Ed's Review Dot Com

Altitude Films

Conrad Anker, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Hugh Dancy, Alan Rickman, Leo Houlding

The Wildest Dream is a labor of love for Conrad Anker who discovered the body of George Mallory about 10 years ago. For decades, people have wondered whether George Mallory was the first person to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world in the early 1920’s. Sir Edmund Hillary is credited for being the first person to reach the summit (and return) in 1953 albeit from the south side which is supposedly much easier to climb. (The south side was not permitted in 1924.) The last sight of Hillary he was a short way from the summit at the second step, a difficult climb straight up. Today this is done by climbing a ladder, but in 1924 there was not way up but to climb by hand. Then clouds came in and obscured the view of the pair again, and when they never returned no one knew if they made it to the summit or died before reaching it. 75 years later Hillary’s body was discovered by Anker, many of his personal effects were found. One thing missing was his camera which he promised to take a picture from the summit. If the camera is ever found, it might solve the mystery, but another item clearly missing was a picture of Hillary’s wife which he had promised to leave at the summit when he made it.

Anker became very curious about the possibility of the climbers making it to the summit, and using the items of clothing and boots found on the body of Mallory, he designed clothing as close to what they wore as possible, and set out to recreate the climb of the second step clothed as Mallory was. He and his climbing partner nearly froze, but they did manage to both climb the second step, even though they had changed back to modern day equipment by this point. But at least they proved that it was possible to make this climb.

This documentary is very well done. It covers the life and history of George Mallory and his family and includes letters and writings of George and his beloved wife Ruth, as well as interviews with descendant grandchildren of Mallory. It merges footage from the 1920’s with the modern day climb in a very interesting montage of a movie. The views are breathtaking and you actually end up feeling like you know George Mallory and what made him make 3 attempts at Everest and a willingness to lose his life in the effort.

Certainly an excellent documentary for anyone interested in what it takes to take on this mountain, narrated by Liam Neeson. It looks so easy, yet is so difficult.

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Diamond Docs, A&E IndieFilms, Passion Pictures

Josh Brolin (Narrator), Pat Tillman (archive footage), Kevin Tillman

This is the story of Pat Tillman, once a star NFL football play who gave up a multi million dollar contract to join the service and fight in Afghanistan. He didn’t want to be a hero, and he was soft spoken and reluctant to take credit for things himself. He was also not a highly religious person, but appears to be one guy who felt a strong sense that this was the right thing to do. When he was suddenly killed in action, the nation was quick to declare him a hero. Maybe too quick. Later it was reported that he was killed by friendly fire by his own troops during an ambush. This film takes a one sided view of Tillman’s life and death from his family and is highly critical of the people who reported the events in Iraq and those they feel made hay from the events surrounding this for their own agenda.

I can understand why making this film was useful for the Tillman family. It is a tragedy to lose a son, and something no one should ever have to go through. One of the questions you have is why this happened. You have a driving need to answer that question. I can feel for the family in this regard. But I am not sure I can buy their entire story. Furthermore, even if it’s all true, it doesn’t change anything. Certainly part of the job of the military and the government and the president is to bang drums, have parades with flags and fireworks and driving tanks down the street. This has been the case since the beginning of countries and wars. It is not the job of the leaders of the country to try to prove that every event in a war is our fault and that we are stupid and incompetent. Even a team with a losing record has pep rallies and cheerleaders who yell “We’re number 1”. It doesn’t make Pat Tillman less of a hero that he was killed by a tragic accident and a mistake or two.

The commander split the group into two parts and separated them. One group stayed with a disabled vehicle and the other departed. They were travelling in a canyon. Suddenly several large explosions happened and everyone thought they were under fire. Maybe they were and maybe not. But everyone there thought they were. Tillman and a couple others left the caravan and climbed up the side of the mountain where the shots appeared to be coming from. Meanwhile the other half of the team approached and had no idea that the rest of their team was below them in the canyon. They began firing at the men climbing up where the shots were fired and Tillman was killed. Was this a planned execution or an evil plot? No, its a tragic mistake. Very sad, and lots of blame could be brought to bear, but the most famous person serving in the military had just been killed. Rather than launching into a great investigation immediately, they ran with the story that he had been killed in action, which is true. It was some time before the story came out that it probably was (then definitely was) friendly fire who killed him.

Does this negate the sacrifice he made by putting himself in this difficult situation? I think not, but then they make the giant leap that suddenly everyone up to the white house decided to lie about his death and use his death to push forward an illegal and ill advised fight in Afghanistan to advance their own agenda. This is the step I can’t swallow. I know it would be easier and more comfortable to allow folks to believe Tillman died a hero from enemy fire, and a hero from friendly fire in a tragic mistake, but to make the jump that it was planned and executed as an attempt at propaganda is too much.

Let it go. We all know it was accidental, and that it was heroism and bravery. Let’s not try to pin down the president in an evil plot to trivialize his death as a planned propaganda exercise. The next step is that he was killed on purpose to boost the war. Let’s not go that far.

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Red Shoes, Stone Circle Pictures

John Lasseter, Brad Bird, John Musker, Ron Clements, Glen Keane, Tim Burton, Don Bluth, Roy Disney, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg

Walt Disney Studios veteran Don Hahn directs and produces this documentary that looks at Disney animation work during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s — from the team’s humble beginnings at CalArts to the box office triumph of The Lion King. In exploring the works of that era, the film illuminates the careers of top animators of the time, including John Lasseter, Brad Bird, John Musker, Ron Clements Don Bluth and many others. It was a bad time for the animation department. This documentary covers the time when Roy and Walt were gone and the studio was floundering. Disney was ripe for takeover and the team of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells was brought in to prevent takeover. But Eisner was a live action guy and no one knew what to do with the animation department. They were the core of the company, and now they were ripped out of their home, the animation building and moved off the lot altogether to give the building to the television production companies to use. Things were hitting rock bottom and when Black Cauldron bombed, it looked like Disney was getting out of the cartoon business forever. Then a perfect storm of people and situations hit Burbank and completely changed the art of animation forever. Suddenly hit after hit after hit along with huge technical advances (Pixar) suddenly put the animation department back on track.

This is the story of how it happened and is a great documentary on the part of the history of the company after Walt that is seldom talked about. Don Bluth suddenly left the studio and took a bunch of animators with him and formed his own company which put out some great films like “An American Tale” and “The Land Before Time“. This really hurt. But the exact right circumstances and the music of Alan Menken & Howard Ashman and suddenly Disney was back on top. There are lots of classic film clips of the animators at work. You get to see Tim Burton at work back in the 80’s, barely a kid, and lots of the other classic animators. Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was chosen to head the animation department comes off pretty bad in the film. I am not sure if that is the true story, as I always picked up a vibe that Jeffrey was given a bad deal in the end, naturally the one in line to be Eisner’s second after Frank Wells died, he was passed over and left to start Dreamworks. But maybe these guys know more about it than the average Disney employee and this is what really happened. I just know it is kind of sad either way. The documentary also covers a lot of the problems and dumb luck that got them to the pinnacle of animation. This is a very good documentary and anyone who loves Disney or animated fare should see it just to know the history of how it happened. It was certainly a lot of talented people and a few good decisions, tons of very hard work, and lots of luck that made it happen.

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Break Thru Films

Joan Rivers, Melissa Rivers, Kathy Griffin, Larry A. Thompson, Don Rickles, Bari Pearlman, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Donald Trump, Jack Paar

This documentary was made as Joan turned 75 years old. It is a delightful documentary which features a lot of background on Joan’s life as well as clips of her performances over the last half century from the time she was in her early twenties. All the good and the bad are equally shown. No punches were held as anyone as talented and funny as Joan has to be driven to the max as well as a little bit crazy. Joan talks about many of the infamous moments in her life, from her early appearances on the Jack Paar Show and the famous breakup with Johnny Carson when she was banned from NBC for years because she took a full time gig as a competitive talk show on FOX against Johnny. Also is the devastation of her husbands suicide and her close ties to her daughter Melissa whom Joan protects like a mother hen.

This goes all the way up through the appearance of Joan and Melissa on Celebrity Apprentice and the hard times and good times of that experience. Joan is a workaholic and from the early days when she was a writer (which she never gave up) to the challenges of her acting career. Joan says that she wanted to be an actress more than anything. This film is quick and well edited and is a good story. Much detail (and Joan’s famous foul mouth) fills up this documentary, and Joan talks about why she did “blue” comedy, and why she hates when people tell her that she “knocked down walls and opened the door” for others. She explains why she takes offense to that. All in all it was a good time watching this film. I recommend it to anyone who isn’t offended by the language and subject, and who would be interested in the background of Joan’s amazing life.

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Theodore Thomas Productions

Walt Disney, Janet Lansburgh, Juan Carlos González, Mariúza Barroso Salomão, Marcelo Niño, Virgilio Roig, John Canemaker, Diane Miller, Blaine Gibson, Harriett Wolcott, JB Kaufman

Walt and El Grupo is one of a series of documentaries released by the Disney Company. Walt had a fairytale existence, literally, when Snow White hit it big in the theaters and suddenly he had money in the bank. Walt did what he typically did, and put the money into good use by building the fabulous Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. But this left Walt in serious debt when WWII hit and the European market dried up. Then a gang of union men decided that Walt would unionize the studio. Walt really felt that he had provided a wonderful new studio for his family of workers to turn out fabulous animation. Walt wanted to put it to a vote, but they struck him instead. Walt was pretty hurt that they would do this and went into a deep depression. The government then approached him and asked him to take a government paid excursion to South America to build good will. Walt declined as he said he is not a handshake and smile kid of guy and is not very good at it. So they offered him a chance to go down and take a group of people with him and setup temporary animation studios and gather material to make a film, guaranteed by the government. This gave Walt a chance to get away while his lawyers dealt with the strike and gave us two fabulous films, Saludos Amigos and The Three Amigos. This story is about the people who went with Walt and their adventures in visiting countries and gathering ideas for the films.

This is a fabulous film for people who are interested in the documentation of what happened to the studios at the time Walt came closest to losing everything, or for anyone who is a Disney fan, as it gives us a lot of insight into Walt, the man, who was a frail and easily hurt as the rest of us. It gives us a good view into the early days of the studios. I enjoyed it, but it is not nearly as interesting or grabbing as “The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story” I did watch this on Netflix Watch Instantly. The quality was very good.

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