Full Frame Documentary Shorts Vol 2

Amazon.com Another omnibus of notable documentary featurettes, culled from entries in the Full Frame film festival. There are some excellent items here; perhaps the strongest emotional pull comes from the half-hour Album, Barbara Bird's melancholy presentation of her family's Super-8 home movies. Commentary from Bird's now-grown family members casts a disenchanted pall over the happy images of youth. Have You Seen This Man? introduces us to New York conceptual artist Geoff Lupo, who uses telephone-pole ads to peddle individual toothpicks and crackers (to strangely enthusiastic buyers/collectors). Nutria packs everything you'd want to know about an unpleasant rodent infesting Louisiana wetlands into 15 minutes, while Iwo Jima: Memories in Sand is a fairly standard history lesson. Meanwhile, the arty Crowfilm suggests poetic mediation rather than documentary. The disc is not quite as buoyant as the first volume in this series, but there's strong work on display. --Robert Horton