What's Up, Docs

no no documentary.jpeg

Thanks to a last-minute decision to show up at a trivia contest, my husband and I won a total of 20 tickets to movies at the Key West Film Festival. This is the festival's third year and we've never made it before to any of the events. This year we had no excuse.

I saw eight movies in four days, half of them documentaries and, as usual, the documentaries impressed me the most. Maybe it's a nonfiction writer's prejudice but I  know how hard it is to turn factual information and real people into a compelling story. In these cases, they pulled it off. If any of these films make it to an art house cinema or an online platform near you, they are worth catching.

My favorite was probably No No: A Dockumentary about Dock Ellis, the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher from the 1970s who threw a no-hitter ... while tripping on acid. Apparently there's some doubt about that, though from Ellis' story it seems pretty clear that he was tripping his brains out the day before. The film is actually an in-depth, sympathetic but not hagiographic portrait of Ellis, who died in 2008. He made it to the major leagues in the late 1960s and was part of the post-Jackie Robinson generation that helped bring a new generation's attitudes to the baseball field -- and helped the Pirates win the World Series. There was lots of great baseball history and some interesting cultural history, too. And plenty of plain talk about the drugs; just about all the players took them (mostly "greenies," or speed) that should help provide some context for those who like to be all shocked, shocked about more recent doping in baseball ... or cycling or any other sport you'd care to examine closely.

Another good one was Point and Shoot, a profile of Matt VanDyke, a would-be adventure filmmaker who decides to embark on a "crash course in manhood" by riding a motorcycle and shooting digital film around the Middle East like a modern Lawrence of Arabia. He eventually winds up hanging out with U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and then, even more dangerously, joins up with Libyan rebels during the Arab spring. Reviews of this movie in Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times* were positive about the movie but very contemptuous of VanDyke, comparing him to Timothy Treadwell, subject of Werner Herzog's great documentary Grizzly Man. My husband and I had the same reaction -- we didn't find VanDyke anything like the egomaniacal delusional Treadwell. In fairness, we were about 10 minutes late to the movie so we missed the opening part about him being a selfish, spoiled son and boyfriend. But his account of himself as a filmmaker, which the reviewers seemed to hate, seemed fairly straight-up. And I could not help but admire a guy who, despite having absolutely no preparation and a pretty severe case of OCD, just plunges into a world about which he knows nothing ... and grows to love it so much that he risks his life. He struck me as naive but sincere, and not as self-aggrandizing as plenty of people I've met in real life who have done things much less impressive.

The last full-length documentary I saw was The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest, which I noticed because of this Miami Herald story by Cammy Clark. Here's a fairly positive review from Variety, too. It's a perfect documentary subject and exceedingly well told, with interviews with DeFriest, vintage films of the facilities where he was held and animations illustrating parts of his story in engaging yet haunting ways. Most chilling, to me, was the footage of the shrink whose testimony helped DeFriest get a life sentence after escaping from a mental hospital. DeFriest's original prison sentence was four years, for charges that stemmed from his "theft" of tools he believed his father had left him. The estate had not yet been probated, and DeFriest's stepmother called the cops. He was 19. He was also a MacGyver-like mechanical genius who could pick locks, fashion keys and weapons and destroy jail cells -- all of which he did, repeatedly, both in escape attempts and out of pure defiance. Whether he is mentally ill or not, it is a tragic waste of an intelligent life to keep a nonviolent offender locked up -- mostly in solitary -- for decades. The filmmakers are on a campaign to help win him probation. That's where the shrink comes in -- he's decided he was wrong all those years ago and is now testifying on DeFriest's behalf. But the shrink looks decidedly shifty, with bitten-to-the-quick fingernails, shaking hands and badly-dyed hair. It's just unsettling, and more than unsettling when you realize the impact this man has had on DeFriest's life .. and probably many more. And that DeFriest's fate is now dependent on him more than ever. This film makes you proud to be a Floridian. Not.

So thanks for the tickets, Film Festival! I saw a bunch of really interesting movies (the dramas were good, too: The Salvation, Alex of Venice, The Zero Theorem and The Imitation Game). I'll be back next year, paying for my seats this time.

* The New York Times review of Point and Shoot is worth checking out if only for its epic correction. As my husband said, "Did that guy even see the movie?"

 

Podcast of the Week: The Bugle

in ,

Podcast of the Week is finally escaping the public radio/news vortex to reach another formidable realm of podcasting: comedy. This week's recommendation is The Bugle.

I was delighted to learn about The Bugle last spring because I was very sad that John Oliver was leaving The Daily Show for his own show on HBO and because I still have not managed to persuade anyone I know to hand over their cable login info so I can get HBO Go. But it turns out that you can get Oliver -- for free! -- on this long running podcast (they just posted their 277th episode). It's a conversation with British comedian Andy Saltzman, of whom I had not previously heard but who it turns out is pretty funny in his own right. They just banter about current events, politics in the U.K. and the U.S. and whatever the hell they feel like. And it's funny. Take for instance, the most recent episode, which discusses daredevils from Nick Wallenda to some guy in Australia who decided to surf on a dead whale surrounded by sharks.

This is especially recommended for Anglophiles who want to get more British humor, especially topical/political humor (why they don't play more of the funny stuff on BBC America is beyond me -- I love Star Trek: The Next Generation and all but there are so many treasures in the BBC library!). Do you like Veep/In the Loop/The Thick of it? Ever seen an issue of Private Eye? Are you a Steve Coogan fan, especially in his brilliant Alan Partridge persona? Do you prefer the original Manchester-set "Shameless" to the well-meaning but pale-by-comparison American version on Showtime? Do you know what "taking the piss out of" means? Then this show is for you.

On a side note, it turns out you can get extended excerpts from Oliver's new show, Last Week Tonight, on YouTube and I highly recommend it. He does honest-to-God journalism in an engagingly funny way. Especially recommended: the piece on the Miss America pageant, the piece on drones and the season finale with the salmon gun. OK, that last one doesn't count as journalism but it is hilarious.

If you haven't listened to podcasts, you can do so on your smartphone (podcasting app on iPhones, Switcher on Android, on your computer via iTunes or Soundcloud, or at individual podcasts' websites.

Podcast press:

Past recommendations:

 

 

Keys election post game

in

I spent a good bit of time going over Keys election returns to prepare for my appearance on the Florida Roundup and I didn't get to use most of it -- because the show is about, you know, Florida and the Keys are a pretty small part of the state, electorally speaking.

John Spottswood and Bernie Papy, both legendary political figures from the Keys back in the days when everyone was a Democrat, shake hands. Photo from the Monroe County Public Library's Wright Langley Collection. No year specified -- I'm guessing ea…

John Spottswood and Bernie Papy, both legendary political figures from the Keys back in the days when everyone was a Democrat, shake hands. Photo from the Monroe County Public Library's Wright Langley Collection. No year specified -- I'm guessing early '60s.

But I think it's interesting so I'm going to share what I've gleaned in case you do, too. The overall numbers, if you're interested, are here and detailed precinct breakdowns are here --  special thanks to alert reader Dave D. for the link to that.

Turnout

The first thing I noticed was that Monroe County's voters voted in much higher numbers, percentage-wise, than our neighbors. Monroe was 56 percent overall. Miami-Dade was a pathetic 40 percent, Broward 44 percent. If you want to know who elected Rick Scott, you can thank the South Florida mainland no-shows. Statewide turnout was about 50 percent.

In Key West, Democrats are taking credit for extraordinary get out the vote efforts. After all, they say, U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia won in the Keys (despite losing the seat, which is partially in Miami-Dade), as did Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist. And Key West, the county's largest population center, went for Garcia (whose district residency is here) by overwhelming numbers: 67 to 33 percent.

BUT ... Key West actually lagged behind other areas of the county in turnout. Precincts on the island show a turnout of 53 percent, lower than the county average. Marathon precincts show a turnout of 58 percent and the Upper Keys -- from Islamorada to Ocean Reef -- 61 percent. And those areas? Not so liberal.

Conch Republicans

A lot of people in Key West were expressing feelings of betrayal and dismay that the Keys, as a whole, favored Republican Attorney General Pam Bondi in spite of widespread support for gay marriage in these parts. We even made the plaintiffs in Monroe's landmark gay marriage case the grand marshals of Fantasy Fest this year! But once again, the perception of liberal Key West does not extend up the Keys. County wide, our voter registration is 36 percent Republican, 33 percent Democratic and 31 percent other. If you had a map of the Keys and a set of crayons you would start out coloring the islands deep blue in Key West, go purplish somewhere around Cudjoe and be well into the red by the time you reached Islamorada. The Ocean Reef Club, the exclusive, wealthy gated compound at the tip of North Key Largo, is overwhelmingly Republican and they vote, even if it's absentee -- 73 percent turnout in this election. That's a relatively small number for a statewide race -- 820 votes this time. But in a local race, voting as a bloc, they can really make a difference.

Getting High, Part I

If Amendment 2, which would have approved the use and sale of medical marijuana, had been decided in Monroe County it would have easily passed the 60 percent threshold it needed to become part of the state constitution. Statewide, it got 58 percent. In Monroe: 72 percent. Not surprisingly, Key West led the way with 79 percent for approval. But it was interesting to see that out of all 33 precincts in Monroe, every single one voted in favor and only two -- Key Colony Beach and Ocean Reef -- favored it by less than 60 percent.

It's for the Kids

I wasn't entirely surprised to see the half-cent sales tax approved for the Monroe County School District, even though this was the first time voters were having their say on that since the district's mega scandal which saw the superintendent convicted of three felonies. And those felonies were covering up for his then-wife, a district employee who eventually pled guilty and went to jail for stealing more than $400,000 from the district.

The School Board has been divided and acrimonious for the last several years, which I thought might not help, and I didn't see as public and united a campaign in favor of the tax as I have in years past. But I think their basic message -- that sales tax is easier on the locals than property tax, since tourists pay at least half the sales taxes in the Keys -- got through. Plus, you'd have to feel like a heel voting against education. This one had fairly uniform approval throughout the Keys. The highest percentage in favor -- 74 percent -- came from Ocean Reef. It would be awesome if they could buy their luxury cars and private jets in Monroe County.

Getting High, Part II

The biggest surprise, to me, in the election returns was the overwhelming support for the building height referendum in Key West. It passed with 81 percent of the vote. The measure allows homeowners to raise their homes up to four feet above flood level, to a maximum of 40 feet. I'm not surprised it passed -- the memories of flooding from Wilma are still traumatic for many and even those who didn't get damage are worried about flood insurance rate hikes. But I also expected more skepticism from Key Westers when it came to building height exemptions. This is a low-level town that is so wary of tall buildings that the city charter requires exceptions to be approved by referendum (like this one). Current height restrictions are 25 feet in residential areas, 30 feet everywhere else. The local paper and a few prominent preservationists recommended voting no. But there wasn't much of a campaign against it while city officials and insurance rate advocates like FIRM did a good job getting their message out.

Podcast of the week: On the Media

This week's recommendation has some strong similarities to last week's. Like Radiolab, On The Media is a radio show and it's produced at the same place: WNYC. I got hooked when they used to play it on WLRN and it was one of the first podcasts I laboriously downloaded or listened to on my computer when iPods and iTunes came along.

I've dipped in and out of it over the years, more out than in when I've been out of the media world and I've always wondered if it was too much inside baseball for people who aren't directly engaged in journalism.

But I also know that media consumers -- and who isn't that? -- are often also media critics and in the last month I've repeatedly found myself talking to friends with strong opinions about the media. My biggest difference with them, with all these kinds of discussions, comes from regarding "the media" as a monolith, especially in our wide-open yet specialized digital age. 

On the Media consists of feature stories and analysis of all kinds of media and its cultural consequences from two really smart people: Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone. They have just the right amount of snark and skepticism while keeping an appreciation for the hard work that reporting and other kinds of content production can be. (Maybe that's the part that drives me crazy about my friends who so knowingly size up "the media" -- they don't seem to get how working in journalism can be so boring or stressful or just relentlessly demanding and that doing it well over a sustained period takes extraordinary  persistence and optimism, especially since what you deal with is often inescapably negative. I'm ranting again. I think I'll just link to this book review from a Janet Malcolm book about a murder trial -- which I liked! -- if you're interested in reading MY media analysis/defense. 

I was especially struck by On The Media's most recent episode, Behind the Curtain, with a story about Citizens United that was news to me. On The Media also has a digital spinoff, TLDR (Internet-speak for Too Long Didn't Read), which you can also subscribe to. They do some really cool stories, including this great recent piece about the mystery of Childish Gambino.

If you haven't done the podcast thing the easiest way is to do it on your phone -- iPhones have a podcast app, apparently Android phones use Stitcher. You can also subscribe via iTunes on your computer or just listen on a computer from an individual podcast's website.

And this week we're starting a new feature: Podcast press! Driven largely by all the excitement over Serial, there have been a lot of articles in ... dare I say it ... THE MEDIA recently about podcasts. So I'm just going to start throwing them up here. Not sure how long this will keep going but might as well have the links handy.

 

Past recommendations:

 

Podcast of the week: Radiolab

in ,

This week's podcast recommendation is not as old-school as the BBC from a couple weeks back. But it is a little bit old school in that Radiolab is a show that was created for the radio, ie. to be played over the air. But podcasting provides you the opportunity to listen to it whenever you like, with some extras thrown in. If you are a person who still likes to get their radio from the radio and you're in the WLRN listening area, btw, the show airs at noon on Saturdays.

Radiolab is the creation of two brilliant but very different minds. Robert Krulwich is a science reporter who was in on the beginnings at NPR. He visited for a day at my Transom Story Workshop last spring and played for us some hilarious tape of him and Susan Stamberg doing economic news as a vaudeville routine, along with a lot of other cool stuff from his career. Jad Abumrad is a composer-turned-radio producer who is so brilliant he received a MacArthur genius grant in 2011.

Krulwich and Abumrad, along with their team of producers, investigate stories usually about science although their portfolio has recently been expanding. The combination of their strengths -- Krulwich's in reporting, Abumrad's in sound design -- as well as their intellects leads them to some fascinating inquiries presented ways that are most definitely not old school. One episode from last spring that everyone in the Keys should listen to is called Kill 'Em All. It's about mosquitoes, including genetically modified mosquitoes like the ones that could be released in the Keys as soon as next spring. And it includes a visit to the Brazil lab of Oxitec, the company that would handle the Keys release. It also includes an interview with science writer David Quammen, who expresses some reservations about this idea. Quammen, by the way, is one of the best science writers working today. If you are curious about ebola and how it spreads, read his most recent book, Spillover. If you are curious about life on this planet, read his masterwork, The Song of the Dodo.

But before you do that, give Radiolab a listen, on the air or on your phone. The easiest way to get podcasts is through the podcast app on your smartphone. You can also subscribe on your computer, via iTunes or Soundcloud. If you don't want to do any of those things, you can listen to a podcast via its website, on your phone or computer.

 

Previous recommendations: