Cool Docs

With the YoYo bug now gone (see next post as to how it was sent to Hell), here are the promised reviews of two documentaries with Cancon (Canadian Content for the unfamiliar):

- Died Young, Stayed Pretty (Warner Music Canada) – directed by Iranian/Canadian Eileen Yaghoobian, the film’s billed as a portrait of rock poster artists, but it’s so much more. Call it a snapshot of underground, punk, or culture kludge art that rebels against standard commercial campaigns, offends conservative minds, and yet functions as piercing, hyper-focused (dare one say it?) commercial art. Lots of interviews, including Tyler Stout, Art Chantry, Brian Chippendale, and Ron Liberti.

- Blue Gold (Mongrel Media) – based on the best-selling book by Canadian Maude Barlow and co-author Tony Clarke, Sam Bozzo’s doc follows in the footsteps of Flow (another doc about water control), but addresses the commodification of H2O by corporations to ensure revenues for the near future (er, forever). Not a pretty story, and none of the companies involved fare particularly well, including chocolate maker Nestle. It’s hard to call it anti-capitalist propaganda when small town Americans are fighting Nestle for their water rights, but it’s also sad that notice is being paid in the West because the issue of water control has reached our shores when it’s already upset developing countries.



- MRH