new documentaries

Many documentaries focus on facts, figures, and dates, intent on giving audiences a short history lesson. Black Pigeons is more concerned with esoteric questions like what musicians hope to accomplish in their work and what that work means to their broader lives.

Freaknik didn’t survive the end of the ‘90s, and many debate if it was truly something that advanced the cultural mainstream, or just a party that spiraled out of control. Despite all the historical footage and Freaknik’s reputation for being debaucherous, this documentary doesn’t tell a story that is as outrageous as its marketing makes it out to be.

One of the most shocking events the documentary explores is that just a couple of years after the bomb test, there was a surge in infant deaths among the families in the nearby towns. In the decades that followed, there was a large amount of cancer cases that were too numerous to be a coincidence or a medical anomaly. It was clear that the radioactive fallout was wreaking havoc.

Even younger generations of Indigenous Americans grew up being exposed to these images as some of the only representations of their people in American culture. It might take up a large chunk of the film, but it’s necessary in order to understand why sports teams like the Blackhawks and Redskins are offensive. The portrayals are not only inaccurate but dehumanizing.

The documentary starts by showing how the rich heiresses of New York became celebrities and chased by paparazzi as though they were deities. When blogging exploded on the internet, many were dedicated to forming narratives out of the celebrities’ escapades and would slant reality into a salacious tabloid. I was constantly asking myself “Who would choose to get caught up in this world?”

Take neophytes Jeff and Jennifer Karl from Valley, Nebraska, opening right before March 2020, the height of the dreaded pandemic. On the plus side, some customers found isolating in their cars to be a possible solution to enduring the virus. From the start, Jeff’s friends thought his new plan was a crazy idea. Eleven acres that needed mowing each week, $30,000 for a laser projector, and Jennifer’s conviction that “if you have a dream, you can build it” made Quasar a reality.

Bahrani’s skill as a storyteller comes through because in the first third of the movie, Davis comes off as a likable guy who wants to save lives and keep families together, but some dark truths are foreshadowed as the story develops. Davis’s character as depicted here slowly deteriorates, as interviews and events make him seem like he’s desperate to maintain his image as a savior.