Rock the Docs and the Block

If there's anything I've learned from my almost three year old son, it's that whining, kicking, and screaming can eventually get you what you want. So after a year of repeatedly holding my breath until my face turns blue, Lawren finally agreed to let me accompany her to Toronto for a portion of the trip. Baby steps. I'll work on the whole time next year.

She's been MIA for awhile, but we'll both be back in time for a full slate of movies at a/perture this weekend, as well as our previously mentioned shorts during Rock the Block with Chris Paul. People are loving Get Low and Cairo Time, so if you've missed out don't let these escape without catching them. To bring back the rarer than rare quadruple feature, we've got two documentaries coming in, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child and Winnebago Man. Both films about interesting people, The Radiant Child is about artist Basquiat, as told by friend Tamara Davis, and Winnebago Man is about reluctant internet sensation Jack Rebney.

Some of you may recognize the Basquiat film, as it has played at a/perture, but as part of the RiverRun International Film Festival. Mary Dalton, head of the Documentary Film Program at Wake Forest University, saw the film then and wrote this review. Local critic Matthew Lucas, who writes for the Davidson County paper The Dispatch, as well as on his own blog (which I highly recommend checking out on a regular basis - he sees A LOT of films), had both docs on his not so mainstream top 10 movies of the summer list. Stephen Holden of the New York Times seems to share in both of our local critic's enjoyment, in his Winnebago review here and his Basquiat review here. As the trailers below confirm, sometimes the truth can be more interesting than fiction.

I should pack now, eh?