Category: 2010s

On one hand, this movie does encourage me to seek out more of Pryor’s work that I haven’t yet seen, which is a good thing. On the other hand, it doesn’t really offer any new insight or much new footage regarding the man’s life. It spends too much time on his widow’s biased viewpoint and the views of people who never even met the guy. It focuses its scope almost entirely on the traumas he suffered during his less than ideal childhood, bits that were delved in greater detail by the man himself in his stand-up and Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling.

Iris Apfel is a style icon. This documentary by Albert Maysles gives a glimpse into her life as a nonagenarian living her best life. There are little touches on the story of her past as a entrepreneur running a textiles firm with her husband and how the travelling and cultural inspirations from that history influences her current style. Mostly the film is just a reflection of Iris’s colorful spirit and how she creatively inspires those who find themselves in her orbit just by being herself.

It’s incredibly brave of Sasha Joseph Neulinger to be willing to document the horrific abuse he suffered as a child in this way. Using family childhood movies, that probably don’t look much different from any of thousands of home movies that have been filmed since the advent of the home video camera, it’s a severe juxtaposition seeing the various individuals in light moments knowing the horrors that were going on behind closed doors. There probably isn’t a clearer picture of the perpetuation of sexual abuse that gets passed through generations than the story as it is shown here. There’s great courage that his sister and father were also willing to bear witness to their own experiences.

This is an effective anti-sugar propaganda piece. It pushes an extreme criticism of the food industry and those in government complicit in pushing their agenda. By using the heartfelt stories of extremely overweight young people, it poses that just exercise cannot be enough to keep Americans healthy and what has been pushed as healthier alternatives is anything but. It’s very effective, but not very clear on the data that supports its various assertions.