Tag: documentaries

Review: ‘Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story,’ starring Metallica, Exodus, Slayer, Testament and Dave Mustaine

April 24, 2020

by Carla Hay

Metallica’s James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett in “Murder In The Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story” (Photo courtesy of MVD Visual)

“Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story”

Directed by Adam Dubin

Culture Representation: This documentary has a predominantly white cast (with some representation of Latinos, Asians, African Americans and Native Americans) of musicians, journalists, fans and other people discussing their memories and experiences of the 1980s thrash metal music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Culture Clash: The people in this music scene had a lot of animosity toward bands and fans of “glam rock” or “hair metal” (such as Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue and Ratt), whom they called “posers,” and would often get violent with these “posers.”

Culture Audience: This well-researched movie will appeal primarily to people who are nostalgic about 1980s heavy metal or people who are curious to learn more about the 1980s metal scene in the San Francisco area.

Exodus with lead singer Paul Baloff (pictured at right) in “Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story” (Photo by Harald Oimoen)

The documentary “Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story” takes a comprehensive and fascinating look at this music scene that began in the early 1980s and peaked in the mid-to-late 1980s, which is the decade that gets the spotlight in this film. Several people who were part of the scene are interviewed in the movie, including members of Metallica, Exodus, Testament, Death Angel and Vio-lence, as well as journalists, fans and other assorted scenesters. Because the movie (directed by Adam Dubin and narrated by Brian Posehn) is heavy on 1980s nostalgia from people who were in their teens and 20s back in the ’80s, expect to see a lot of middle-aged people in the documentary talking about their youth.

Metallica and Exodus are presented as the most influential bands that came from the scene, so their histories get the most screen time in the movie. All four current members of Metallica are interviewed: lead singer/rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich and bassist Robert Trujillo, who is the only member of Metallica who wasn’t in the band in the 1980s. Exodus members who are interviewed are guitarist Gary Holt, former guitarist Rick Hunolt and drummer Tom Hunting.

Hammett was in Exodus before he joined Metallica, who fired guitarist Dave Mustaine in 1983 and replaced him with Hammett before recording the band’s 1983 debut album “Kill ‘Em All.” Mustaine went on to form Megadeth (a Los Angeles-based band) with bassist Dave Ellefson, and they are both interviewed in the documentary.

Exodus didn’t become as famous as Metallica, but Exodus is described as being a San Francisco Bay Area band that stayed true to its thrash-metal roots, since Exodus never recorded any ballads. (Thrash metal is defined as music that’s played louder and faster than regular heavy metal, with lyrics that often express anger and despair.) Another major difference between Exodus and Metallica is that Exodus has disbanded more than once, and the band’s original lead singer died. Exodus vocalist Paul Baloff passed away after having a stroke in 2012. In a touching scene in the documentary, Holt and Hunting are shown visiting Baloff’s grave.

The documentary gets its name from the nonfiction book of the same title written by Harald Oimoen and Brian Lew, who are both interviewed in the film. And the book’s “Murder in the Front Row” title came from a line in the title track of Exodus’ 1985 debut album “Born in Blood,” which was inspired by all the blood and violence that would occur at many of these bands’ nightclub shows.

The targets of this violence were usually “posers”—the derogatory name given to fans of ’80s “glam rock” or “hair metal” bands, such as Poison, Ratt, Motley Crue and Bon Jovi. Several people in the documentary describe how bands and fans of thrash metal would often immediately pick fights with “posers.” And with or without any “posers” around, there would be violence, whether it was getting slammed in mosh pits, throwing glass bottles, getting into fist fights, or destroying walls and furniture.

Baloff was notorious for starting many of these fights, especially when he was on stage. Exodus had a specific posse of fans known as the Slay Team that would be ready to get rough with “posers.” And there was even an underground Slay Team comic book illustrated by Elizabeth “Lizzie” Francois, who was Baloff’s girlfriend at the time. She’s interviewed in this movie, and some of the comic book illustrations are shown.

Even with all of this violence, the people interviewed in the movie look back on what they experienced with a lot of fondness. (“The [mosh] pits were violent as hell. It was glorious,” says Death Angel’s Mark Osegueda.) The violence is described as not so extreme that anyone got murdered at concerts, but there was enough bloodshed and broken bones for it to be dangerous to go to many of these male-dominated shows. Hammett describes how the musicians often dealt with it: “The anger and frustration [were] being channeled into our instruments.”

The trash-metal scene in the San Francisco Bay Area was largely centered in working-class areas of the East Bay, where in the late 1970s and early 1980s, unemployment and crime rates were high. Oakland and Berkeley are the two biggest cities in the East Bay, with Oakland known for its racially diverse mix of people, and Berkeley having an image as a hippie-friendly, liberal college hub. Kids were starting to discover new heavy metal, which was thriving in Europe, by trading tapes and reading about bands in magazines. Kerrang! (a British magazine for heavy metal) had free ads for pen pals, while Metal Mania had gone from being a newsletter to being an underground magazine by 1981.

Hammett remembers that in the mid-to-late 1970s, when he was a teenager in the working-class California suburbs of El Sobrante and Richmond, “We were far away from the city. We were isolated. There was nothing to do.” He adds, “There was something I wasn’t getting enough of until I heard this band called UFO.”

Hammett says he became obsessed with UFO and found other passionate fans of UFO with Lew, Rich Quintana (a journalist and DJ at college radio station KUSF) and Rich Burch, who died of needle-related AIDS in 1993. Exodus guitarist Holt describes Hammett as his musical mentor and “the first guy to play me Uli Roth-era Scorpions.”

Around the same time that the thrash-metal scene was growing in the Bay Area, San Francisco retailer Record Vault (which had a lot of imported music that bigger stores wouldn’t have) and a nightclub in Berkeley called Ruthie’s Inn became important hangouts. Ruthie’s Inn is described as the “epicenter” of the scene, because it’s where all the thrash bands that mattered ended up playing at one time or another.

The owner of Ruthie’s Inn was someone who was not a typical rock promoter—he was an African American named Wes Robinson, who had a background in blues music. Robinson’s daughter Darelle S. Ali explains in the documentary why her late father was so open to booking thrash music at Ruthie’s Inn: “His joy for something led his actions in getting involved with it. He never got involved with something just because he thought he’d be able to get involved with it.”

The history of Metallica has been covered numerous times elsewhere. Therefore, people who are already familiar with the band’s 1980s background won’t find out anything new from watching this documentary. Metallica was originally based in Los Angeles, but original band members Hetfield and Ulrich (a Danish immigrant) said that they didn’t really fit in with the Los Angeles rock scene, which was was mostly about punk acts or “heartthrob” metal bands when Metallica formed in 1981.

Metallica found instant acceptance when the band played in the San Francisco Bay Area. And when Metallica needed a new bassist to replace Ron McGovney in 1982, Metallica recruited Cliff Burton from the band Trauma. Burton only agreed to join Metallica if the band relocated from Los Angeles to his home base of the San Francisco Bay Area. Burton tragically died in a tour-bus accident in 1986, at the age of 24. Corinne Lynn (Burton’s girlfriend at the time) and his father Ray Burton are interviewed in the documentary.

Although the documentary is about the San Francisco Bay Area thrash scene, metal bands from other parts of the U.S. are interviewed in the movie if they were part of Metallica’s and Exodus’ 1980s history and if they had a large fan base in the Bay Area. Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante is interviewed because Anthrax (from New York City) and Metallica were signed to Metal Blade Records early in their careers, and the two bands toured together. Metal Blade was based in Old Bridge, New Jersey, where Metallica stayed when recording “Kill ‘Em All.” While in Old Bridge, Metallica developed a fan base called the Old Bridge Militia, who often partied with the band at a place they named their “Fun House.”

Slayer, a Los Angeles-based band, is also featured in the documentary, because Exodus guitarist Holt ended up joining the Slayer in 2011 and was in the group until Slayer disbanded in 2019. Slayer’s longtime drummer Dave Lombardo says of the Bay Area thrash scene in the 1980s: “We felt at home there” because Los Angeles was saturated with glam rock at the time.

Slayer guitarist Kerry King adds, “The Bay Area crowds were far more advanced” than the audiences in Southern California. Slayer lead singer/bassist Tom Araya sheepishly remembers how Slayer used to be a band that wore heavy eyeliner makeup, until thrash musicians in the Bay Area convinced them to stop wearing makeup before Slayer played at Ruthie’s Inn. It was a pivotal show because it was the first one that Slayer did without makeup.

Several people in the documentary also talk about the wild parties that were part of the scene. The so-called Metallica Mansion or MetalliMansion (a modest house in El Cerrito) was a big party hangout, although members of Exodus say that Metallica was hardly there because the band was usually away on tour. Hetfield describes it as a “total bachelor pad” where no area was safe from some of the mayhem that could take place there.

On a more sobering note, Hetfield also remembers famous San Francisco music promoter Bill Graham lecturing him early in Metallica’s career about the band’s wild ways, which included trashing dressing rooms. (Graham died in a helicopter crash in 1991.) Hetfield says that the talk had a big impact on him, because Graham said he had a similar talk with Keith Moon (The Who drummer) and Sid Vicious (of Sex Pistols fame), who both died of drug overdoses in the late 1970s.

Hetfield says that he was so remorseful about the violent damage in the dressing room that he offered to pay for the cost. But he noticed that the next time Metallica played a Bill Graham show, the entire dressing room was covered with plastic protectors. Metallica’s performance at the 1985 Day on the Green festival in Oakland (a Bill Graham Presents show) is mentioned as a major turning point for the band’s increasing popularity.

A counterpoint to Day on the Green was Day in the Dirt, a thrash-metal festival in Berkeley that was promoted by Ruthie’s Inn owner Robinson. The first Day in the Dirt in 1984 had a lineup that included Slayer, Exodus, Suicidal Tendencies and Possessed. Speaking of Possessed, bass player Larry LaLonde (who was an underage teen in high school when he joined the band and would later find fame as a member of Primus) says that most of the satanic imagery by the thrash bands back then was just created to get attention and that none of the band members took it seriously.

The late Debbie Abono, who used to be the manager of Possessed and Exodus, is fondly remembered by several people in the documentary. Metallica’s Hetfield says that she was Metallica’s “metal mom” and that her house in Pinole “was always a safe place,” even though her daughter Julie Ebding laughs when she remembers some of the crazy things she would have to walk over in the house when she had to go to school in the morning.  LaLonde gives a lot of credit to Abono for his early music career, and he mentions that she paid for the guitar lessons that LaLonde got from Joe Satriani. Abono’s daughter Nancy Labowitz and Rick Nelson-Abono are also interviewed in the documentary.

Other people interviewed in the movie include Chuck Billy and Alex Skolnick of Testament; Phil Demmell and Robb Flynn of Vio-lence; Metallica fan club leader K.J. Doughton; Metal Blade Records co-founder Brian Slagel; Metallica road crew member John Marshall; Bay Area scenester Sven Soderlund; former Faith No More guitarist Jim Martin, who was in EZ-Street, Cliff Burton’s first band; Mark Menghi of Metal Allegiance; Toni Isabella of Bill Graham Presents; music journalists Alex Gernand, Steffan Chirazi and Joel Selvin; and fans Connie Taylor and Pam Behrhorst, who remember racking up expenses on Metallica’s checking account, and Taylor’s parents paying the cost to replace the money before the band found out.

Despite this long list of people interviewed in the movie, “Murder in the Front Row” doesn’t feel overstuffed with talking heads. That’s because this well-edited film keeps things lively with great stories and a treasure trove of archival concert footage and photos. People who despise heavy metal probably won’t enjoy this movie. But for everyone else, it’s a fun ride back to an era when musicians and fans were allowed to be a lot more hedonistic, and heavy metal was celebrated a lot more than it is now.

MVD Visual released “Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Trash Metal Story” on digital, VOD and DVD on April 24, 2020. The DVD has an extra 90 minutes of bonus footage.

Review: ‘This Is Stand-Up,’ starring Jerry Seinfeld, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart, Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Sebastian Maniscalco and D.L. Hughley

April 13, 2020

by Carla Hay

D.L. Hughley in “This Is Stand-Up” (Photo courtesy of Comedy Central)

“This Is Stand-Up”

Directed by Paul Toogood and Lloyd Stanton

Culture Representation: This documentary is a compilation of interviews, performances and off-stage footage of a racially diverse group (white, African American, Latino and Asian) of well-known, mostly American stand-up comedians.

Culture Clash: The general consensus in the documentary is that being a professional stand-up comedian goes against what most people consider as having a “normal life.”

Culture Audience: “This Is Stand-Up” will appeal primarily to people who are stand-up comedy fans, even though the documentary ignores many problems (such as sexism, joke stealing and monetary rip-offs) in the business side of stand-up comedy.

Garry Shandling in “This Is Stand-Up” (Photo courtesy of Comedy Central)

“This Is Stand-Up” is kind of like the documentary equivalent of speed-dating. The movie packs in many famous stand-up comedians, who deliver a lot of personality soundbites, but ultimately there’s not a lot of depth or anything new that’s revealed for people who already know about the stand-up comedy world. Although a few of the comedians talk about their personal struggles, most just share anecdotes and advice, and the documentary doesn’t acknowledge the sexist and cutthroat side of the business.

Filmed over five years, “This Is Stand-Up” (directed by Paul Toogood and Lloyd Stanton) has a “who’s who” of stand-up comedians (almost all American) who are interviewed in the documentary. They include Judd Apatow, David A. Arnold, Dave Attell, Maria Bamford, Bill Bellamy, Gina Brillon, Cocoa Brown, Cedric The Entertainer, Tommy Davidson, Mike Epps, Jamie Foxx, Gilbert Gottfried, Eddie Griffin, Tiffany Haddish, Kevin Hart, D. L. Hughley, Mia Jackson, Jim Jefferies, Jessica Kirson, Bert Kreischer, Bobby Lee, Carol Leifer, George Lopez, Sebastian Maniscalco, Jay Mohr, Jim Norton, Rick Overton, Paul Provenza, Chris Rock, Bob Saget, Amy Schumer, Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Sarah Silverman, Owen Smith, Kira Soltanovich, Beth Stelling, Taylor Tomlinson, Theo Von and Keenen Ivory Wayans. (Noticeably missing: Dave Chappelle.)

Toogood and Lloyd are Brits who previously directed the documentary “Dying Laughing,” which had a limited theatrical release in 2017. “Dying Laughing” was an interview-only film about stand-up comedians, and featured many of the same people as in “This Is Stand-Up,” such as Seinfeld, Hart, Silverman, Rock, Shandling, Schumer and Cedric The Entertainer. “Dying Laughing” also had more international representation, since it included comedians from Canada (such as Russell Peters), the United Kingdom (Billy Connolly) and Australia (Jim Jeffries).  In “This Is Stand-Up,” Jeffries is the only non-American comedian interviewed in the movie. British comedian Ricky Gervais is shown as a guest on Norton’s SiriusXM radio show, but he’s not interviewed specifically for this movie.

Although it’s important for the documentary to include on-stage footage of the comedians, the best parts of the movie are when the comedians are shown off-stage. Stand-up comedy routines on stage can easily be accessed on the Internet, so “This Is Stand-Up” shines when it has exclusive footage of what the comedians are like in their homes or backstage. Mohr, Tomlinson and Kresicher are among those interviewed in their homes, while some of the memorable tour footage includes Maniscalco and  the “Kings of Comedy” team of Hughley, Lopez, Cedric The Entertainer and Eddie Griffin.

“This Is Stand-Up” is also a good introduction to hear some origin stories from famous comedians if you’ve never heard before how they got interested in doing stand-up comedy. (Die-hard fans of these comedians probably know these stories already, but the documentary assumes not everyone will know about these comedians’ backgrounds.) Silverman says, “When I was 3 years old, my dad taught me to swear, and he thought that was hilarious. I got crazy with power over that. I got addicted to that feeling.”

Schumer says her first introduction to performing in front of an audience and getting laughs was when she was in school plays—but she was getting laughed at for the wrong reasons. It made her angry until a teacher pointed out to her that people laughing at her performance is a good thing because laughter makes people happy.

Foxx remembers being the type of kid who was always mouthing off in class. Instead of sending him to the principal’s office, one of his teachers set aside time in class for Foxx to tell stories. According to Foxx, it was such a hit that other teachers would visit the classroom to watch him perform.

Maniscalco says that he was the opposite of the class clown. He describes himself as a shy and quiet kid who preferred to observe people. And for Rock, his first inclination to perform on stage was inspired by his grandfather, who was a reverend for their family’s church. Rock says that he saw how his grandfather was the center of attention, and it was the kind of attention that Rock wanted too.

In fact, almost all of the comedians in the documentary say in one way or another that being the center of attention is their main motivation for doing stand-up comedy, despite it being a very emotionally demanding way to make a living. Lopez comments, “What I like about comedy is that it’s given me a great life. And now, I know I’m important.”

However, it’s not a revelation that comedians are very insecure in their real lives. Most have openly admitted to being insecure and/or emotionally damaged. And many have even used their insecurities as the basis of their on-stage personas. It’s also clear from watching this documentary that most of the comedians use comedy as a way to fill a deep emotional void to make themselves feel wanted in this world.

Von (who first came to national prominence in the 2000s as a star of the MTV reality show “Road Rules”) is one of the comedians in the documentary who is followed on tour, instead of just doing an in-studio interview. He talks about his financially deprived background and unhappy childhood, which are the foundation for much of the material in his stand-up act. But he also opens up by saying that part of his motivation for doing stand-up comedy is so his mother will approve, since he says he’s never seen her laugh.

The problem with how the filmmakers deal with these stories and anecdotes is that there’s no outside verification. The documentary does not interview anyone who knew these comedians “way back when” or even people who helped give these comedians their big breaks. Everything in the film exists in the vacuum of what the comedians want to say, without including hardly any other perspectives.

One of the exceptions is when the documentary goes to the home of Kreischer and shows some of his life with his wife and two young daughters, who are all interviewed on camera. He gets visibly uncomfortable when his daughters admit that they don’t like it when he’s away on tour. Family members of the other comedians are not interviewed in this documentary.

The nature of stand-up comedy is for comedians to often exaggerate about their lives in order to be funny. “This Is Stand-Up” takes everything that these comedians say at face value and doesn’t dig much deeper. For example, several of the comedians, such as Hart and Bellamy, talk about the importance for comedians to find their unique voices and identities, but the movie doesn’t give examples of how these comedians have evolved.

Hart says, “It takes a little time to develop who you are or who you want to be. I was definitely guilty of that in the beginning of my career. I didn’t have a voice. I didn’t know I could be myself.” That’s all well and good, but if we’re being honest, that’s pretty generic and vague advice.

The comedians talk a lot about how honing the craft of stand-up comedy involves a lot of practice at open-mic nights for little to no money. And getting to the level of headlining a show can sometimes take years. Comedians such as Seinfeld don’t believe there should be any shortcuts to stand-up comedy fame—people have to pay their dues on stage in front of live audiences, not in front of a mirror or on a YouTube channel.

There’s also an entire segment of the documentary devoted to how to deal with heckling and bombing on stage. Shandling talks about once being so paralyzed with humiliation after bombing from a show that he stayed in a car and couldn’t move for about 15 minutes. Rock’s advice for comedians is to resist the inclination to talk faster when being heckled and instead to slow down and take back control.

However, there’s no mention in the documentary about all the sleazy things that comedians encounter on the way to the top—the rip-offs, the unscrupulous managers/agents, or even the difficulty in getting managers or agents in the first place. And because there’s a limited number of comedy clubs in any given big city, it’s a very insular network where the venue owners and concert promoters have a lot of control.

The documentary includes a diverse mix of comedians, yet doesn’t mention a big problem in stand-up comedy: sexism against women. And the movie has an unrealistic portrayal of stand-up comedians as this “we all support each other” community. (The movie uses “The Kings of Comedy” tour as an example.)

Although there can sometimes be camaraderie among comedians, the reality is that stand-up comedy is and can be very cutthroat. This documentary doesn’t even mention the widespread problem of comedians stealing each other’s jokes. And this documentary completely ignores the bitter rivalries that happen in stand-up comedy.

Seinfeld, one of the highest-paid stand-up comedians of all time, echoes what many of the comedians say in the film: Preparing a stand-up comedy show is a lot harder than people think it is. He says, “I adore the rigorous difficulty of creating and preparing a joke.”

He also says that there are four levels of comedy: (1) Making your friends laugh; (2) Making strangers laugh; (3) Making strangers laugh and getting paid for it; and (4) Making strangers laugh, getting paid for it, and then having them talk like you after seeing your show.

The documentary also covers the issues of social commentary in stand-up comedy and “how far is too far.” When asked if any topic is off-limits in stand-up comedy, there’s a montage of comedians who say “no.” Hughley says, “I’ll never apologize for telling a joke.”

Griffin adds, “It’s always comedy’s job to speak knowledge to power about what people are upset about, because comedy has always been about the people.” He compares stand-up comedians to being the modern equivalents of court jesters.

Silverman (who’s no stranger to controversy) comments on how smartphones and social media have impacted stand-up comedy: “It’s especially daunting now, because people are recording with their stupid phones and posting stuff. There’s more at stake to failing than just in the safe walls of a comedy club. That said, you have to not care.”

Although “This Is Stand-Up” fails to address the predatory side of the business (maybe that’s why managers, agents, promoters and venue owners weren’t interviewed), at least the documentary does include the reality that stand-up comedy takes a toll on comedians’ personal lives. Depression, divorce and substance abuse are common with stand-up comedians, as these problems are in many professions that require frequent traveling. But they’re especially toxic for comedians, who are more inclined to be insecure than most other people.

Brillon comments on what stand-up comedians experience in their personal lives: “Relationships suffer—not just romantic relationships, but family relationships, because stand-up becomes the longest relationship in your life—and the most abusive. And you still love it and go back to it.”

Mohr, who’s been very open about his struggles with mental illness and drug addiction, says that for him, stand-up comedy is his greatest love and biggest addiction. Even if he wanted to stop, he says, he’s compelled to keep going: “To be a stand-up comic, you have to be completely unreasonable, unwell and unhinged.”

Haddish explains why stand-up comedians are driven to do what they do: “When you’re on stage, it’s like being next to God … Comedy is the most fantastic medicine you can imagine, not just for the audience, but for the comedian.”

“This Is Stand-Up” might not be very revealing about a lot of showbiz realities, since documentaries and biographies about several famous comedians have already uncovered the dark sides to stand-up comedy. This documentary is, as Toogood describes it in a Comedy Central press release, “a love letter” to stand-up comedians—at least the ones who are famous enough to be in this film. If you want some in-depth insight into on all the sleaze and heartaches these comedians had to go through to get to where they are now, then you’ll have to look elsewhere for those real stories.

Comedy Central premiered “This Is Stand-Up” on April 12, 2020.

Review: ‘Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert,’ starring Paul Tollett, Raymond Roker, Dani Lindstrom, Stacey Vee, Perry Farrell, Ice Cube and Diplo

April 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

Beyoncé in “Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert” (Photo courtesy of YouTube Originals)

“Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert” 

Directed by Chris Perkel

Culture Representation: This official documentary about the first 20 years of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (an annual event in Indio, California) includes interviews with a racially diverse group of Coachella employees, artists and other associates.

Culture Clash: Coachella was a money-losing festival in its first few years and has grown into a major money-making event in pop culture, even though some critics believe Coachella has become too trendy and high-priced.

Culture Audience: “Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert” will primarily appeal to music fans and people who want to learn more about Goldenvoice, the concert-promotion company behind Coachella.

The hologram of Tupac Shakur in “Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert” (Photo courtesy of YouTube Originals)

If you’re looking for shocking behind-the-scenes stories in the documentary “Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert,” then you’ll probably be disappointed. But this feel-good movie, directed by Chris Perkel, is a traditionally made chronicle of one the world’s most famous music festivals. The reason for this family-friendly portrayal of Coachella’s history (besides the fact that it’s available for free viewing on YouTube) is because Goldenvoice, the Los Angeles concert-promotion company behind Coachella, is one of the production companies that made this movie. In other words, this is not really an investigative documentary as much as it is a feature-length promotional video for Coachella.

Although some people in the movie talk about the festival’s early problems, there is absolutely no criticism of Coachella. Pretty much everyone who’s interviewed in the film gives praise to Coachella is some way. The movie’s biggest strengths are the musical performances that are in the film, as well as some interesting tidbits of information that aren’t very surprising, since most of the information in the movie has already been revealed in previous media coverage of Coachella.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, like most pop-culture phenomena, didn’t start out as something that people immediately thought would be a hit. The festival was launched in 1999, the same year that large-scale music festivals got a very bad name because of the disastrous Woodstock ’99 Festival, which ended with riots, arson, assaults and thefts. The first Coachella, which took place in October 1999, was announced the Monday after Woodstock ’99 (which took place in August in upstate New York) got a lot of backlash for ending in such a catastrophe. And the site for Coachella was an unorthodox risk—the Empire Polo Club in the desert city of Indio, California, which is about 128 miles east of Los Angeles.

According to Goldenvoice president/Coachella co-founder Paul Tollett (the person with the most screen time in the movie), Coachella had two things going for it that most other large-scale music festivals did not: The promise of a laid-back California vibe and California’s sunny weather, which made the chances very slim that Coachella would be plagued by the kind of rain that often wreaks havoc on festivals that are east of California.

Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC) founder Pasquale Rotella, who says his business models for EDC and his other festivals were heavily influenced by Coachella, had this to say: “Some people who see Coachella now think, ‘Oh, that’s a no-brainer.’ Coachella is beautiful now [but] it was difficult. It took the concert promoter Goldenvoice several years to make it happen. And if it wasn’t for Goldenvoice’s roots, I don’t think Coachella would be what it is today.

“Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert” is divided into five chapters, with two chapters focused on specific music genres: “Chapter One: Origins,” “Chapter Two: The Early Years”; “Chapter Three: The Rise of Robots” (focusing on electronic dance music); “Chapter Four: The New Beats” (focusing on hip-hop); and “Chapter Five: The Next Generation.”

“Chapter One: Origins” has the history of the early years of Goldenvoice, which Gary Tovar launched in 1981 as an independent concert-promotion company whose specialty was booking punk and alternative rock bands at small venues in the Los Angeles area. Tovar says in the documentary: “When I started doing concerts, the punk rock that I did was too wild for some people.” Slamdancing and violence were very common at these shows, so many venues were reluctant to have shows that Goldenvoice was promoting.

By the mid-1980s, Goldenvoice’s influence grew to booking larger venues and helped launch the careers of acts such as Jane’s Addiction, Fishbone and Red Hot Chili Peppers. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, many of those acts had outgrown Goldenvoice, which was still mainly booking nightclubs and small theaters. But the relationships that Goldenvoice had with these artists were the foundation of what would become Coachella.

Tollett got his start booking ska shows in Pomona, California, in the mid-1980s. When he first met Goldenvoice’s Tovar, he thought Tovar would be an unfriendly rival, but “We hit it off instantly,” Tollett remembers. Later, “He gave me a box of flyers to pass out, and that was the first day that I worked at Goldenvoice.”

Dani Lindstrom, a longtime Goldenvoice employee, remembers that back in the late 1980s, the Goldenvoice office, which was located at the time above The Palladium, was “basically about five people booking shows.” Tollett adds that in the early 1990s, it looked like Goldenvoice was doing well, but the reality was that company was struggling financially.

And then, Goldenvoice experienced a major blow when Tovar was busted for what he describes in the documentary as his “side business”—smuggling and selling marijuana. In 1991, he was arrested and later sentenced to seven years in prison. The scandal effectively ended Tovar’s career as a concert promoter, but he refused to let Goldenvoice go bankrupt while he was in prison. Tovar sold the company to Goldenvoice employees Tollett and Rick Van Santen, who became presidents of the company.

The documentary names two events that also planted the seeds of Coachella. First, during Pearl Jam’s feud with Ticketmaster in 1993, the band was looking to do a gig in Southern California at a venue that wasn’t associated with Ticketmaster. Goldenvoice stepped in and booked Pearl Jam at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio. The concert was a sold-out success (25,000 people attended), and it put the concert industry on notice that a show of this size could be done without Ticketmaster.

The other important event that helped give birth to Coachella was Goldenvoice’s involvement in the Organic Festival for rave music. After bands like Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine became too big to book for Goldenvoice in the 1990s, Tollett says that the company began to focus more on booking rave acts. The concept of Coachella was for it to be a combination of a big rock festival and a rave party.

Moby, one of the performers at the first Coachella, says that he was one of the people who thought that bringing a “European-style festival to the U.S.” was an interesting idea, but at the time, he wasn’t sure if it was going to work in the California desert. Meanwhile, sound engineer Dave Rat of Rat Sound admits that he was one of many people who thought even the name Coachella was a bad idea at the time.

The documentary portrays Coachella as a groundbreaking large-scale U.S. music and arts festival for alternative rock and other artists whose careers were helped by college radio, but the movie doesn’t properly acknowledge that Lollapalooza had the same concept and did it years before Coachella existed. Lollapolooza was a touring festival that began in 1991 and continued to 1997, and was resurrected in 2003. Lollapalooza was then revived in 2005 as a non-touring festival, with the U.S. edition taking place in Chicago. It’s obvious from the timeline of when Lollapalooza was on hiatus that Coachella was created to fill the void left by Lollapaolooza.

Jane’s Addiction lead singer Perry Farrell, who co-founded Lollapalooza and performed as a solo artist at the first Coachella, is interviewed in the documentary. As influential as Lollapalooza was in the 1990s, even Farrell acknowledges that Coachella has a much higher profile in the consciousness of the media and pop culture: “You’re going to be judged, man, when you hit the Coachella stage, and it’s going to be talked about for the rest of the year.”

“Chapter Two: The Early Years” is one of the more fascinating parts of the documentary because it covers the years that didn’t get the level of media attention that Coachella does now. The headliners at the first Coachella Festival (which was only a two-day event back then) included Beck, Morrissey (footage of his performance is in the documentary), Rage Against the Machine, the Chemical Brothers, Tool, Farrell and Ben Harper.

Tollett says that Coachella was such a financial disaster in its first year (he estimates the festival lost between $850,000 to $1 million) that he had his bank card taken away and “I got kicked out of a bank.” He adds that Coachella was able to continue because of Goldenvoice’s good relationships with people in the music industry. “The only reason why we were able to keep going was because we had a good reputation,” he says, adding that people such as Lollapalooza co-founders Don Muller and Marc Geiger lent money to Goldenvoice.

The financial losses of the first Coachella caused the festival to go on hiatus in 2000. But then, the financial fortunes of Goldenvoice changed in 2001, when the company was bought by AEG Live (now called AEG Presents) for about $7 million. Goldenvoice then became part of the AEG subsidiary Concerts West, with Tollett and Van Santen retaining their presidential roles at Goldenvoice. AEG had recently constructed the Staples Center arena and wanted to have a major festival as part of its portfolio, so the company gave the go-ahead for Goldenvoice to revive Coachella. And the rest is history.

The documentary then goes over some of the biggest highlights in those early Coachella years. In 2001, there was the reunion of Jane’s Addiction, which Tollett says largely happened because Van Santen convinced the band to get back together. But the festival had a serious garbage-disposal problem that year because, as Tollett says, they didn’t have enough trash cans on the site.

However, the reunion of Jane’s Addiction at Coachella set a precedent for Coachella being a leading festival for bands to stage reunions. Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA says in the documentary that seeing Rage Against the Machine’s 2007 reunion performance at Coachella was when he knew that Wu-Tang Clan would eventually do a reunion show at Coachella, which happened in 2013. Other artists who have done reunion performances at Coachella include N.W.A., Pixies, Guns N’Roses and OutKast.

Coachella in 2002 was “the first year we didn’t make a mistake,” Tollett says. That year, Björk became the first female artist to headline at Coachella. Goldenvoice employee Stacey Vee remembers that the early 2000s were a great time for alternative rock bands, and that only helped Coachella. The documentary includes footage of 2003 headliners the White Stripes.

The year 2004 was the first time that Coachella made a profit, according to Tollett. Radiohead, Pixies and Kraftwerk were among the headliners. In 2005, there was another big alt-rock reunion: Bauhaus, which included lead singer Peter Murphy entering the stage hanging upside down like a bat for the song “Bela Legosi’s Dead.” The movie has footage of this performance. The documentary includes interviews with Bauhaus members Murphy (in an audio interview), Daniel Ash and David J, who remembers that Bauhaus wanted to release live bats during the band’s performance but couldn’t because it was illegal.

It was in the mid-2000s that Coachella became a very hot ticket. Coachella culinary director Nic Adler remembers in the first few years of Coachella, Goldenvoice was literally giving away tickets to him and his co-workers to attend. By the sixth or seventh year of Coachella, he says, those free tickets stopped. “There was that switch in the festival where you literally saw it was something you had to do, something you had to be at,” Adler comments.

Coachella in 2006 was most memorable for Madonna’s performance, which was booked on such relatively short notice that she couldn’t perform on the already-booked main stage. Instead, she performed in the tent for electronic dance music (EDM) artists. The documentary includes footage of Madonna performing “Hung Up” in the tent. Madonna was the first superstar to perform at Coachella, according to Goldenvoice’s Raymond Roker, the former editor-in-chief/publisher of URB magazine.

However, Madonna at Coachella didn’t happen without some criticism, as some of Coachella’s early fans thought that the festival wasn’t supposed to be for major pop acts. But at this point, so many Hollywood celebrities were flocking to Coachella, that it was inevitable that the festival would start having artists with more mainstream appeal. The documentary has some backstage footage from the 2007 Coachella that briefly shows actor Danny DeVito posing for a picture with singer Amy Winehouse—that pretty much says it all. Hollywood actress Rosanna Arquette, who did backstage interviews for Coachella for several years, says in the documentary: “It was the most favorite job I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Chapter Three: The Rise of Robots” covers the importance of Coachella to EDM acts. While many festivals in the 2000s were afraid to have a rave-style atmosphere, Coachella embraced it and helped boost the careers of many EDM acts. Coachella also helped usher in the era of DJs and other EDM artists staging big productions for their shows, with elaborate lighting and stunning visuals.

Two EDM performances at Coachella are singled out as major milestones: Daft Punk in 2006 (when the group performed a very “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”-inspired outer-space-themed set) and Tiësto in 2010, when he became the first EDM artist to perform on Coachella’s main stage. Steve Aoki raves about Daft Punk’s 2006 Coachella performance: “It changed people’s lives, including mine, forever.” Jason Bentley adds, “Nothing was the same after that performance.”

This chapter also mentions that Coachella influenced how EDM acts began to have more high-tech productions. Paul van Dyk says, “I’m not scared of technology. It’s something I use as a tool.” Tiësto says that the rise of EDM also coincided with the rise of social media: “Social media made a big difference. As soon as Facebook and Instagram blew up, EDM blew up. For years [EDM music] was held down by the people who controlled the [mainstream] media.”

But EDM at Coachella isn’t just about elaborate light shows or movie-quality images on big screens. Also included in this chapter are commentaries from actor Idris Elba (who moonlights as a DJ) and Nina Kraviz, who praise the low-tech vibe of Coachella’s Yuma Stage, which doesn’t have any big screens. Meanwhile, Diplo says that even though headlining sets happen at night, “Sunset is the best time to play Coachella.”

“Chapter Four: The New Beats” covers the evolution of rap and hip-hop at Coachella. Goldenvoice’s Roker notes that in Coachella’s early years, the rap acts booked at the festival tended to be those that were played on college radio and had a largely white fan base. (Jurassic 5 is named as one example.) Roker says, “It took a while for the culture to merge.”

Coachella went from booking mostly independent rap acts to acts that had major crossover success on the pop charts. Kanye West (who showed up 20 minutes late for his first Coachella performance in 2006) is cited as one of the first major crossover rap acts to perform at Coachella. Jay-Z had the biggest breakthrough as the first rap act to headline at Coachella, which he did in 2010.

According to Tollett, Jay-Z was selected for the headlining spot after Goldenvoice promoters saw him perform as a replacement for headliner the Beastie Boys at the 2009 All Points West Festival, which was also a Goldenvoice show. When Jay-Z opened the show with the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” (a rap song with a rock beat), the people at Goldenvoice knew that he could do a show that could appeal to Coachella’s audience, which consisted of mostly rock fans at the time.

As the 2010s became the decade that rap and hip-hop began to have more of a presence at Coachella, so too did social media. It was in this decade that Instagram became the main social-media platform for Coachella attendees to document their experiences and fashion choices. In 2011, YouTube began livestreaming Coachella for the first time.

By 2012, Coachella had become so popular (with the event usually selling out the first day it went on sale) that Goldenvoice did something that was truly groundbreaking at the time: Coachella was extended for a second weekend, with the same acts performing in the same time slots for each weekend. Tollett says that there were many naysayers to this idea at the time, but it turned out to be a major success and catapulted Coachella to become the world’s top-grossing festival, in terms of ticket sales. Although attendance numbers and ticket sales were not mentioned in the documentary, in 2017 (the last year that Coachella publicly reported this information), Coachella was attended by 250,000 people and grossed $114.6 million.

The year 2012 was also a milestone year for Coachella because it featured what Tollett calls “The single most popular thing that ever happened at Coachella.” During Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s performance at Coachella’s first weekend, a surprise hologram of the late Tupac Shakur appeared on stage and performed. The hologram made news worldwide and became a massive sensation on the Internet.

Dylan Brown, who created the hologram, explains in the documentary how precise the movements had to be, even down to raising an eyebrow on the hologram. “We just wanted to do it right. We wanted to be respectful to the [Shakur] family and to the fans.”

Roker adds that after this groundbreaking hologram performance, “The genie was never going back in the bottle. It established the show as part of popular culture.” Ice Cube, who was a peer of Shakur’s in the vital 1990s West Coast rap scene, comments on the Coachella hologram: “I was happy for [Dr. Dre] and happy for Tupac being able to be on stage.”

“Chapter Five: The Next Generation” covers how Coachella has evolved to stay relevant to the mostly young people who flock to the event. Gone are the days when alt-rock artists were the majority of the headliners. Coachella is now more diverse than ever before, with pop, hip-hop, Latino and Asian artists becoming more prevalent at Coachella, compared to the festival’s early years. Some of the artists highlighted via performance clips in this chapter include Ariana Grande, Travis Scott, Rosalía and Blackpink.

Roker comments on Coachella changing to fit trends in music: “That’s been the hardest pill to swallow for some of the older fans.” He notes that many of Coachella’s youngest stars share some common characteristics: “They’re coming with fashion, wealth, bravado and carefree aggression.”

As for the definitive Coachella performance in the late 2010s, people interviewed in the documentary mention Beyoncé’s show-stopping 2018 Coachella extravaganza, which was made into the 2019 Netflix documentary “Homecoming:  A Film by Beyoncé.” (She was also the first black woman to headline at Coachella.) Beyoncé’s performance was such a media sensation that fans affectionately renamed Coachella 2018 as “Beychella.”

Roker says of Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance: “She was a woman on a mission. She came there with a script. The performance was a State of the Union for her, and she was going to deliver it.”

And the high profile of a Coachella performance means that artists often feel the need to surpass each other with elaborate productions. The documentary mentions Kanye West’s 2019 Sunday Service performance at Coachella (with hundreds of choir singers and dancers) as one of those over-the-top productions. Goldenvoice literally built a mountain on the field at his request, since a stage was too small for what West had in mind. Goldenvoice producer Jason Brown says that hundreds of trucks were needed to bring in all the dirt and grass to construct the mountain.

Coachella’s increasing diversity and its ability to evolve with the times (instead of sticking to the same musical formula from the festival’s early years) is ultimately one of the reasons why it will continue to thrive, according to artists interviewed in the documentary. Beck, one of the performers at the first Coachella, says about the festival: “If I’m in town, I usually go as a fan. It’s everything that’s happening in music at the moment.” Shepard Fairey adds that the musical variety of Coachella is its biggest draw: “It’s not one cohesive genre. It’s just more cohesive in the idea that ‘good is good.'”

And although headliners get the majority of the media attention at Coachella, most of the music fans at the festival are also there to discover new music or see lesser-known artists they wouldn’t normally see at a regular concert. Diplo, who’s performed at Coachella several times, comments on Coachella expanding beyond the festival’s original template of rock, EDM and some hip-hop: “It’s always been a festival for discovery anyway, so we’re reaching sort of a global cusp. Every year is a metamorphosis.”

“Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert” does a great job of covering the festival’s variety of music, and the concert footage is well-edited with very good sound mixing. (Try to watch this movie on the biggest screen possible.) But what’s missing from the documentary is any coverage of the “arts” at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. There have been many amazing art installations at Coachella over the years, so it would have made the documentary truly comprehensive if a little bit of time had been devoted to including a behind-the-scenes look at the festival’s art.

And curiously, the documentary doesn’t mention that Coachella co-founder Van Santen died in 2003, until a brief obituary dedication that’s flashed at the very end (“Rick Van Santen, 1961-2003”). In the documentary, the Goldenvoice people don’t talk about how Van Santen’s death (he passed away from flu complications) affected them and Coachella. Maybe it was too much of a downer for this documentary, which clearly wants to present only a positive and upbeat side to Coachella.

Since this is a Goldenvoice-produced documentary, it comes as no surprise that there’s also no mention about Coachella’s controversies, such as complaints of overcrowding and sexual harassment of attendees. Despite Coachella’s ongoing problems that this documentary doesn’t really want to address, the festival has undoubtedly become a major part of pop culture.

As pop star Billie Eilish says in the beginning of the documentary: “Everybody knows what Coachella is. If you don’t care about music, you know [about Coachella].”  Goldenvoice’s Roker has this conclusion about Coachella’s evolution: “The fact that it represents a fuller picture of culture, that’s the bottom line.”

YouTube Originals premiered “Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert” on April 10, 2020.

 

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Review: ‘The Mindfulness Movement,’ starring Jewel, Deepak Chopra, Fleet Maull, Sharon Salzberg, Dan Harris and Daniel Goleman

April 10, 2020

by Carla Hay

Sharon Salzberg in “The Mindfulness Movement” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama/Mangurama)

“The Mindfulness Movement”

Directed by Rob Beemer

Culture Representation: Focused primarily on U.S. ventures, the documentary “The Mindfulness Movement” interviews several people (mostly upper-middle class/wealthy and predominantly white, with some people of color) who advocate for reaching a higher consciousness through meditation and group therapy.

Culture Clash: The mindfulness movement believes in the power of positive thinking and discourages self-medicating through abusing drugs and alcohol.

Culture Audience: “The Mindfulness Movement” will appeal primarily to people already inclined to engage in new-age lifestyles, but everyone else might be bored or turned off by the “infomercial” tone of the movie.

Fleet Maull (pictured at far left) in “The Mindfulness Movement” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama/Mangurama)

“The Mindfulness Movement,” directed by Rob Beemer, is less of a documentary and more of a parade of mindfulness movement advocates who have money-making ventures that they’re promoting in the movie. Whether it’s their wellness program, therapy business, research institute, book, app or hi-tech gadget, the goal is all the same: They want people to buy or financially support what they’re selling.

The mindfulness movement preaches that meditation is one of the essential elements of the movement. And yet the irony of all the shilling in the movie is the fact that meditation can be done for free. But don’t tell that to potential customers, or else most of the people interviewed in this movie would be out of business.

The message of the mindfulness movement certainly should be applauded, because it’s about self-improvement in healthy, positive ways and having more self-respect, which then extends to respecting others and leading happier lives. However, these beliefs have been around for centuries in many cultures (and was touted in Western mainstream culture by the 1960s hippie movement), but the mindfulness movement tries to dress up this ideology as something that’s relatively new.

The documentary (which is narrated by actress Jewel Greenberg) shows that an entire industry has sprouted up around the mindfulness movement, which seems to have a lot of self-congratulatory people who act as if they’re doing something modern and groundbreaking in presenting centuries-old concepts to the public. Much of the counseling and advice that the movement’s entrepreneurs are selling is the same information that can be found online for free. There are also numerous free services that people can find that do the exact same things that people get charged fees for under the “mindfulness” label.

Multimillionaire spiritual guru Deepak Chopra and Grammy-nominated singer Jewel (who appear briefly in the film) are two of the executive producers of “The Mindfulness Movement.” It’s essentially a movie that features a lot of boring interviews with mostly middle-aged people and senior citizens, who are millionaires or who have six-figure incomes, preaching to people on how they can live better lives through the mindfulness movement. And by they way, here’s the book, therapy program, or fill-in-the blank they want to sell too.

If this movie wants to reach a wider audience (in other words, the general public) with its message, it did a very inadequate job of it because most of the people chosen for the documentary’s interviews are not relatable to most of the public. Most of the interviewees are at a certain level of income that most people in the world do not have. Essentially, the movie looks like it was made for the demographic of people who can afford to do things such as pay for new-age training seminars or buy trendy high-tech gadgets that are supposed to measure their “consciousness brain waves.”

Some of the people in the movie tell their hard-luck sob stories to make themselves seem more relatable to the “common folks” who don’t have the money to go on the type of week-long meditation retreats that the mindfulness movement likes to sell. Jewel repeats the well-known story about her abusive father and her unhappy childhood that led to her leaving home at 15 and being homeless for at least a year before she found fame and fortune in her early 20s with her 1995 multimillion-selling debut album “Pieces of You.” She gives credit to the mindfulness movement’s concept of positive thinking for why she has inner peace. For example, she says, that instead of thinking, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” it’s better to think, “I’m capable of learning.”

George Mumford, author of “The Mindful Athlete,” talks about how he was a promising basketball player at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (where Julius “Dr. J” Erving was his roommate) until an ankle injury ended his basketball dreams. Mumford then began abusing drugs and alcohol and eventually cleaned up his act before becoming a (no doubt well-paid) consultant who worked with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal in their basketball heydays.

ABC News correspondent/weekend anchor Dan Harris repeats the same story he’s told many times about his notorious panic attack on the air in 2004, which he later used 10 years later to parlay into a book deal about his therapy in the mindfulness movement. In the documentary, Harris says that the on-air panic attack (where he basically just stumbled over his words for less than a minute) was one of the worst things that ever happened to him. (Such a hard life!) He also said that he was regularly doing cocaine and Ecstasy at the time, and he didn’t realize until a doctor told him later that those drugs probably had something to do with the panic attack. (And this guy is supposed to be an informed journalist.)

Fleet Maull, who founded the Prison Mindfulness Institute to help prisoners, was also caught up in drugs before he turned his life around with a mindfulness lifestyle. During a group therapy session with inmates at John J. Moran Medium Security Facility in Rhode Island, Maull shares a personal story about how he was incarcerated for many years because of cocaine trafficking. He says that the mindfulness lifestyle worked for him in prison and was even more beneficial to him outside of prison. Maull’s institute is one of the few in the documentary that’s geared to an audience that’s not the norm (prisoners) for the mindfulness movement. However, most of the other businesses in the mindfulness movement are definitely by and for a certain class of people.

The other mindfulness movement advocates who are interviewed in the documentary include Insight Meditation Society co-founder Sharon Salzberg; “Emotional Intelligence” author Daniel Goleman; SelfWorks Group Therapy Professionals owner Amy Vigliotti; Aetna mindfulness chief officer Andy Lee; Richard Goerling of the Mindful Badge Initiative; 1440 Multiversity founder Scott Kriens; Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute CEO Rich Fernandez; Mindful Warrior Project executive director Gail Sofer; and Ohio U.S. Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat who wrote the book “Mindful Nation.”

There are also several academics interviewed in the film, including Richard Dawson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Center for Healthy Minds; Diana Winston of UCLA’s Mindfulness Research Center; Harvard Business School fellow Bill George; and the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness founder Jon Kabat-Zinn, who says he created the concept of mindfulness-based stress reduction.

And the movie also shows some of the technology gadgets that are being sold as part of the mindfulness movement. Interaxon founder Ariel Garten is interviewed and there’s a segment in the movie that promotes an Interaxon product called Muse, which is basically a high-tech meditation headband. There’s also mention of virtual-reality options that can help people have more immersive and more sensory experiences in meditation.

But really, there’s no proof that doing high-tech mediation (which costs money) achieves better results than meditating the old-fashioned way: for free. It’s just another example of how this documentary doesn’t point out this obvious fact, and the movie bends over backwards to give a platform to people who want to make money from this movement.

The best parts of the movie are when it goes beyond interviewing the privileged group of people who are looking to make money from the movement and shows how the movement’s positive concepts can reach people who can’t hang out for several hours a day with mediation/therapy groups. For example, Jewel visits some teenage school children to talk to them about how mindfulness can help improve self-confidence. The movie needed more of this type of “real world” interaction instead of overstuffing the film with a lot of dull and pretentious interviews.

Another example of the documentary showing some interaction in the real world is a segment on Patterson High School in Baltimore. Principal Vance M. Benton, who is interviewed, talks about how giving the students time to meditate has seemingly helped them improve. And there are brief interviews with California police officers Eric White and Jennifer Tejada of the Emeryville Police Department, who give testimonials about how meditation has helped them become better cops.

To its credit, “The Mindfulness Movement” does cover a diversity of professions that are involved in this movement. However, the movie would be more appealing if it had less talk and more action. And by action, that doesn’t mean just filming people sitting around and meditating or being lectured to about how they can improve their lives.

For example, Mindful Warrior Project founder/executive director Gail Sofer works with military veterans in the Los Angeles area who have post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental-health issues. Instead of just interviewing her, the movie could have included more time (instead of a few soundbites that last less than a minute) talking to the people that the program is supposed to benefit (and their family members/loved ones), so viewers can get more real-life examples of how the program works. A movie like this needed more case studies and less bragging from people about what they know about the mindfulness movement.

The movie also visits the offices of Mindful magazine/Mindful.org, where art director Jessica von Handorf says of the editorial images they choose: “One thing we try to avoid is ‘bliss face,’ which is someone in a state of ecstasy. You see a lot of that in advertising.” She explains the reality of mindfulness: “Mindfulness can be gritty. It can be celebratory. It can be hard.”

And therein lies the movie’s biggest flaw. Although it might have good intentions for promoting the mindfulness movement, the movie is one big “bliss face” for the movement, by presenting this very calculated, “one size fits all” view that tries to make the movement look like a perfect, happy solution to people’s problems. But “perfect” is not realistic. And unfortunately, a lot of the people who are interviewed in the movie lack the charisma to make this a compelling film to watch.

It also doesn’t help that several methods that the movement endorses are basically repackaging and selling of concepts that people can get for free. It’s why the tone of the film is very much like an ad campaign. Regardless of how anyone feels about the platitudes expressed in the movie, one thing’s for sure about “The Mindfulness Movement”—watching it is a good cure for insomnia.

Abramorama and Mangurama released “The Mindfulness Movement” on digital and VOD on April 10, 2020.

Review: ‘A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy,’ starring Dana DeKalb, Christopher Worth, Zipporah Lomax, Nusheen Bakhtiar, Shonda Jones, Dontay Davis and Octavio Choi

April 9, 2020

by Carla Hay

“A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy.” Pictured from left to right: Ciera Hart, Jeremiah Hart, Abigail Hart, Devonte Hart, Hannah Hart and Markis Hart. (Photo courtesy of 1091 Media)

“A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy”

Directed by Rachel Morgan

Culture Representation: This true-crime documentary—about a white American lesbian couple who committed murder and suicide by driving themselves and their six black/racially mixed kids off of a cliff in 2018—interviews a diverse group of people, including friends of the couple; some of the children’s family members; and various people with knowledge about the tragedy.

Culture Clash: The lesbian couple—Jennifer and Sarah Hart—had a long history of allegedly abusing the children, but were able to fool people into letting them keep custody of the kids.

Culture Audience: “A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy” will appeal primarily to people interested in true-crime stories and real-life examples of the deep systemic flaws in America’s child-welfare system.

“A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy.” Pictured in back row, from left to right: Markis Hart, Sarah Hart and Jennifer Hart. Pictured in front row, from left to right: Ciera Hart, Jeremiah Hart, Abigail Hart, Devonte Hart and Hannah Hart. (Photo courtesy of 1091 Media)

The disturbing documentary “A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy” examines what led up to the tragedy of two mothers driving themselves and their six adopted children off of a cliff in Mendocino County, California, on March 28, 2018. Although the film (directed by Rachel Morgan) does not uncover anything new (the story has been extensively covered by the media), the documentary gives some insight into how people can be fooled by superficial images on social media.

Jennifer and Sarah Hart, who were both 38 at the time of their deaths, were a married lesbian couple who adopted six children whose biological parents no longer had rights to them. The children were two sets of biological siblings. Adopted first, in 2006, were racially mixed biological siblings Markis (born on July 1, 1998), Hannah (born on February 25, 2002) and Abigail (born on December 26, 2003), who had the same mother. In 2008, the Harts adopted their next set of biological siblings, who were all African American with the same biological mother: Devonte (born on October 24, 2002), Jeremiah (born on February 24, 2004) and Ciera (born on April 20, 2005), who sometimes had her named spelled as Sierra.

All of the children came from Texas. Tammy Scheurich—the biological mother of Markis, Hannah and Abigail—voluntarily relinquished her parental rights because she spent time in prison. Scheurich has a brief audio interview in the documentary, where she says: “When they took my children, I went into a deep depression.” She explained her decision to give up her kids: “I tried to make the most unselfish decision for the children.”

Sherry Hurd—the biological mother of Devonte, Jeremiah and Ciera—is not interviewed, but several court records shown in the documentary indicate that she lost custody of the kids because of her drug addiction. The biological fathers of all six children were unable to take custody of the kids. Devonte, Jeremiah and Ciera were living with an aunt named Priscilla Celestine (a sister of their biological father), who then lost custody of the three kids for reasons that are not stated in the documentary. (According to news reports and court records, it was because Celestine violated a court order not to let the kids be around their biological mother.) And that’s how the three kids ended up being adopted by Jennifer and Sarah Hart, who were living in Minnesota at the time.

Shonda Jones, a family attorney in Houston who was involved in the Celestine case, says in the documentary that the court’s decision to yank the children from the custody of their aunt was abrupt, unfair and cruel. She gets emotional when talking about how Celestine (who’s not interviewed in the documentary) wasn’t given a real chance to fight for custody of the kids.

Meanwhile, Hurd’s stepson Dontay Davis talks about how, because of his own legal problems, he wasn’t allowed to see his stepsiblings because he was told that he was a “bad influence” on them. Nathaniel Davis (who’s identified in the movie as a stepfather of Devonte, Jeremiah and Dontay) says in the documentary that once kids end up in the child-welfare system, “they’re lost.”

After adopting the kids, the Harts lived in Minnesota, then Oregon, and finally in Washington state, where they moved in 2017. They were investigated for child abuse by child-protective services in all three states, beginning in 2008, with reports saying that the children showed signs of being beaten and deliberately starved. In 2010, when the family lived in Minnesota, Sarah was also arrested and charged with misdemeanor domestic assault and malicious punishment of a child. She pleaded guilty, was fined $385, and given a 90-day sentence, which was later stayed, and she was put on supervised probation for one year. Abigail later told people that Jennifer was the one who caused most of the abuse, but Sarah took the blame for it.

The documentary (whose total running time is just 57 minutes) gives almost most no information about the two women’s backgrounds, such as how they met and what their own family upbringings were like. The film also has no investigation into why Jennifer and Sarah Hart were able to adopt six children in such a short period of time when it’s hard enough for people to adopt one child. What the documentary also doesn’t mention is that after Sarah Hart’s arrest, the children were home-schooled, with Jennifer as the stay-at-home-mother, while Sarah was the one who worked outside of the home in low-income retail jobs.

Also not mentioned in the movie: Both women were college-educated and majored in elementary education. It’s a sad fact that they went to college to become teachers for children, considering all the abuse that they were accused of inflicting on their own kids. As for how Jennifer and Sarah Hart were getting money to raise six kids, it came mostly from the state of Texas. That’s an important fact that should have been mentioned in the film because it shows that the Harts were raising their family mostly through government funds from a state that clearly did not keep track of or was not notified about the child-abuse allegations.

The relatives of Jennifer and Sarah Hart are not interviewed in the documentary, but several of their friends are. They all claim that they only saw a happy family and were shocked to hear about the murder-suicide tragedy. The documentary doesn’t really explain how long these friends of the Harts knew the family, but what’s clear is that all the friends were deceived into thinking that the Harts had a loving home. It’s also why they initially couldn’t believe that the car crash was a murder-suicide.

Christopher Worth, one of the family friends, described the children this way: “They were all one big hug. No pretense, no dishonesty” and that they were “completely full of effervescent, intoxicating love.” However, he admits that Jennifer (or Jen, as her friends called her) “didn’t really anticipate what she signed up for” in adopting six kids, and she sometimes seemed overwhelmed.

Other family friends who give their perspectives include Nusheen Bakhtiar, Zipporah Lomax, Riannah Weaver, Dan Corey and sisters Amanda and Jennifer Price, who all say the same thing: They saw no signs of abuse. There’s also an interview with Sharyn Babitt, who’s described as an “online gaming friend” of Jennifer Hart, who spent at least one or two hours a day playing online games. And there’s an interview with Brittini New, who used to work with Sarah at a Kohl’s store where Sarah was a manager. According to New, Sarah was very quiet and almost never talked about her kids when Sarah was at work.

Based on these interviews, a picture emerges of Jennifer and Sarah Hart being very different behind closed doors in their home, compared to the way they presented themselves to the rest of the world. They isolated their family until it was time for them to go to public events, such as music festivals and rallies, where they would pose for staged family photos and videos. It’s implied, but not explicitly stated, that the people who call themselves “family friends” of the Harts knew them mostly from these social events, not from frequently visiting the Hart family home.

Jennifer was the more dominant, abusive mother, while Sarah was the more passive, quieter person in the relationship. Based on what the children told some people, Sarah is described as someone who initially tried to stop Jennifer from abusing the kids, but then eventually Sarah tolerated the abuse. And although the family friends interviewed in this film say that they didn’t know about any abuse allegations against the Harts, some of them were aware that Jennifer expressed feelings of anger and depression about being a mother. However, the family friends assumed that they were normal, temporary feelings that all parents feel sometimes when they’re frustrated with their kids.

To the outside world, Jennifer and Sarah Hart were politically progressive liberals who would bring their kids to Black Lives Matter rallies and other events for social-justice issues. The Harts also liked to go to music festivals—many of the friends interviewed in the film are definitely neo-hippie/musician types. And the Harts posted numerous photos and videos on social media (the documentary includes many of these images), that showed that they had a seemingly loving and happy family. Unfortunately, these images were all part of an elaborate façade.

Dana DeKalb, who was the Harts’ closest neighbor in Woodland, Washington, gives the most compelling interview in the documentary. She describes how Devonte would come over to her home, sometimes multiple times a day, and ask her to give him food. Over time, he began to ask for more food and became more specific about what he wanted, but he begged her not to tell his mothers that he was getting food from her.

Eventually, DeKalb called child-protective services, which had a pending investigation against the Harts at the time of the murder-suicide. Some people speculate in the documentary that the Harts killed themselves and their children because the ongoing CPS investigation in Washington state would have uncovered information that would have led to the Harts being fully exposed as child abusers and they would have lost custody of the kids.

Even more harrowing than Devonte begging for food was an incident involving oldest daughter Hannah. DeKalb said that the first time she knew something was wrong in the Hart household was when late one night, she was awoken by a very distressed Hannah at her door. The child burst into the home and pleaded for help, by asking DeKalb to hide her from Jennifer and Sarah, whom Hannah described as “abusive and racist.” DeKalb says that she was in shock while Hannah hid in a room and while she could hear Jennifer, Sarah and the other kids outside looking for her.

Eventually, the Hart family members found Hannah hiding in the house, and Jennifer made the child leave with the family. In the documentary, DeKalb also reads an apology note that she received the next day. The note was written and signed by Hannah, but it sounds like it was dictated by an adult. In the note, Hannah says that she was sorry for the disturbance, but she was emotionally upset because of her siblings and also sad that the family had recently lost their two cats.

However, the incident with Hannah was so disturbing that DeKalb’s father, Steve Frkovich, called 911 (part of the phone call is played in the film) to report suspected child abuse in the Hart home. DeKalb tears up with emotion when she remembers that Devonte later confessed to her that what Hannah said that night was true, but Devonte implored DeKalb not to tell anyone that he told her that.

The documentary shows that DeKalb, more than the “family friends” of the Harts, comes across as the most aware that the kids needed help. And this observant and concerned neighbor also wasn’t blinded by superficial images that Jennifer and Sarah Hart put on social media. Although the film has plenty of the staged “happy family” photos and videos, there’s one heartbreaking photo that clearly shows a shirtless Devonte and Jeremiah looking emaciated with strange marks on their bodies. It’s not stated in the documentary if this photo was ever posted on social media, but it would have been enough evidence to put the kids in protective custody if their abuse had been properly investigated.

Devonte, who’s described as the “star” of the family because he was the most charismatic and sensitive of the six kids, briefly experienced fame in 2014, because of a photo of him that went viral. The photo shows Devonte, with tears streaming down his face, hugging Sergeant Bret Barman of the Portland Police Department in Oregon during a rally protesting the Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting of Michael Brown.

Because the photo became a viral sensation, the Harts experienced overnight fame, but got extreme reactions (admiration and hate) as a result. Some of the family friends in the documentary try to place some of the blame on social media for the murder-suicide tragedy, by claiming that the negative attention caused Jennifer to go into a downward spiral. But it’s a weak argument, because there were clearly major problems in the family long before they became semi-famous through social media.

Speaking of haters on social media, DeKalb said that some of the Harts’ family friends (whom she does not name) targeted her for hate on social media when they found out that her family had reported the suspected abuse of the Hart kids. DeKalb says that she was accused of being racist and homophobic by these friends of the Harts. Jennifer and Sarah Hart reportedly used these type of bigotry accusations to their advantage, in order to deflect scrutiny when people questioned their parenting skills. It might explain why they never lost custody of the kids, despite growing accusations that the Harts were abusive to the children.

Octavio Choi, a child psychiatrist who didn’t know the Harts, is interviewed in the documentary, and he warns people not to use “perfectly curated” images on social media as a way to judge how people really are, because those images are often not reality or they don’t tell the whole story. The documentary’s coverage of the police investigation in the car crash relies heavily on archival footage of a press conference given by California Highway Patrol investigator Jake Slates. After the investigation, the case was officially ruled a murder-suicide.

“A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy,” although it has several interviews and is an absorbing documentary, doesn’t really uncover anything new or insightful into how the system failed these children. There’s no mention if the filmmakers tried to contact any of the social workers who were involved in investigating the abuse claims. And there’s absolutely no explanation for why Jennifer and Sarah were able to continue to get a lot of government funding from Texas to raise these adopted kids when they weren’t even living in Texas anymore and apparently weren’t accountable to the child-welfare system in Texas. (It would be different if the children were in foster care and still wards of the state.)

There are also issues about interracial adoptions and gay-parent adoptions that aren’t fully explored in the movie. If Jennifer and Sarah Hart were black, would they have gotten away with what they did for so long? If the kids were white, would they have been treated better by the system? And in an adoption system where politically conservative states such as Texas make it difficult for same-sex couples to adopt one child, how did Jennifer and Sarah Hart end up with six adopted children from Texas?

These are questions that will never have one definitive answer, but the documentary doesn’t show any attempt to give much background information on the adoption process for these children. Did Jennifer, the more abusive parent, have a history of abuse or mental illness before she became a parent? What was the screening process for Jennifer and Sarah Hart to adopt six kids in such a short period of time? It doesn’t seem to be enough for the film just to say that the biological mothers lost parental rights to these kids.

There could have been an extra 15 or 20 minutes covering this important aspect in explaining how these kids ended up being adopted by Jennifer and Sarah Hart. The documentary also should have covered who in the child-welfare system was responsible for monitoring the kids’ well-being, considering the children’s troubled background, the numerous abuse allegations, and the fact that Jennifer and Sarah Hart were using Texas government funds to raise the children.

However, a lesson to be learned from this tragedy is that people should not be fooled by what’s presented on social media. And the most important message is that if abuse is witnessed, or if people say they are being abused, then it needs to be reported, even if there is pressure to stay silent.

1091 Media released “A Thread of Deceit: The Hart Family Tragedy” on digital on April 17, 2020. A portion of this movie’s proceeds will be donated to Teens Voice USA and Honor the Earth, which are two causes that were supported by the Hart kids.

Review: ‘Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun,’ starring Steven Greer, Daniel Sheehan, Russell Targ, Adam Michael Curry, Joe Martino, Jan Harzan and Jim Martin

April 7, 2020

by Carla Hay

Dr. Steven Greer in “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun” (Photo courtesy of 1091 Media)

“Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun”

Directed by Michael Mazzola

Culture Representation: This documentary about contact between extraterrestrials and humans on Earth interviews an all-white group of Americans from scientific, legal and creative professions who believe that more humans should make benevolent contact with beings from outer space.

Culture Clash: The people interviewed in the documentary consider themselves to be “free thinkers” and believe that there are vast government conspiracies to make people think that life forms outside of Earth are a threat to human existence.

Culture Audience: “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun” will appeal mostly to people who believe in UFOs, extraterrestrials and government conspiracy theories.

Dr. Steven Greer in “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun” (Photo courtesy of 1091 Media)

Do you believe that extraterrestrials from outer space have made contact with humans and vice versa? The answer to that question will largely determine your opinion of “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun,” a documentary that is really a manifesto for Dr. Steven Greer (described in press materials as “the global authority on extraterrestrials”) and like-minded believers to tell people how they should contact extraterrestrials.

The movie can be considered a sequel to the 2017 documentary “Unacknowledged: An Exposé of the World’s Greatest Secret” (also starring Greer and directed by Michael Mazzola), which had Greer doing an exposé of government documents pertaining to unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and extraterrestrials (ETs). In “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun,” Greer claims that the government was so afraid of the information in “Unacknowledged” that in reaction to the movie, the government published “millions” of UFO documents on the Internet that confirmed a lot of what the movie claimed.

In “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun,” Greer says he wants a widespread movement for people on Earth to approach extraterrestrial contact with a peaceful, not hostile, attitude. Many of the people in the movie also go into great detail about how the universe is connected. The problem is that the movie is unabashedly one-sided (no one with opposing viewpoints is interviewed) and at times comes across as an infomercial for Greer’s UFO-sighting events.

Greer is a former medical doctor who founded the Center for the Studies of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). He gets the vast majority of screen time in the movie, which shows him talking in a futuristic-looking room that has no furniture except for the fold-out chair where Greer sits to share his beliefs. At the end of the movie, most viewers will either think he’s a visionary or a complete nutjob. He claims, among other things, that he’s made contact with ETs several times in his life and that deep transcendental meditation, especially in groups, is the best way to make contact with ETs.

Greer also claims that through his work before and during CSETI, he has gotten mind-blowing information from an untold number of former government officials and whistleblowers. According to Greer, the U.S. government is actively working to brainwash the public into believing that if outer-space aliens really do exist, the U.S. military will be prepared to protect the United States, if not the world. He and other people interviewed in the documentary (including constitutional attorney Daniel Sheehan) say that there are secret departments in the CIA, the FBI and the U.S. military—as well as secret departments in many other countries’ governments—that have been covering up shocking information about what they know about UFOs and ETs. Greer is of the firm belief that ETs are the peaceful ones, and people on Earth are more likely to do the attacking.

While you wrap you head around all of these claims, here are the five kinds of “close encounters” that people on Earth can have with ETs, as explained in the documentary:

  • Close encounters of the first kind are visual sightings of UFOs.
  • Close encounters of the second kind are physical traces of ETs or UFOs, such as impressions on the ground.
  • Close encounters of the third kind are when occupants or pilots of ET spacecraft are witnessed.
  • Close encounters of the fourth kind are when a human is brought on board an ET spacecraft.
  • Close encounters of the fifth kind are pro-active communications with ETs.

“Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun” also includes a lot of mostly grainy video footage that’s described as UFO sightings. The footage is labeled as being filmed in various places around the world, but mostly in the United States, with a great deal in Florida and California. And, not surprisingly, most of the footage is from Greer’s CE5 contact events. The same goes for the photos that the documentary presents as “ET light sources” and “ET silhouettes” that have been captured on camera during CE5 contact events and elsewhere. However, skeptics would say that footage and photos like these can easily be faked.

The documentary is divided into three chapters. “Chapter 1: Blood & Treasure” talks about how government agencies, in cooperation with mainstream media, are shaping an untrue narrative that outer-space life forms are dangerous and we need to be ready for any attack. This narrative is reinforced in movies that portray outer-space aliens as creatures whose intentions are to kills humans and take over the world. Greer believes that humans, not ETs, are really the biggest threat to themselves. He also says that ETs are dismayed at how humans are destroying the Earth’s environment, and if ETs really wanted to attack Earth, they would have done it already. Greer claims that the U.S. government has already secretly shot down UFOs and that the dead bodies of ETs are in secret areas that are monitored by the government.

“Chapter 2: The Crossing Point of Light” goes into a lengthy discussion about how ETs communicate not through the speed of light but through the speed of thought. The documentary has some charts and graphics about how physics and emotional energy play a role in contacting ETs. It’s in this chapter that the film veers into advocating for transcendental meditation, especially in group sessions. There are testimonials from some of Greer’s CE5 event participants (mostly aging hippie types), and they’re very rapturous in describing these events as life-changing experiences. Much of what they describe sounds a lot like people who’ve taken psychedelics, but it’s not mentioned in the documentary if they take any mind-bending drugs when they go on these UFO-and-ET-sighting excursions.

“Chapter 3: A New World” covers what would happen if more humans made peaceful contact with ETs, which Greer says is a goal that more people in the world should have. Several of the people in the documentary believe that ETs who’ve been to Earth are much more advanced than humans and have technology that’s far beyond present-day human concepts. Greer says it would be like if modern-day people went back in time to the 1700s and tried to explain smartphone technology to people in that era. This chapter in the movie also puts forth the belief that human-ET relations could be beneficial to our health. A CE5 participant named Ed Moen says that an ET encounter that he had at one of the events resulted in him no longer needing hearing aids and having his hearing perfectly restored.

Greer comments that one of the reasons why he’s doing the documentary is for “free thinkers” to make contact with ETs, because the government can’t be trusted to tell the public the whole truth of what’s known about ETs. He says in the documentary, “No one has asked the question, ‘How do we develop a relationship with the occupants of UFOs?’ Who’s on board? Why are they here?” And as far as Greer and like-minded believers are concerned, a multidisciplinary company such as To the Stars…Academy of Arts & Sciences (co-founded by former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge), which investigates UFO sightings, is just a front to promote untrustworthy government propaganda.

Greer also says that people and ETs have to find a commonality “outside of the purview” of the government. Greer claims that information he’s uncovered is “subversive and dangerous.” He also says that he’s been threatened many times by government officials (he doesn’t name names), but that he’s not afraid of being assassinated, because a near-death experience that he had when he was young made him no longer fear death. However, Greer does break down and cry when he talks about “whistleblowers” he’s worked with who have committed suicide or have been “assassinated” because of what they know. He doesn’t name names, but he says he has “survivor’s guilt.”

Greer also compares the group of people who’ve bypassed national security to try to make contact with ETs as similar to the people involved in the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He makes this comparison because he says the civil-rights movement didn’t come from the top down, but it started with everyday people on a grass-roots level. Greer’s comparison of people fighting against damaging racial discrimination and people fighting for their belief to make contact with ETs might be considered offensive, considering that most of the people looking to make contact with ETs don’t seem to be very oppressed in their daily lives.

Based on the people interviewed for documentaries like this and the video footage shown of Greer’s CE5 events, the vast majority of the people involved are white, middle-class or upper-class, and over the age of 35. In other words, not exactly a diverse group. And they’ve probably never experienced the kind of civil-rights discrimination where they could be arrested for sitting in the front of a bus or going into a certain area, just because they’re a certain race. (Every person interviewed in this documentary is white and mostly male, although there’s a half-hearted attempt at diversity at the end of the movie, which has a brief archival video montage of people around the world who claim to believe in ETs.) And it begs the question: Who is Greer’s real target audience to be his leading allies in this movement, if the people who end up going to his events are people who have the time and money to do that kind of thing?

And although Greer believes that the “peace and love” approach is the best way to live life and make contact with ETs, the filmmakers made the odd choice to have actor Jeremy Piven (whose career has been torpedoed by numerous sexual-misconduct allegations) as the documentary’s voiceover narrator. Piven has denied the allegations, but he had a reputation for being “difficult” long before the allegations surfaced. He’s usually cast as a jerk/hothead, and in real life, he isn’t known for being a harmonious figure in the entertainment industry.

It seems incongruous to have someone with this volatile reputation narrate a movie whose message is supposed to be about human tranquility and putting peaceful energy into the universe. But since Piven doesn’t appear on camera, his involvement in the movie isn’t too much of a distraction. He narrates the film with a kind of slightly forceful tone that conspiracy theorists usually have, so maybe that’s why the filmmakers wanted him to be the narrator.

The movie’s ideas aren’t really supposed to be politically partisan, but the documentary shows some political bias that metaphorically comes from out of left field. The documentary states that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (Democratic candidates who ran for U.S. President in the 2020 election) are mainstream political hacks who would toe the government line of covering up the truth about ETs. The documentary then says that Bernie Sanders (another Democratic candidate, who’s more left-leaning than Biden and Harris) would be more open-minded, but he would be “besieged” by corrupt government entities to take part in the cover-ups too. It’s not a blatant endorsement of Sanders, but it comes pretty close, since he’s singled out in the documentary as a possible political ally to the movement that Greer wants to have.

There’s also some religious bias in the documentary, since Greer says he’s reached out to the Vatican to try and enlist the Catholic Church’s help in spreading his message. Greer comments in the documentary, “We have to come forward with a positive set of programs and a positive vision for this.” Some of the people interviewed in the documentary who echo Greer’s overall thoughts on human-ET relations include attorney Sheehan, Mufon executive director Jan Harzan, physicist Dr. Russell Targ, Collective Evolution founder Joe Martino, inventor/entrepreneur Adam Michael Curry, screenwriter Dave Marconi and CE5 producer Jim Martin, who is also one of the producers of this documentary.

“Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun” presents some fascinating stories and scientific theories about life that exists beyond Earth. However, the movie undermines a lot of the credibility that it wishes to have by interviewing only fervent believers of Greer’s message, instead of being a true investigative documentary that tries to get varied perspectives, even from skeptics, so that viewers can make up their own minds.

When filmmakers present only one side of an argument in a documentary, it makes them look like they’re afraid to include other ways of thinking. And that exclusion of other viewpoints is a type of propaganda pushing that this documentary claims to be against. However, there’s one thing that the documentary didn’t forget to include, which is sneaked in during the last five minutes of this two-hour movie—promotion of Greer’s CE5 app, so people can help fund his agenda.

1091 Media released “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun” on digital on April 7, 2020. The movie’s VOD release is on April 24, 2020.

Review: ‘In the Footsteps of Elephant,’ starring Mark Linfield, Mike Holding, Martyn Colbeck, Mike Chase, Clinton Edwards, Anna Songhurst and Graham McColloch

April 3, 2020

by Carla Hay

Mike Holding in a scene from “In the Footsteps of Elephant” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“In the Footsteps of Elephant” (2020)

Directed by Vanessa Berlowitz and Tom Stephens

Culture Representation: This documentary takes a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Disneynature documentary “Elephant,” which has a predominantly white film crew (with some black members) chronicling the journey of a herd of elephants in southern Africa, as they travel across the Kalahari Desert, from the Okavango Delta to the Zambezi River.

Culture Clash: The film crew often has to deal with bad weather, technical limitations and the possibility of being attacked by some of the wild animals they encounter.

Culture Audience: “In the Footsteps of Elephant” will primarily to people who have an interest in how nature documentaries are made.

Martyn Colbeck in a scene from “In the Footsteps of Elephant” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

Before seeing this movie, it’s essential to first watch the Disneynature documentary “Elephant.” That’s because “In the Footsteps of Elephant,” a feature-length documentary about the making of “Elephant,” has a lot of spoiler information that will reveals the outcome of the suspenseful moments in “Elephant.” Narrated by actor Jeremy Sisto (who was not part of the on-location film crew), “In the Footsteps of Elephant” is a worthy companion piece to “Elephant.” If “Elephant” had been released on home video, instead of being exclusive to the Disney+ streaming service, “In the Footsteps of Elephant” would be the equivalent of the “behind-the-scenes” extras part of a home-video release.

“Elephant” documents the journey of a herd of elephants in southern Africa, as they travel across the Kalahari Desert, from the Okavango Delta to the Zambezi River and back again. It’s a 1,000-mile round-trip journey that can take up to eight months. So it comes as no surprise that filming of all it was a very difficult challenge. In addition to dealing with bad weather, which sometimes delayed production and caused vehicles to be stuck in the mud, the film crew often had to figure out several logistical problems, in terms of how and where to position the cameras.

Ultimately, the crew used three different ways to film “Elephant”—by vehicle, by drone and by helicopter. The filmmakers had custom-built transportation called “swamp trucks” for the shoot. And sometimes, such as when the drones had to film over the massive and powerful Victoria Falls, they were in danger of damaging their equipment.

Although “Elephant” was directed by Mark Linfield, this documentary shows that he wasn’t the biggest, extroverted personality in the crew. That title goes cinematographer Mark Holding, who has more than 20 years of experiencing filming in the Okavango Delta. He did much of the main prepping in pre-production with Linfield, so the director would know what to expect.

Holding might remind some people a little bit of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin because of their physical similarities, although Holding isn’t quite as over-the-top with his enthusiasm as Irwin was known to be. Holding says half-jokingly that he prefers being around wild animals than most people. In the documentary, Holding comments that flying over the Okavango Delta is “absolutely the way to see it. It’s absolutely spectacular to see.”

As a director, Linfield seems to have maintained a calm and measured presence on the set. In interviews, he appears slightly annoyed but not rattled when unexpected delays happen because of the stormy or other bad weather. That’s because Linfield is an expert in filming wildlife and nature documentaries—all of his directorial credits have been so far have been filming Disneynature documentaries, starting with 2009’s “Earth.” Linfield is also married to Vanessa Berlowitz, who co-directed “In the Footsteps of Elephant” with Tom Stephens.

Another key member of the crew was biologist Mike Chase, who is described in the documentary as someone who’s been tracking elephants for more than 10 years. Chase is also the founder/director of an organization called Elephants Without Borders, which is a sanctuary for abandoned or abused elephants, and advocates against elephant poaching. (At the end of the documentary, there’s some adorable footage of Chase and other members of the Elephants Without Borders team feeding some orphaned elephants.)

Chase, who says his family has lived in Botswana for five generations, comments on elephants and his passion for rescuing and protecting them: “I’ve always been mesmerized by them … I think people around the world all too often think there are a lot of people saving the elephants—and there aren’t, really. So, to be part of a privileged few committed to safeguarding the future of elephants, I derive a great amount of enjoyment from that.” Later in the movie, he tears up and gets emotional when he says that elephants will probably become extinct at the rate that they are being killed.

Clinton Edwards, a field guide, provides a lot of the documentary’s humor. He’s easily the “class clown” of the group, by cracking jokes and making light of tough situations. There’s also a funny scene where he falls asleep when he’s supposed to be keeping a lookout for lions. His snoring alarms a fellow crew member at first because it sounds like a lion’s snore.

Camping and filming in the middle of the territory of wild animals obviously put the crew at risk. The documentary includes two of the scary moments caught on camera. In one scene, dive assistant Mathieu Van Goethem had a close encounter with a crocodile while diving underwater. The crocodile was hidden and almost blindsided Goethem, who quickly got out of the water before the crocodile could attack. He and a fellow diver then joked that they deserved to get paid more, calling it “danger pay.”

Another terrifying experience, which lasted much longer, was when field assistant Danielle “Dani” Spitzer and another crew member, were stuck in a jeep while being caught in the middle of a lion hunting prey. The lion kept hiding, so they didn’t know when it would be save to move the car. (Because of the way that cameras had to be fitted to the vehicles for outdoor filming, the vehicles often had their doors removed, leaving the film crews vulnerable in the wild.)

Luckily, no one was injured by animals on the film shoot. (Or if they were, this documentary certainly didn’t show it or mention it.) Spitzer says after going through this close call that the hardest part of it was the car causing limited vision, so the lion couldn’t be seen properly. “It felt like you were in a box,” Spitzer comments.

The “Elephant” documentary focuses on three members of the herd: Shani, a 40-year-old elephant; Jomo, who is Shani’s 1-year-old son; and Gaia, Shani’s 50-year-old sister who is the queen of the herd. However, production assistant Tania “TJ” Jenkins talks about some relationships in the herd that aren’t shown in “Elephant.”

Jenkins says about the herd, “They have the same dynamics we do. The aunties fight, the sisters fight, and the teenagers scream and fight. The young boys show off and mock charge. You can really identify with them.”

Martyn Colbeck, one of the cinematographers, says that witnessing a baby elephant getting stuck in quicksand-like mud was the “most emotionally challenging” part of the film shoot for him, and how this “stuck in the mud” incident ended was something he’d never seen in all of his years of filming in the wild. Colbeck noted that it’s often very hard for animal documentary filmmakers not to feel the urge to interfere when an animal’s life is in danger, because the filmmakers are there document nature take its course, as if the cameras and humans weren’t there, not alter the outcome.

Another memorable part of the documentary includes the crew’s visit with the EcoExist Project directors (and life partners) Dr. Anna Songhurst and Dr. Graham McCollough, whose mission is for humans to peacefully co-exist with wild animals. The couple’s work includes tracking the paths of elephants and developing “elephant crossings” to make room for elephants so humans wouldn’t get in the way.

During the visit, a rare occurrence happened and was caught on camera—hundreds of elephants walked through the elephant crossing zones during the day. (These massive treks usually happen at night.) It’s one of the best parts of the movie.

It’s easy to see why everyone who had an up-close view of the elephants couldn’t help but watch in a state of awe. “In the Footsteps of Elephant” will give viewers more appreciation for the technical and creative achievements of the “Elephant” documentary, not to mention new or growing admiration for the magnificent creatures that are elephants.

Disney+ premiered “In the Footsteps of Elephant” on April 3, 2020.

 

Review: ‘Elephant’ (2020), narrated by Meghan Markle, also known as Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex

April 3, 2020

by Carla Hay

A scene from “Elephant” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“Elephant” (2020)

Directed by Mark Linfield

Culture Representation: This Disneynature documentary chronicles the journey of a herd of elephants in southern Africa, as they travel across the Kalahari Desert, from the Okavango Delta to the Zambezi River.

Culture Clash: The elephants must navigate their way through several potentially deadly dangers, including predatory lions and crocodiles.

Culture Audience: “Elephant” is a family-friendly film that will appeal primarily to people who like documentaries about nature and animals.

A scene from “Elephant” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

There’s a certain level of quality that people have come to expect from Disneynature, the nature/animal documentary production arm of Walt Disney Studios. Disneynature films usually chronicle a family of wild animals, focusing on a few family members that have distinct personalities or have leadership positions in the group. And there’s always an adorable “kid” animal who gets a lot of the screen time.

“Elephant” follows this formula too, but it’s a formula that works especially well for animals as intelligent and fascinating as elephants. “Elephant” also has the benefit of being filmed in diverse terrains of southern Africa, which result in the kind of stunning cinematography that’s also become a characteristic of Disneynature films.

Narrated by Meghan Markle (also known as Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex), “Elephant” chronicles the 1,000-mile round-trip journey of a herd of elephants, as they travel from across the Kalahari Desert, from the Okavango Delta to the Zambezi River and back again. The elephants’ habitual migration, which has been going on for untold centuries, is prompted by whichever areas have the most water after flooding. It’s a journey filled with plenty of adventure and danger, which make this documentary more fascinating than a lot of scripted movies. The narration is good enough, even though it’s sometimes delivered in a hokey tone of voice.

“Elephant,” directed by Mark Linfield, keeps the story simple by focusing on only three of the elephants in the herd (they’re the only three elephants who are named in the film): Shani, a 40-year-old elephant; Jomo, who is Shani’s 1-year-old son; and Gaia, Shani’s 50-year-old sister who is the queen of the herd. Everyone in the herd is related in some way to Gaia, who makes the decisions on when and where the herd will migrate. As is the case with most elephant herds, it’s a female-majority group, with the only males being children or young adults. (Adult male elephants usually don’t travel in herds that have children.)

Beyond the basics of food, water and shelter, the key to elephants’ survival is for them to travel in a herd. This documentary shows that elephants, unlike many other wild animals, are very loyal to each other and will rarely leave their children behind unless forced to do so. And the three elephants who are the focus of the film have distinct personalities.

Gaia is the wise matriarch who makes careful and thoughtful decisions in leading the herd. As her respectful younger sister, Shani has the role of second-in-command who learns by observing what Gaia does. Jomo is an energetic and sometimes mischievous kid, who likes to play hide-and-seek or tag with his fellow kid elephants or sometimes other animals(such as warthogs) that the herd encounters along the way.

The documentary’s writing and narration can be a little melodramatic, with lines such as, “Like blood through arteries, the water sustains all life here” or “Social life is like oxygen for these elephants, and they embrace it face-first.” However, there’s also some humor in the documentary too, including a fart joke when one of the elephants is shown passing gas. Meghan asks in the tone of a mother catching her kids in the act, “Oh, who did that?”

The movie also uses a technique multiple times in the movie to simulate an elephant’s memory, by showing a close-up of an elephant’s eye (usually Gaia’s) and then cutting to a dazzling montage of images of life that an elephant experiences and sees in this part of Africa. And although many people might be aware that elephants use their trunks like a human would use a hand, seeing it in action in this documentary is sure to impress. Because elephants are herbivores, sensitive viewers won’t have to worry about seeing elephants preying on other animals to eat.

However, it wouldn’t be a Disneynature documentary without at least one life-or-death experience. There are definitely some heart-pounding moments in the film, especially when the elephants encounter a hungry pride of lions. The documentary also shows what happens when the elephants encounter buffalos and crocodiles. There’s also a very suspenseful moment when a baby elephant gets stuck in quicksand-like mud and is in danger of suffocating to death.

“Elephant” will also educate people on what types of plant life are preferred by elephants in this region. Elephants love mopane, but so do mopane worms, so these worms (as small as they are, compared to elephants) are competitive food rivals for elephants. Also important to the elephants’ survival are baobab trees, which have the ability to store more water than most other trees, and are welcome sustenance after long treks in the desert.

The documentary also shows how emotionally sensitive elephants are when it comes to family. When the herd encounters a set of elephant skeletons, they touch the skeletons in such a way that it evokes mournful respect. And when they walk one by one past the skeletons, it resembles a funeral procession.

One of the most visually stunning parts of the documentary is when the herd arrives at Victoria Falls. The waterfall scenes are enough reason to see this movie on the biggest screen possible. There are also some scenes captured during the sunset that are absolutely beautiful.

Watching “Elephant” will probably inspire more than a few people to want to take an African safari, even though the reality of being in this environment is a lot more dangerous than it looks in this movie. (Disney+ has a behind-the-scenes documentary about making this movie called “In the Footsteps of Elephant,” which is highly recommended viewing, only after you’ve seen “Elephant,” since “In the Footsteps of Elephant” reveals several spoilers.) “Elephant” represents some of the best of what Disneynature has to offer, and the movie accomplishes the goal of both entertaining and educating people of all ages.

Disney+ premiered “Elephant” on April 3, 2020.

Review: ‘Diving With Dolphins,’ starring Roger Horrocks, Didier Noirot, Tad Luckey, Joe Mobley, Laura Engelby, Angela Zillener and Paul Atkins

April 3, 2020

by Carla Hay

Roger Horrocks in “Diving With Dolphins” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“Diving With Dolphins”

Directed by Keith Scholey

Culture Representation: This Disneynature documentary is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Disneynature documentary “Dolphin Reef,” with an all-white crew of filmmakers who worked in French Polynesia, Hawaii and Florida to make the documentary.

Culture Clash: The film crew sometimes had to battle the weather and unpredictable nature of ocean life.

Culture Audience: “Diving With Dolphins” will appeal mostly to people interested in documentaries about ocean animals, but it’s not essential viewing for people who see the “Dolphin Reef” documentary.

Didier Noirot in “Diving With Dolphins” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

Disneynature’s “Diving With Dolphins” is a “making of” documentary about the Disneynature documentary “Dolphin Reef.” And just like “Dolphin Reef,” the movie gives almost as much screen time to humpback whales as it does to dolphins. People who’ve seen “Dolphin Reef” don’t really need to see “Diving With Dolphins” because it seems more like a series of outtakes strung together by narration rather than a documentary with a fascinating storyline.

Directed by Keith Scholey (who co-directed “Dolphin Reef”) and narrated by Celine Cousteau (granddaughter of Jacque Cousteau) has a lot of the same gorgeous cinematography that “Dolphin Reef” has, but the movie doesn’t really give much insight into the filmmakers’ personalities. It’s kind of a tedious repeat of “get to a location, set up cameras, shoot some film, and then go to the next location.”

The documentary takes place in three main areas: French Polynesia, Hawaii and Florida. There are also separate shoots for the dolphins and the humpback whales. “Dolphin Reef” focuses on two bottlenose dolphins bottlenose dolphin mother named Kumu her 3-year-old son Echo), as well as two humpback whales (a mother named Moraya and her newborn female calf Fluke.

The people on the film crew include cinematographers Roger Horrocks, Paul Atkins, Didier Noirot and Jamie McPherson. They are accompanied by scientists Angela Zillener, Laura Engelby and Joe Mobley. And there are some skippers shown in the movie, such as Tad Luckey (whose Luckey Strike boat is in a lot of the humpback whale footage), Carl Ellington and Paris Basson, who’s a jet ski skipper.

Horrock has a clear preference for dolphins, which he’s been filming for decades. He says, “Dolphins are the probably most charismatic mammals that you can get in the ocean. They have a mammalian conscious, so we feel a kinship to them.” Horrock believes that dolphins are the “most welcome” animals he’s ever filmed and adds, “filming dolphins is the most physical because they’re constantly on the move.”

Meanwhile, Noirot, who used to be part of Jacque Cousteau’s crew, is described as someone who’s has more than 30 years of experience of ocean filming. He’s shown in the humpback whale film shoots. Noirot comments, “Hawaii is a good location to film humpback whales because of the whale population. You’re sure to see whales [and] crystal-clear water.”

Most of the filming was underwater, and the scenes that were film outside the water was done mainly by bot, by jet ski and by helicopter. Underwater, a scooter was used with a torpedo-like propeller to get some of the fast-moving shots. But there was a lot of down time during the film shoots, since it took several weeks to get close enough to a humpback whale and a calf to film for the movie.

Although scientist Zillener says that the crew got to know amore than 200 dolphins during the film shoot and that “to understand the animals, you have to be one of them,” there’s no effort made to single out any of the other animals (besides the four main stars) by describing their personalities in “Diving With Dolphins.” The movie would have benefited from more anecdotes about some of the animals who had standout personalities. In the movie, all of the animals appear to be generic. In “Dolphin Reef,” the some of animal personalities of the “supporting characters” seem to be crafted through creative editing.

The narration of “Diving With Dolphins” also tends to take on dramatic, hyperbolic tones, such as the description of the humpback whale courtship competition to become a female humpback’s chief protector: “It’s the most spectacular battle in nature.” Given all the wild animals in the world, that statement seems a bit too broad and subjective for a nature documentary.

One of the strengths of “Diving With Dolphins” is that it calls attention to the coral-reef crisis that desperately needs protection from human plundering and pollution that can cause climate change. The ocean is the foundation of almost every animal’s food chain, so it’s alarming that so much of the essential coral reef is disappearing due to climate change.  “Diving With Dolphins” mentions that in the three years it took to make this documentary, one-third of the film locations’ coral reef died. (More on this subject can be found in the excellent 2017 Netflix documentary “Chasing Coral.”)

“Diving With Dolphins” places a lot of emphasis on tiger sharks toward the end of the film, by saying tiger sharks are “misunderstood” and have an “overblown reputation as frightening and deadly predators.”  One of the reasons why French Polynesia was chosen as a location to film was because it’s one of the few countries that have laws protecting sharks, which are necessary for the food chain.

And cinematographer Atkins, who has more than 30 years of experience filming in the ocean, calls sharks “extraordinarily beautiful and graceful.” Atkins shows through a demonstration while being surrounded by tiger sharks, that giving them a gentle nudge on the face should do the trick in preventing them from attacking you. (It’s a lot easier said than done, and there should’ve been a caveat that only professionals with animal experience should try this tactic.)

Overall, “Diving With Dolphins” is kind of a scattered film that doesn’t reveal anything surprising about the making of “Dolphin Reef.” And the movie is much more than about diving with dolphins, since the filmmakers’ interactions with humpback whales and tiger sharks also take up a great deal of screen time.

Disney+ premiered “Diving With Dolphins” on April 3, 2020.

Review: ‘Dolphin Reef,’ narrated by Natalie Portman

April 3, 2020

by Carla Hay

A scene from “Dolphin Reef” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

“Dolphin Reef” 

Directed by Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill

Culture Representation: This Disneynature documentary chronicles some of the coral-reef life in French Polynesia, Hawaii and Florida, with an emphasis on dolphins and humpback whales.

Culture Clash: The dolphins and humpback whales are in danger of being killed by orcas.

Culture Audience: “Dolphin Reef” will appeal primarily to people who like movies about ocean animals.

A scene from “Dolphin Reef” (Photo courtesy of Disney+)

Disneynature’s “Dolphin Reef” is a beautifully filmed and unevenly edited documentary about coral-reef life in oceans. Viewers should know in advance that the movie isn’t just about dolphins. Humpback whales get almost as much as screen time in the movie as the dolphins, but since dolphins are “cuter,” that might be why dolphins are made the selling point in the movie’s title. The documentary is a pretty good lesson on the ocean’s ecosystem, but it also serves as a warning that much of the ecosystem is in danger of becoming extinct by the end of the 21stcentury if environmental protections aren’t implemented.

Narrated by Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman, “Dolphin Reef” focuses on a bottlenose dolphin mother and child, as well as a humpback whale mother and child. (They’re the only animals in the movie that have names.) Kumu is the dolphin mother of 3-year-old son Echo, a mischievous, playful child with a short attention span. Echo has reached a point in his life when he has to learn to be independent from his mother, but he lets other things easily distract him. Echo becomes fascinated with Moraya, a 40-foot humpback whale and her newborn female calf Fluke. The dolphins and the whales sometimes cross paths with each other, as they mingle with other ocean life and try to dodge the deadly jaws of orcas.

Without question, the best thing about “Dolphin Reef” is the gorgeous, immersive cinematography, which is usually the case with Disneynature documentaries. (And the atmosphere of “Dolphin Reef” might look kind of like a real-life version of the Pixar animation classic “Finding Nemo,” but without animals talking like humans, of course.) The vibrancy of the colors and animal life in the documentary’s coral reefs will give viewers the feeling of experiencing the beauty and dangers of the ocean firsthand.

However, unlike Disneynature films, which tends to focus on only one kind of animal, the story in “Dolphin Reef” isn’t as focused and could have benefited from tighter editing. Soon after viewers are introduced to dolphins Kumu and Echo, it veers into an educational narrative about other ocean life. The corals are the foundation, and they are kept from overgrowing by the ocean’s “gardeners”—the animals that feed on the corals. The gardeners are food for meat-eating ocean “predators” (such as dolphins, humpback whales and sharks), who are in turn eaten by “superpredators,” such as orcas.

The movie explains that Moraya the humpback whale has arrived from a cold polar location to give birth in warmer, tropical climate of the Pacific Ocean. A good deal of the documentary then shows how her whale calls attract the attention of male humpback whales, who sing and dance and then compete to become her protector. One only whale can emerge victorious.

There’s also a lot of screen time given to some of the memorable ocean residents who come in contact with the dolphins and whales. Razorfish are popular dining options for dolphins, which look for food by using a highly sophisticated sonar called echo location. It’s a skill that takes dolphins years to develop. Even though razorfish can hide in the sand, they can be detected if a dolphin has a highly attuned echo location.

Other fish who get a spotlight in the movie are humphead parrotfish, which are described as “the single most important protectors of the reef,” since they are essentially the “garbage collectors” of the ocean. In turn, the humphead parrotfish, whose enormous teeth can start to rot if not cleaned enough, are groomed smaller fish and other animals, in a ritual that goes back eons. If you ever wanted to know that humphead parrotfish excrement looks like sand, and they excrete about five tons a year, then you have this documentary to thank.

Cuttlefish are cast as the mysterious “villains” to smaller creatures, since cuttlefish have the ability to disguise themselves by changing the appearance of its scales. Cuttlefish can also transfix its prey by making its scales glow in the dark. It sounds like the kind of villain that you’d see in a Disney cartoon movie.

Also part of this ocean community are peacock mantis shrimp (notable for their obsessive grooming), crabs and sting rays. The editing of “Dolphin Reef” is clearly inspired by “Finding Nemo,” since these different ocean animals are sometimes made to look like they have cartoonish personalities, such as when the camera focuses on a wide-eyed fish that looks around and ducks when predators get into a fight. That footage might not actually be of the fish reacting to the fight, but it’s edited to look that way.

There’s even a “Finding Nemo” moment in the movie when Echo gets separated from his mother, is stuck with a friendly turtle in a very deep crevice. There’s a race against time for the Echo and the turtle to try to find an opening in the crevice, so they can rise to the ocean surface to breathe in much-needed oxygen. Moraya and her daughter Fluke also have a scary moment when they’re surrounded by orcas. Viewers can watch the the movie to find out what happened in both situations.

“Dolphin Reef” (directed by Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill) gives the impression that it was filmed mainly in the Pacific Ocean (including French Polynesian islands and in Hawaii), but Disneynature’s behind-the-scenes documentary “Diving With Dolphins” shows that filming of the movie spread all the way to the Atlantic Ocean coast of Florida. Therefore, there’s a lot of editing that looks manipulated to appear that things are happening in the same general location, when in fact they are not.

Portman’s narration is much like a the conversational tone of an elementary school teacher when she has to say lines describing the Polynesian islands’ as providing a “backdrop of an amazing story, with characters as fantastical as a fairy tale, but as real as you and me.” And she has a dramatically ominous tone when she says of the ocean: “This world operates under a different set of rules.”

Because the movie spreads the storyline across two types of ocean mammals—dolphins and humpback whales—as well as various “supporting characters” of ocean life, a more accurate title for the movie would be “Coral Reef,” even though it’s not as eye-catching as “Dolphin Reef.” Although dolphins and humpback whales are very different in many ways, they both have striking similarities, since they are each very intelligent, group-oriented animals that have distinctive languages and show affection through touching.

“Dolphin Reef” is not the best Disneynature documentary, but it can be enjoyed by people looking for a family-friendly film that gives some eye-popping views of ocean life.

Disney+ premiered “Dolphin Reef” on April 3, 2020.

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