For me, the most interesting documentaries involve some sort of accident of fate. When the end result of a documentary, whatever it's about, is pretty much what the filmmaker envisioned at the start, I'm not interested. You may end up with something great, and certainly something worth the time, but it's never as brilliant an adventure, or (for me) as entertaining in terms of the world of filmcraft.

Winnebago Man doesn't quite have the scope of accident that something like Capturing the Friedmans brings forward, but there is a certain twist that turns things into an entirely different film. That twist adds the oddity that probably kept director Ben Steinbauer interested enough to bother with a complete film.

The focus is on Jack Rebney, in case you don't know him as Winnebago Man (or The Angriest Man on Earth), one of the earliest viral video legends. Even before the internet offered a medium for sharing such things, Rebney was being passed around via VHS tape, even popping up such places as The Show With No Name which featured YouTube hits before there was any such thing as YouTube.

Rebney's claim to fame is outtake footage from a promo video he was making for Winnebago. Letting loose with an almost unbelievable volley of curses, Jack's tirade has, in one incarnation or another, been viewed so often that it staggers the imagination.

A true cultural phenomenon, his rant has been quoted and alluded to in several movies and TV shows, and for the internet savvy, the man is an integral part of the idea of viral videos.

Steinbauer, among the many fans of Winnebago Man, and a film professor, tried to figure out what happened to old Jack. As a kind of lark, apparently inspired by some of the cases where viral videos have led to much embarrassment, if not necessarily real "bullying," Steinbauer tried to look up Rebney, just to see what he was doing, decades after the filming of that which made him famous.

The quest that became the film got started when Steinbauer couldn't find anything. Even after hiring a private investigator, it seemed that Rebney had disappeared. The curiosity hook firmly in place, Steinbauer was now moved to find out what happened to him. Fueled by the negative effects of viral videos on others, he wondered if Rebney had been so embarrassed that he chose to remove himself from the public. Had he gone into hiding? Had he suffered any negative reaction?

He eventually meets Rebney, and tries to get inside the head of the man who is famous for being angry, but about whom no one really knows anything. Meeting with others who worked on the famous video, Rebney's best friend, and managing a lot of footage of Rebney himself, Steinbauer explores this curious icon of the internet age, and tries to figure out not only what makes him tick, but why his video is so interesting to people.

It's a documentary that is put together exceptionally well, and I believe partially because Rebney threw Steinbauer for a bit of a loop early on. Finding him was somewhat interesting, but if not for the bizarre twist, we may never have known anything the adventure.

Rebney is an opinionated, rather egotistical man, and that might be what we expect, but he's something more as well. Perhaps more of a nut than we thought, perhaps not, but there is a regular guy in there as well... somewhere. It's often hilarious to watch the antics before us, but the film is put together without much regard for the potential of simply creating a feature-length viral of a guy who really gets into his shouting. Funnier, frankly, by eschewing an effort at being funny.

Though Rebney has a low opinion of anyone who might consider themselves a fan of his ranting video, he eventually comes around, I think at least partially because of the theory behind the investigation. A theory, that I suspect did not really exist until many moons into the production.

There is a live question behind wondering about the popularity of the screaming, fly-hating Winnebago salesman, and we eventually get somewhere with it. When a guy falls hilariously, we understand why that video gets tons of hits. Though we may feel bad about it later, we also understand the attraction to people who make fools out of themselves, especially when they are completely serious. But, this is just a guy yelling.

At a point near the end of the film, we hear the reactions of some fans when they get to meet Rebney, and by and large they wrap things up nicely. "When I get home from a really bad day at work," one of them begins, and we know where things are going. Winnebago Man is at work, having a really bad day, and who among us wouldn't like just one day of going into the office and letting fly for all we're worth?

If you see one documentary all year, make it Winnebago Man. It's probably one of the funniest things you'll see, documentary or otherwise, and if this doesn't give you something to talk about, nothing will.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Winnebago Man is now playing in select cities and is expanding for the next month or so. Seek it out, and don't miss it.

Here's the trailer.

And, here's the video in question, which is not really safe for work.

RU?

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© 2010, Are You Screening?. All rights reserved. Reprinting without express permission of the author is prohibited.

Every generation in the history of mankind has talked about the good old days, so it isn't surprising to find one more example of reminiscing about days gone by and the way things have changed. Most generations probably have some version of pointing out that things really are different in their case, but there might be a pretty good argument this time around.

New York Street Games, a feature documentary by Matthew Levy, takes a look at the games that used to be an undeniably integral part of life in New York City. Showcasing interviews with Hector Elizondo, Regis Philbin, Ray Romano, Whoopi Goldberg, Keith David, Joe Pantoliano, and many more, the film describes the games themselves, but also the life they were a part of. Things may evolve before your eyes as not that much more than a fond memory of a "Spaldeen," but this generation may actually have something to say about what's different, because there really is no other generation in which children suddenly lost all interest in being outside.

Our entrance to the film is thoroughly game-centered, and as one subject rather wonderfully points out, "There are only two games in the world. Run as fast as you can until you drop, and throw the ball as far as you can. Everything else is a mixture of those two games." However, things soon turn to a focus that is more interested in the life and lifestyle of the days in which these games were played, even if we rarely stray long from talk that includes a ball, can, or piece of chalk.

It's a nice run at nostalgia to hear various celebrities talk about the mad dashes to save their balls from the sewer, or the wire hanger retrievals of same, but the film is always talking more about the neighborhood mentality, and the losses that have nothing to do with the fact that no one knows what Stoopball is anymore.

In a refreshingly non-intrusive way, facts about the ridiculous turns of our world, such as Tag being banned in many schools across the country, are given out quickly and the page is abruptly turned. We aren't forced to listen to too much talk about the dwindling physical education in this country, we're just expected to have it in our minds as we listen to the high adventure of Ringolario.

Though there are some adjustments I might make with regard to the style and final composition of the film, the point is well made, and the result is entertaining. It's a film more about questions than answers, as all documentaries should be, and the questions here become intriguing. It is certainly a different time in many ways, and while many will be quick to think that it is a more dangerous world now, a world that makes it impossible to just send your kids out to play without worrying about them, there is a case to be made for the idea that we have our cause and effect mixed around.

There are also things worth wondering about in terms of the do-gooders who have managed such grand feats as ridding schools of Tag. As Whoopi Goldberg points out, "...because someone has to lose? Of course. Losing is how you figure out what to do differently." And, as C. Everett Koop points out, "you had to find a way to fit in," and he says it for all the world as though he didn't know that he was speaking what practically amounts to blasphemy today. There were bigger kids, he goes on to explain, and maybe kids you didn't know, but if you didn't figure out how to get along, you didn't play. There were great lessons in diplomacy, and a variety of interpersonal skills at work among that play.

I remember playing a game at school called "Suicide," and all I remember about it was that it had the convenient benefit of allowing any number of players, and it involved running, a huge brick wall, and a tennis ball. At some point it was possible to fall afoul of the game's "punishment," which was very simply that you stood against the wall and someone tried to hit you as hard as they could with the ball. You had two hands to protect yourself with, but you were only going to do a fair job at your face OR your privates, and the game resulted in a few bloody noses.

Once in a while a ball made it on the roof, and someone would have to shimmy up to an air-conditioner, then jump up to the lip and pull themselves over to retrieve it. There's no doubt at all that a trip to the hospital would have been a best case scenario there.

You couldn't play such a game today, naturally. We'd never be allowed to in the first place, though I don't know that anyone ever condoned what we were doing back then, and the lawsuits would fly even over the bloody nose.

But those, by God, were the days.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

RU?

© 2010, Are You Screening?. All rights reserved. Reprinting without express permission of the author is prohibited.

If you're a fan of Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion, there's a good chance you're already familiar with the documentary The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes.  It's just the nature of Keillor fans to find out what's going on.  The touring dates sell out practically before anyone knows they're on sale.

If you happen not to be aware, and have any interest in Garrison Keillor at all, you simple must check out this wonderful documentary.  More than a year of filming put together by Peabody, DGA and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Rosen, showcases the brilliantly indescribable man who brought radio variety back to a world that had no idea it was interested.

Originally airing on PBS' American Masters, the DVD is available with more than an hour of extras, and they are decidedly worthy additions.

It's an approximately 90-minute look at the man behind the mythical town that has become everyone's hometown, and his efforts on and off stage that result in a show that is still winning people over after 35 years.  Even with that track record for the show, 20 books published, Robert Altman's film treatment, and a syndicated weekly column, it can still be difficult to describe one's fondness for Keillor in any of his methods of engagment.

While the Altman film takes on quite the adventure, and is probably more documentary in its own way than we might believe, with The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes we are taken not only behind-the-scenes, but behind that as well, and get a surprisingly intimate portrait of how the show, and Lake Wobegon's residents, move from Keillor's mind to the stage and over the airwaves.

The DVD includes outtakes, a filmmaker's biography, an interview with Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor, and Garrison Keillor's Talk to Students, which is almost as wonderful as the documentary.

This is a real gem that is going to go unnoticed by a great many, and that's a shame on several fronts.  A fascinating look into the life and mind of easily one of our time's greatest humorists should not slip by without any fanfare at all.  Even apart from that, this is a well-crafted documentary that pieces together a rich, vibrant story in a case where its subject is at all times doing its level best to deny anything remotely like vibrancy.

Here's an interview with director Peter Rosen on Garrison Keillor from our friends at New Video

Check out a quick teaser below, and leave a comment to be entered to win a copy for yourself.  Winner will be randomly selected on September 21st.  You must be in the U.S. or Canada to be eligible to win.

Are You Screening?

© 2009, Are You Screening?. All rights reserved. Reprinting without express permission of the author is prohibited.

The genesis of Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Friedmans has already become an established industry anecdote. Jarecki, who from what I understand has only his status as co-founder of MovieFone connecting him to the industry, set out, for reasons I cannot imagine, to make a documentary about party clowns in New York City. David Friedman had somehow managed to become, according to someone I suppose, the number one party clown in New York. What that means I can’t really guess. It’s probably not surprising that during the course of Jarecki’s interviews with David Friedman, something turned out to be more interesting than a documentary about party clowns. That, however, is the only thing that isn’t surprising about David Friedman’s life.

Capturing the Friedmans is a look at a bizarre family, and the even more bizarre circumstances which led to the father and one son going to jail for child molestation. Before we judge prematurely, the true brilliance of Capturing the Friedmans is in its development of the way varying perspectives skew our dealings with the world, and our memory. I don’t want to be taken as suggesting that Arnold Friedman, the father, is less than creepy. On the contrary, he’s one of the creepiest people you’ll ever run into, whether he did what he was accused of or not. The point, however, is that everyone is creepy. Absolutely every aspect of the case will make your flesh crawl. On the other hand, that depends to a certain degree on the perspective you bring to the table.

Arnold Friedman was a mild-mannered school teacher who gave lessons in computer literacy to children to add to the family finances. This was in the earliest days of computers, and such a class was a luxury for the upper-middle class children that lived in the Friedman’s neighborhood. Then one day a policeman came to the Friedman home with a search warrant. We weren’t off the deep end at this point, though Arnold wasn’t going to win many more teacher of the year awards. At this point the police were looking for child pornography. They knew for a fact he had some, but they wanted to see just how much there was. There wasn’t, quite frankly, all that much. Sure, any amount is too much, but a dozen or so magazines is still a different sort of nut than thousands. So, Arnold has some explaining to do, but life with his wife and three sons might still go on. Then the investigator in charge of the child pornography case (the only sane person in the entire film if you ask me) learned that Arnold taught these computer classes. Just as he should have done, I think, he suggested to the sex crimes unit that maybe we should look into the fact that these young children come to Arnold’s house. I know, your skin is crawling already, isn’t it?

Here’s where things go completely loopy. The film has interview footage with the woman who was in charge of the sex crime investigation, and a police officer, and they're both operating from a more offensive mindset than you are likely to meet. Finding out what, if anything, happened to those children, the truth in other words, was clearly never a goal. After, apparently, several months of interviewing these young children, the counts of sexual abuse against Arnold Friedman were legion. Jarecki, whose film nevertheless takes no sides (and how could it), shows experts in the field of questioning children. As we might expect, we hear them say that such questioning is extremely tricky, and should only ever ask children what happened, never suggest what happened. Children, as I’m sure we’ve all heard, are extremely vulnerable in such situations, and are quite likely to give the answers people want to hear. We cut immediately from said expert to one of the officers who conducted the interviews. Though he himself claims to understand the inherent problems with questioning children, he describes the form of questioning that was the norm during this investigation.

We know such-and-such happened, and he did so-and-so to you, didn’t he? In case we’re unconvinced that things were handled poorly, the film includes new interview footage with some of these children. One readily admits that he simply told the police whatever they wanted him to say because they wouldn’t leave him alone otherwise. His testimony resulted in a score or so counts of molestation. The parent of one of the children investigated talks about how the police told him they knew his child was molested, and tried similar questioning tactics. Worse still, several of the children were put under hypnosis. Though the movie only mentions the fact in passing, the chief reason no one should ever be hypnotized in such a situation is that it is considered at least as likely that memories will be created rather than ‘uncovered’.

Before we know what happens, Jesse, the Friedman’s youngest son has been mentioned during the questioning. He apparently helped his father teach the class at times, and once his name was mentioned there were charges against him as well. One child admits in new interview footage that he made up something to tell the police about Jesse because they wouldn’t stop asking if he was involved.

Now, I wouldn’t want to be considered to be defending the Friedmans. I surely don’t know what happened, and after watching this film you won’t either. Don’t think you will. Arnold admitted to being attracted to young boys, and there isn’t the slightest question that he indeed possessed child pornography. Did something happen, ever, with any of the children who took his class that was at the very least inappropriate? You could find no one easier to convince than me. But, notice I said ‘convince’. If you want me to take it as given merely because the accusation has been made, however, you’ve got the wrong guy in me, and I don’t care how disgusting it is to have child pornography.

But, whether he did anything isn’t at issue anyway, because I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty - he didn’t do what they accused him of. It’s absolutely impossible. In the end there were so many counts against him, associated with so many children, and so bizarrely heinous were the allegations, that there isn’t the remotest chance he could have actually done even a significant portion of them, much less all of them. 90 minutes every Saturday for a few weeks is time enough to do a lot. It is not, however, enough time to do thousands of things that would gag the Marquis de Sade, and have all the children smiling by the time their parents arrive, frequently early and unannounced. And no one ever accused him of anything until the police came and questioned the children.

Of course, this is all only one perspective. Mainly through the Friedman’s home videos and interviews, the film also gives us the other side of things, and as I said, it never paints a clear picture. Though the legal side of things might be just as... odd (the judge in the case was no winner either), the Friedmans are just the sort of wackos who practically demand that a mob come and burn them at the stake. Even if no one had ever been charged with anything, a viewing of the Friedman home movies would make people do a lot of fidgeting in their seats.

The beauty of the film, as I mentioned, is that it so solidly displays the contrasting perspectives, and the mindset filters through which people experience the world. The investigator from the sex crimes division speaks of the foot-high stacks of child pornography found in the Friedman home, and even describes how it could be found in plain view in the living room, and close to hand, as it were, throughout the house. Photographs from the search of the house, and other records, show that this is not remotely accurate. But, we also get a good idea of the filters through which the Friedman children, and Mrs. Friedman experience the entire fiasco, and their entire lives.

Whatever illegal activities may have occurred, the Friedmans defy you to sit comfortable with even the most insignificant aspects of their lives. Home movie buffs from the earliest days of the medium, we see quite a bit of ‘natural’ Friedman. For reasons surely as strange as those underlying everything else about them, the Friedmans taped their worst moments. Fights about the trial, bouts of screaming at mom, and just about anything else you can imagine. Though the charges of child molestation are surely the sort of thing to whip people into a frenzy of hate, the truth is that the Friedmans are just so weird you’re somewhat comfortable putting them in jail whether they did anything or not. Arnold can hardly be bothered to breathe when he comes home after six weeks in jail (don’t worry, there’s a lot more jail to follow), and Jesse acts much like a kid on his way to summer camp as he prepares to plead guilty in order to get a deal. Tearful words in the hopes of mercy on sentencing do not get so far when several people involved in the proceeding have just witnessed your full-blown Monty Python sketch in the parking lot (and the brain surgeon sketch no less).

By the time the whole thing was over (and I had a shower... and used a lot of Lava) what struck me most about the Friedmans specifically, and not the case, was that apart from an outburst or two of rage from the mother, and similar fits of anger by at least two of the sons, I really couldn’t be sure that anyone from clan Friedman had ever felt an emotion in their lives. Take away a few glimpses of mistfit-esque ‘on’ moments in front of the home movie camera during happier, much earlier times, from all we see of Arnold Friedman, and for all we can tell he might be a slightly fancier version of the animatronic Abe Lincoln at Disneyland... but not much fancier.

Capturing the Friedmans might have been turned into a lot of different movies, and quite frankly few of them would have been brilliant. Fewer still would have managed to get to something more interesting than making absolutely every frame unsettling. Let’s face it, that’s a no-brainer here. But, one that manages to move completely beyond the sensation value, and deliver grounded insight into a wide array of human problems is something rare indeed.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Are You Screening?

© 2009, Are You Screening?. All rights reserved. Reprinting without express permission of the author is prohibited.

At a certain point in Stacy Peralta's latest effort, Crips and Bloods: Made in America, one of our interview subjects comments (roughly) that one of the chief devices of oppression is to turn the oppressed into the tools of their own oppression.  It was at this point, historically-moving documentary aside, that the film became interesting for me.  Sure, the whole thing is a worthy effort just based on the account of a strange and tragic set of circumstances, but I mean interesting in the sense of a well-crafted, meaningful film.  The story itself, starting from the 50s (and before to a degree) and following the events that made south L.A. what it is today, was going to be interesting on some level regardless of the filmcraft.  But, it wasn't necessarily going to be a gripping and powerful film.

The film relates the story of a section of geography and a massive socio-cultural experiment more than anything else, and despite knowing the title is "Crips and Bloods," that's probably a rather surprising thing to say.  The red and blue highlights on the map are the result of a strange, sad, and frightening course of oppression, abuse, and disenfranchisement.  The decades-long transition from lower-income negroes who couldn't go across a street into the wrong neighborhood without being harassed by police, to lower-income African-Americans who can't cross a street into the wrong neighborhood for fear of being shot dead on sight by other African-Americans is truly mind-bending.  It is all the more dumbfounding, and frankly remarkable, when you see the entire progression laid out before you.

The story is given to us largely by way of those who lived through various eras of the downward spiral.  From those who were at the Watts riots, to those who were very recently involved (even currently) in the gangs.  With photo and video footage, coupled with first hand accounts of events, we walk through the days when the first L.A. "gang" started, though they didn't call themselves a gang then.  Those youths, just trying to do something to fit in somewhere, wouldn't have looked very out of place in an episode of Happy Days.  They may have beat each other fairly regularly, but they did it by appointment, and it was pretty civil and above-board.

The evolution resulting in generation after generation being born on the frontlines of a very literal war is something not only predictable, as referenced in the quote above, but something practically planned.  It's not only the result we have, it's the one that's nearly unavoidable.

Stacy Peralta, of Dogtown and Z-Boyz and Lords of Dogtown fame, once again masters the art of letting people tell their own stories.  It is perhaps a more interesting and genuine plus here, because if you were at Watts, no one is telling that story better than you.  The overall product is, as I said, somewhat easy in its power, or at least in its historic significance, but this is a film that could have gone wrong in a million ways and didn't.  Sometimes that's the measure of great direction.

The real brilliance of Crips and Bloods: Made in America is that it doesn't live for its agenda, or even seem particularly to have one.  It's objective (though its subjects are not) not only to a surprising degree, but in the face of a subject which might make a lack of objectivity pretty forgivable.  It's wonderfully human, and moreover humane while it is riveting, but it doesn't really 'tell'.  It's a subject here and now, and told by the participants, but the film itself builds from a true documentarian's detached wonder.

It is a style and filmmaking perspective that might as easily have been about Roman slaves, and it would still have made you care, but because it isn't, it will crush you.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Are You Screening?

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• Crips & Bloods: Made in America (pastemagazine.com)

© 2009, Are You Screening?. All rights reserved. Reprinting without express permission of the author is prohibited.