Sundance has really developed a reputation for documentaries as the pipeline from festival premiere to Oscar nomination with all five nominees this year coming from premieres at last year’s Park City event. What does that leave for the other festivals? Well, SXSW has carved out a non-fiction identity that opens uncommon doors, looking at subcultures and strong personalities that don’t necessarily scream documentary subject. Two of the best from last year were “Grand Theft Hamlet” and “Secret Mall Apartment,” two films that certainly fit that model. And all three in this dispatch tell under-told stories of communities: a pop culture movement that sprung up from an elder home, a group of farmers that revolutionized the weed trade in the United States, and the queer community that rallied around the murder of one of their own.
David Greenberger made a career not just listening to an oft-unheard portion of society, the elderly, but turning their stories and dreams into art. “Beyond the Duplex Planet” doesn’t just recount Greenberger’s fascinating work but subtly turns it into a call to find art in everyday life, and to find value in listening to those who have lived it. It’s a bit more straightforward a piece of filmmaking than one would expect given it’s about an unusual chapter of art history, but it’s still effective, in part because Greenberger himself remains such an interesting interview subject.
In 1979, David Greenberger got a job in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts at Duplex Nursing Home. He loved talking to the residents there, but not in a traditional “biopic” way in which we often define the elderly by their pasts instead of their presents. He would ask them about their current passions, as well as just quirky questions to provoke unexpected responses. He would listen to their dreams, interests, and stories, turning them into a ‘zine called The Duplex Planet, which became a huge hit in that market, drawing fans like Penn Jillette (who appears in the doc), and even R.E.M., who ended up using one of the Duplex resident’s art on their Out of Time. Greenberger would do live readings of poetry by Duplex friends, and display their art, even drawing the attention of Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), who brough this project into the graphic novel world.
What’s so refreshing about Greenberger’s approach, and something that’s captured well in Beth Harrington’s film, is the lack of sentimentality in his conversations. We often center the elderly in a context of life gone by or even about to end, but Greenberger doesn’t wallow in grief or mortality, presenting these people as still vital, still creative, and still wonderful. He has a truly powerful curiosity about those he meets that’s downright inspiring. My favorite line in the film is “The ordinary is how we experience a connection.” We often overemphasize the big transitions of life, when it’s really the shared ordinary—dreams, interests, needs—that ties us all together.
The story of a real-life “Dukes of Hazzard,” Drew Morris & Evan Mascagni’s “Cornbread Mafia” is the story of the largest marijuana production in the history of the United States, a group of ordinary guys who revolutionized the drug, battling authorities and even developing a hybrid form that could survive the cold conditions of the country.
The title of the film refers to what the U.S. prosecutors called the group in 1989, when they also revealed that the operation that started simply enough in the ‘70s had stretched across 10 states and employed dozens of people Morris & Mascagni’s film tells the saga of the Cornbread Mafia with a wink and a yeehaw, using animation for some of the more out-there stories like when one of the key players just happened to have a live bear in his passenger seat as his driving buddy. Some of the tone is a bit too “good ol’ boy” humorous at times, but the filmmakers smartly offer a bit of the counter with a few of the officials who chased the Cornbread Mafia across the country offering the argument that these weren’t just harmless potheads. Overall, it’s an entertaining, informative watch, even if the whimsical sense of humor could have been dialed down a few notches.
“Cornbread Mafia” allows the key players to tell their own story, most notably Joe Keith Bickett, who was one of the key figures in the organization and later became an advocate for a broken justice system that kept drug offenders behind bars even as the drug for which they were convicted was being legalized across the country. Bickett is an engaging interview subject in a manner that gives the film a foundation instead of just becoming a series of wacky anecdotes. They also spotlight Johnny Boone, one of the most famous members of the CM who went on the run after his crop was found.
There are aspects of the film “Cornbread Mafia” that feel a bit underdeveloped, but it maintains a consistent tone in a way that makes it never boring. When you learn in the closing credits that the excellent narration was done by Boyd Holbrook, and that two kings of southern-fried comedy in David Gordon Green and Danny McBride produced it, it all makes sense.
Finally, there’s Rachel Mason’s “My Brother’s Killer,” a film that has a title that makes it sound like it belongs on one of the streaming true crime factories like the ID section on HBO Max but that actually works better as a portrait of a community in crisis than as a mystery. It does get a bit repetitive and some of the interview soundbites sound a bit over-directed instead of organic, but it’s a reminder of multiple important themes to queer history, including both how protective communities form in marginalized groups, and, sadly, how violence can erupt when people aren’t allowed to be themselves.
The severed head of Bill Newton aka Billy London, a gay adult star in the ‘80s, was found in a dumpster in West Hollywood in 1990. Despite efforts by the police and community, the crime went unsolved for decades. Filmmaker Rachel Mason has a connection to the Hollywood gay community through a gay adult video store that her parents ran in the area. As AIDS took so many lives in the ‘80s, the store became a safe haven, and a place where people questioned what might have happened to Billy London, and if his killer walked among them or if it was a hate crime committed by an outsider. Mason began production of “My Brother’s Killer” before the crime was solved but ended up playing a role in its harrowing conclusion, the revelation of a killer who walked in the same circles as London despite hating his true self enough to lash out violently because of it.
“My Brother’s Killer” often struggles with over-direction, but it undeniably tells a powerful story that still resonates today. As attacks on the queer community have risen under Trump 2.0, Mason’s film is a vital reminder of not just the importance of allies like Mason’s parents (and the role she played in solving this heartbreaking case) but in the strength of marginalized groups to unite against pure evil.
