This week, we’re keeping it simple with three picks—one narrative, one doc, and one bonus Blu-ray:
Munyurangabo (Film Movement) — With his powerful debut feature Munyuragabo, Lee Isaac Chung has taken a series of improbable cultural dilemmas and spun them into a new, transcendent moment for independent cinema. Filmed in Rwanda by the Brooklyn-based director, Munyurangabo confronts the aftermath of that nation’s genocidal past through the visual power of cinematic storytelling. But this is no simple morality tale. The first film ever made in the Kinyarwanda language, it represents a new cinematic intersection where American independent film embraces the world. Read the rest of Tom Hall’s review, then buy it on DVD
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (VH1 Films) — If you haven’t heard of the influential and under-recognized Canadian speed metal band Anvil, don’t feel bad for thinking early on that Anvil! The Story of Anvil is, in fact, a mockumentary of Spinal Tap-ian proportions. It certainly feels that way, as the film opens and we see footage from a 1984 concert in Japan in which seminal bands like Scorpions, White Snake, and Bon Jovi play alongside the less familiar Anvil. Flash forward 20 years: that band’s leader, Steve “Lips” Kudlow, is now a 51-year-old headbanger making deliveries for Ontario’s Choice Children’s Catering who is still chasing his seemingly all-the-way faded rock-and-roll dream. Adding to the situation’s screwiness, some of heavy metal’s most important figures—including Lars Ulrich (Metallica), Scott Ian (Anthrax), and Lemmy (Motorhead)—show up to genuinely proclaim Anvil to be the band that helped set them on the path to success and stardom. And finally, there’s the revelation that the name of Anvil’s drummer and Lips’ partner-in-crime is, in fact, Robb Reiner. No, this can’t be real. Read the rest of my full review, then buy it on DVD
Kurt Cobain: About a Son (Palm Pictures) — If one were forced to come up with a shortlist of recent documentaries that deserve the Blu-ray treatment, AJ Schnack’s gorgeous and poetic experimental biography/autobiography hybrid Kurt Cobain: About a Son would be hovering near the very top of that list. Buy it on Blu-ray
— Michael Tully
