Banksy Does New York
The HBO documentary follows the scavenger hunt that ensued when British provocateur Banksy proclaimed himself New York’s artist-in-residence, promising one piece of street art per day in October 2013. The anonymous Banksy dashed about unseen, posting cryptic directions to each piece accompanied by sardonic commentary. Banksy brings a sense of mission to his spray-ons and installations; his best work is simple enough for social and mainstream media, yet reveals levels of meaning for those who look.
Falling Star
No honor guard greeted Amadeo when he arrived in Spain (1870), elected as king by an unenthusiastic parliament. The reform-minded monarch, ignored by his ministers and servants, is virtually an inmate in a gilded prison. Director Luis Minarro’s depiction of his brief reign is almost aggressively uncinematic, often resembling a sequence of paintings (barely) in motion. Yet, the brocaded images are beautiful. Despite irritating anachronisms and quirks, Falling Star maintains a mood of suspended unease.
Awake: The Life of Yogananda
Steve Jobs had only one book on his iPad: Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. This documentary, authorized by the fellowship formed by its subject, collects other endorsements, including George Harrison and several contemporary physicists and neuroscientists who think the swami was decades ahead of western science in understanding consciousness and neuroplasticity. Yogananda achieved an American following in the 1920s and popularized yoga, which for him was less about flat abs than connecting with the infinite.
“Sgt. Bilko/The Phil Silvers Show: Season Three”
That primetime television trickster, Phil Silvers in the guise of Sgt. Bilko, continues to be reissued in different configurations. Season Three (1957-58) finds the loveable conman in his usual form, turning his military service into a vacation paid for by taxpayers and the U.S. Army into his own wealth management fund. Much (though not all) of this slyly subversive series remains funny decades later, thanks in part to Silvers’ impeccable timing and body language.
