Tag: Documentary

Resynator was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Friday, May 17th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

You can trip on my Synthesizer, electronic world for every boy and every girl.

The synthesizer is probably the best new instrument since…I don’t know? What was the last instrument invented after all the drums, brass, woodwinds, strings came out hundreds and hundreds of years ago? The accordion? Who knows. But the synthesizer helped transform music, and how to play music, and gave me a lot of danceable tracks and I appreciate it.

Now, for Alison Tavel, the director and theoretical subject of this documentary, she grew up hearing that her dad invented the synthesizer, and worked with all of these famous people. Her dad whom she never met, because he died when she was just ten weeks old in a car accident. She never knew what to believe, figured a lot of it was just weird lies, and never questioned it. But now that she is in her mid 20s, she wanted to know the truth, and unpacked his creation packed away in a box in their attic, the Resynator.

And this documentary is about that journey. The journey to find out what the Resynator was, why it isn’t famous, what could it do, does it still work, and what happened with her father. And you know, of course, learn a little bit more about herself along the way.

This is when she realized she shouldn’t have lost the user manual. As like any good documentary, Alison is going to find out some harsh things about her dad. Things her mom kept from her, because it wasn’t relevant. But things that were also great and accurate about things he did and accomplish.

And in the journey, she wants the good and the bad, she finds out what stories were tall truths and which ones were mostly correct. That’s how we get sections of this documentary with people like Peter Gabriel, who was said to have bought three Resynators, and he is able to confirm the accuracy of the story and be a nice win.

This is a feel good documentary overall, of a woman discovering herself, and coming to terms with things that were kept from her for good reason. And that is a fine idea for a documentary.

But real life can mimic other things, and sure enough, this just feels like a story I have heard over and over again in terms of documentaries. Someone going off to discover the truth about a relative, who died when they were young, and not liking the overall picture they find. For some reason, they also put this on camera for us all to see. It is a very common type of documentary. And Resynator, with some cool information on a synthesizer machine that did not get to the mainstream as many thought it might, was interesting for sure. And unfortunately the rest is just more of the same.

This is all very strange to say for documentary since it isn’t fiction, but like I said, see enough of these things and you can see the commonalities. Oh well. Plenty of people will watch this documentary and probably love it! So if the topic sounds interesting, it certainly will deliver on that front.

2 out of 4.

The Ride Ahead was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, May 11th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film! You can see my interview with the codirectors, here! 

Documentaries that are slices of life feature can go so many ways. They can be dreadfully boring. They can be insightful. They can make you grow as a person. What happens with them really is more so up to the viewer. The documentary is saying here I am, this is me, take it or leave it. And then the viewer has to take it, or leave it.

Sometimes the slice of life has a greater message like. Hey. Be good to people. Or. Hey. Treat me like a person. Quite reasonable asks.

The Ride Ahead is about Samuel, who at the time of the documentary is 21, and adult, and he doesn’t feel like an adult. People treat him like a child, like someone who needs delicate gloves to handle. Sure, he is confined to a chair. He has cerebral palsy. He has epilepsy. A swallowing disorder. Talking is hard and he needs caretakers to function. But that is his life, and he is just trying to live his best life possible. Just because he has caretakers that are both paid by the state, and his parents, doesn’t mean he is less deserving of having a life, or deserves to be treated like a kid.

People suck, let an adult be an adult. That was my main take away from the documentary.

Reviewing a film about someone interviewing people? Okay, I guess there is a little bit more. One of the main reasons this documentary exists is that Sam, being patronized his entire life, feels like he isn’t sure what it means to really be an adult, especially as someone with his condition. He doesn’t feel like one, not just because of how he is treated. Adults are meant to have relationships, to find love, to have sex, to gain jobs, to live alone, and more.

And so Sam seeks out others who have been in his position before, who seem to have figured things out, and just straight up get their advice. He interviews a ton of people, including Maysoon Zayid, Ali Stroker, Keith Jones, and Judith Heumann, who did pass away last year. Sam doesn’t beat around the edge, he asks hard questions and gets some hard answers. And some awkward questions!

I love how realistic this thing keeps things. Sure there are some celebrities and famous people here, and it is probably hard to book them for documentaries, no matter the project. But they felt welcoming, and helpful to the task.

As a documentary, like I noted at the start, this is a slice of life thing. If you don’t want to see about his life, you won’t like the movie. If you know people like Sam, it might not do anything for you. But for a lot of people, it is a great look at people in our country, whom have difficulties with basic things that there shouldn’t need to be difficulties with. The chair does a lot of work, but it doesn’t help if there is no drivable land around the town or sidewalks. A general search for equity is how many people should want our world to grow and be shaped. And this documentary does a good job of making some great points.

3 out of 4.

We Can Be Heroes was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Tuesday, May 14th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

See, I could go straight into making a reference to the David Bowie song. That is what the movie is referencing, right? Right? But we also had a film just a few years ago come out with the same title. You know, the strange sequel to The Adventures of Lavagirl and Shark Boy? A bout a bunch of kids of heroes, having to save the day because all of their parent heroes get trapped.

And that is sort of what this documentary is about too! But presumably these kids in questions are just the offspring of regular normal people. Maybe nerds! Maybe not. (Probably nerds). And these kids, these outcasts, if you will (I wouldn’t that is mean), meet up at a camp in the state of New York over the summer, where they get to create characters that they would rather be, with their own rich backstory, costumes and moves. And work together to tell an overall giant story, where they are able to live action role play together. That is right. LARPing. This is a documentary about a LARPing camp for kids.

There are quite a few kids in this documentary that get to have a small focus on them, but really our focus is on three kids in particular. We have Cloud, who loves to sword fight and is excited for her first time to go to this camp, even though she is on the younger end of the age range. She wants to fight, make a name for herself, try out the dark side, and make sure she leaves her impact on the camp.

We have Dexter, who is every stereotype notable for a kid who might go to this camp, including a slower droll and neurodivergence, but who has a strong fantasy mindset. He also is afraid of getting ticks on him, and is hoping on his return to camp his crush from the previous year returns, so he might even get to exchange numbers with her.

And finally we have Abby who is on her final year at camp. She is about to age out, and go to college, and is excited about doing something special. Another thing that has happened to her recently is she was diagnosed with a disease (I forgot which one), and she has a feeding tube that she has to carry around with her and a backpack, almost all the time. And she has the fear of real actual death, and almost couldn’t go to camp, but they found a way to make it work.

These three, along with many others who are going to discover they have bigger talents than they once knew, with oration, creativity, and finding harmony with other kids.

The kid with the horns is really holding this whole thing together.

I want to go to a LARPing camp. I imagine anyone reading this wants to go to a LARPing camp. That sounds great. Is there an adult one, or do I just need to help organize LARPing events in my community. I hate organizing…

Anyways, this documentary is of course a documentary, but they also go out of their way to tell the fictional story that is created by these kids. The camera changes aspect ratio, gets very crisp, when all of the kids are in character running around. And you get to live their experience with them. It makes what they are doing seem very badass. Probably significantly more badass than it was in reality. And it was a cool nifty feature they added to the story, to make it a more fun experience.

For our three kids, I was immediately annoyed with Cloud (although my kids liked her), and did feel justified in that way based on events of the documentary, although all of them would be defended. That is *fine*. Dexter was especially nerdy and awkward, and I am glad that the documentary didn’t show his crush at all or try to shame her in anyway for not being swept off her feet over his awkwardness.

The real stars of the documentary was of course, Abby, and also secondly another girl(I think it was Miranda, who wanted to just be a princess for once). What can we say. Uplifting people with strong personalities make documentaries good. In fact, what I think this documentary really needed the most was just a stronger focus on MORE of the people at the camp. For a few people, we returned to them a few times throughout to see where they grew and what happened for them, but it was just snippets. We could have easily fit 4-6 stars in this documentary, and lessened the main three a tad bit, to give us a bigger range of kids.

Overall, hooray for LARP camps, and a documentary that decided to showcase them in a totally on point and creative way.

3 out of 4.

399: Queen of the Tetons was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Sunday, May 12th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

Bears Bears BEARS! Who doesn’t love a bear? Presumably someone who is not lost in the woods and surrounded by them. As long as the bear doesn’t have cocaine on its brain, you are threatening it, should be cool, right?

This documentary is about bears, but also a famous bear. 399 is her name. Given to her from whatever research study tagged her with that number at some point the past. She lives in Wyoming, and she is a GREAT mother bear. She has been popping out cubs for over a decade, and everyone knows about it. Why? Well, it turns out the greatest threat to a bear cubs life is…adult male bears. Because when they want to mate, if they see a lady bear with cubs, they will try to kill those kids. Because the lady bear has mother duties and doesn’t have time for sex. But, if her kids die. Then she will go to heat, and he can score. Life is really fucked up sometimes.

Bears don’t like strangers though. Or people. Or traffic. So they will avoid things like roads. But 399 realize that she can go next to the roads with traffic, and people, and male bears will leave her and her cubs alone. She can protect her cubs, by just being by people. Wild. So she does that. And has for years.

So 399 has become the most famous Grizzly bear in the area, and has hundreds of fans, who hang out and take pictures of her and her children, post hibernation, eating running playing and learning. And this has been true for a long, long time. However, when hanging out with people, and cars. There comes its own danger. And when cars and people gather and grow, to see the bear, that can put a lot of things in harms way, and be bad for the bears overall.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH BEEEEEEEAAAAAAARS!

Now, what this documentary, eventually, is about is the want and need to keep Grizzly Bears on the protected species list. Because there is growing movements in these states to give them an official bear hunting season. And no one is going to argue that bears shouldn’t have their population maintained, but most groups want to wait for these two distinct groups to start spreading their genes out more, which has not yet occurred. The other issue is: Once bears get a hunting season, then the famous bears that like people and become well known, are going to be the ones who have to pay the price.

Imagine a famous bear for 18 years or so, and then someone just comes along and legally shoots her. When people have their whole career and focus on that bear and nature photography and bringing along conservation practices. That would be a kick in the gut, or, maybe a shot.

Now I am a big fan of not killing bears until their population levels are much higher. But I can’t do anything about those states who vote on this. I don’t think the documentary spent nearly enough time on this topic, since it seemed like the main goal. Instead, we get a lot of time on 399, sweet bear shots and videos, and interviewing some of her bigger fans. Which is fine. But I wasn’t a fangirl before, and don’t think I will suddenly rush off and join the bear cult now. (Too far away, give me a local bear cult and we will see…).

Although I do think I need to point out, that one rancher interviewed, who wanted to be able to defend his property from bear attacks by killing them, decided to say it in a way that is reprehensibly racist towards asylum seekers coming to America. It was wildly inappropriate, and you can tell it is something he says all the time, without realizing how dehumanizing he is being at all. And so of course I cannot ever be on a side with someone like that.

In conclusion. 399 bear is great. Documentary is just fine. Even better if you want to see bears running around.

2 out of 4.

Admissions Granted was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Sunday, May 12th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this documentary!

Getting into college can be hard! After all, before you can even qualify, it takes most people at least 12 years to finish high school first. That is a big time commitment. If you don’t do it early on, who knows, you might run out of time. But finishing high school isn’t the only thing you have to do. You also have to take extra tests to show you are smart. You have to stand out, so might need to show you volunteered. Or participated in clubs. Or excelled in the arts. Or had hobbies. Or might need to be a great writer. Who knows!

But then colleges have to pick you. And they look at all these standards. And if they are public a certain percentage need to be in state. They need to make sure they have a diverse student body, and diversity can mean a lot of things. Now for one group of students, who had high marks, perfect scores, and extracurriculars, they had their eyes set on Harvard, and got denied. Now these students, realizing a lot of them were Asian American, founded the “Students for Fair Admissions” (SFFA) group, and decided to sue Harvard, for not including them because of their race. Using affirmative action AGAINST them.

This lead to bigger law suits, and multiple attempts, and eventually UNC got grouped together with it as well, for a lawsuit that would go against the Supreme Court, and threaten to end Affirmative Action forever.

This case was a good poster child for race war.

Now, this case did happen literally summer of 2023. So you might already know the result. If you care about this, you knew the result. But this let you know a lot of the players involved, and hear both sides talk passionately. And how many years this took, waiting for a majority supreme court to be Conservative. At this same time, there is talk of groups being used for alternative purposes. And using the people, even if they don’t care about them, because they just want Affirmative Action to go away.

And this documentary goes into SO MUCH DETAIL. Like, yes, they both sides the argument. And that both sides have legitimate points of view, but not always the full story. For example, just having the best test grades does not mean one is going to be picked for college. There are so many factors involved, and the school is painting a giant picture, that there is something more, and SHOULD be something more. Similar to how the best person who applies for the job might not always get it. Because building diverse groups with different backgrounds and talents makes sense, you don’t want a team of all clones.

This is a frustrating thing, because there is clearly a right side, but the other side has valid points, and it doesn’t mean the absolute destruction of a program. It just means more clarity and changes are needed. But wildly enough with this documentary, there was a line or two at the very end, about asking some deep, deep questions about Harvard and their resources in general, that is such a mind blowing statement, I want a documentary purely on that.

In the end, Harvard isn’t the end all be all of places that must exist. There are so many good places, it shouldn’t be on a pedestal. I love how fair this documentary felt. No one was a bad guy. Well, one lawyer clearly was. But outside of that, people were people, even when yelling in each others faces protest chants outside the Supreme Court.

3 out of 4.

Fish War was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, May 11th as part of the festival, and it was the World premiere of this documentary! You can see my interview of two of the directors here! 

Ah yes, wars over animals. They happen a lot in the Pacific North West. For example, may I inform you about the 1859 Pig War on the San Juan Island in Washington? When the United Kingdom and United States were trying to figure out how to split the land between Washington and Canada, the islands became a touchy subject. Both armies landed on San Juan and a pig was killed and they stayed there until eventually, the US got to keep those island groupings.

See? Lot of animal wars. Now, Fish War is a documentary mostly about events that took place a hundred plus years after the very small Pig War, but it unfortunately started before that. It started with the United States pushing around the native tribes and forcing them to sign treaties, often with wars and suffering involved. Things were forced and one sided. But the indigenous populations of Washington decided to sign a treaty on their own terms, before all of that, and they fought for specific rights. One of the biggest, was their right to still live and fish in the Puget Sound, of which it was said to be equal with the others that now lived there as well. A 50/50 split of the fishing in the sound.

But, in the early 1970’s, laws had made it illegal for the Native Americans to fish where they always had. So they kept doing it, kept getting arrested, and soon the split ended up being about 2/98%, not in their favor at all. The literal white man was taking all of the fish, and ignoring the treaty. So they decided to sue the State of Washington, the language was clear. And sure enough, the judges agreed with the tribes. The fishers of Washington were illegally over fishing the areas, and needed to limit their supplies greatly.

Unfortunately, a lawsuit win apparently isn’t enough. People ignored it. People got mad. People tried to be violent. The Attorney General of Washington made it his mission to get it overruled, and it kept going to the court for decades after, making the tribes constantly battle for what they had always deserved. You don’t always get the state of Washington to be the bad guy in stories, so it is very interesting when that shows up.

And you know what? They should have higher than 50% too. Fish War was not just a fascinating look at recent history in the Pacific North West, but it was a fascinating look at things that are still happening right now. Because overfishing and destroying of the salmons habitat have also occurred, and the legal system has consistently ruled that their rights are worth protecting, and if there are no fish at all, then the treaty is broken, so the ecosystems all must be protected as well. If you are an environmentalist, or care about Native American rights, this is a story for you.

Honestly, hearing this one old lady remember stories from the 70’s, how they got away with their civil disobedience and continued to fight for their rights filled me with wonder. She was so giddy at being able to stick it to the man, and knowing she was on the right side of history. These personal stories of people who just fifty years ago were fighting the good fight, and their fathers and mothers, and have to continue to fight this thing is absolutely mind boggling. Like, when will the United States stop harassing Native Americans? Based on the number of documentaries and stories I have seen lately, the answer is not fucking soon enough.

I always wonder what I would do in other people’s shoes during moments like these, and I can’t help but feel I would be a coward and run. So it is important to learn about and honor these local heroes. If we can learn lessons from them, we can learn that a regular person can be the change needed for the world, and it might help more people get involved.

I am happy Fish War is getting its World Premiere in this area, because it is solely about this area, and as a younger individual, it is something I never would have known without it. There is always so much more in the world going on, before we were around, and there will be a lot after it as well. We can only hope that we spend our time fighting for what is right, and helping others, so that many future generations can have the same benefits.

3 out of 4.

WHY DINOSAURS? was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, May 11th as part of the festival, and it was the World premiere of this film!

WHY DINOSAURS? shouts at you while asking the question…why do people get fascinated over dinosaurs?

Apparently they are badass and mysterious isn’t enough of an obvious answer.

The goal of this documentary is to try and get a deeper answer than that. And so it is going to look into the history of finding fossils and the science/time it takes to put things together. It is going to look into many real scientists who are on the field and have real stories, real successes, and real failures. It is going to look into some of the dinosaur experts who were used to work on Jurassic Park, the decisions they made with the dinosaurs, what they wanted them to do, and why they had them look or act in various different ways. Based on science!

And you know, kids and other people too are talked to I guess.

The camera man never gets love, so let’s love him now.

For a documentary to exist, I really hope it can bring something new to the table, and for the most part, I don’t think WHY DINOSAURS? does really anything at all new. There is a decent size chunk focused on Jurassic Park, its legacy, and talking with people involved in the film. If this was actually a documentary on Jurassic Park and its legacy and the making of the films and decisions, with a lot of deep dives, it would have given us something new and interesting to look at.

The most part however this just feels like an episode on any random nature show. Talking with scientists about paleontology and dinosaurs. There isn’t really anything new and interesting here. There are SO MANY TV show based documentaries that go into dinosaur deep dives and interesting people and research. I can’t name any, because its just something that is out there, or used to be out there. Like documentary shows on the making of food, or on cultural healing. These are just things out there.

I just don’t understand the added purpose of this documentary in the lexicon. Like, maybe it was just a labor of love, and good practice for other things. But the topic has been done more times than the number of extinct dinosaurs.

1 out of 4.

Preconceived was watched as part of Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, April 27th as part of the festival.

We here at Gorgon Reviews love making sure I have time to review any and all documentaries about abortions, and how hard they can be to acquire in the United States. Also, we here at Gorgon Reviews, hate that we have to do reviews on this topic. We would love to stop, but the problems haven’t been fixed yet, so here we are, again.

In the documentary, we are actually looking at Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Now, this is something that was covered by John Oliver before in his show. A fun thing that I often do during his show is to look up the documentaries he references and potentially watch them. This is the first time I have seen a documentary that spends a moment to acknowledge John Oliver’s show.

A Crisis Pregnancy Center is like an abortion clinic, except that it doesn’t offer ever abortions. In fact, its entire purpose seems to exist to convince people to NOT get an abortion. To fabricate the things that must be done before an abortion could take place. To lie about what was allowed. To present untrue facts about the fetus, how far along the patient was, and to make sure they just did not get an abortion at all costs. Surely enough, these things are funded strongly through America’s churches and Republican organizations.

Their entire existence, I want to reiterate, is about preventing people from getting abortion access, through tricks and deceit. Trainings on how to talk to people out of it, to string them along, how to get “clients” away from an actual clinic, including making sure they appear at the top of Google search results.

Yeah, these places suck.

I normally see billboards with the opposite messages, unfortunately.

It is really easy (I imagine, I just review stuff) to make a documentary about a subject and say “Gee Whiz, this thing STINKS!” You can interview everyone who agrees with you, throw in some news stories and B-roll footage, and be done. What I was more surprised about is how many people who work in, work for, or work with, these crisis pregnancy centers who are a part of this documentary too. I worry about deceitful tactics to get them to sign on board. But, presumably all of their arguments for why they should exist, and why they are doing this, are given verbatim and they are giving time for “their side.”

They got the president of Heartbeat International, a pro-life group, to spread his organizations goals and methods and they aren’t ashamed of these things. They are proud of it.

The documentary obviously does a great job of making its arguments and hopefully highlighting how so many women get tricked into spending extra funds, or having kids, they never wanted or planned to. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the centers haven’t stopped, they have amplified and feel like they are winning and that their message is important. This documentary is one that is meant to be seen as awareness to a topic, because, people cannot be tricked by something, if they know it is out there. The centers rely entirely on people assuming they are also abortion clinics, but that the abortion won’t be right for *that client* for whatever reason.

Watch it, get informed, and donate to your local Planned Parenthood or similar organization.

4 out of 4.

Waapake (Tomorrow) was watched as part of Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival 2024! It had its U.S. Premiere on Thursday, April 25th as part of the festival.

In case you did not know, there used to be a policy in the United States, as part of the treaty signings, that indigenous communities would agree to have their children be assimilated into United States “culture” through their schools. Notably, this was ALSO TRUE IN CANADA. In fact, this documentary is dealing with Canadian indigenous families. Of course, as part of these signed treaties, the sides were never on equal grounds, and these native groups were almost always forced to do it, or else. But even then, it is doubtful that those communities understood exactly what that clause would mean.

Which was of course, children being taken from their homes, and often sent to boarding schools. Not just any boarding schools, ones often FAR from where they actually lived. Schools that had little to no accountability and were seemingly encouraged to belittle and even beat these kids into conformity. To make it so that these kids would only have this new countries culture, whatever that means. A lot of students who were taken were changed alright, and generally for the worse. Depression, drug addictions, anxiety, and even suicide were common. They were put into situations away from their families and had no support system.

This documentary is about those people, a little bit. But even more notable, it is about the generation of people that came after. So the people interviewed for this piece are sons, daughters, and grandsons/granddaughters of survivors from these schools. About how their older relative has been negatively harmed, how it has affected their current lives, and more importantly, how they can potentially heal from this to have a stronger tomorrow.

This is how you can know it was made in Canada, by the way.

It is hard to talk about this just on the Canadian level, because we know these sorts of things happened in the US as well. But Canada has been more in the news for it lately, given they had various burial sites found outside of some of these schools, with many dozens of bodies, all in a large unmarked grade. A lot of shady shit happened at these schools. Awful things. Abuse. More. But as the documentary put it, generational trauma is an important thing to acknowledge and point out, but generational healing can also occur.

This is not to wash away the crimes of the past. But that is why this documentary brought in the various stories, of the offspring of survivors, to note their similar upbringings and the negative harms that came out of it. But it is very uplifting at the same time, with their statements about how they will make sure they fix certain issues, so that their own children do not have to go through it again. They want to break the cycle, and part of that comes through talking about it.

WaaPaKe is a powerful documentary, a stronger documentary if you go in already know about the schooling atrocities for indigenous groups in the past. It is also stronger knowing this was made by a Canadian native, involving her own story, her families, and others to put this piece together. After all, these stories are horrifying, but often still the human, personal element, can be missing. These types of documentaries make it more personal, and really puts the important aspects out there.

3 out of 4.

Imperfect was watched early as a screener. It is being released theatrically on February 16th, 2024.

When you strive for perfection, you will very hard to achieve what is likely unachievable. Perfection is hard, perfection is usually impossible. But what if you strive for imperfection, and accept it in all of its glory?

In Denver, Colorado is the Phamaly Theatre Company, which has this statement on their main website. “A creative home for theatre artists with disabilities.” That’s right! A professional theater company that employees at all levels, actors and actresses that also happen to have disabilities. Because let’s face. Equality and Equity in the world is far from happening right now. But some people are working on it, like the people behind the Phamaly Theatre Company.

Now sure, there are people like Ali Stoker, who have made it into Broadway to play roles in her wheel chair, that were not written to be played by someone in a wheelchair. But for the vast majority of parts and places out there, someone with a disability will likely only be considered if the part has it written in for that character. And that sort of sucks.

So in this documentary, one of the directors, Regan Linton, who uses a wheelchair, is an actress herself on the stage. But in this documentary, she takes on the role of a director, and is putting on the musical Chicago. And so we the viewer get to see the behind the scene footage of auditions, blocking, practice, and some of the final scenes and shots of their finalized and award nominated work.

More importantly, we get to see triumph in the faces of people who are often told they can’t do things.

Don’t mess with a person with a cane. Especially if they can sing well.  

Honestly, when I first saw this documentary was giving out screeners for review, I thought that I was going to see the actual staged version of Chicago with the theater company. In reality, that is just the last 10 minutes or so, just snippets from it. But that is still okay! A documentary on the planning and start to finish process was also interesting in its own right.

For example, in the audition scenes, I wonder in projects like this, what is most important? Diversity? People who can hit the notes correctly? How do you decide? It must be a hard thing to think about, and I know I wouldn’t have a great answer.

Honestly, the documentary had me crying happy tears by the end. It is just so great to see people excelling at tasks, and doing it well, and hits a bit better when you know the potential increased struggles to get to that point. If I could have more, I would have wanted more of the actual show, as I mentioned. But what I got was still a unique view and useful.

Now, this documentary is just highlighting what one theater group has been doing, and doing successfully for years. It can be good for awareness, and I hope there are other groups out there doing the same thing. It is a good look of the behind the scenes, and can be downright inspiring, but really, it is just people exploring their passions. And we can all use a bit more of that in our lives.

3 out of 4.