By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
With 2021 now in full swing, to keep an eye out on what documentaries about pop-culture is worth checking can be tough.
There’s a few gems from the crowdfunding world which gets major attention much later, after its release, and others making a grand entrance through Sundance Film Festival. Most of which will become available regionally or be immediately distributed through streaming services when considering the world is still in pandemic lockdown mode.
The ones I’m particularly excited to see are:
Glitch in the Matrix
February 5, 2021 VOD
This documentary takes some inspiration from the movie the Wachowskis made famous, but goes further with the idea. Anyone who looks at Facebook videos late night may have come across a short about this subject. Even Ancient Aliens hit upon the idea once upon a time. However, this work takes the matter far more seriously and is worth checking out. Expect a review to be coming soon about this after its Sundance premiere.
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street
Sundance Premiere
Since 1969, Sesame Street has been a staple to many kids growing up in front of the television. To say you haven’t watched it would be a lie. Not even a parent can escape the draw since they have to monitor what their kids are watching. The messages, the hopes and dreams from the creators of the show and also master the puppeteers–including Jim Henson to Frank Oz–made this series everlasting. But there’s more to it as the format changed over the decades. This documentary will examine just why it continues today to entertain.
The Beatles: Get Back
Premieres Aug. 27 on Disney+.
With Peter Jackson involved in this work, his edit of another Beatles documentary: 1970’s Get Back, is going to be very different. Nearly everybody knows about how the band rose to fame and eventually broke up. This work is going to much more happier.
Hawking
TBA
This Sky Documentary is going to be more about the man that the cinema version never did proper justice to. It consists of personal interviews with family, friends and colleagues superimposed on top of private footage acquired (with consent) to paint a personal picture of the man who famously wrote, “A Brief History of Time,” and made cosmology even more accessible (or rather, fascinating) for the common man.
God Said Give ‘Em Drum Machines
TBA
Sandy Nelson made Let There Be Drums, but when God said Give ‘Em Drum Machines, the whole world was turned upside down! A new musical genre was invented, and today, nobody knows that it came from Detroit, Rock City! This documentary is about the people who helped create it, the hardships, the industry (European producers) who saw the coming thing, and what happened.
