This Week In Documentary
Theatrical & Streaming Releases - New & Recommended - May 24-30, 2024
The last full week of May 2024 brings Memorial Day weekend, and that marks the non-scientific start of summer. How appropriate that our recommendations this week include a documentary about a service hurt by the start of summer blockbuster season and a music doc about a group associated with going to the beach.
Of course, Memorial Day is also a time to remember those who died in service to the U.S. There are tons of documentaries worth watching that fit the holiday. Whether it’s a World War II propaganda film like With the Marines at Tarawa (which is for sale on Amazon) or John Ford’s The Battle of Midway (now streaming on Tubi and IndieFlix) or a groundbreaking Vietnam War film like The Mills of the Gods (currently unavailable), documentaries immortalize the soldiers on screen while reminding us of why they fought and what they went through valiantly before they fell.
This week we also remember a few classic documentaries with notable anniversaries. Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Antonio Gaudí (streaming on The Criterion Channel), about the famous Catalan architect, turns 40 on Saturday, May 25. The same day, Paul Cowan’s Oscar-nominated feature Going the Distance (streaming free on the NFB website), about the XI Commonwealth Games, turns 45. The biographical documentary Charlie Brown and Charles Schulz (currently unavailable) turns 55 on Friday, May 24, while Sunday, May 26, marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. release of Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth’s The Five Obstructions (streaming free on Kanopy).
Two exceptional documentary filmmakers are worth celebrating this week as well. Robert Greene turns another year older on Saturday, May 25. The former Nonfics contributor (read all his columns here) has made plenty of docs we recommend, including Bisbee ‘17 (streaming on Kanopy), Procession (Netflix), Actress (VOD), Kate Plays Christine (The Criterion Channel and Kanopy), Fake It So Real (Ovid, GuideDoc, and Kanopy), and Kati with an I (sadly not currently available to stream). Thursday, May 30, would have been Agnès Varda’s 96th birthday. We recommend watching her documentaries, including her California films (available in a Criterion set) and her 2017 feature with JR, Faces, Places (Tubi and Kanopy).
Below are some documentary highlights for the week ahead, including our top recommended Pick of the Week. After that is a daily listing of theatrical, streaming, and home video releases plus a brief preview of what’s coming soon. These sections are for paid subscribers, and I hope that you’ll consider upgrading your subscription. Nonfics depends on the support of documentary fans and filmmakers to continue. Thank you to everyone who is already a paid subscriber!
Nonfics Pick Of The Week: MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024)
Remember when there was a subscription service for going to the movies that seemed too good to be true and turned out it was? Most theater chains now have their own subscription plans, so the story of MoviePass might not even seem that interesting to a lot of people today. Fortunately, there’s a lot more to this feature than the simple tale of another poorly run internet company or something catered to those of us who nostalgically feel part of the narrative as former customers.
On the base level, MoviePass, MovieCrash is the specific story of MoviePass and how it went from being a labor of love for two Black entrepreneurs, one of whom had a history in the film business, and was taken over and ruined by a couple of old white guys with gray hair. More broadly, it’s an anger-inducing take on a racist capitalist system. Even more broadly, the film is another reminder of how messed up American capitalism is with its predatory backers only out to make more money for themselves while not giving a damn about the product they’re buying and building up temporarily for their financial gain.
All three levels are perfectly and uniformly intertwined. While the base element that is focused especially on MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes is certainly central and most significant, if that was all the documentary was about it could have come across as a marketing opportunity for the company’s comeback. Given the way so many other businesses are being negatively impacted by predatory financial parties and corporate interests that aren’t in service of the safety or satisfaction of customers, MoviePass, MovieCrash presents another necessary narrative.
MoviePass, MovieCrash debuts on Max on May 29.
Other Documentary Highlights
The Beach Boys (2024)
Another film that’s much better than it could have been, The Beach Boys is a feature documentary about the titular music group that gained popularity in the ‘60s with their songs about surfing, cars, and California girls. Directed by Frank Marshall (The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart) and Thom Zimny (Springsteen on Broadway), this is a film filled with conflicts — Brian Wilson’s conflict with the rest of the band, especially Mike Love, The Beach Boys’ rivalry with The Beatles, the group’s clashes with Capitol Records, etc. — but no drama. Leave that for the biopic version.
This might sound like a negative thing, but The Beach Boys stays pretty monotonous throughout its telling of the group’s humble origins, fast rise and period of tremendous success, experimentation, dwindling record sales, and eventual fall out of favor. I wonder if it was intentional to remain harmonious in its tone without ever leaning on hyperbole or crises. It works because it’s smart about the balance of life, even when that includes fame, poor mental health, family (and family band) strife, and other ups and downs.
Too many films about famous people or music groups, whether dramatized or documentary, take big swings. The story of The Beach Boys, when told as well as it is here, doesn’t need such strokes to keep us engaged. The audience should be able to understand what’s good or bad or just the facts. On the other hand, The Beach Boys does go deeper than some docs of this sort with its examination and explanation of why the group was so unique, so great, and so popular and why Wilson was such a genius and the others were so complementary and also so creative in how they fit into the whole package. I have a whole new appreciation for the group.
The Beach Boys begins streaming on Disney+ on Friday, May 24.
Butterfly In The Sky: The Story Of Reading Rainbow (2022)
This documentary feature might not have as much going for it as far as its depth is concerned, but sometimes we just enjoy a film about something we love or grew up with. Nostalgia is the big draw for Butterfly in the Sky, which tells the story of the children’s television classic Reading Rainbow. And that’s okay. That’s why I want to see it. That’s why most people will want to see it. The reason that the show and its host, LeVar Burton, remain so cherished doesn’t require some bold thesis. They got us reading and loving all kinds of stories. Anything at all beyond the obvious, which indeed deserves recognition, is a bonus.
Butterfly in the Sky hits Netflix on Friday, May 24.
For Love & Life: No Ordinary Campaign (2022)
Amazon is the spot for important documentaries about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). While Love & Life: No Ordinary Campaign is no Gleason (which began streaming on Prime Video in 2016), it’s a necessary continuation of one of that film’s primary topics, an incurable and severely debilitating disease. This one follows the diagnosis and ongoing decline of Brian Wallach, an attorney who had worked for the White House counsel’s office under President Obama. Wallach was initially given six months to live, and he’s still alive in part because of his advocacy for ALS treatment.
This is an issue film intending to spread more awareness about the disease, but it’s mostly about Wallach and his mission to get the government to approve legislation in favor of more research, more money, and less of a roadblock for the development and delivery of treatment for ALS patients. There are likable characters (namely Wallach and his wife, fellow Obama campaigner Sandra Abrevaya), a narrative arc, and a crowd-pleasing climax. And while there is a conclusion to the story at hand, it’s not contained (the film originally premiered in 2022 but there seems to be some material added since), ALS is still an issue, and its situation isn’t limited to just this disease.
Love & Life: No Ordinary Campaign begins streaming on Prime Video on Thursday, May 30.
The Jinx - Part Two Finale
The second round of Robert Durst concludes this weekend, as The Jinx - Part Two episode 6 premieres on HBO/Max on Sunday, May 26. No, there isn’t any sort of surprise twist let alone one as big as in the original run of The Jinx. Durst doesn’t return from the grave to confess to more crimes. Instead, the docuseries wraps up by hinting that Durst couldn’t have done it all on his own — not the murders, not their cover-ups, not the trials. The finale primarily points a finger at Durst’s spouse of convenience, Debrah Lee Charatan, as someone who might be hiding something, though it’s mainly just apparent that she’s a greedy woman who made out very well.
The Jinx - Part Two Episode 6 debuts on HBO and Max on Sunday, May 26.
Midnight Traveler (2019)
On the surface, Hassan Fazili‘s Midnight Traveler seems to have all the makings of a Hollywood thriller. After his previous documentary, Peace in Afghanistan, aired on Afghan national television in 2015, the film’s main subject was assassinated by the Taliban and Fazili was himself officially marked for death, as well. He and his wife, Fatima Hussaini, who is also an acclaimed filmmaker in her own right, and their two young daughters fled the country and have been on the run ever since.
But this is not an edge-of-your-seat suspense drama, nor is it even just another heavy human rights issue film. Certainly, Midnight Traveler fits into the growing category of documentaries on the global refugee crisis, but this is a unique feature that stands apart from all the other “important” works covering the stories of migrants crossing dangerous terrain and encountering unsympathetic immigration and asylum policies. Fazili doesn’t lean that much on the hardships of the foursome’s journey. There is plenty of that, yet also so much more.
Continue reading our review of Midnight Traveler (originally published in 2019) and check out the documentary when it begins streaming on Ovid on Thursday, May 30.
Documentary Release Calendar 5/24/24 - 5/30/24
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