By Teller
M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity – Witty, touching, and illuminating. As we listen to a choice selection of Escher’s words, exuberantly delivered by Stephen Fry, we see – in stills, clips, and animation – how Escher’s ingenious notions and preoccupations become works of art.
“I think it’s in my basement…Let me go upstairs and check.”
― M.C. Escher
By Steve Segal
Maurits Cornelis Escher commonly known as M.C. Escher was an artist who has inspired millions with his unique vision. This is made abundantly clear in the film M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity, a hugely entertaining and informative documentary.
A selection of animations and clips inspired by the work of M.C. Escher.
By Andrea Chase
“The night scares me,” says a refugee girl in Gianfrano Rosi’s elegiac documentary, NOTTURNO. Traumatized by the violence she witnessed at the hands of ISIS, she uses a child’s sing-song voice to describe the torture and murders she saw. Rosi may have had that in mind when he named his film, which places the humanity affected by political turmoil in the Middle East at the forefront. He certainly knows where to place the blame for that turmoil. The only context he provides is at the start with a brief history of the fall of the Ottoman Empire after centuries of rule in the region, the destabilizing effects of the resulting power vacuum remain to this day.
By C.J. Hirschfield
“OK, Boomer.”
This is the phrase used these days to mock attitudes of 55-plus year-olds who are perceived as never wanting to grow up, and thinking that the utopian ideals that they had in their youth are somehow going to translate into adulthood.
By Kim Nalley
A 1938 portrait, when she appeared at Cafe Society in NYC with a swatch of gardenias in hair hairstyle, which from then on became her trademark. (Photo by George Rinhart)
Billie Holiday. Her name is eponymous with the phrase “jazz singer.” There is no jazz figure so well-known, yet shrouded in mystery, as Lady Day. Many important details of her life and her musical genius have been overshadowed by a lurid interest in her love life and drug use. Recently some articles based on faulty interviews emphasize her persecution in Hoover’s war on drugs without realizing this was a fact of life for all African American jazz musicians. I do not see the same attention given to Miles Davis’s or Charlie Parker’s drug use or their abusive relationships. Davis’s and Parker’s “women” are not given a megaphone to comment on them, and I never have seen their musical genius attributed to drug use. I sometimes see the hardships of being a Black man highlighted but I do not see the same courtesy given to Miss Holiday.
By Dick Fregulia
When asked to review the new Billie Holiday documentary “Billie, ” my first concern was whether it would play as a Hollywood melodrama or as a true musical testimony to the jazz vocalist legend. My preference was for the latter, but the film actually achieves an impressive balance between the gritty details of her life and the beauty of her singing.
The Climb begins with life-long friends Mark (director and co-writer Michael Angelo Covino) and Kyle (co-writer Kyle Marvin) cycling up a steep hill in the south of France. Mark is ahead, though both are panting heavily with the exertion. Kyle, who is about to be married, is thanking Mark for suggesting the ride, while also waxing rhapsodic about the bucolic beauty of the scene. Mark, the more experienced cyclist, is giving Kyle advice on how to pace himself. Then, while Kyle extols the virtues of his intended, Mark drops the bomb.
By C.J. Hirschfield
When the feature documentary Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives was released in 1977, it rocked my world. I already loved documentaries, but this one–widely considered to be the first feature film about lesbian and gay identity–by gay people, quickly became a symbol of the emerging gay rights movement. I was living in glorious San Francisco at the time, where the film premiered at the Castro Theater. Directed by six people collectively known as the Mariposa Group, it took five years, and over two hundred interviews with gays, to complete the historic project.
BY C.J. Hirschfield
About my home town of Oakland, a recent Washington Post article wrote: “Protesters want to defund the police. Homicides and violence are spiking. In Oakland, ideology and practicality collide.”
It was a wonderful juxtaposition shortly thereafter to watch the excellent new documentary Alice Street, which shows Oakland at its multicultural, peaceful, protesting best.
By C.J. Hirschfield
I’ve got to believe that many people are turning to cannabis, wine, and the support of loving family members to get through our current pandemic. And to the extent that each of these supports have been grown organically, all the better.
eatdrinkfilms.com 