An Earth First! environmental activist who battled the logging industry’s clear-cutting of old forest redwoods in Northern California, Judi Bari was the victim of a 1990 car bomb that left her seriously injured. Then, she and her passenger found themselves under arrest, accused by the FBI and Oakland Police Department of being eco-terrorists who accidentally detonated their own bomb. Who Bombed Judi Bari?, then, is both a document of her eventual exoneration in the wake of a sham investigation and various false affidavits, but also a nonfiction tribute to the steel-spined spirit of Bari and other dedicated non-violent activists who, in standing up for their principles, coped as well with terrible and nefarious push-back from powerful governmental bureaucracy.



The movie is built around deposition testimony from Bari (pronounced “berry”) in a 2002 civil suit, which gives it a nice framing device from which to flash back and forward in time. Darryl Cherney, the other victim of the bombing, is a producer on the project, so the movie obviously has an invested, canted point-of-view. But its evidence is so overwhelming and completely obvious (in addition to being backed up by a $4.4 million vindication in a jury trial in which six of seven law enforcement officers were essentially tabbed as having framed the victims) that dispassionate objectivity is not a tone required for this story.

Besides, Who Bombed Judi Bari? doesn’t aim for an arcing overview of Bari’s homebase organization, Earth First!, in the manner that the recent We Are Legion: The Story of Hacktivists offers up a fairly comprehensive history of the decentralized online collective Anonymous. It doesn’t have to. In focusing — as its title augurs — more specifically on the still unsolved act of violence perpetrated against Bari and Cherney, director Mary Liz Thomson’s movie tells a story with much more gripping immediacy, and then allows viewers to connect the dots of incompetence, malicious disregard or darker conspiracy in their mind however they might choose.

The most amazing thing is just how focused, articulate and utterly unflappable Bari (and Cherney) remain in the face of such enormous difficulties and pressure. Thomson’s film will make you think, and it will make you mad. It will also make you think about how Bari and Cherney didn’t merely succumb to pure anger, but instead focused and used that energy to work within the justice system and impact change. It’s a positive, important lesson that’s even bigger than the stirring environmental tale at its core. Who Bombed Judi Bari? opens exclusively in Los Angeles at the Laemmle NoHo 7; Ed Begley and other personalities will join the filmmakers in attendance. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here; for more information on the movie, click here to visit its website. (Hokey Pokey Productions, unrated, 93 minutes)

Another descendant of Dogtown and Z-Boys, Stacy Peralta’s influential 2001 documentary about the 1970s rise of popular skateboarding culture and the colorful characters who populated it, Waiting for Lightning details the life story of visionary skater, daredevil and X Games star Danny Way, building up to his 2005 attempt to jump the Great Wall of China. A slick technical package and a willingness to peer at least a bit into the difficult childhood and fractured psyche of its subject give this movie a leg up on a lot of its less inquisitive, like-minded, hagiographic stunt spectaculars, like Nitro Circus: The Movie. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Samuel Goldwyn, unrated, 96 minutes)

Narrated by Catherine Keener, Lost Angels: Skid Row Is My Home provides a poignant, illuminating look at the titular downtown Los Angeles area which serves as the residence to a large portion of the city’s indigent population. Far from just serving as an audio-visual grief mop — prodding viewers with images of despair — director Thomas Napper’s deeply humanistic movie throws a non-exploitative spotlight on people who have both found a way to make a life for themselves within this community of homelessness and also make themselves of greater service.



Skid Row, covering about one square mile, serves as home base for as many as 11,000 Los Angelenos, two-thirds of whom struggle with some form of mental illness, drug addiction or both. In uncompromising fashion, Lost Angels tells its story, funneled through eight inhabitants as well as a variety of advocates and volunteers who man various community outreach service programs. In doing so, the movie lays waste to certain misconceptions about both those who pass through Skid Row (meet Danny Harris, a scholarship track athlete and former Olympic medalist) and some of their reasons for being there, since single-dwelling units on a meager disability stipend are hardly affordable anywhere else (“We’re not here because we’re homeless — just less of home, maybe,” says one woman).

The film also shows the squeeze on the homeless on both sides — how the increased gentrification of the area has coincided with the tail end of changes in the mental health care system and the increased criminalization of behavior (loitering and the like) that is not as strictly policed elsewhere. The latter is sorted through the prism of Los Angeles’ controversial September 2006 “Safer Cities” initiative, a $6 million campaign launched under Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa　and Police Chief William Bratton in which 50 new dedicated police officers were given new mandates for enforcement without the promised expansion of social services.

Both in its focus on those on the margins of society and its frequently artful blend of direct-address interviews and landscape footage, Lost Angels recalls Interview Project, a 2009 web series executive produced by David Lynch. Interviewees like UCLA law professor Gary Blasi　and others provide an articulate (and much more traditional) academic assessment of the different causes of this social blight. However, it’s the Skid Row residents themselves — like transgendered, self-described freak Bam Bam, dedicated street sweeper OG, and stray cat lover Lee Anne and her protector and fiancé KK (above) — whose faces and stories will stick with you. Lost Angels opens this week in Los Angeles for an exclusive engagement at the ArcLight Hollywood. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here; for more information on the movie, click here to visit its website. (Cinema Libre, unrated, 75 minutes)