KOCH (B) - This is a faithful, balanced, entertaining examination of the career of the three-term mayor of New York City, Ed Koch. It's difficult not to be charmed by the outspoken old pol or by this documentary.
Director Neil Barsky goes well beyond the facade of the catchphrase "How'm I doin'??" and crafts a well-rounded portrait of the man, not shying away from Koch's perceived faults. The mayor is taken to task for his checkered record on race relations and the battle against AIDS and for his willingness to get into bed with greedy developers and shady political bosses. Pastor Calvin Butts gets off one of the best lines in discussing Koch's record in the black community: "He was worse than racist; he was an opportunist."
Barsky has done his homework here. He's blessed with loads of vintage footage from the '60s, '70s and '80s. He tags along with Koch to a family gathering. He gets the mayor to let down his guard and let fly with some salty language. And there's his final shot, of the 86-year-old Koch in a cab as it nears the Queensboro bridge that was named after him, with the city lights sparkling and the old guy casually chatting away. Roll credits.
KUMARE (B) - It's tough to talk about this without revealing too much. So I'll keep it short.
This is a mockumentary by a young man named Vikram Gandhi who, curious about what makes a guru or a charlatan, decides to pose as the fictional title character and sell Southwesterners on his brand of philosophy and spirituality created from whole cloth. We know this will build toward a big reveal, and Gandhi handles it well, and most of the dupes seems to be good sports up until that point; if they hadn't been, they wouldn't have signed off in the end.
This plays like Borat Lite. On the one hand, that means it's not mean and vulgar. On the other hand, we get hit over the head repeatedly with Gandhi's wishy-washy justification for being a dick: He's actually helping folks discover the true inner guru. This has its moments, and it is slickly produced, and Gandhi is likeable enough to make it work.
BORN IN CHICAGO (B-minus) - It was a Boomer fest. I was the youngest person in the audience at the Guild Cinema, joining my elder generation for a screening of a film about their co-horts, the white folk who infiltrated the Chicago blues scene in the 1960s.
This is a paint-by-numbers rendering of that groovy, heady era, when the likes of Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield and Charlie Musslewhite drove the now sound back to its origins. In generous archival footage, we see the boys sticking out like sore thumbs in all-black South Side clubs and later acquitting themselves well musically in the shadow of towering figures like Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Junior Wells. We have to take the word of the younger men that everyone got along swell and that the white guys weren't seen as interlopers stealing the music of black culture. Mick Jagger shows up to represent the British Invasion that was going on at the same time; in retrospect, he's surprised at the chutzpah of the cheeky lads recording "Little Red Rooster" in the early days of Beatlemania.
Director John Anderson shows patience with his interview subjects, letting them drone on a bit with their stories rather than chopping the segments into dizzying soundbites. It offers a more leisurely pace, and let's the grey-haired survivors spin some fun tales, embellishments and all. What we don't get is a serious examination of race relations and the grander idea of the co-opting of the original sound of the blues.
BONUS TRACK
The old guys from "Born in Chicago" jam at the legendary Chicago-area club Fitzgerald's a few years back:
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