Doomsdays

Eddie Mullins, 2013

IMDB

3/5

Doomsdays is one of those films that focuses on a couple of characters that you really wouldn't want to spend a lot of time with in real life. These are people that have no regard for personal property. They have no moral barometer, no real sense of remorse for anything they've done or anything they will do. Instead, they drift through the Catskills. Home to home, day to day, drink to drink. They take what they need and they move on. But it doesn't just stop there. If they feel like smashing a window, or breaking what's probably valuable family heirlooms, they do that too.

Bruho (Leo Fitzpatrick) and Dirty Fred (Justin Rice) are just downright despicable human beings. Borderline sociopathic, surely nihilistic. Bruho hides behind an unrealistic earthy ideology and Dirty Fred is just kind of complacent. They make you want to double check that your own doors are locked, just to eliminate the possibility that anyone like them may show up at your door. Even though you are forced to spend the whole 90 minutes with them, there is something alluring about following them. There is an odd curiosity as to what the next house is going to offer them. They aren't just purely sadistic. Because they have some kind of code, it's not pure carnage. Fitzpatrick seems to always get cast as the dirtbag type, from his role as Telly in Kids or as junkie Johnny in The Wire. His Bruho character is surprisingly a little more approachable that former two characters. But still pretty venomous. But just like Reyna (Laura Campbell) and Jaidon (Brian Charles Johnson) become intrigued by the pair, you can't help but be intruiged by them as well.

There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane

Liz Garbus, 2011

Can I Stream It?

4/5

You probably heard the news story soon after it happened. One of those terrifying headlines about a wrong way driver that crashed on the highway, killing eight people total including herself. Basically anyone's worst nightmare. If you lived in the Northeast, it felt even more personal because those roads are so familiar. Soon after you probably caught the headline about the toxicology reports coming back stating that the female driver of the maroon minivan had alcohol in her system at the time of the crash. The equivalent of ten alcoholic drinks in her system, and also traces of THC. Perhaps you then judged her like the rest of America did. Assumed she was a bad mother that put her own kin in harms way, despite the fact that her husband came forward and with full conviction said that she would not have been drinking that day.

That woman was Diane Schuler, mother of three. On the morning of July 26, 2009 she said goodbye to her husband Daniel at a campsite that they frequented in the Hudson Valley. He assumed that he would see her soon at their home in Long Island. But hours later the family started receiving phone calls from the children in the car, saying that Aunt Diane was driving erratically and seemed disoriented. The fateful day tragically ended after she collided with an SUV on the Taconic State Parkway where she was driving in the wrong direction. She killed herself, her daughter and three nieces, and three men in the oncoming SUV. The toxicology tests confirmed that she was inebriated during the drive home, a fact that her husband Daniel has firmly denied being possible. And just like that, so many lives just stripped from the world. Utter tragedy.

This chilling (and at times difficult to watch) documentary thoroughly examines the events of that horrible day that tore multiple families apart. It attempts to retrace Diane's steps. There are interviews with family members on both sides. It revisits the scene of the accident. The pain is still present, unlikely to ever really go away. You feel it too. The shock. The sense of mystery. Daniel is resolute, completely denying the possibility that Diane would have drank alcohol and attempted to drive home with the girls in the van. And while there is substantial evidence that confirms that she was in fact intoxicated, it does seem hard to believe as the film really explores Diane the person. What's clear is that she was a caring mother. A hard worker. A loyal friend. A loving wife. Garbus effectively paints an elaborate picture of the good person that was Diane Schuler. It's the unanswered factors that make it so agonizing. The lack of closure. But you come away knowing more about Diane. You can't blame Daniel for fighting to defend her legacy. If the film's mission is to humanize a complicated woman who was quickly dismissed as a reckless killer, it certainly succeeds. 

Some additional thoughts on the film...(SPOILERish ALERT)