ACCEPTED (A-minus) - In his full-length documentary debut, Dan Chen embedded himself for years at a unique Louisiana college-prep school and lucked out when the school was exposed for exploiting its mostly black student body and fudging transcripts to get them into elite universities. He wisely gains the confidence of several students, enabling him to present a patient, balanced view of the school.
The TM Landry prep school, named for the couple who founded it, was widely celebrated in the media for its success rate, as indelibly rendered in viral videos of students going crazy on college-selection day. Founder Michael Landry mixed "Lean on Me" aphorisms with a near-religious zealotry, driving his kids (through extreme boot-camp tactics) to stressful dedication, mainly in acing college-placement exams. The tuition was relatively affordable and the curriculum was virtually non-existent, but the students were compelled to succeed, at all costs.
Halfway through the movie, the bombshell drops, in the form of a New York Times expose of Landry's belligerent personal behavior and his habit of lying on students' college applications. If his egotistical motivations are not apparent in the first half, they are laid bare in the second half. When he shuts out Chen from filming, the director leans more heavily on four well-spoken and conflicted students, who are foundational characters throughout the movie.
Chen has the perfect ending in his back pocket -- the college essay of one of the students, Alicia (above), presented in a dramatic reading. It perfectly captures the complexities of the issue and the underlying bigotry of treating these kids as both special and needing a foot on the scale to help them. Chen weaves in the college-admissions bribery scandal of 2019, providing nuance and shading to the dynamics of class and privilege at work in higher education. He wisely avoids judgment and instead turns at the end to these wise teenagers, who don't need a crutch to prove how smart and level-headed they turned out to be.
KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME (B) - This is a serviceable documentary about the famed author, with plenty of video interactions with him over the decades. Unfortunately, the filmmaker, who spent nearly 40 years on the project, makes it too much about him and his odyssey.
Robert Weide seems like a nice, talented guy, but I don't care one whit that his wife got sick or that he won an Emmy for directing "Curb Your Enthusiasm." What I wanted to know about was the life of the unique writer and humorist. There's no reason that Weide's selfish detours should be allowed to drag this out to more than two hours.
Weide developed a deep friendship with Vonnegut, and that does pay dividends. (We see intimate notes and hear mundane voicemails from over the years.) So do interviews with the author's two daughters, who still seem a bit scarred, 50 years on, from Vonnegut finding sudden fame and leaving their mother. Like most of the topics here, Vonnegut's abrupt turn toward the spotlight -- and the effects that had on those around him -- feel a bit glossed over.
But we do get plenty of Vonnegut here, and that's the point. Weide has fun with graphic flourishes -- he honors the chain-smoking Vonnegut by enhancing still photos with animated wisps of smoke. One does wonder, though, if Vonnegut is all that dynamic a subject, outside of the printed page and a few of the speeches he is seen giving. Many of the casual interactions on camera are not very compelling. But this covers most of the bases, for hardcore fans and newcomers alike.
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