Top Docs

LET THE FIRE BURN (A) - This is what documentaries aspire to. Assembled entirely from archival footage, this film unravels the compelling story of the police bombing of the compound of the controversial black-liberation group Move (along with an entire city block) in Philadelphia in 1985.

The drama is palpable from start to finish. Newcomer Jason Osder, more an editor than a director here (and in his career), takes a simple, mostly chronological approach to knitting together the footage, starting in the late 1970s when the manners of Move members, who advocated natural living and veganism among other lifestyle choices, started to concern neighbors and authorities. A shootout with police in 1978, killing an officer, led to the imprisonment of nine Move members.

Much of the footage is taken from a quasi truth-and-reconciliation commission that was convened in the months after the police dropped an explosive device on the roof of the compound, which was part of a larger apartment complex, and let it burn untended for at least an hour. About sixty dwellings were destroyed. Eleven Move members died, five of them children. Two survivors, one woman and one boy, are seen testifying about the events that took place. The mayor and police chief remained defiant.

TV news coverage fills in some of the blanks. Osder ratchets the tension throughout. The narrative is profoundly human and compelling. You can't script a story better than this.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY APPLY (B) - Cullen Hoback has a blast with a serious subject -- the invasion of privacy that comes with a life lived via the Internet.

Zippy graphics and chirpy talking heads (including go-to futurist Raymond Kurzweil and the musician Moby) lend a spark to the production. Hoback wants to put a scare into us, but he doesn't want us fleeing from the theater screaming. He takes a measured approach to the concern about online security whenever you click "I Accept" before entering a website or downloading software. The film veers toward the strident near the end, especially when Hoback stalks Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

I met Hoback back in 2006 at that year's Santa Film Festival when he was hawking his charming little "Cuckoo's Nest" homage called "Freedom State." It's worth checking out as a rental; it's a bit slow, but it's only 56 minutes long and comes together nicely at the end.
 
PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE (B+) - This is a warts-and-all examination of the life of Phil Ochs, the protest singer who ran neck-and-neck with Bob Dylan for a while before stumbling into irrelevance and descending into alcoholism and depression. He took his own life at age 35 in the mid-'70s, a mostly forgotten relic by that time.

Here you can see both his genius and the limitations of his art. Ochs stayed true to his ideals and refused to sell out, but he never really shook up his act or varied his musical template. Whereas he burst on the scene in the early '60s and could hold his own against Dylan as a songwriter, his slide toward obscurity was quick.

Writer/director Kenneth Bowswer is sympathetic to his subject but doesn't shy away from exploring the dark side. Ochs was full of hope when he went to Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention, but the shocking defeat of the student protesters seemed to break his heart. He never really recovered.  Talking heads -- including Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Jello Biafra, and Christopher Hitchens -- do a workmanlike job of putting the performer in perspective.

BONUS TRACK
Billy Bragg, who wrote an eloquent essay for the liner notes to the 1990 release of Phil Ochs' 1968 Vancouver concert recording , rewrote the standard "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill" in tribute to Ochs for his EP "The Internationale":