I’ve seen a lot of animated documentaries that use the medium to tackle sensitive subject matter in ways that make the material more digestible and profound, but Endless Cookie, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, might be the farthest, and funniest, approach to this. The entire movie renders its subjects in a hyper-surrealist style that mixes flashy colors and crass humor, with many of the participants being portrayed as anthropomorphized objects. The film, a combination of vignettes mixing illustrated recorded accounts and scripted scenes, initially appears like the sort of thing that would get its directors hired by the likes of Adult Swim. Yet it’s right after you get accustomed to it that the film plays its true hand. Beneath its hangout-comedy vibe is a devastating look at the experience facing Canada’s indigenous population.

Seth Scriver has just received a grant from Canada’s prestigious “N.F.G.” to make a documentary about his half-brother Pete (with whom he decides to share directorial credit with). Seth is white but Pete is indigenous, and lives on a reservation so inaccessible that Seth can’t even visit without flying. The idea is that Pete will tell seven stories about life growing up as an indigenous person in the 1970s and 80s, in ways that are both funny and poignant, and Seth will animate over them. All he has to do is deliver the movie in seven months, the kind of goal you get when the money people don’t understand how feature animation works. Also, Seth and Peter get sidetracked. A lot.

Through a mix of stories and satirical sketches, the Scrivers paint a hilarious portrait of late twentieth century Canada. Fans of stoner/hangout comedies and cartoons like Regular Show will find a lot to love about this film’s plot threads, from Pete’s buddies stealing chickens off delivery trucks, to pressing their luck with the local pizza place’s “30 minutes or less” policy (with the restaurant eventually getting back at them in an extremely funny way). This is a film that often doesn’t take itself seriously, and it’s not afraid to veer off course. It’s freewheeling and goes where it feels like. (A small story about an animal trap takes up almost the entire runtime of the film to tell.) This also extends to the warts-and-all nature of what Seth decides to show. A lot of the early moments in the film are dedicated to trying to get clean audio, and a recurring bit involves the N.F.G. representative, portrayed as a slide ruler, repeatedly questioning Seth’s direction for the movie (as a progressively-smaller pile of money burns off to the side).

Of course, it’s not all fun and free pizza, and the movie isn’t only interested in fooling around. This is still a documentary about the indigenous experience in Canada, with recollections of police profiling, land grabs, and the specter of residential schools haunting even the most amusing of stories. Yet the film also finds way to mix its absurdist sense of humor into the proceedings. A fictional show called “Canadian Idle” shows Canadians being so passive upon hearing about indigenous incarceration rates and the factors contributing to them that they are rendered as car seats. The lawyer representing a wrongfully convicted indigenous youth is a literal snake. Police are caricatured as babbling cowards and, in probably one of the most unexpected political sequences I have ever seen in a documentary, a segment mixes the scars of colonization with a famous video game meme and a very cathartic parody of 90s first-person shooters. The tonal shifts sometimes get iffy, but for the most part, it works. There’s also a lot of great stories about Peter’s family and heritage, such his mom making snacks out of dried caribou stomach that, while he looks back on them as a fond memory of his family’s culture, he will admit smelled and tasted awful.

The animation work in this is hysterical, and really adds to the film’s tone. As mentioned, a lot of the film’s subjects are rendered as objects, such as talking socks, soda cans, and vegetables, and I loved seeing where the art style would go next. (Sometimes, actual objects end up talking too.) There’s also a ton of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it in-jokes and nods to Canadian/indigenous history sprinkled throughout for eagle-eyed viewers. Expanding the capabilities of documentary storytelling in extremely entertaining while still thought-provoking ways, it’s both a tribute to Canada’s native peoples and a good history lesson for those not in the know. I’ll be thinking about this movie for a while, and hopefully someone will pick it up so others can see it too.

The Sundance Film Festival is often the place to find the next great work of cinema, and since the pandemic, they’ve been allowing people at home to watch as well. This year, the festival selected thirteen animated shorts and one feature, Endless Cookie (which I’ll hopefully review at a later date). I unfortunately wasn’t able to watch all of them, as one short, Caries, was not available virtually. However, I did watch the rest, and I thought I’d share my picks of my favorite ones, along with an additional short that made great use of animation as well.

Paradise Man (ii) is honestly less an animated film than an inventive animated collage movie, but it was one of my favorite things I saw in the animated short film program regardless. It’s made almost entirely with repurposed images and GIFs of those white, big-headed, blank, faceless figures you find in stock media, but in the hands of Jordan Michael Blake, these nondescript cartoons take on new emotional resonance. Subtitled “Episode 1: Golf”, the short is an extended monologue by the titular Paradise Man, who initially starts out discussing his pursuit of getting a hole in one before a family tragedy causes him to reflect on his own existence and purpose. With the stock-based format and Paradise Man’s narration being supplied by a slowed-down automated voice, it initially comes across like something you’d find in the early morning on Adult Swim before hitting you with genuine and relatable poignancy. (Sundance also pointed out that Blake had previously been commissioned by Adult Swim to make a segment of their incredible anthology series Off the Air.) The short ends with the promise of a second episode, and I’m hoping Blake makes good on it. You’ll never look at stock graphics the same way again.

Arguably one of the best shorts, and the one that won the Grand Jury Prize for Animated Short Films, was As If the Earth Had Swallowed Them Up (Como si la tierra se las hubiera tragado). It tells of a woman who returns to her home of Mexico City, where she looks back on how, as a young girl, she came to terms with what happens to women in Mexico. The short’s endearing art style gives way to some truly harrowing sequences illustrating its serious subject matter, and I thought it was a great example of how animation can both make dark topics more accessible while at the same time enhancing their impact. It definitely deserved the top prize, which qualifies it for next year’s Oscars.

There were a few other shorts of note that I enjoyed. Hurikán, described as a “deep-fried romance from Prague”, follows the literally pigheaded titular character as he offers to resupply a beer stand where he has a crush on the bartender, only to find himself on the beer run from Hell. Gritty, darkly comic, and with great music, it brings to mind something out of the alternative animation of the 1990s when the film is set. Bunnyhood is a punky short from the UK that feels like a zine comic come to life. In it, Bobby learns that her mother may not always be telling the truth when a promised fast food dinner ends up being a trip to the hospital. The whole short is gleefully surreal and anarchic but not to the extent to where you can’t figure things out. Told in a crude but endearingly handcrafted animation style, this was one of my favorite watches of the selections this year. View from the Floor is a 5 minute piece in which Mindie Lind, a singer without legs, discusses her brief brush with fame, where she discovers that it wasn’t so much about her talent as it was about “inspiration porn.” A thought-provoking and funny take on how disability is perceived in the media, it’s a decent piece in its own. However, the short is actually a proof-of-concept for a feature length animated documentary of the same title, and that’s something I really hope gets off the ground because based on this, I’d love to see more.

Also, while not really an animated short, I nevertheless feel compelled to bring up a title from the documentary short film selections that uses animation in a great way. Three Sundances ago, Joe Hunting’s documentary We Met in Virtual Reality not only introduced me to the world of VRChat, but expanded my idea of what documentaries could be. Now, he’s back with The Reality of Hope, a live-action/machinima documentary short that presents a truly moving story of how fantastical virtual communities can inspire very real impact. Hiyu is a prominent member of VRChat’s Furality community, an organization of furry artists and creators, until his real life unexpectedly intrudes in the worst possible way: his kidneys are failing. Photographotter, another member, agrees to donate his kidney and fly from New York to Stockholm to save Hiyu’s life. Whereas We Met in Virtual Reality was filmed entirely within VRChat, The Reality of Hope alternates between real and virtual environments, reminding us that there are actual people behind the cartoon animals we initially see as our subjects. It’s a touching reminder of the power of community, and a great documentary for the gaming crowd. The use of video game assets in documentaries has been a bit of a trend recently that I have been fascinated with, and I hope it continues, especially if we get more films such as this. I also suspect it’ll be streaming in the near future as Documentary+ was listed as one of the companies involved, so hopefully you’ll get to check it out for yourself.

The other animated selections were Flower Show, Inkwo For When the Starving Return, Luz Diabla, Field Recording, Jesus 2, The Eating of an Orange, and A Round of Applause for Death.

I sat down with Tommy to chat about making the doc, both the positive and negative experiences of people visiting these famous homes, wrestling easter eggs, and much more! Check out the vid below.

You can also check out all of our previous interviews with Tommy on the site:
Adventure Club Podcast #65 (I am Santa Claus – Also includes a cameo from Mick Foley)
Adventure Club Podcast #100 (Ghostheads)
Pop-Culture Anonymous #7 (I Love You, You Hate Me) – Also available on YouTube

The House From… is now available on digital as well as streaming on Fubo and wherever you can watch the Maximum Effort Channel! Check out more info at TheHouseFrom.com

According to director Alex Ross Perry, the indie rock band Pavement didn’t want a documentary made about them. It’s easy to see why. Many rock docs tend to follow a set pattern, following the band’s story before gushing about their legacy. That’s the best-case scenario. At worst, you get a prestige biopic primed for awards season, with a cast that may or may not resemble the real deal. (Perry even opened the screening by jokingly welcoming the audience to James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic with Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown.) As Perry said during the Q&A, Pavement’s music defied easy categorization, and a hundred fans could each have different opinions about them. Encapsulating their career in a single movie about them wouldn’t make sense. This is why he didn’t make a single movie encapsulating their career. He made every single movie about Pavement, and just edited them together.

I wanted one “weird” pick for my NYFF screenings, and Pavements fit the bill more than I could’ve imagined. Part rockumentary, part mockumentary, brazenly satirical and refreshingly idiosyncratic, it is probably unlike any music movie I’ve seen. At first, it seems standard. It opens with “the world’s most important and influential band” Pavement breaking up in 1999 (which is described as “not a big deal”) and then reuniting in 2022 (“a huge deal”). As expected, from there the film alternates between two threads: tracing the band’s history through a wealth of archival material covering everything from international interviews to their appearance on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and a present-day look at the band as they prepare for their first tour in 12 years (they briefly got back together in 2010). If that were it, I likely would’ve eaten this up anyway because I love 90s indie rock, but I probably wouldn’t have much to write about.

As mentioned, though, Pavement didn’t want a standard documentary, and Pavements is anything but. It’s not long into the movie before Perry plays his true hand. He’s not only directing a documentary about Pavement, but he’s also making an off-broadway jukebox musical about Pavement that re-interprets their songs. Not only that, he’s also making a museum dedicated to Pavement. Not only not only that, he’s also making a big-budget Pavement biopic with an all-star cast that seems primed for awards season. All at the same time.

From there, the movie basically becomes a mosaic, often using split screen to cover the movie’s five threads (six if you include the making of the biopic, which Perry also includes). Just in case that still seems too normal, half the movie is also a mockumentary. (The NYFF program guide called it a “sorta-documentary). Perry is filmed creating the musical, Slanted! Enchanted!, as a pretentious theater director, while the cast’s experience with Pavement ranges from them being longtime fans to finding out about them within the last few weeks. The bulk of the film’s humor, however, comes from the biopic, Range Life. Perry made his disdain towards these kinds of movies known during the Q&A, and it’s on full display here. I won’t spoil some of the best jokes, but suffice it to say, he was pretty spot on. The cast of the film-within-a-film is great and includes Fred Hechinger, Griffin Newman, and Nat Wolff as members of the band, while Tim Heidecker and Jason Schwartzman portray the executives of Matador Records. The real scene-stealer, however, is Stranger Things’ Joe Keery as lead singer Stephen Malkmus. Playing himself, he believes he’s bound for Oscar gold for this part, and all I’ll say is that he gets a bit too involved trying to get into the role.

The more the film goes on, the more the line between truth and fiction begins to become a liquefied blur. Even after looking it up, I was surprised to find out what was real and what wasn’t. (HBO sponsored the documentary screenings at NYFF this year. Noticeably, they didn’t for this movie.) This all may seem like an experiment that has a good chance of falling apart, and it does drag a bit at over two hours. Yet as the film goes on, a coherent story does begin to emerge, and everything started to make some sense by the end. If you don’t know the story of Pavement, as I didn’t, this should be a good primer and a hilarious comedy to boot. If you do know the story of Pavement, this should be a refreshing reprieve from the standard treatment I’ve seen bands like this get. Either way, you are not prepared for Pavements, and hopefully you’ll all get to see it soon.

The gallery itself featured a bunch of items, including some props used on the TV series, artwork from the comics, and other random memorabilia. On Saturday night, they threw an invite-only VIP party to celebrate the world premiere of a new documentary (also called “A Decade of Dead”), a 20 minute film that chronicles Robert Kirkman’s rise from an average Joe in Kentucky to the creator of a cultural phenomenon which has spawned much of the aforementioned merchandise, the TV show, and even video games. The documentary features chats with Kirkman, artist Charlie Adlard, some of the cast and crew from the TV series, Todd McFarlane (whose company produced many of the toys), folks from Image Comics, and celebri-nerds such as Chris Hardwick and Patton Oswalt. Even the fandom gets some notoriety, as the filmmakers spoke with fans in San Diego who have cool tattoo sleeves and even cooler zombie cosplay.

If you’re into zombies and NOT watching “The Walking Dead,” then you’re probably a zombie yourself. I was glad to have been able to view both the gallery as well as the documentary and to paraphrase Kirkman, I can’t wait to see what’s in store for The Walking Dead in the next 10 years.

The Hollywood idea of “fake it till you make it” is taken to horrifying extremes in the new documentary Bad Actor: A Hollywood Ponzi Scheme. It’s a true-crime documentary that should be of interest to film aficionados like myself who follow the industry and pay attention to its many wheelings and dealings. As a movie, it’s fairly standard in execution, but does have a few added twists that not only enhance the central themes, but also may leave you thinking long after the film ends.

Perhaps if you frequent the dark corners of film libraries that I do, you may have heard of or even seen a film starring Zach Avery (whose real name is Zachary Horowitz), an aspiring actor whose output never really rose above the D-list, which raises the question of how he ended up in some of these movies in the first place. However, his film career hid a ponzi scheme of massive proportions. Roping in his friends and others though a web of lies and deceit, he had them invest in his enterprise to buy the rights to independent films through his company, 1inMM (One in a Million) Productions, and sell them to Netflix and HBO. Everything seemed legit. Documentation was provided. Contracts had been made. The films were certainly real. Yet, it eventually became apparent that they were the only things real about any of this, and by the time the scheme fell apart, it was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

As a true crime documentary, it makes an effort to stand out from the typical talking-head-and-re-enactment fare. Since getting Avery to be in the movie was a borderline impossibility, the filmmakers obviously had to resort to re-enactments, but the process of casting them is a part of the film itself. As the main theme of this movie is the slippery nature of truth, the experience of actors getting inside the head of someone who used their talent for acting for nefarious purposes is an interesting detail that elevates this. Granted, Avery’s talent for acting applies solely to his crimes. The footage of Avery’s filmography makes it obvious why he never made it legitimately. However, the archival footage of Zach doing interviews is chilling in just how believable he is even as he’s lying through his teeth. There’s seemingly not much that sets him apart from any other aspiring actor talking about their potential big break.

There’s a lot of details to this story I won’t spoil, and the filmmakers do a decent job putting everything together. As someone with a pretty extensive knowledge of film, The extent of Avery’s criminal enterprise did shock me, as his influence spreads to more legitimate projects than I anticipated. This is a story of a top-shelf fraudster, and a number of the reveals of how he pulled some of this off I legitimately did not see coming. In addition to the re-enactments and footage of Avery’s career, the filmmakers incorporate heavy use of famous film clips to get their points across, but I did think they used this device a bit too much at times. I feel like this story will definitely appeal more primarily to film buffs compared to a lot of other true crime fare. As a film buff myself, though, i was pretty stunned for the whole thing.

Despite seeming like a pretty standard movie structurally, there is one last trick the film has up its sleeve before the credits roll. I won’t reveal what it is, but it’ll make you question everything you just watched, and give you pause on the nature of documentary filmmaking in general. Overall, I’d say that if you’re into movies, it’s worth a watch. It’s the tale of a despicable yet fascinating actor that, while devastating, is certainly thought-provoking.

Side note: In an unexpectedly niche example of industry competition, shortly before the film’s premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, Amazon MGM Studios announced their own documentary on this story, Hollywood Ending. Whether Neon’s or Amazon’s documentary ends up being superior is yet to be seen, and it could just be a total coincidence that the announcement was made when it was. It’s not like competing documentaries on the same topic is a regular occurrence, but it does happen. Regardless, I saw this one first, and maybe I’ll review the other one when it comes out.

David Redmon is the exact kind of cinephile who would make a movie like Kim’s Video, perhaps the most stranger-than-fiction documentary about film in recent memory. He not only loves movies, but takes every opportunity to apply them to his own life. Maybe a bit too much. Okay, definitely too much, but that’s beside the point. A lovingly scrappy ode to what cinema means to people, it tells the tale of perhaps the most famous video store in New York City, a story whose beginning and end are readily available but whose middle part will likely shock you (and also raise the eyebrows of more than a few documentary ethics people, but again, that’s besides the point). I understand why most people would ask why they should watch a feature-length documentary on the closure of a video store, especially with this opening. I didn’t need a reason, but I got one anyway, because beneath the niche subject matter, DIY aesthetic and overuse of film references lies a tragic fable of what happens when the value of film as art is diminished.

For a generation of cinephiles in NYC’s East Village, Kim’s Video was the place to be. Started by 21-year-old Korean Immigrant Yong-man Kim, it carried the kinds of movies you couldn’t find at Blockbuster. This is partially because they weren’t mainstream, but occasionally because those stores played by the rules. Kim’s was no ordinary video store. It was a radical place that stocked bootlegs of unavailable cult and art movies and put film education over profit. The stories were legendary. FBI raids. A cease-and-desist from Jean-Luc Godard. Outstanding late fees from the Coen Brothers.

Kim’s later became a chain, but as times changed, the stores closed, and eventually the original store, with its 55,000 film library, was no more. As for the rare movies contained within, Kim issued a challenge to take up the collection, a challenge eventually won by the small Italian village of Salemi. In the end, all of Kim’s collection was sent there, with the promise that it would be digitized and former Kim’s members could access the collection for free. One of these members was David Redmon, who travels to Salemi years later. English speakers are in short supply, the location is closed and, to his horror, the collection poorly maintained. As the story of what happened to Kim’s Video begins to unravel, David looks for a way to save the collection with the help of the movies that inspired him.

While many may come for the subject matter of the film and the insane story contained within (which I will not spoil here), I will admit this movie will be a hard sell to many. Even by my standards, the amount of film references became a bit much, and the ending of the film, while cathartic, will also raise a lot of ethical questions. However, I find the real story here is more important and relevant than ever. In an era where Hollywood can make their libraries disappear in an age of streaming, making illegal distribution the only option for access in some cases, and physical media seems to be making a comeback, Kim’s Video presents itself as a devastating story of the effects of cinema being seen more as a commodity than art. When I saw this at Sundance, it felt incredibly urgent.

Those nostalgic for an age of finding hidden gems of weirdo movies at their local video store, or interested in a bygone slice of NYC counterculture will find a lot to love about Kim’s Video. It’s a genre-defying work of documentary that I felt made up for its flaws with insane subject matter and a punk-rock sense of playfulness. I strongly recommend this to any remotely offbeat film buffs.

My coverage of the lesser-known films at the Oscars continues with the documentary feature films, which turned reality into some of the year’s best cinematic experiences. As always, these are some of the best films of the year that very few talk about, but before we get to who’s nominated, let’s talk about who got snubbed. As someone who follows documentaries, I was shocked by the absence of Beyond Utopia, which I had predicted for a nomination for most of the year. The film centered on the journey of North Korean refugees and the people who helped them escape, telling the story through a wealth of startling footage shot by the participants themselves. I highly recommend that one even if it wasn’t nominated. There were definitely a few other contenders who didn’t make it to the nominations as well, and that’s just the ones that made the shortlist. Needless to say, I could go on for a while about the film that didn’t even make it that far, but for the sake of brevity, let’s move on to the actual nominees.

The frontrunner this year is about as brutal, urgent, and timely as it gets, and I knew it was likely to win for most of the year. 20 Days in Mariupol is the kind of documentary where the fact that people even get to watch it is a miracle. The film chronicles a group of journalists, among them director Mstyslav Chernov, who are stranded in the Ukranian city of Mariupol as the Russian invasion begins. The group struggles to survive even as they continue their work documenting what’s happening, becoming the global window into the atrocities being committed. I don’t need to tell you that this is a hard watch, but the fact remains that this is a powerful documentary accomplishment on one of the biggest moments in global politics in recent memory. If this doesn’t win, I’m going to be surprised.

Director Maite Alberdi (The Mole Agent) returns to the Oscars with her new documentary The Eternal Memory, a touching movie with some thought-provoking aspects. The film centers on Chilean journalist Augusto Góngora and his wife Paulina, an actor. Augusto and Paulina have known each other for 25 years, but since Augusto was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Paulina has become his caretaker. For decades, Augusto exposed Pinochet-era Chile when other news outlets couldn’t or were too afraid to, and afterwards, became a noteworthy cultural commentator in the country. He knows a lot about the link between memory and identity, but now both seem to be leaving him. The Eternal Memory alternates between archival footage of Augusto’s career and personal life, and the relationship between him and his wife, one that has not dimmed in the face of illness. Despite the subject matter, this doesn’t fall into seriously downbeat territory like some other documentaries and films on the topic. There are sad moments, sure, but you still feel the loving relationship at its center, even as his condition worsens, and it can be a very sweet and funny film at times despite its topic. Both one of the year’s best love stories and a testament to the power of journalism, The Eternal Memory was one I very easily predicted to get nominated.

A few years back, director Kaouther Ben Hania made it to the nominations with her film The Man Who Sold His Skin, which I enjoyed. Now she’s back with Four Daughters, a documentary that’s just as heartwrenching as it is utterly fascinating. The film focuses on Olfa, a Tunisian woman and mother of four daughters who is reeling from her two eldest daughters’ decision to join ISIS. Olfa recounts the events that led up to this, but with the two daughters absent, professional actresses are brought in to play their parts (as well as one to portray their mother at times). The result is a brilliant example of metafilmmaking that blurs the lines between reality and reenactment. With the family reconstructing their lives through the film, the making of which is included throughout, it gives insight into issues of generational trauma surrounding the family, and even serves as a form of therapy for the participants. The metanarrative also results in scenes that a simple talking-head documentary couldn’t produce, including a moment when one of the daughters therapeutically confronts her abusive stepfather through the use of an actor, with unexpected results for both the family and the actors involved. It’s a bold piece of documentary filmmaking that I would recommend you seek out for yourself.

One particularly surprising nominee was To Kill a Tiger. In fact, I likely wouldn’t have heard of it at all if it didn’t run in a Manhattan theater I usually frequent last October. A example of courage in both subject and filmmaker, it takes place in a small village in Jharkhand, India as Ranjit, a farmer, seeks justice for the sexual assault of his 13-year-old daughter by three men after a family wedding. When he goes to the police, the village leaders suggest a horrifying compromise: the daughter should marry one of the three in order to preserve her family’s honor and the village’s dignity. Undeterred, Ranjit teams up with an organization to bring the men to trial. What he seeks is not only justice, but a verdict that will lead to the changing of a toxic custom defined by patriarchy. The documentary becomes a real-life thriller as it goes on, as Ranjit and his family face threats from the families of the accused and the villagers. However, what makes this film truly astonishing is how the danger also extends to the filmmakers themselves. With a documentary like this, I’m always surprised how the they were able to get so much access, and eventually, the consequences of that become clear when the villagers become increasingly hostile towards the film crew. The accused begin threatening the camerapeople and a climactic moment near the end of the film will make you happy you’re watching a finished product at all. This is a hard film to watch, but certainly an engaging and thought-provoking one, and I’m glad it got a chance at Oscar gold.

Finally, Bobi Wine: The People’s President was one I felt wasn’t on the level of some of the other nominees (it’s nomination did surprise me), but it is nevertheless an interesting look at how artists can not only speak truth to power, but potentially become the power others need. Bobi Wine went from the slums of Kampala, Uganda to becoming one of Africa’s biggest pop stars. Soon, he starts using his music to address his country’s social issues before becoming a politician, and even running for President against incumbent Yoweri Museveni. However, Bobi’s fame doesn’t change Museveni’s autocratic reputation, which threatens anyone who stands in his way, and it isn’t long before Bobi and his wife Barbie realize that it may not be about whether or not they win the election, but if they live to see the results. It’s a bit overlong, but I was definitely fascinated by this story regardless and I hope the nomination raises more awareness about it. If you value free speech, add this film to your watchlist.

As mentioned, my pick is 20 Days in Mariupol, but all of these films are worth watching in my opinion. Stay tuned for more of my coverage of this year’s Oscars.

My look at the under-the-radar Oscar nominees continues with the documentary shorts. I felt like this was the weakest set of shorts for me, but it also has more than one frontrunner (at least I hope so).

The ABCs of Book Banning tackles the issue of books that have been challenged or banned in schools by talking to the children who want to read them and the authors who write them. Passages from the books are also intertwined with charming animated sequences illustrating the content. Not only is this a significantly hot-button issue right now, with a lot of urgent aspects, but it’s the directorial debut of Shelia Nevins, a longtime documentary producer for HBO and MTV (the latter of which produced this film). This film had the makings of a surefire Oscar contender. Instead, it’s a massive disappointment. There’s really not a lot here, to be honest, and what is there isn’t as fully formed as I would’ve liked it to be. First of all, the documentary is one-sided to the point where there aren’t even archival perspectives on why these books have been challenged or banned. This limits the discussion in my opinion, and also gives an incomplete picture as to the reasons for some of the bannings. (The documentary doesn’t actually explain why the books were removed or challenged, and while it’s sometimes clear, other times it really isn’t.) Other times, the director’s thesis, that children should and want to see these perspectives, doesn’t go far enough. In one case, the author of what is said to be the most challenged book in schools, the graphic novel Gender Queer, discusses eir work, but no students are shown as adding to the discussion. There may have been outside reasons for this, but I think it’s worth noting. Now, the documentary does have some great moments, like when an African-American girl piercingly questions why she shouldn’t be allowed to read a book about Rosa Parks, an important part of her own history in this country. If that attitude reflected the entire short, I may have argued harder for this to win. There’s a lot going on here, but not enough in the short itself. I respect the idea of The ABCs of Book Banning and really wish I could say that Nevins will get an Oscar for her first directorial work (and to be honest, it’s likely that she will from what I’ve heard), but I can’t call this a contender. I wanted a lot more.

The Last Repair Shop is a major frontrunner for me, and my pick for the award (although another film came very close). It follows the employees of Los Angeles’ school district who provide free and freely repaired instruments for students, one of the last in America to do so. Not only are the perspectives of the children this impacts included, but also the adults who repair the instruments themselves, and why what they do means so much to them. It’s probably not for the reasons you think. Everyone interviewed has a different story, from the heartwarming, to the devastating, to the utterly stranger-than-fiction. This is a top-notch documentary short, using an intriguing topic to tackle several themes in one package. It was easily one of my favorites of the five, and I definitely invite you to experience it for yourself.

Island in Between was directed by filmmaker S. Leo Chang, who reflects on his relationship with Taiwan, the U.S., and China from the islands of Kinmen, a few kilometers away from Mainland China. I felt that the topic was certainly urgent, but overall, I don’t have too much to say about this one. I felt it was just okay.

Nai Nai & Wài Pó is directed by Sean Wang and is easily one of the best shorts in the running this year. (In addition, Wang’s new feature Dídi comes out later this Summer. I didn’t get to see it at Sundance, but I’ve heard very good things.) This simple yet effective short follows Wang’s two grandmothers, and does what I think documentaries do best: make engaging film stars out of ordinary people (the subjects even joke about becoming movie stars). Considering how downbeat and/or urgent a lot of the Oscar documentary shorts I’ve seen can be, it felt nice to see one that made me laugh as hard as I did watching this. Honestly, the two grandmas are so endearing that I’d even spend a feature film with them. Yet, it’s also an incredibly heartfelt look at growing old with dignity, and getting over past traumas. It’s a clearly personal work that absolutely deserves its nomination, and I definitely hope the Academy considers it a contender.

Finally, The Barber of Little Rock was an okay short, but the subject matter was definitely eye-opening. In Little Rock, Arkansas, African-American barber Arlo Washington has decided to challenge his hometown’s wealth inequality and structural racism by having his community take their financial stability into their own hands. In addition to providing career paths with his barber college, he has founded People’s Trust, a non-profit community bank that gives loans to underserved residents. Because Little Rock’s African-American community mistrusts financial institutions that have historically excluded them, People’s Trust creates a path for economic justice that I found incredibly inspiring. While I felt the short as a whole could’ve been more engaging, I am glad that the nomination raised some awareness about this topic. I wouldn’t consider it a contender, but I do think you should check this film out.

I’m really hoping either The Last Repair Shop or Nai Nai & Wài Pó win, but don’t be surprised if The ABCs of Book Banning takes it. I’ve seen a lot of people predict that one. Stay tuned for more of my coverage of the Oscars.

I’m not much of a collector, but I do remember having a trading card phase, specifically Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. I never played the card game or traded, I just liked having the cards. Those were fun times. I remember the cool art, the exclusive cards given out during the movies, and of course, the “e-Reader” cards that married trading cards and video games. That said, I wasn’t nearly as into it as many others were, and still are, and I’m sure many of you might be wondering how a simple piece of cardboard can mean so much to someone. Well, a new documentary might at least give you some idea, because it’s clear trading cards are bigger than ever.

The Hobby is a new documentary that delves into the deep rabbit hole of the recent trading card collecting boom. Since COVID, sales of cards have skyrocketed, celebrities have gotten in on the game, and mint cards can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the same time, reports of robberies, fights, and massive buying runs all over trading cards have hit the news. It’s clear that this is about more than money, but also passion and nostalgia. Trading cards can cover anything from sports to television, celebrities to comic book characters, both the real and the fantastical, and in some cases, political (and you’d be surprised how far back those go).

Out of this frenzy, a few clear characters are followed. There are the hosts of the popular podcast Sports Card Nonsense, who discuss trading cards when they aren’t collecting them. There’s YouTuber SuperDuperDani, who chronicles her Pokémon card collecting online. Other influencers livestream their own hauls, opening boxes of cards for an audience eager to trade. There’s Josh Luber, the Chief Vision Officer of trading card company Fanatics, who hopes to change the card collecting game. The film also follows auctioneers, shop owners, convention attendees, graders, and others in this world where finding the right card can be life-changing.

As far as the documentary as a whole is concerned, I felt it could get a little slow or repetitive at times. There’s always the question of whether or not one needs to spend as much time on a subject as they do, and even at just 90 minutes, I felt like some things could’ve been cut. There’s only so much you can say about trading card fandoms after all. I also feel like more should’ve been said about the darker aspects of the fandom discussed in the beginning, such as the fights and scams resulting from the trading card boom. I get that it wasn’t the point, but I felt was too intriguing to really drop.

Really, what this documentary is about is the people, and I felt the filmmakers did a really good job in portraying them. I’m sure some might hear this story and wonder what all the fuss is about, but I rarely felt like the subjects of the film were treated as a mere spectacle. There’s a genuine love that fuels the frenzy, not just desire for money, and it’s on full display here. It won’t be too long before, when boxes of cards are opened, you’ll be rooting for the subject to find the right card they’ve been searching for. By the end of the film, I definitely had a full understanding of how both the trading card industry and collecting worked, and just how big it is.

While The Hobby is about trading cards, and a fairly recent part of them, I definitely feel like it could apply to the nature of collecting as a whole. As a gateway into card collecting for those unacquainted, I think it’s a decent documentary. For those interested in fan culture, including collecting, I would absolutely recommend this. You might also end up looking around your place a bit more carefully afterwards. You never know if you have something to trade yourself.