SXSW Sum Up Day 8 - The Doc Is In Part I

A find at the Flea market, Helvetica a good typo, and Lawyer wins bar bet

As Glenn Kenny mentioned last week, there is a bit of Premiere pride (and an obvious conflict of interest) involved in discussing Fish Kill Flea, a documentary co-directed by frequent Premiere contributor Aaron Hillis. But since I had never met Hillis before seeing the film about the slow demise of a flea market in Fishkill, New York this morning, I think I’m unbiased enough to say that Fish Kill Flea is one of SXSW’s pleasant surprises. Along with co-directors Brian Cassidy and Jennifer Loeber, Hillis takes a compassionate look at the vendors of the Fishkill Flea Market that is held at the dilapidated Dutchess Mall. When the mall, which hasn’t been used as a retail shopping center for years, is targeted to be turned into a Home Depot, the flea market sellers are forced to come to terms with the nightmarish aftereffects of urban renewal and the fear that they are becoming as forgotten as the antique tchotckes they’re selling. At first, the film seems epic in scope, complete with a British historian, who incidentally is the actual historian of Fishkill, yet Fish Kill Flea is simply a well-documentated elegy to a community that like the rest of the world, it seems, is in flux.

Another film that documents a similar trend shift and is thrilling in spite of its nerdy subject matter is Helvetica, which is in fact about the unglamorous world of type design and font creation. Gary Hustwit, who also produced the Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, plunges through the history of the smoothly drawn and simple font that has become ubiquitous in today’s world. However, far from being merely a talking head history of the font, Hustwit examines the sociological and cultural impact of type design in terms of reinforcing messages from organizations ranging from corporations to governments and how typeface influences our daily lives. The film is almost shocking in its reach, but engrossing to anyone who has ever turned on a computer or been barraged by advertising while walking down the street.

Speaking of walking, Eric Chaikin’s A Lawyer Walks Into A Bar… sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s anything but. Instead, the sophomore effort from the director of the Scrabble documentary Word Wars takes a similar approach to a documentary that chronicles the lives of five attorneys-to-be who are studying for the bar exam. Of course, there’s natural suspense to whether all six will pass the test or not, particularly in the case of Donald Baumeister, a 41 time flunkee of the California State Bar, and Chaikin intersperses the film with testimonials from such notable names as Alan Dershowitz, Vernon Jordan, Scott Turow and Nancy Grace. However, Chaikin brings the humanity out of this half dozen wannabe sharks and ultimately, they’re the real stars of the film.

Unfortunately, I have more docs to see today and too little time to blog, but I’ll be back soon.

-Stephen Saito

Comments

[Marc]

Hi,

Thanks for posting news and commentary about our film in the past. "A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar..." just became available on DVD exclusively on Amazon.com this past Friday. Also, we will were reviewed on Ebert and Roeper this weekend and was their Video Pick of the Week. We've won some new awards over the summer as well like The Toofy Film Fest's *GOLDEN TOOF AWARD- BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE*.

Again, thanks for all the kudos -- we read your blog a bunch -- and if you didn't mention us before, thanks for considering it now!

A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar... @ AMAZON.COM