Concessions

Good documentaries are so fortifying—real life, just the
important parts, gathered up and organized into something meaningful
and delivered unto your eyeballs. Because there are a lot of crazy
people in the world doing crazy shit, and I can’t be everywhere at
once, you know? This column isn’t going to write itself! These
Doritos aren’t going to eat themselves in their pajamas! So thanks,
Grand Illusion, for hosting the Burning Fuse Film Festival—a
touring fest of socially and politically minded and only slightly dated
documentaries—right on my doorstep this week! Here’s what’s
up:

PUSSYCAT PREACHER

Thurs 7, 9 pm; Sat–Sun 9:45 pm

“God can’t use a person with large breasts?” asks greasy-head church
guy, rhetorically (SO DO NOT ANSWER HIM). “God can use any individual to change the world.” The specific large-tittied anywhooz
he’s referring to is some idiotic blond chick who used to be a stripper
but now is a super-sexy evangelical stripper! She travels around with
other slutty church wives, acting sanctimonious, snorting lines of
pure attention, and luring emotionally broken and intellectually
stunted sex workers into their creepy sex ministry. “They had free
shirts and I was like, ‘Why not?’ and then they started telling me
about Jesus and how it’s good for dancers to go to church, and I agree
with that because I’m a dancer!” squeaks a recent convert. It’s a good
racket. “I want God to know that I will never turn my back on Him!”
says the blond one. But why do you think He gives a shit? Is anyone
more self-involved than these goddamn evangelicals? I’m going to
barf.

FAUBOURG TREMÉ: THE UNTOLD STORY OF BLACK NEW
ORLEANS

Double feature with Sliding Liberia, Fri 6, 8:30 pm;
Sat–Sun 3 pm.

Heartfelt, slightly scattered, and absolutely packed with life,
Faubourg Tremé documents the fascinating but overlooked
history (and present) of New Orleans’s Sixth Ward. In a state where
slaves had the rare right to buy their freedom, New Orleans wound up on
the vanguard of civil rights: staging sit-ins in 1867 (only 100
years ahead of the curve!), electing black public officials, the
gut punch of Plessy v. Ferguson, and decades upon decades of
culture and contention until Lake Pontchartrain swallowed everything
but the memories. “I’m never going to say the Pledge of Allegiance or
sing ‘God Bless America’ or any of those dumbass songs ever again,
because I don’t feel like an American citizen,” says one Faubourg
Tremé resident after Hurricane Katrina. “I know I’m not an
American citizen in the eyes of the powers that be.”

AND THE REST:

Sliding Liberia, a gorgeous but thin documentary about
surfing in war-shredded Africa; a hefty dose of
remember-how-much-George-W.-Bush-sucked? porn called A Snowmobile
for George; Murder, Spies & Voting Lies, a dense,
confusing exploration of 2004 election fraud that involves dog murder;
and Soldiers of Conscience, a sobering look at how our
government turns teenagers into killers. Find the full schedule at
www.grandillusioncinema.org.