Best of the Web

• Posted By: Kathy M.Y. Pyon
• Posted On: 3:23 p.m. | January 20, 2012

Why do I love documentaries so much?  I asked myself this question this week and came to this conclusion: I am partial to them because I love nonfiction, learning and new discoveries.  This week, unfortunately, I did not get to experience as many documentaries as I normally do, but I want to highlight two I found very inspiring.

Dream World

The sound is incredibly infectious.  The editing insane.  The cinematography is frantically fantastic, elegant and fresh.  Watching it  made me hyper, and I asked myself, is this a true sport? Is this what they call free running or parkour?  I gather that the answer is yes.

I admire the style of filmmaker Frank Sauer. He did an excellent job building up the tension  and hooking me on something I would generally not seek out on my own.  Jason Paul and the others are very likable, acrobatic and daring  characters.

Up There

I have a deep appreciation for the craft of painting signs on the sides of buildings; I’ll look at the wall paintings around town now with a vastly different perspective.  Each character has an empirically natural down-to-earth vibe, with sincere directness as well as the perfect amount of stubble and grime.  I dig characters and people like this.  These guys brought such a depth  to this piece that it made me care much more about this art form.

Caption: Screengrab from the film “Dream World”