It's always nice to wake up to an email from Louis C.K. A few hours ago, the beloved (but also not-beloved) and indisputably brilliant comedian sent out an email blast announcing that his website was now hosting a new film called Check It, directed by Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer, that documents the lives of a group of LGBTQ kids living on and near the streets of DC who banded together—for protection and respect—and formed a gang. I saw the film when it was making the festival rounds last year and it's every bit as good as Louis represents it in the intro/trailer:
In an age when handmade documentaries are a commonplace, often predetermined form, Check It rings with empathy, moral toughness, and visual invention. And more to the point, it opens a (tiny, subjective) window onto the inner lives of people living at the margins of the margins, and through the weird alchemy of cinema, forges sympathy, identification, and love. If nothing else (and truly, there's lots more else), it's worth your stupid $5.
CK's model of totally independent, self-sustaining creation and distribution of his own work has already borne some succulent fruit. (If you haven't seen Horace and Pete, his stunning hybrid of Mike Leigh, Eugene O'Neill, and All in the Family, you're really missing out.)
It only makes sense that he would branch out into very limited distribution of films like Check It, which are born with poor prospects for commercial release, and would likely be lost in the avalanche of stuff available through Netflix, Amazon, and whatever other new "content" sites have been launched since I started writing this paragraph.
The film obviously struck him as both excellent and important, and so he opened up his portal for it—the same way he has done with comedy specials by his colleagues Todd Barry and Barry Crimmins. He produced and/or directed those two shows. With Check It, he's the impresario, presumably—just a fan with a megaphone at his disposal, who believes that, as he puts it in the trailer, "the more people see each other the more they get each other."
Here's the rest of his letter:
Check It was made over 4 years. Directed by Toby Oppenheimer and Dana Flor. It’s about a gay black street gang in DC (the only one documented in the country) made up of kids who were living on the streets and easy targets for violence and harrasment. They started this gang to protect each other. They made a family where they didn’t have one.
It’s not an easy film. It takes on life right where the rubber hits the road. What made me love it was just the kids themselves. They are like any kids, like anyone’s children. They are trying to cope against terrible odds, they are funny and full of hope and life. Their lives are difficult and complex. They are very generous in sharing this with the filmmakers and you, if you watch the film.
The film also portrays a wonderful guy who is a social worker and he looks after the gang and tries to influence them to have a better life. That guy is an inspiration. Also a young guy who teaches them fashion and is incredibly patient and focused, trying to teach kids who live on the streets, and give them guidance when all they’ve known is neglect and violence. Also there’s a guy who is teaching one of the kids to box. All these people are examples that show that the will to reach out and help someone with consistency and love is everywhere.
Look, I know this isn’t what you’re expecting from me. Nor am I the guy you’re expecting to get this film from. I guess that’s why I’m doing this. When I saw this film, I knew that no one I know will ever see it. Documentaries are MUCH harder to make than the things that I do and they are FAR more expensive to the filmmakers in terms of their time and their lives and their emotional energy. And nobody much watches them. Those who do watch documentaries are usually people who are likely to be interested in the subject they cover already. But what a great value there is in showing people films about something that just isn’t on their radar. So that’s why I asked Steve, and Wren Arthur, who produced the film, if I could host "Check It" on my site so that lots of people can see it who may not have had it put in front of them.
I do this with great confidence because it’s a powerful film and I know that, whoever you are, you’re going to love it.
PS:
The trailer above, which Louis CK inserted himself into by way of introduction, reminds me of the trailer for Brother's Keeper, another brilliant documentary, introduced by a narrator who never had a high-functioning web portal, never headlined a stadium, never became a controversial star. But Spalding Gray (RIP) was better known than filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, and wanted to help:
