There are some dope documentaries opening this week, along with what is becoming an annual event, the yearly narrative film about Pablo Escobar.
Eat That Question: Frank Zappa In His Own Words (exclusively at the Sundance Cinemas Houston) allows you to get into the head of Zappa through news clips, live concert footage and media interviews. There’s Frank with short hair playing a bicycle (as a musical instrument) on The Steve Allen Show, there’s Frank meeting Czech president Václav Havel, and one television interview where Frank comes off like a bit of a redneck as he explains why he doesn’t let his band get high while on tour.
Eat That Question doesn’t unroll like a hagiography and yet there are queries about the Zappa mythology that remain unanswered. Perhaps another doc can answer some of the inquiries that probing minds want to know — like the legal battles among the surviving family members regarding proper usage of the Zappa name. For what it is, Eat That Question covers the career of Frank Zappa comprehensively. From the Mothers of Invention, to his 1980s television appearances on political talk shows like Crossfire, and even answering questions in a televised interview about his soon-to-be death from prostate cancer at age 52 in 1993. One concert clip contains a vintage rendition of “Dinah Moe Hum.”
Have you noticed how Bryan Cranston has taken over the slot vacated by Gene Hackman?
Hackman, especially in the 1980s, would appear in several films a year. And the reason to see said films was because Hackman was chewing serious scenery. Cranston’s latest effort, The Infiltrator, tells the true story of a DEA uncover agent that — yes you guessed it — infiltrated the upper echelons of Pablo Escobar’s drug empire.
The Infiltrator runs a straight and narrow course and provides information and plot twists like a good procedural. In the end what you take away from this film is Cranston’s performance. The Infiltrator is currently unwinding in area theaters.
Tony Robbins holds week-long conventions every year where roughly a thousand people pay $5,000 (and more) to attend. Robbins exhibits a tough love approach to psychological problems. Joe Berlinger, whose documentaries include the groundbreaking Paradise Lost trilogy, gets up close and personal with Robbins during one of these events. The results are not surprisingly emotional as the human condition is exposed for all its folly.
Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru (available July 15 on Netflix) chronicles the events that take place at one of Robbin’s seminars. You may laugh at Robbin’s methods, which include primal elements that reduce participants to mere humans with animal motivation. But you will definitely weep when one victim of systematic abuse recounts her horrid childhood trauma and brings the large crowd to their collective knees. Highly recommended.
Tickled (opening at the Sundance Cinemas Houston) follows the money to make its payoff. A New Zealand blogger starts a series of investigative articles into a homoerotic sport simply titled “Competitive Endurance Tickling.” Participants, all macho male athletic types, are paid a couple of thousand bucks and flown to Los Angeles to make videos where they are tied down and tickled by multiple participants. It gets weirder than it sounds.
Every corner that our intrepid reporter turns reveals more subterfuge. Over one hundred websites dedicated to videos of the unseemly sport are the tip of the iceberg. Legal harassment follows, and the trail ultimately leads to a single (very wealthy) person operating under multiple aliases. Tickled will astound you with the amount of skullduggery a rich bitch uses to get their rocks off.
Lucha Mexico (exclusively at the Alamo Drafthouse Vintage Park) documents the rather bizarre wrestling confrontations that defines this specific sport. Big men and dwarfs wearing masks pretending to beat the shit out of each other. Expect to meet a midget dressed as a monkey who calls himself Kemonito. There’s also Strongman, El 1000% Guapo, Shocker (who commands the most screen time), Blue Demon Jr., and the femme component of this twisted sport, luchadoras Faby Apache and Sexy Star. There are several more wrestlers who pass before the frame.
Told in a manner that begs you to reconsider your own sanity, Lucha Mexico goes behind the scenes to show the viewer the generations old traditions that make this sport essential viewing for its admirers. For decades, Mexican cinema has been inundated by mask wearing heroes. Taking their skills to the boxing ring they expand the definition of camp entertainment.
The mask can only be removed when the opponent has lost, leading to even more humiliation than just losing the fight. There’s a never-ending parade of pretenders to the throne, and thus a tremendously enjoyable documentary. One early sequence shows the training school the participants attend that teaches them the skills they need to perpetrate their fraud upon the unsuspecting and yet compliant public.
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