What We Left Behind
What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek – Deep Space Nine is a fun documentary. Star Trek was one of those franchises that I didn’t have to start enjoying until I get married. Yeah, the spouse taught me to appreciate Picard, O’Brien and the related crew. But, I always wondered something about these series. How can you roll deep in mythology on syndication/off-network channels?
The documentary goes out of its way to make sense of this series dark horse status. As someone who was never a fan of Star Trek, I got the appeal of Deep Space Nine. Having a DMZ style Cold War take on Star Trek was amazing. Playing outside of pseudo deep philosophical debates was needed for Trek. No one outside of a traditional fanbase cares about deep discussions about how to ethically use a starship. People care about characters and this series had a ton. The Blu-ray is loaded with special features that allow the original showrunner to make sense of the show’s new fanbase.
Charlie Says
Charlie Says arrives to us from the team behind the American Psycho film adaptation. Much like that 2000 work, it gets super close to saying something and then shoots itself in the foot. Hannah Murray, Sosie Bacon and Matt Smith are all effective in their roles. Yet, you keep getting hung up on the Merritt Weaver material. Most of the film was adapted from Dr. Karlene Faith’s book about trying to deprogram Leslie Van Houten. But, we never get to see anything come of it. In the end, it’s two movies in one but neither have a point.
Girls of the Sun
Girls of the Sun snuck up on me. While Film Twitter lightly crapped on it, I found a work of world cinema that struck me. Eva Husson made a World Cinema film about a group of bad-ass Kurdish ladies teaming up to murder their enemies. A French photojournalist joins the ladies as they battle and battle to find a way to regain their dignity. The Blu-ray comes with a Q&A is that pretty informative. Still, I don’t get the bit of a backlash this movie got.
What? You don’t like foreign ladies teaming up to regain their home? Was it a little too action cinema for you? Answer me, internet peons.
The Outsider
The Outsider is another Cinedigm Western. At least, that’s what I wrote down after 20 minutes of watching the film. That’s not a bad thing. Director Timothy Woodward is hitting that Roger Corman in the late 50s/early 60s streak with his Westerns. They’re smaller productions anchored around a genre actor (Trace Adkins) and they hit all of those right notes.
But, they’re also such throwback movies that they might not win over an audience that skews closer to Django Unchained rather than The Sons of Katie Elder. The Blu-ray comes with featurettes. However, I have to praise that 1080p transfer. The film was obviously shot on modern-gen cameras. However, I never expected an indie western to look this smooth.