A murder mystery, forensic investigation and political drama rolled into one, the new-to-DVD Incendiary: The Willingham Case shines a spotlight on the circumstances surrounding Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man convicted in the arson deaths of his three young children. Somewhat flatly told but engaging throughout, this documentary will appeal to both newsmagazine junkies and those impassioned by the death penalty debate.



In 1991, an early morning house fire in Corsicana, Texas felled a two-year-old girl and twin infants. Their father, the only other person home at the time, escaped. Charged and convicted largely on shaky arson evidence, Willingham was sentenced to death for the murder of his kids. Despite expert criticism of the prosecutor’s “junk science,” he was executed in 2004. Incendiary focuses largely on the aftermath of that verdict and event, and attempts to win a posthumous reversal of Willingham’s conviction based on fire investigation evidence and a look at the alleged manipulation of a post-mortem state forensics commission stacked by former Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry.

The film, which enjoyed its world premiere last year at the SXSW Festival, where it picked up a special jury prize, certainly makes a persuasive case for the political cronyism of Perry — though the Texas governor is hardly the first politician to dismiss state board appointees in favor of old pals and/or more ideologically like-minded. Whether that amounts to a more sinister cover-up is doubtful, and something of a stretch (and not part of the movie’s agenda, really). Incendiary is most convincing in its evidence concerning the faulty diagnosis of arson, upon which the murder case was obviously based. Dr. Gerald Hurst (above) and John Lentini are intelligent and articulate experts in the field, and they debunk the initial fire investigation report in crisp, relatable fashion.

Still, a weird (and white-hot) amount of outright hostility comes off of Willingham’s own defense attorney, David Martin, who sounds like Hank Hill from King of the Hill and makes no bones about his own beliefs of Willingham’s guilt, even as roosters crow wildly in the background. One could reasonably entertain the argument that such feelings could only be influenced by personal certitude and outrage over the sort of detailed confession that would be protected by attorney-client privilege. Co-directors Steve Mims and Joe Bailey give White a fair shake — he’s the skeptic in their midst — but don’t go out of their way to contextualize, frame and either bolster or refute other evidence against Willingham — like conflicting statements to police and, most particularly, an alleged confession to his wife, the mother of the children. In its failure to address these issues, Incendiary feels a bit incomplete as a true crime tale.

In fact, Paradise Lost this isn’t. The filmmakers have the benefit of tremendously convincing experts (in particular Hurst, a physicist, speaks eloquently of the fact that so many fire investigators have no educational anchor points for elementary science), but they seem afraid of subjecting their feelings on the case to a more rigorous and thorough examination. The transition, halfway through, to a more gear-grinding procedural does not seem to suit the movie. It’s not that Incendiary feels like a politically opportunistic hit piece; it isn’t. It’s just that the criminal investigation and “CYA” political maneuvering that ensues feel less like two sides of the same coin and a bit more like adjacent screw-ups. One thing can be certain, however — guilty or not, you don’t want to be charged with a homicide in Texas.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Incendiary: The Willingham Case comes to DVD presented in 16×9 widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track that more than adequately handles the movie’s straightforward aural demands. Split into 35 chapters under a motion-menu main screen, Incendiary also includes a copy of its trailer, plus 15 minutes of interview footage with the co-directors in which they discuss the intersection of law, science and politics that first intrigued them about the case, and then talk about how the scope of the film changed with the unanticipated political theater of the January 2010 firings of members of the state forensics commission. They also address the purported confession mentioned by Willingham’s ex-wife, and make smart, salient points about how it differs from earlier statements to the press, and came at a hastily arranged courthouse-steps press conference — absent any follow-up questions — just prior to voting in Perry’s re-election bid. To purchase a copy of the DVD, click here. For more information on the movie, including its trailer, click here. B (Movie) B (Disc)

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified Willingham’s defense attorney as David White instead of David Martin. It has since been corrected.

Director Andrew Rossi’s Page One: Inside the New York Times was tremendously well received, lauded for providing a snapshot of both “the Grey Lady” specifically and a newspaper industry teetering on the edge of (ir)relevance in a digital age. Eat This New York, from First Run Features, is another geographically specific subcultural nonfiction curio from Rossi that will receive wider embrace amongst so-called foodies.

The rise in profile of the Food Network, along with all sorts of cooking and baking cable shows on other channels, has created a burgeoning interest in high-class cuisine, and food trends and even chefs in cities we may not inhabit. (Though it’s merely anecdotal, for evidentiary purposes I offer up my sisters, who lives in Washington, D.C., but knows the restaurants in at least five other cities of her favorite Spanish chef.) Featuring culinary luminaries like Daniel Boulud, Sirio Maccioni, Keith McNally, Drew Nieporent, Danny Meyer and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Eat This New York tells the story of two friends, Billy Phelps and John McCormick, struggling to try to open a new restaurant in the food capital of the world — where there are over 18,000 eateries, and four-fifths of the 1,000 new ones that open each 12 months go out of business in the first five years.

Rossi’s tack is relaxed and inviting, and it certainly helps that he’s chosen two sympathetic figures for his chief subjects. But one of the more heartening things about the movie, despite the appetites it raises, is that it’s not merely a tunnel-vision portrait of dreamy aspirations. Rossi lends voice to these kitchen artisans, heretofore so frequently banished to back rooms, and their insights are interesting, as they often reflect eloquently and offer up not just ideas about what tastes good but also the many other elements that go into creating a dining atmosphere that can capture the imagination and survive beyond the hype associated with an opening rush. Rossi’s film is slim (about 85 minutes), and doesn’t overstay its welcome, but is more filling than a simple appetizer.

Eat This New York comes to DVD housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, and is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen. Its bonus roster is meaty, too — over two hours of extended interviews with some of the country’s top restaurateurs. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

The angry, dirty and unforgiving streets of New York City have over the course of several generations taken on an almost mythical role in American independent cinema, fueling some artists, creatively bankrupting many more, and driving others into the arms of more lucrative, mainstream projects. An exhaustively comprehensive oral history of outsider cinema from the late 1970s and into the mid ’80s, Celine Danhier’s Blank City unfolds in all the hazy, erudite specificity of some breezy, memories-laden conversation between your parents and a bunch of their friends at some holiday party from your youth. Meaning, you ask? Meaning it’s kind of interesting in retrospect, or on a theoretical level, but also somewhat impenetrable, given everyone’s penchant for inside jokes and thorough (and thoroughly unedited) recollection.

Against the backdrop of scuzzy, economically bombed-out Lower East Side landscapes, powered by cheap dope and speed, and inspired by the cinematic rules-breaking of the French New Wave, a certain DIY ethos took root in the latter days of the Ford Administration. A renegade collection of aspirant filmmakers, musicians, amateur actors and other artistically-minded misfits would, over the next dozen years or so, crank out all sorts of stark and provocative outsider films, in what would come to be known as the No Wave. Some filmmakers and performers (including Jim Jarmusch and Steve Buscemi, the latter pictured above) would go on to greater fame with more accessible work, while others (Deborah Harry) would almost reluctantly find success in other arenas. Most, however, found their potential careers (to the extend they regarded them as such, and anything more than a way to fill their time) eventually derailed by jealousies and recklessness. The quirky work they left behind, though — long on alienation, often short on production value, rich in deadpan humor, and blurring the lines between fiction and nonfiction — holds some interesting lessons for would-be independent filmmakers of future generations.

Neophyte French director Danhier has an obvious passion for the material, but lacks the ability the form a cogent narrative spine from all of her interviews. As such, the movie unfolds in largely lurching fashion. Some of the anecdotes are amusing, and fascinating for the simplistic yet radical notions they hold at their core. Director James Naren talks about craftily arranging to see a property he had no intention of renting (or of course even the means to afford), then surreptitiously leaving the windows unlocked, coming back later that evening, climbing up the fire escape with his friends and cohorts, sneaking in, and shooting part of his avant-garde Rome 78. Later, Naren also talks about a lack of overt manipulation being of paramount importance to he and most of the rest of his filmmaking peers, and if bad acting or filmmaking was resultant from that, so be it, that was fine.

The widescale (at least within this group) embrace of this sort of seat-of-your-pants filmmaking makes for some interesting sidebar speculation amongst cineastes, especially if there had been more formalistically and narratively adventurous parties pushing back against some of their peers. But Danhier has trouble taking this microclimate (one interview participant describes the area between 14th Street and Houston, and Avenue B and Bowery as his entire world) and making it matter to the layperson, or connecting it in meaningful and convincing fashion to the cinema of today. Bolstered by film clips from literally dozens of No Wave offerings, Blank City proves itself several times over a vital document of this outsider movement, even if mainstream interest in such a trip down memory road is likely to remain at a significant remove.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Blank City comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Director Danhier submits to a 10-minute interview chat, in which she credits a compilation album from Brian Eno as first tipping her off to the existence of the No Wave scene. She also offers her own perspective, somewhat academic and removed, as to some of the figurehead personalities of the movement. The perspective and presence of an additional film historian would have been a nice touch here, but Danhier is obviously well versed enough of the subject to give it a fairly good framing. The big bonus feature, though, is a nice 40-minute collection of deleted and extended interviews, which allows even further indulgence for those really into this era and sub-genre. Outtakes and the movie’s theatrical trailer, meanwhile, round out the supplemental slate. For more information, visit Kino’s web site; to purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B (Disc)

For my latest Blu-ray/DVD column, over at ShockYa, I take a gander at the third film in the Paranormal Activity franchise, Texas Killing Fields, the delicious depravity of Archer: Season 2, Rooney Mara’s big star turn before The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and more. Again, it’s over at ShockYa, so click here for the full read.