Many folks look at summer as a time to indulge in cinema that is fun, thrilling and large. Unfortunately though, somewhere along the way this came to mean cinema that is fun, thrilling, large and NOT VERY GOOD. Our summer blockbusters, minus a few, have, in this blogger’s opinion, consistently been going downhill and also it seems, getting made at a much more rapid pace. Leaving us with a lot of crap to choose from for our frivolous summer movie fun. Not to mention that ticket prices are constantly on the rise, with a typical summer movie now costing 12 dollars here in New York City.

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The third Oscar nominee for Best Documentary that I am going to look at leading up to the Academy Awards is War/Dance. The film follows a group of schoolchildren from a refugee camp in northern Uganda to a national music competition. The children are victims of a 20-year civil war that has cost tens of thousands of lives in northern Uganda.

Many were abducted from their villages in the middle of the night by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group that turned kidnapped boys as young as 5 into soldiers and girls into sexual slaves.

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This past Friday night I wandered on over to the IFC Center in Manhattan to see Andre Techine’s The Witnesses. The French Techine, director of Wild Reeds, Strayed and many other fine films, here tells the story of 4 people and their experience with onset of AIDS in the western world:

This beautifully acted ensemble film, which uses recurrent images of water and aviation, unfolds in three chapters. The first remembers the heady pre-AIDS era. The second observes the foursome’s reactions to the crisis, which for each is a test of character and of the strength of bonds they have taken for granted. In the third, those who remain pick up the pieces and go on.

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