'Guerrilla' recaptures Hearst kidnap frenzy
For anyone who doesn't remember, the long circus surrounding the 1970s kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst is summed up nicely by some old news footage included in Robert Stone's "Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst."
In one clip of the unprecedented media encampment, a sign reads "Please don't feed the reporters." It might just as well have read: "Welcome to fame-obsessed America. Get used to it."
Hearst's kidnapping as a Berkeley undergrad captivated the nation, especially when her kidnappers, a dissident group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army, demanded her family feed all of California's poor.
Stone makes great comical use of Robin Hood images to offset the words of former SLA members who put a do-good patriotic spin on controversial events, and he even conveys something of the collective "Oh, please" that went up when Hearst revealed she'd joined the SLA and taken the name Tania.
There's nothing revelatory in the contents of this story; Stone doesn't even have anything profound to say about Hearst's acting in John Waters films. But anyone who's interested in the history should be satisfied that here at least is something other than a one-dimensional portrait.
'Racing Against the Clock'
Massachusetts filmmaker Bill Haney's inspirational documentary follows five amateur track-and-field competitors ages 50 to 82, whose goal is to medal in the masters world championships. Some of the women are cancer survivors and war refugees; all compete not for the possibility of sneaker endorsements but simply to feel alive. Though Haney's documentary could do with less track-meet footage and more creative treatment of interesting personal stories, there's no denying that it's running with the right crowd.
'American Wake'
Bostonians should have a grand old time pointing out all the local landmarks and faces in Cambridge writer-director Maureen Foley's latest work. Its twin lead stories -- one focusing on a struggling ex-firefighter (co-writer Billy Smith) and the other about the conflict between a young fiddler (Sam Amidon of Assembly) and his controlling Irish father -- have an engaging sweetness to them, and the pub music is hard to resist.
The film ultimately tries to do too much, but it's quite the local party until closing time.
'Germany and the Secret Genocide' One and a half million citizens of the Ottoman Empire were exterminated between 1915 and 1923 during the Armenian Genocide, and it's the position of this J. Michael Hogopian-directed documentary that Germany bears substantial responsibility -- if not for the Turkish government-ordered killings, then at least for their coverup. Hogopian's collection of evidence seems well-researched and historically important. Unfortunately, it's more academic case-building than anything else.
