Most people don’t get to see documentaries until they arrive on a home video platform of some kind, whether it’s DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, iTunes, TV, Netflix streaming, etc. Join us every Tuesday for a look at what documentaries and reality programming is recommended by myself and other contributors to the site. As always, if you know of something we missed or should be aware of, drop us an email or a note down below.
Here are our ordered picks for March 10, 2015:
1. Remote Area Medical
[New to DVD via Cinedigm] — Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman’s latest documentary, about the eponymous nonprofit providing free healthcare to people in Bristol, Tennessee, has been criticized for not being more political. Dan Schindel addressed this in his review: “Remote Area Medical chooses to simply be. Any conclusions about what RAM is doing in Bristol are left to the viewer to make. It’s not even really about RAM. It’s about the people they’ve come to help. People who haven’t seen a dentist in years. People who have undiagnosed illnesses ticking away inside them. People who queue up at a repurposed NASCAR racetrack for hours in hopes of getting treatment. This movie is about humans first, humans second, and policy particulars not at all.” (★★★★)
Also available on Amazon Instant Video.
2. Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt
[Now Available on Vimeo On Demand] — I finally saw this 26-year-old Oscar winner, one of the beautiful, tragic works of Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and of course I cried a bunch of times. I also can’t stop thinking about Bobby McFerrin’s vocalized score. In the past, we’ve featured the film on a list of essential docs on death and dying and on a list of the best docs about LGBT history. Here’s its entry for the latter, by Daniel Walber: “The documentary is the ultimate elegiac art form. Whether it’s Wim Wenders memorializing a beloved artist in Pina or Sebastian Junger remembering Tim Hetherington, nonfiction cinema is uniquely equipped to simultaneously honor, remember and vindicate those we have lost. Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt is a collective elegy for those who lost their lives to AIDS, focusing on five individual stories and then concluding with the creation of the AIDS Quilt itself. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful.” (★★★★★)
Also available on DVD.
3. Where Are We? Our Trip Through America
[Now Available on Vimeo On Demand] — Another of Epstein and Friedman’s that I finally caught up with thanks to Wolfe Video’s distribution through Vimeo. It’s a surprisingly different effort from the duo, partly because it’s not a tearjerker and partly because it’s done in the first-person style as the two narrate their travels westward through the American South and talk to random people and address the climate on gay culture and tolerance in the early ’90s. It’s interesting for being made just after the Gulf War and before the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as it features a number of homosexuals in the military, some of whom come out publicly on screen. The film is probably even better now for its historical anthropology than it was 20 years ago, but either way it’s a fascinating road movie. (★★★★)
Also available on DVD.
4. Love Free or Die
[Now Available on Vimeo On Demand] — Part of this entry previously appeared in another edition of Nonfics Home Picks. An inspiring and encouraging film, Macky Alston‘s 2012 doc follows the life of Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop, and his discrimination within the Episcopal Church, especially overseas. Love Free or Die is the kind of issue film that presents a hero and his accomplishments as opposed to calling for heroes from its audience. And Robinson is quite the captivating character. As I’ve written before, you’ll have trouble not getting emotional alongside him during both painful and triumphant scenes. One of the most positive docs in years. (★★★★)
Also available on DVD, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, iTunes, Netflix Watch Instantly and YouTube.
5. Rich Hill
[New to Netflix Watch Instantly] — This entry previously appeared in another edition of Nonfics Home Picks. From our list of the best documentaries of 2014, on which it was ranked #5: “Small town America, to the extent that it even exists anymore, is not in good shape. Rich Hill, Missouri, is one of those troubled places, where the Fourth of July parade still marches strong but 19% of the population lives below the poverty line. Filmmakers Andrew Droz Palermo and Tracy Droz Tragos filmed three local teenage boys, all of them forced by circumstance to grow up much too fast. As each grows into his own, a multidimensional portrait of 21st century America emerges. In these young lives caught between the financial crisis, drug addiction, family and faith there is a sad but hopeful manifestation of the state of the union.” (★★★★)
Also available on Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube.
6. I Am Divine
[Now Available on Vimeo On Demand] — From Dan Schindel’s list of the best docs about funny people: “‘The Drag Queen of the Century.’ ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, Almost.’ Few people can become worthy of being known just by one name, but Divine is one of them. By far the most traditional biographical doc on this list, I Am Divine is still worth checking out for the myriad of colorful characters who swirled around her world. John Waters is one of the least outrageous people in the film, for perspective. And Divine herself is always immensely entertaining to behold, a maelstrom of filthiness and exuberance. It’s also a memorial to the heyday of Waters’s ‘Dreamlanders,’ many of whom have passed on.” (★★★)
Also available on DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, Epix, Fandor, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes, Netflix Watch Instantly, SnagFilms, Target Ticket, Vudu and YouTube.
7. Walt & El Grupo
[Airing on TCM on March 16th] — From Dan Schindel’s list of documentary alternatives to the Walt Disney biopic Saving Mr. Banks: “Walt & El Grupo, like Banks, goes behind the scenes of a specific Disney classic, although Saludos Amigos is not nearly as revered as Mary Poppins. It follows Disney and a team of writers, producers and animators (the titular “el grupo”) as they take a trip through South America in 1941. The U.S. State Department specifically commissioned this journey as a gesture of goodwill towards the South American governments, with whom they hoped to foster good relations. The film is interesting as a picture of a time when the Disney company’s future seemed in doubt, as it was in dire financial straits. It also gives audiences a glimpse of a less guarded, more candid Walt Disney than we’re used to seeing. Of course, it also sort of, kind of suggests that Disney was responsible for South America not joining the Nazis during World War II, so take it with a grain of salt.” (★★★★)
Also available on DVD, Google Play, iTunes, Target Ticket, Vudu and YouTube.
New to DVD [and/or Blu-ray]:
Abducted By Aliens: UFO Encounters of the 4th Kind
And You Belong
A Chef’s Life Season 1
A Chef’s Life Season 2
Bible Revelations: The Sacred Codes
Dinosaurs of the Jurassic
Faith Connections
Foo Fighters: Highways & Holidays
Linda Ronstadt: The Story
Pink Floyd DVD Collector’s Box
Remote Area Medical [Nonfics rating: ★★★★; Nonfics review]
This Ain’t No Mouse Music!
The Untold History of the United States [Nonfics rating: ★★]
New to Netflix Watch Instantly:
The Alps From Above: A Symphony of Summits
Food Chains
My Own Man
Rich Hill [Nonfics rating: ★★★★; Nonfics review]
Web Junkie [Nonfics rating: ★★; Nonfics review]
New to iTunes/Amazon Instant/VOD/etc.:
8: The Mormon Proposition — Vimeo On Demand
Carlin — SundanceNow Doc Club
The Collector — Vimeo On Demand
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt [Nonfics rating: ★★★★★]
Epic History: X-Men — Vimeo On Demand
Fragments of Dissolution — SundanceNow Doc Club
How Obama Won the West — Vimeo On Demand
I Am Divine [Nonfics rating: ★★★; Nonfics review] — Vimeo On Demand
In Order Not to Be Here — SundanceNow Doc Club
Into the Future — Fandor
Island of Lemurs: Madagascar — Amazon
Istanbul United — Amazon
Love Free or Die [Nonfics rating: ★★★★] — Vimeo On Demand
Mysteries of the Unseen World — Amazon, iTunes
Naked Island — Doc Alliance
Outside — Doc Alliance
Pictures From Dorothy — SundanceNow Doc Club
Pixel Poetry — Amazon
Pluto Declaration — SundanceNow Doc Club
Remote Area Medical [Nonfics rating: ★★★★; Nonfics review] — Amazon
A Rubberband is an Unlikely Instrumennt — Vimeo On Demand
The Serbian Lawyer — Doc Alliance
The Silent Chaos — Amazon
This Is Cinerama — Vimeo On Demand
Vitosha — Doc Alliance
Where Are We? Our Trip Through America [Nonfics rating: ★★★★] — Vimeo On Demand
The World’s Largest Shopping Mall [Nonfics rating: ★★★★] — SundanceNow Doc Club
Must-See Nonfiction TV:
(All Times Eastern)
Wednesday — 03/11
2:30am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO West and HBO Latino West]
5:35pm: That Gal … Who Was in That Thing [Showtime]
8:35pm: That Gal … Who Was in That Thing [Showtime West]
9:00pm: Food, Inc. [Pivot]
10:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO 2]
11:30pm: 12 O’Clock Boys [Showtime Next]
Thursday — 03/12
1:00am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO 2 West]
1:45am: How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It) [Encore Black]
3:00am: Paris Is Burning [The Movie Channel]
3:30am: West of Memphis [Starz Cinema]
4:55am: The 50 Year Argument [HBO and HBO Latino]
5:05am: Soul Power [Starz Edge]
6:00am: Paris Is Burning [The Movie Channel West]
7:55am: The 50 Year Argument [HBO West and HBO Latino West]
11:00am: How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It) [Encore Black]
3:00pm: Beware of Mr. Baker [Showtime Next]
4:00pm: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory [HBO 2]
7:00pm: Citizenfour [HBO]
7:00pm: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory [HBO 2 West]
8:00pm: Finding Vivian Maier [Showtime Showcase]
8:00pm: King Corn [Fusion]
9:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO]
10:00pm: Citizenfour [HBO West]
11:00pm: Finding Vivian Maier [Showtime Showcase West]
11:00pm: King Corn [Fusion]
Friday — 03/13
12:00am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO West]
1:30am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO Latino]
3:15am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO]
3:30pm: Grizzly Man [Outdoor Channel]
4:05am: Citizenfour [HBO]
4:30am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO Latino West]
6:15am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO West]
7:00am: King Corn [Fusion]
7:05am: Citizenfour [HBO West]
7:45am: Private Violence [HBO 2]
8:15am: Finding Vivian Maier [Showtime]
10:00am: King Corn [Fusion]
10:45am: Private Violence [HBO 2 West]
11:15am: Finding Vivian Maier [Showtime West]
4:50pm: That Gal … Who Was in That Thing [Showtime Showcase]
7:50pm: That Gal … Who Was in That Thing [Showtime Showcase West]
Saturday — 03/14
12:30am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO and HBO Latino]
3:30am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO West and HBO Latino West]
10:10am: That Gal … Who Was in That Thing [Showtime]
1:10pm: That Gal … Who Was in That Thing [Showtime West]
3:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO 2]
6:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO 2 West]
11:45pm: Louis C.K.: Hilarious [Epix]
Sunday — 03/15
2:45pm: Louis C.K.: Hilarious [Epix West]
4:00am: 12 O’Clock Boys [Showtime Next]
6:15pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 4 [HBO 2]
7:00pm: That Gal … Who Was in That Thing [Showtime 2]
7:10pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO 2]
8:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO and HBO Latino]
9:15pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 4 [HBO 2 West]
10:00pm: That Gal … Who Was in That Thing [Showtime 2 West]
10:10pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO 2 West]
11:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO West and HBO Latino West]
11:30pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO]
Monday — 03/16
1:05am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO Latino]
1:30am: Walt & El Grupo [TCM]
2:30am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO West]
4:05am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO Latino West]
1:25pm: The Yes Men [Epix 2]
2:00pm: I Am Divine [Showtime Showcase]
4:30pm: Beware of Mr. Baker [Showtime Next]
5:00pm: I Am Divine [Showtime Showcase West]
9:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO]
Tuesday — 03/17
12:00am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO West]
2:45am: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO Latino]
3:30am: The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz [Pivot]
12:25pm: Beware of Mr. Baker [Showtime Showcase]
2:00pm: Finding Vivian Maier [Showtime Women]
2:00pm: Soul Power [Starz in Black]
2:10pm: Citizenfour [HBO Signature]
3:25pm: Beware of Mr. Baker [Showtime Showcase West]
5:10pm: Citizenfour [HBO Signature West]
5:45pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO Latino West]
8:15pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 4 [HBO 2]
8:25pm: Soul Power [Starz in Black]
9:15pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO 2]
10:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 6 [HBO 2]
11:00pm: Finding Vivian Maier [Showtime Women]
11:15pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 4 [HBO 2 West]
4:25pm: Cool It [Epix 2]
5:00pm: Finding Vivian Maier [Showtime West]
7:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO Signature]
10:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO Signature West]
11:00pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO]
11:30pm: The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst — Part 5 [HBO Latino]
