovered hundreds of stories of horrific abuse that took place at St. Joseph’s Mission. Most of the abuse victims and perpetrators are now deceased. However, “Sugarcane” has interviews with some of the abuse survivors.
Sellars (who has an upbeat and friendly personality) is more of an “out in the field” investigator, who visits different people in the community in person and attends various events such as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (also known as Orange Shirt Day), a Canadian holiday (held annually on September 30) to recognize the troubled legacy of the Canadian Indian residential school system. There’s a scene where Sellars is one of the people standing next to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who gives a short speech to Williams Lake First Nations people on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Trudeau, who said he was invited by Sellars, essentially says a version of “we’re sorry this happened to you” in his speech and then declares of the long journey to try to make things right: “There’s work to do.”
Belleau and Spearing are more focused on research and records for their investigations. “Sugarcane” has multiple scenes of the two women poring over archives and reading aloud some of the harrowing personal letters from witnesses, as well as newspaper clippings, that detail many of the abuse and other crimes. Belleau and Spearing also decorate the walls with some of these archives and maps of the crime scenes, just a like an investigation room at a police department.
Bealleau, like most of the Indigenous people in the documentary, has a personal and tragic connection to St. Joseph’s Mission: Her uncle committed suicide when he was a student at the school. Bealleau bitterly comments that a coroner didn’t even bother doing a report for her uncle’s death. She says of the attitude that many people in law enforcement had at the time: “It’s just another dead Indian. Who cares?”
Many of the students at St. Joseph’s Mission and similar residential schools died while trying to escape. Others died from torture and other abuse, according to many eyewitness statements uncovered in personal letters and police records. Sexual abuse, usually perpetrated by clergy, was rampant. Girls who got pregnant from rape either had their babies given up for adoption or taken away to be secretly murdered. The school campus and nearby property became a horrific graveyard full of sinister secrets.
“Sugarcane” is not one of those flashy and slick true crime documentaries with quick-cutting editing, actor re-enactments or predictably ominous music. “Sugarcane” deliberately takes its time to introduce the NoiseCat family and slowly unpeels the layers of secrets and trauma in the family. The haunting stories they tell are similar or the same to those of other families with former St. Joseph’s Mission students.
When Julian is first seen on screen in the documentary, he calls to wish his father a happy birthday. He is then seen participating in a traditional pow wow, where he wins in the category of men’s traditional dance. Julian gives a triumphant hug to his grandmother Kyé7e, who has been watching in the audience. It all looks like a happy family at first.
But then, there’s a scene where Julian explains to his father Ed that he wants to know the family’s whole story. Ed, with anguish written all over his face, seems to shut down emotionally and replies, “It’s too damaging.” (Julian’s mother is not seen in the documentary. There’s no explain for why she isn’t in the movie, but it can be assumed she chose not to participate.)
Ed (who was born in 1959) is dealing with his own issues over the family’s history: He is haunted by the stigma and the shame of knowing that when his mother Kyé7e was a student at St. Joseph’s Mission, she gave birth to him and put him in a garbage incinerator. This type of garbage incinerator was believed to have been used to murder an untold number of babies who were born from priests and other clergy raping female students. “Sugarcane” includes a short interview with a witness named Wesley Jackson, who says he was ordered to incinerate the bodies of dead babies on the St. Joseph’s Mission campus.
The trauma that gets passed down through generations is shown in a heart-wrenching scene where Julian confronts Ed about abandonment issues. Ed says that he’s never really gotten over the feeling of knowing that his mother rejected him when he was a newborn, and it led him down a path toward abusing alcohol. Julian brings up how he often felt abandoned by Ed, who was an absentee father for much of Julian’s childhood. The emotions they express are raw and real as they try to come to terms with the knowledge that emotional damage caused by abuse can be inflicted on victims’ loved ones too.
The topic of Ed’s birth is too painful for his mother Kyé7e to discuss on camera. When she does talk about it, it’s on an audio recording. Pierre (Kyé7e’s sister/Ed’s aunt) comments to Ed, “I felt dirty as an Indian, all my life, in a residential school. Residential schools taught us shame and guilt, so your mom’s still carrying that.”
Rick Gilbert, a former chief of the Williams Lake First Nations, was a former St. Joseph’s Mission student who opens up about his own generational trauma. He was born from a rape caused by a priest at the school. And then, Gilbert himself was sexually abused by another priest at the school. Accompanied by his wife Anna Gilbert, Rick tries to find some healing by traveling to Vatican City to hear Pope Francis make a public apology for the Catholic Church failing victims of abuse that was perpetrated by Catholic Church clergy.
Some other St. Joseph’s Mission alumni who are abuse survivors are also interviewed in the documentary, but their comments are fairly short. Many of these survivors say they coped with the emotional pain by abusing alcohol and other drugs. Addiction and self-harm are common results that happen to victims of abuse. The abuse is often even more traumatic when the perpetrators get away with their crimes.
St. Joseph’s Mission abuse survivor Jean William says, “Everything was so secretive … When you’re brought up in an institution like the Catholic Church, there are strict rules … The ones who were telling us it was a sin, they were the ones doing all the [sinful] action.”
Rosalin Sam, another St. Joseph’s Mission abuse survivor, adds: “I was abused by Father Price. No one listened to me.” Sam says that she reported the abuse to several authorities, who did nothing. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told her father, Sam says her father’s response was to beat her up. She then began abusing alcohol shortly afterward.
Ed Archie NoiseCat has an uncomfortable reunion with a former St. Joseph’s Mission student named Laird Archie, who used to bully Ed when they were students at the school. (Ed used to be physically attacked and cruelly taunted by being called Garbage Can Kid.) Archie is remorseful about this bullying and tells Ed that he was going through his own personal problems at the time, including having adopted parents who were abusive alcoholics. Archie also says his adoptive father, who had 11 kids, sexually abused the kids in the family.
In “Sugarcane,” Belleau and Spearing say that only three people were convicted of sex crimes committed at St. Joseph’s Mission, and only one of them is still alive. He’s identified in the movie only as Brother Doughty, but public records show that his full name is Glenn Doughty. Belleau makes an unnannounced call to Doughty that is brief and unproductive. Doughty cuts the conversation short when she mentions the names of certain students at St. Joseph’s Mission.
There’s a scene where Rick Gilbert meets with Louis Lougen, a superior general for the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Lougen is apologetic to Rick Gilbert for the abuse that Rick Gilbert suffered at St. Joseph’s Mission. “I’m so sorry,” Lougen tells Rick Gilbert: “It can’t be justified, but it’s a sickness that grew in the [Catholic] Church.” (Rick Gilbert died in 2023. “Sugarcane” includes a tribute to him in the end credits.)
What “Sugarcane” doesn’t do is question why the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate funded and provided housing for paroled priests and other clergy who were convicted of sexual abuse. Doughty was one of the convicted sex offenders who received these housing privileges and benefits after he was released from prison, according to several news reports. It’s a noticeable part of the “Sugarcane” documentary that doesn’t dig deep enough to investigate the systemic reasons why it’s so hard for these abuse victims to get justice.
Also mostly ignored in the documentary are discussions about the movement for Indigenous victims or their living direct descendants to get reparations for the abuse inflicted at these racist residential schools. Sellars, who is involved in political activism, should have provided some insight and commentary in “Sugarcane” about the reparations issues. If the “Sugarcane” filmmakers asked him about these issues, it didn’t end up in the final cut of the documentary.
“Sugarcane” is not an easy film to watch for anyone who is disturbed by the knowledge of how long and how many people were damaged by these tragic crimes. It’s a searing but necessary reminder that abuse often hides in plain sight and is frequently perpetrated, enabled, and/or covered up by those who are supposed to protect abuse victims. “Sugarcane” not only serves as wake-up call for those who want to look the other way but it’s also a call to action for people in communities to be more vigilant in protecting abuse victims and seeking legal justice, no matter how difficult it all might be.
National Geographic Documentary Films released “Sugarcane” in New York City on August 9, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cities on August 16, 2024.
