Sam Pollard's MLK/FBI further exposes yet another shameful episode in our nation's history of law enforcement

Back in 2017 producer/director/editor Sam Pollard (shown below) co-directed one of the year's best documentaries, Acorn and the Firestorm. He's back this week with the new doc, MLK/FBI, the acronym-titled movie all about the connection between and harassment and illegal surveillance by our Federal Bureau of Investigation of Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader at this mid-20th-Century time of America's black population and the chief organizer of the non-violent protests for racial equality going on throughout the USA.

As one of the film's interviewees, James Comey, points out, this lengthy episode is one of the most shameful in the FBI's off-and-on shameful history. And Mr. Comey should know, being himself no stranger to shame,  having later headed the FBI and served briefly under that icon of Presidential shame, Donald Trump. 

Many of us have long heard about this FBI harassment of King, as well as of others such as actress Jean Seberg and just about any black man or woman -- Fred Hampton to Angela Davis -- who rose to prominence in the movement for black equality. What MLK/FBI gives us is a broader, deeper look into the whole sleazy mess of FBI wire tapping and audio taping than has heretofore been seen.

Pollard and his writers (Benjamin Hedin and Laura Tomaselli) bring the history of the tapping and taping of MLK on the phone, in hotel rooms and elsewhere, along with many important details of what went on at this time. In the process it also gives a richer, somewhat clearer portrait of Dr. King, shown above. As one of the several narrators points out early on, "Whatever comes out on these tapes" -- the tapes themselves will not be released until 2027, though official FBI memos exist and are shown here, explaining some of what is heard on those tapes -- "will help us better understand him (MLK) as a human being. And that's our duty: to understand."

To that end, we learn of the FBI memo which says that King must be destroyed because he is the most dangerous Negro in America. Why? Due to his supposed ties to Communism, of course. To that end,  we learn about lawyer Stanley D. Levison, one of King's best friends, and himself a former Communist. Yet, after much investigation, the FBI knew that there was no evidence linking Levison to any Communist  plot. Still the agency proceeded with its sleazy and unnecessary surveillance, taping King's hotel-room sexual trysts.

The documentary makes no excuses for Dr. King's sexual needs nor the way in which he fulfilled them outside of his marriage. It also makes clear that King was dishonest in telling the FBI he no longer had contact with his good friend Levison. To help pictorialize the history, Pollard uses clips from old movies -- The FBI Story, Walk a Crooked Mile, I Was a Communist for the FBI -- but fortunately these are limited in both number and the time spent on each.

Pollard doesn't much explore J. Edgar Hoover's rumored sexual proclivities, either, though he does note how Hoover's FBI seemed to be made of mostly hunky, young white men of the sort that the Director keenly appreciated.

What's best about MLK/FBI is the deeper look it gives us of King himself, via his ideas, speeches, interviews and the like. Details such as the plane flight on which he picked up a number of current magazines to read and was so moved and chastened by the photo essay in Ramparts magazine that showed the results of our military's napalm bombing on Vietnamese children that he immediately went back to heavily criticizing our role in Vietnam. This resulted in the worst press coverage he had yet received, as well as anger from not only his enemies but many of his black friends and supporters.

Watching interviews by the press of some of those folk who hated King and their talk of how the man had "attended Communist Training School" will put you in mind of today's QAnon conspiracy nuts and how so little in some ways -- given even the Internet -- seems to have changed over more than half a century. Learning of black FBI informants among King's closest allies and workers (the fine photographer Ernest Withers was one of these) will also give you proper pause.

From IFC Films and running 105 minutes, MLK/FBI opens in select theaters, digitally and on cable VOD this Friday, January 15. It is definitely worth a watch -- even if it's not quite yet the definitive version of history. Click here for more information on the film and how to view it.

Retirement paradise--as seen by folk for whom it's not: Lance Oppenheim's Florida-set doc, SOME KIND OF HEAVEN

Said to be the largest retirement community in the entire USA, The Villages, located in central Florida, is made up of mostly white, Republican and relatively affluent seniors. Oddly, even though this community is so often in the news, especially regarding its support for Donald Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, the new documentary, SOME KIND OF HEAVEN, directed by Lance Oppenheim, completely, willfully ignores politics. There's nary a mention of this hugely divisive part of our current and long-running landscape anywhere in its 83 minutes. 

Instead Mr. Oppenheim, shown at left, after opening his film with short scenes of The Villages' classes in everything from rowing to exercise to dance -- these all exert more than a whiff of Nazi-like extreme ("You vill enjoy and excel at this!") -- concentrates almost entirely on four people, only three of whom are actual residents of The Villages. The fourth, a down-on-his-luck fellow named Dennis Dean (below) lives out of his van, which he parks illegally in The Villages then spends his days trying to meet and connect with wealthy female residents who might take him in and keep him in the style to which he would like to become accustomed. (To his deluded credit, Dennis is very up-front about all this.)

We also meet a sad lady named Barbara (below), fairly recently widowed and seemingly unable to meet or connect with a new man, even though she gamely keeps trying. It is easy to understand why she is unhappy in this "paradise." 

Perhaps equally unhappy, due less to The Villages itself and more to each other, is a couple in which the husband is something of a drug addict/dreamer of whom the much more grounded wife must take constant care, whether hubby is simply getting high or going to court for cocaine possession. Around this point, you may ask yourself, as did I, "Out of the thousands and thousands of folk who live in The Villages, why the fuck did the director pick these people to highlight?"

Well, my guess is that Mr. Oppenheim was not remotely interested in The Villages community per se (we don't learn much more about it than we might about any of the many retirement communities that dot the state of Florida and exist across the rest of the country), but rather he was interested in the idea of if and how the aged can find any "happiness" at the end of the road. 

Fair enough question. But a pretty poor choice of subjects to learn much more of an answer than, "Well, probably not." Which is what you might expect from a very young filmmaker -- and a bunch of critics who are mostly young-to-middle-aged (the film so far rates 100% on Rotten Tomatoes).  

I don't mean to suggest that Some Kind of Heaven is not interesting or enjoyable. It often is one or the other and sometimes both. But TrustMovies himself lives in a Florida retirement village (Century Village, Boca Raton) that, while it has things in common with The Villages, seems utterly elsewhere by comparison to this documentary. Scratch a little deeper into the life any senior citizen and, yes, you'll likely find as much sorrow as joy. But Some Kind of Heaven, via its choice of subjects, makes certain that the negativity is ladled out a little too heavily. It simply tells its audience what that audience already thinks it knows.

From Magnolia Pictures and running 83 minutes, the documentary opens here in Florida this Friday, January 8, at the following theaters (it opens just about everywhere else across the country the following Friday, January 15): 

In FT MYERS/NAPLES: Paragon Pavilion/Naples, Silverspot/Naples JACKSONVILLE: Epic 16/St. Augustine, Epic 14/Palm Coast 

In MIAMI/FT LAUDERDALE: Cinema Paradiso/Hollywood, Savor Cinema/Fort Lauderdale, Paragon Ridge/Davie, Silverspot/Coconut Creek, Silverspot/Miami, Cobb Cinebistro at Cityplace Doral, Cobb Cinebistro at Dolphin Mall, CMX Brickell City Center/Miami, Miami Lakes 17/Miami Lakes, iPic Luxury Cinemas/North Miami Beach 

In ORLANDO/DAYTONA: Festival Bay Orlando, Cobb Plaza Café Orlando, Studio Movie Grill Sunset Walk Kissimmee, Epic 16 Clermont, Epic 12 Mount Dora, Epic Ocala, Reilly Arts Center Ocala (1/28, 1/30 – 1/31), Oaks Melbourne, Cinema World West Melbourne, Merritt Square 16 Merritt Island, Epic West Volusia 12 Deltona, Cobb Daytona Luxury Daytona. 

In TALLAHASSEE: CMX Fallschase 14 

In TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG: CMX Cinebistro at Hyde Park/Tampa, Tyrone Luxury 10/St. Petersburg, Countryside 12 Clearwater, Xscape/Riverview, Lakeside Village 18 Lakeland, Studio Movie Grill/Seminole, Touchstar Cinema Spring Hill 8/Spring Hill 

In SARASOTA:CMX Cinebistro Siesta Southgate 7 

And in  WEST PALM BEACH: Cinemark Palace 20/Boca Raton, iPic Luxury Cinemas Mizner Park/Boca Raton, iPic Luxury Cinemas, Delray Beach, CMX Cinemas Wellington/Wellington, CMX Downtown at the Gardens/Palm Beach Gardens, Cinepolis Jupiter, Cinema World/Vero Beach, Touchstar Cinema Sabal Palms, Fort Pierce.

Nostalgia for the present in Taylor Morden and Zeke Kamm's doc, THE LAST BLOCKBUSTER

What a sweet treat it is to view the new and quite lovely documentary, THE LAST BLOCKBUSTER, directed by Taylor Morden and written by Zeke Kamm. 

The award-winning cable show, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver cleverly covered one of the remaining Blockbuster video stores in Alaska a year or so back, but even those are now gone and only one single location in the entire world (Blockbuster used to be relatively international) now remains -- in the town of Bend, Oregon. 

There is more than a little question raised during the course of this engaging doc whether or not this store will be viable for very much longer, perhaps closing its doors before the documentary has even finished being shot.

Misters Morden (pictured above, right) and Kamm (left) give us the history of both Blockbuster Video (including several of its owners over the years) and to a lesser extent the town of Bend and its own history of video stores, one of which was more or less blackmailed into becoming one of Blockbuster's franchises, though it is still owned by the original family (one of whom is shown below).

We meet plenty of minor celebrities -- from Kevin Smith (shown at right) to Adam Brody (two photos below) and Ione Skye -- each of whom seems to have an interesting video store history of his own.  

We also meet the woman, Sandi Harding (at right front, two photos below), who manages this last Blockbuster video store, as well as her family, friends and co-workers, all of whom seem like intelligent caring and very nice people to get to know. 

TrustMovies should think that, for anyone 30 years or older, the memory of going to and spending some really fun time in a video store will still burn warmly. 

Streaming has replaced all this, but as various folk in the doc point out, Netflix's suggestions for your viewing pleasure hardly take the place of your favorite video store clerk suggesting an interesting and right-up-your-alley new movie to see. 

Carl Icahn gets involved with Blockbuster along the way, as does Sumner Redstone and others, and we're told the major reason that Blockbuster finally went under (no, it was not because of Netflix). Finally, we're privy to how all the media coverage about this last Blockbuster has helped turn Bend, Oregon, into a real tourist attraction. 

There are humor, charm, culture, economics and irony aplenty here, in addition to a kind of nostalgia that is both real and not-quite, since -- despite going from a high of 9,000 video stores in its heyday down to a mere one -- there is still an actual functioning Blockbuster video rental store in our increasingly crazy world.

From 1091 Pictures and running just 86 minutes, The Last Blockbuster hits streaming -- and I would imagine actual DVD rental, at least in Bend, Oregon -- this coming Tuesday, December 15. For more information, 

click here.

At virtual Film Forum: Art, justice and family coalesce in Catherine Gund's doc, AGGIE

Having kept myself a deliberate outsider to both the appreciation of and the world of contemporary art, TrustMovies has heard the name Agnes Gund mentioned over the years but had not paid much attention to it. That has changed with the release of the new documentary, AGGIE, directed by Gund's daughter Catherine Gund and starring -- if  rather reluctantly -- her mother. More important, the film co-stars her mom's contributions to not merely contemporary art (she's a wealthy collector of the stuff) but to the constant and necessary struggle for justice in this ever-fraught world of ours. Aggie, it turns out, puts her money -- and much else that's important, too -- where her mouth is. 

Filmmaker Gund, shown at right and at bottom with mom, lets us know from the get-go that Aggie is not particularly happy to have this film made. 

Agnes Gund is clearly quite a private person (we don't learn much at all here about her personal life), and so the documentary concentrates on the art she loves and finds important, and how this impacts and interacts with the need for justice. (The film begins with quote on the subject from another filmmaker Aggie has championed, Ava DuVernay, below.) 

Early on in the film, we see one of  those famous comic-book inspired works by Roy Lichtenstein (below) and learn that it was somehow important in ways others than merely being an expensive piece of art. Later we learn exactly how all this happened and why. 

The junior Ms Gund mixes her mom's family history with the various artists and their art that has been important to her down the decades (the elder Gunn is now in her 80s), and with the struggle for justice she fought for on so many different fronts.

These fronts include everything from the fight for LGBT rights and feminism (that's artist Xaviera Simmons, below, left), to prison reform and most interestingly, for the full rights of people of color here in the USA. Aggie had a conversation years back in which she asked how and why the German people could claim not to have known about the Nazi atrocities during World War II. "Were you alive back in the 1950s?" her companion asks. When her answer is Yes, of course, he asks her how she and all the other Americans did not seem to know or care about the lynchings, murders and general abuse of Negros in here in the USA.

Yes, The elder Gund is one of those "white innocents" -- just like me and so many others I know -- who managed to not really see and understand what was going on in our own country at that time. Gund does not excuse herself. But her life seems to have been dedicated to helping right many of the wrongs she did not or could not fully grasp as a younger person brought up in a society and culture that implicitly consented to all of this as, if not "right," still somehow acceptable.

We meet glancingly so many of the artists she has helped and championed over the years -- from the famous to simply some school-kids she's encouraged via the in-school art programs she has funded. Even John Waters is here. (Gund went to bat for MoMA's acquisition of his bad-taste masterpiece, Pink Flamingos.) By the time we see her work during the AIDS crisis right up and through our current times of Black Lives Matter and the need for prison reform, I suspect you will agree with me that this movie is one of the few recent documentaries you can call genuinely inspiring.  (That's Gund's grandson, Rio Hope Gund, above, left.) 

From Strand Releasing and running just 91 minutes, Aggie opens at New York City's Film Forum virtual cinema tomorrow, Wednesday, October 7. Click here for more information on how to view. Will the documentary screen elsewhere? Click here and then scroll down to click on SCREENINGS in the task bar for the latest update.

Paris as a haven for American Blacks: Alan Govenar's MYTH OF A COLORBLIND FRANCE

The not-so-aptly titled documentary MYTH OF A COLORBLIND FRANCE -- which makes this storied country of hoped-for Liberté, égalité, fraternité seem more negative than it is (or at least was) -- actually offers viewers the opportunity to discover or maybe remind themselves of just how welcoming France became for African-Americans starting with World War I and continuing very nearly through present-day rise of nasty white nationalism in far too many countries worldwide, including the USA (which hardly needs more of this shit).  No country is really colorblind unless its populace is actually blind, a condition that maybe exists in an old Star Trek episode or a nice aphorism ("In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"). Racism might exist everywhere, one speaker points out, "but in France, I could do something about it."

As co-writer (with Jason Johnson-Spinos) and director of this fine new documentary, Alan Govenar (The Beat Hotel, You Don't Need Feet to Dance), shown at right, offers us viewers a wonderful and rich contribution to the history of African-American culture and the part that France (well, mostly Paris) played in all this.

While the filmmaker hits the expected high points -- Josephine Baker (below), James Baldwin (further below), Richard Wright -- he also includes a lot more examples of lesser lights whose interesting stories and thoughtful musings add much to this history of Black ex-pats in Paris. 

And, yes, as certain reviews have pointed out, the documentary jumps all over the place, back and forth from person to person, time period to time period. Yet what it has to tell us is so worth hearing (and seeing) that TrustMovies certainly did not mind these travels. 

My least favorite sections are given to some music-and-poetry improvisations that seemed to me a bit puerile, yet whenever that poet speaks of his experiences and philosophy, the movie immediately gets back on track. (That's poet James Emanuel, left, with saxophonist Chansse Evans, below.) 

We learn about everyone from famous 19th Century playwright Victor Séjour to jazz musician Sidney Bechet, the famous Bricktop club, mystery writer Chester Himes and especially the still-going-strong sculptor/poet/novelist Barbara Chase-Riboud (below), whose novel Sally Hemings became a kind of touchstone for the continuing American hypocrisy regarding slavery and its history. 

Of special note (among a lot that's already pretty special) is famous subway graffiti artist known as Quik (below), who tells us of his first trip to Europe and what happened on his first morning out and about in (I think it was) Amsterdam. 

Even if there is information you will already have known present in the documentary, much of this is well worth recalling, and what and who you will not have known about should make the film a must-see for anyone interested in Paris, history, and Black lives and culture -- then and now.

From First Run Features and running 86 minutes, Myth of a Colorblnd France opened this weekend in virtual theaters across the country.  Click here to see where and how you can view the film.

Native American food, culture and people brought to much-needed attention in Sanjay Rawal's documentary, GATHER

Does it occur to you, as it has repeatedly to me of late, that while Black Lives Matter most definitely, where the hell is the attention and responding change necessary for Native Americans? Black enslavement has led to centuries of continuous oppression; genocide, on the other hand, is so much easier to ignore, since there are so few reminders left of what "My country 'tis of thee" did to its original population. The new documentary GATHER goes some distance toward remedying this by reminding us quietly but insistently of our history while showing us some excellent reasons why Native American lives and culture continue to matter -- for now and for whatever future we may have left.

As directed and produced by Sanjay Rawal (shown at left) and featuring a collection of Native Americans of differing tribes all working toward the betterment of their own society while re-introducing the USA to some better ways to eat and act and think and live. 

We meet a Native American chef (below) from a four-star restaurant now ready to open his own place where diners will be able to sample Native American food that's both healthy and tasty.

Also on board is a young student (shown at bottom) whose science fair project is devoted to finding then demonstrating scientific proof of why Buffalo meat is superior to that of America's current favorite, good old cholesterol-ridden, antibiotic-injected beef.

We learn how members of a tribe of Northern California, the Yurok Nation (one of whom is shown below), are trying to save the salmon population -- that is both the major food source and means of earning a living -- even as we receive a lesson in furthering our own diet, cultural possibilities and even, yes, spirituality. (The latter is not hit overly hard, thank goodness.)

Mr. Rawal is light on his feet, moving things along quickly, offering lots of good information with little waste or repetition (the movie lasts only 74 minutes). We meet the families and friends of the Native Americans on view and learn why what they are all doing -- it's about food sovereignty -- is important in sustaining their (and our) food supply. 

Alone for the information we glean on the disappearance of the Buffalo herds and how and why this was so major in the destruction of Native Americans, the movie is worth a view and a listen. This little documentary, for all its positive attitude and charm, goes a distance in reminding us of the genocide in our own backyard. When will proper attention and real reparation be paid to the remaining Native Americans?

Gather premiered last week via iTunes and Amazon and is available now for purchase or rental.

Eric Merola's THE ANDORRA HUSTLE may be the documentary entertainment of the year

Not nearly as well known nor prolific as, say, Alex Gibney, the documentarian Eric Merola remains one of my favorites thanks to films such as Burzynski, Second Opinion and now his latest amazement, THE ANDORRA HUSTLE, which may be his best yet. 

Mr. Merola (shown at left) has a mind as keen and steel trap-like as the best lawyer (his movies are as clear and incontrovertible as a top-notch legal brief) and the subjects he tackles -- a cancer doctor whom the medical establishment has tried to discredit, a highly prestigious hospital with a less than sterling record, and now the reason behind the destruction of a bank in one of the smallest countries in the world via the combined efforts of Spain and the USA -- are neither easy nor popular ones. Yet Merola not only perseveres; he wins the day.

To go into heavy detail about the content of The Andorra Hustle is also to give away almost the complete story, so TrustMovies is going to try to interest you in viewing this knockout documentary without simultaneously ruining it. 

I don't know that I'd ever heard of Andorra -- a fascinating, if currently sleazy, little principality -- until now, though I had heard of (and in fact knew quite a bit about) the ongoing struggle of Catalonia for independence from Spain). These two subjects are quite connected, though not until the final third of the film do we begin to understand why and how. 

What we do begin to understand quite quickly and sadly is that grave injustice is being done to individuals (three of whom are shown in the photos above) via huge and powerful institutions. Once we meet these individuals and simply listen to them for even a short while, our own innate sense of justice and decency solidly hook us into their strange and initially almost unbelievable tale. (I suspect that Merola's own sense of decency and justice did the same for him.) How can all this have been allowed to happen?

By the end of The Andorra Hustle, you'll be able to answer that question very well. You'll also have met some of the villains of the tale (one shown above, another below, whose name rhymes with despot), all of whom are continuing to profit from their very bad behavior. 

The documentary lasts very nearly two hours -- that's long for this genre -- yet so utterly riveting is the subject matter and so expertly is it all rolled out for us that I could not look away for even one moment. Best of all, Merola makes such a good case for the "defense" that if the viewer is indeed the judge or jury here, this bank and its splendid employees deserve a lot more than mere recompense.

I have a couple of quibbles: The head of compliance should never have agreed to present that list of possible "suspect" clients at her bank (but that's on her, and does not skew the case itself), and while the connection between Andorra, the bank, and the anti-Catalan Spanish government is definitely indicated, the evidence does not seem as strong as that against FinCEN and Spain for the planned yet completely unnecessary destruction of this Andorran bank and its employees.

Yet in its entirety the documentary makes such a strong and reasonable case against this awful injustice and misuse of power that its viewing seems to me absolutely mandatory. If nothing else, the experience should also prove an exciting exercise in intelligence, logic, lying and lawbreaking for your brain and your heart. The Andorra Hustle is exemplary in every way.

From Merola Productions, running 113 minutes and in English, Spanish and Catalan with English subtitles, the documentary makes it debut today, Tuesday, September 1, via Amazon Prime. Do not miss it! (I certainly hope it will be available on Amazon in Spain and Andorra, but I somehow doubt the latter country will allow this to happen.) Click here to see the film.