Indie Picks: At The Movies This Weekend
Two of the best documentaries of the year are hitting town this weekend. Mainstream theaters are overloaded with bloated 3D action films these days, but for the arthouse crowd, any extra dimensionality usually comes from well-crafted dialogue and performances. Werner Herzog and Violet Crown Cinema are about to change the local landscape, at least for a few weeks.
Cave Of Forgotten Dreams 3D (Violet Crown Cinema, 2D print at Regal Arbor)
Werner Herzog's acclaimed documentary Cave Of Forgotten Dreams breezed past the $1 million mark at the box office last week and it expands to 100+ screens this weekend. Shot at the Chauvet Cave in southern France under the approval of the French Ministry of Culture, Herzog takes a small film to document what is essentially a lost world.
Limited by a long list of filming restrictions, Herzog uses 3D cameras to capture the images of human cave drawings that have been determined (with the help of carbon dating) to be over 32,000 years old. Along the way, we get to see remains from the diversity of life that once inhabited that cave that now line the floors, perfectly preserved in calcite.
The images are, at times, almost unbelievable. While many skeptics continue to argue against 3D films, it is fascinating to see it used here because it allows us to view something that very few people in the world will ever be given the chance to see in person. These caves are closed off to protect them, but this documentary allows us to see a remarkable part of human history and see just a tiny glimpse of what primitive man once saw in daily life.
The original 3D version is only being screened locally at the new Violet Crown Cinema. We took in an advance screening there and it just looked incredible. For those of you are are opposed to 3D, there is a flat 2D print screening up at the Regal Arbor, although at that point you might as well wait to watch it at home in six months. If you wish to see it theatrically (and you should), the 3D version is really the way to go.
Bill Cunningham New York (Regal Arbor)
Simply put, this is one of the most engaging and inspiring documentaries to come along in recent memory. For his first feature film, director Richard Press followed Bill Cunningham from The New York Times around for almost two years to gain insight into how his famous "On The Street" feature is created.
Cunningham began working at the Times in 1978 and has spent over thirty years capturing photographs of emerging fashion trends from all walks of life in New York. The film interviews Vogue's Anna Wintour, author Tom Wolfe and some of Cunningham's favorite subjects like Iris Apfel and Kenny Kenny.
The film's press kit says that the intensely private photographer, now in his eighties, initially resisted the filmmaker's attention. In fact, Press says that it took eight years "to convince Bill to be filmed." Instead, the small crew "had to capture him the way he claims to capture his own subjects: 'discreetly, quietly, and invisibly.'"
The end result is a joyous celebration of the life and work of an artist whose work has probably informed the fashion world as much as it has reflected it.
Also opening:
Skateland (Regal Arbor, Cinemark Tinseltown 17)
An official selection of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, this Texas-shot indie is finally seeing a limited theatrical release. While it has received some mixed reviews, the Chronicle called it "a sweet, knowing, visually spot-on evocation of early-Eighties teen life."
