DOC NYC ’12: My Amityville Horror

Long Island used to be considered a great place to settle down and raise a family. That was before Buttafuoco and Frankenstorm.  However, the thing that really freaked people out was the incident known as The Amityville Horror in a raft of books and movies.  Now a grown man, the eldest son of the terrified Lutz family finally breaks his silence on their twenty-eight days spent at the notorious Ocean Avenue address in Eric Walter’s My Amityville Horror (trailer here), which screened last night at this year’s DOC NYC, closely following word it had been acquired by IFC Midnight.

Daniel Lutz is a heck of an interview subject.  Not afraid of a little salty language, he sounds a lot like a typical Long Island knucklehead, until you hear his story.  Although there is a fair amount of skepticism expressed by others in the film, no one doubts his sincerity.  Clearly, he never enjoyed being known as the kid from The Amityville Horror.  Listening to him unburden himself in what appear to be staged counseling sessions, audiences might surmise the subsequent notoriety was as traumatic for him as whatever might have happened in the house itself.  The same may well be true for the circumstances surrounding his mother’s marriage to his stepfather, George Lutz, whose name he was forced to adopt.

New Yorkers will be especially interested to learn the extent to which local channel five (now Fox 5) owned the Amityville story before Jay Anson’s “true story” novel and the release of the films.  Marvin Scott (now with the City’s CW affiliate) even helped introduce the film and appears at length, along with his former colleague, Laura DiDio.  Having spent a mostly uneventful night there, Scott remains largely incredulous, whereas DiDio sounds like she gives it all considerably more credence.

Scoring a series of interviews with Lutz was certainly a coup, but it is precisely that tension between belief and skepticism that really distinguishes Walter’s film from a History Channel special or DVD extra.  Yet, the documentary still has plenty of creepy moments (particularly with regards to George Lutz and his reported background with the occult), despite Walter’s level headed approach.  Many viewers will likely conclude there was definitely something evil in that house, but whether or not it was supernatural is an open question.

Even for us doubting materialists, My Amityville is fascinating stuff, featuring a truly compelling central character in Daniel Lutz.  An intriguing nonfictional twist on the horror genre, it would make a strange but fitting double feature with either Rodney Ascher’s Room 237 (as a one-two examination of the cultural impact of well known horror movies) or Joshua Zeman & Barbara Brancaccio’s Cropsey (as the Long Island-Staten Island axis of real life horror stories).  Eerie but entertaining and always open-minded, My Amityville Horror is definitely a satisfying doc for genre fans.  Recommended accordingly, it should be coming back to the IFC Center relatively soon, courtesy of IFC Midnight.

DOC NYC ’12: Wonder Women

The last few years have been tough for Wonder Women.  While her Justice League colleagues have gotten big screen treatments, she suffered the embarrassment of network rejection for her pilot.  Considering it was from David E. Kelley, maybe it was just as well.  The heroic Amazon will always have her fans, several of whom explain her personal significance and lasting cultural influence in Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s Wonder Women: the Untold Story of American Superheroines (trailer here), which screens as a Midnight selection of the 2012 DOC NYC.

Psychologist William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman to embody feminine virtue, but she also found herself frequently bound-up, like a comic precursor to Bettie Page.  Wonder Woman might imply much about her creator’s subconscious, but her self-reliance struck a chord with many readers.  Unfortunately, when the Comics Code Authority began nannying the industry, Wonder Woman was amongst the hardest hit, effectively becoming a costumed Ally McBeel.

Guevara-Flanagan incorporates many talking head interviews with self-identifying feminists who celebrate the 1940’s era Wonder Woman and bemoan her subsequent watering down.  Frankly, she would have gotten much the same response had she interviewed conservative cultural critics as well.  The old school Wonder Woman might have been an Amazon Princess, but she adopted the American cause, fighting the Axis tooth-and-nail.  That’s a role model. 

Indeed, the film frequently frets about how society responds to “strong women,” yet it scrupulously ignores a recent high profile woman, known for being an accomplished outdoor sportsman, who rose to prominence in a male dominated world, only to become the target of some shockingly profane, sexual explicit vitriol.  Her name is Sarah Palin.

Regardless, when addressing the Wonder Woman’s cultural influence, the doc is rather hit-or-miss, by any standard.  Guevara-Flanagan and her experts draw a straight line from Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena the Warrior Princess, who serve as representatives of a small contemporary golden age of strong women action figures.  Yet, they ignore a huge chunk of Michelle Yeoh’s intervening filmography, in which she made a practice of playing strong butt-kicking women.  (She still does.)

Oddly, Wonder Women largely ignores recent developments for the character, including her comic book reboot in conjunction with the 2011 re-launch of the DC universe, the 2009 animated direct-to-DVD animated feature (featuring the voice of Keri “Felicity” Russell), or the much hyped but ill-fated pilot.  That is too bad, because the film is at its strongest when tracing Wonder Woman’s early evolution. 

Too politicized for the natural comic fan audience, Wonder Women is expressly intended for those who fondly remember her appearance on the first issue of Ms. Magazine.  For the rest of us, it is quite uneven, reflecting a rather insular perspective.  It screens at the IFC Center this coming Sunday night (11/11) and the following Tuesday (11/13) as part of DOC NYC 2012.

DOC NYC ’12: A Girl and a Gun

It is a real Rorschach test.  When people see a gun in the hands of a woman, they might see it as an equalizer, an instrument of empowerment, or a fetish object.  None of these is mutually exclusive.  Indeed, the many perspectives on women gun-ownership often overlap and conflict with one another in Cathryne Czubek’s A Girl and a Gun (trailer here), which screens as part of DOC NYC 2012.

Although many of G&G’s talking head experts hail from the general neighborhood of feminist thought, just about everyone acknowledges women’s relative physical vulnerability compared to men, especially liquored up stalkers.  This was particularly true for one middle aged tai chi instructor who broke up with her abusive body-builder boyfriend.  Realizing the police operate almost entirely reactively rather than proactively, she came to the somewhat reluctant conclusion she needed a gun.

She is not the only one to rely on guns for protection of life and limb.  One young widow living on an isolated farm with her young baby used her late husband’s shotgun to blow a home-invading predator to Kingdom Come.  Part of her remains troubled by the incident, but she will do it again if need be to protect her child.  Similarly, sex columnist Violet Blue has seen her fair share of death threats.  However, letting would-be stalkers know she keeps a loaded gun handy has had a deterrent effect.  She also thinks armed women are hot (and we’re not about to argue with her).

Naturally, G&G takes great efforts to show the other side of the coin, such as the prison interview with a woman who fatally shot her ambiguous roommate.  Somewhere in the middle, we meet an Upper Westside social worker, who became an accomplished recreational shooter, but refuses to keep a firearm in her apartment.

When supposedly exposing the ways the gun industry has attempted to exploit the women’s market, G&G is rather underwhelming.  In truth, it is hard to imagine a better informed group of consumers than women gun-owners.  Still, the fact that Czubek’s film will even entertain the notion some women have a legitimate and pressing need to own a gun for reasons of self-defense is rather bold.  That she bends over backwards to present cases of accidental and criminal gun deaths is to be expected.  Yet, it is impossible to watch the Oklahoma farm widow’s segment and argue she would be safe without her guns.

Given its somewhat balanced approach, G&G is probably in for a rocky reception at DOC NYC.  However, it could have earned Blue a whole new fanbase were it not for the anti-Romney material on her site.  For New Yorkers and her Bay Area neighbors, A Girl and Gun offers some eye-opening moments.  Recommended accordingly for local audiences, it screens this coming Sunday (11/11) and the following Wednesday (11/14) at the IFC Center, during DOC NYC ’12.

DOC NYC ’12: Bettie Page Reveals All

Don’t call her “notorious.”  Bettie Mae Page was a good Christian and the ultimate girl next door.  She just happened to have had a pin-up and fetish modeling career.  Gone but never forgotten, the late cult icon tells her story for posterity, serving as the de-facto narrator of Mark Mori’s Bettie Page Reveals All (trailer here), which screens as part of the new Midnight section of the 2012 DOC NYC at the IFC Center.

Who doesn’t recognize those trademark bangs?  The rest of her was pretty distinctive too.  Mori illustrates the film with plenty of Page’s risqué-for-the-time and still somewhat naughty photos.  In fact, as per Ms. Page’s wishes, he almost exclusively shows her as she wished to be remembered.  In the opening minutes, Page relates several incidents from her early life that could have permanently scarred her and left her completely incapable of intimacy.  Yet, Page was always comfortable with such matters, particularly when it came to a little topless posing.

Through Page’s reminiscences, viewers get a peek into a bygone era, when the salaciousness was more innocent.  Page often worked for “camera clubs,” groups of earnest and impeccably behaved photography enthusiasts who would slink off on weekends to shoot live (and usually topless) models.  As one might suspect, Page was one of their favorites, but evidently no funny business ever happened on a shoot.  Yet, it was Irving Klaw’s specialized mail order photos that made Page’s fame.

Unfortunately, Page’s second and third acts were characterized by a series of divorces and a persistent struggle with mental illness.  Having dropped out of the pin-up world soon after Estes Kefauver’s grandstanding senate hearings on pornography, Page’s fate was the subject of wild speculation amongst her fans.  She does indeed deliver, revealing all, but it is often rather sad.  Still, Mori deals with it forthrightly, warts and all, to his credit.

Indeed, Mori’s overall approach is right on target, giving viewers a good eyeful of what they want to see.  He also puts Page in proper cultural context, tracing her influence on second rate imitators like Madonna and Katy Perry—make that third rate imitators—and explaining her role as graphic novelist Dave “Rocketeer” Stevens’ muse.

Mori makes it clear Page is truly Americana at its hottest.  It is surprising but fascinating how much seemingly unrelated cultural history finds its way into her story.  Lovingly assembled, Bettie Page Reveals All should definitely hold the attention of non-fans nearly as well as that of devotees, which is the real test for documentary profiles.  Recommended with affection, it screens late night this Friday (11/9) as a midnight selection of DOC NYC ’12.  For obvious reasons, it is hard to see it getting much airtime on PBS, so Page admirers should probably see it now.

DOC NYC ’12: The Mosuo Sisters

The Mosuo people are considered somewhat exotic in China, but that is a decidedly mixed blessing.  Their traditional matriarchal way of life is slipping away, but there are opportunities to perform in Tibetan themed bars and dancehalls, at least for the pretty ones.  This again is a dramatically mixed blessing.  When the impact of the global financial crisis forces the siblings to return home from Beijing, they start to rethink their long term plans in Marlo Poras’s The Mosuo Sisters (trailer here), which screens during the proceeding-as-scheduled DOC NYC 2012.

Juma and Latso’s Himalayan Village is close to exactly nowhere.  Returning home after their employer shutters her Beijing bar is an arduous, depressing journey.  For Latso, the younger sister, it is a particularly bitter pill to swallow.  Having enrolled in an accounting class, she had hoped to support her family with a more professional career.  Now she is returning, knowing full well it will be difficult to leave again.  Indeed, it is Juma, the superior earning who is sent out (this time for Chengdu), while her mother keeps her home to work on their hardscrabble farm.

One hopes the sisters will reap some benefit from Poras’s film, especially if it airs on public television.  After production wrapped, their village was shook by an earthquake, which leveled their family’s home.  Currently living in tents according to the film’s facebook page, their family could use some of those kickstarter funds.

Even before disaster struck, the year and a half Poras spent with the sisters dramatically illustrates Socialist China’s vast economic inequalities.  Being an ethnic minority is also a dubious distinction for the sisters.  It is intriguing, but often for the wrong reasons, to the wrong people.  For instance, Juma must often endure misconceptions about Mosuo “Walking Marriages.”  Roughly, they are procreative arrangements, in which the wife and husband live in their mothers’ households, but jointly raise their children during evenings spent together.  Often deliberately misunderstood as an institution fostering promiscuity, they are anything but.

Of course, the status of China’s ethnic minorities has always been rather tenuous, particularly during the Cultural Revolution.  However, Poras keeps the focus exclusively on the sisters’ here and now.  Blessed with natural screen presence, viewers will definitely root for them.  They might be from the middle of nowhere, but they are not bumpkins.  In fact, they are quite intelligent and extremely sensitive.  Yet, the way they evolve and mature over this period of time is surprising.

While not even covered in the film’s post-script, the current condition of the sisters’ family speaks volumes about the nature of the Chinese government.  We witness first-hand how unabashed gangsters thrive in a city like Chengdu, but education is practically a luxury.  Poras’s frequent shots of Chairman Mao’s portrait staring down on the proceedings add an unmistakable layer of irony to their difficult struggle for survival.

A number of unvarnished documentaries addressing China’s social ills have been released internationally in recent years, but Mosuo Sisters has a somewhat different angle.  It captures a vanishing culture and features two primary POV figures who completely win over audience sympathies.  Strongly recommended, particularly for China watchers, Mosuo Sisters screens this Saturday (11/10) at the IFC Center.  If you go, also bring some cash in case they pass the hat for the sisters’ family.  Consider it a helping hand extended from one disaster area to another.

DOC NYC ’12: Gypsy Davy

Rachel Leah Jones has issues with her father.  She is not the only one.  Flamenco guitarist David Serva [Jones] is only good at playing music and reproducing.  Disingenuous apologies come in a distant third when Jones takes on her more or less absentee father in Gypsy Davy (trailer here), her documentary profile-slash-examination of family dysfunction, which screens during the still on-schedule 2012 DOC NYC at the IFC Center.

Born the blond David Jones of Alabama, Serva transformed himself into the first American flamenco guitarist accepted by the Spanish old guard.  He did it by abandoning his wife and two children (the director-co-producer-co-everything and an older brother from a previous marriage).  Serva is a self-absorbed creep, who displays almost no redeeming virtues throughout Davy.  For obvious reasons, Jones openly questions whether she should be documenting her irresponsible father, yet persists, clearly hoping the exercise will have a therapeutic effect.

Shockingly inarticulate, Serva Jones only buries himself deeper as the film continues.  Nonetheless, it is fascinating to trace the five women and five children (that he knows of) whose fates would become intertwined with his.  There is some stylish flamenco and Roma-influenced guitar music as well, but Serva Jones’ undeniable musical gifts are not impressive enough to compensate for his boorishness.

It is impossible to turn away from the uncomfortable messiness of Gypsy Davy, just like traffic accident or a Joe Biden stump speech.  Jones raises family disorder to the level of performance art, but there is never any question where the blame lies.  The only real surprise is the relative emotional health displayed by many of Serva’s grown children.

Gypsy Davy is almost unique among music-related documentaries because it leaves viewers less kindly disposed to its subject after a full viewing.  However, many critics and programmers will probably play up the Counting Crows hook.  Yes, David Serva Jones is the inspiration for that Mr. Jones.  In fact, his son Martin co-founded the band, but walked away from a career in music out of fear he would become like his father. 

While it looks rather DIY, Gypsy Davy is scathingly honest and quite shrewdly constructed.  Recommended for viewers in the mood for an anti-musical doc, Gypsy Davy screens this Friday (11/9) and the following Monday (11/12) as part of this year’s DOC NYC, which is still proceeding on course.