The doc is in
A salty sea and lots of pepper shake up this year's S.F. DocFest.

By Cheryl Eddy

IT'S PITIFULLY EASY to hate on the United States these days. Fortunately, this year's San Francisco Documentary Film Festival provides an ample showcase for one of our country's most endearing qualities: a population liberally laced with oddballs, maniacs, and remarkable individuals.

OK, so technically speaking, California's largest lake, the Salton Sea, isn't actually a person. But as Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer show in Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea, the embattled former "Riviera of the West" owes its creation, success and failure, and strange mythology to humanity, not nature. The 35-mile-long lake formed in 1905 after a snafu involving a poorly built dam, the Colorado River, and thirsty farmland. At first it seemed like a happy accident; in the '50s and '60s, the Salton Sea was a vacation destination to rival Palm Springs. The sea's idyllic past comes to life via old photos and advertising reels; a commercial aimed at prospective land owners declares, "This unusual city has a date with destiny!" Boy, did it ever, in the form of disasters galore: property destruction due to flooding and storms, an ever saltier composition that routinely kills off millions of fish a year (add to that the ever present stench of millions of rotting carcasses), and economic devastation.

Apart from simply filming – often quite beautifully – this troubled landscape, Metzler and Springer also seek out the characters who populate the Salton Sea's shores. A strange mix dwells here, with young "welfare people" bumping up against old-timers, many of whom linger simply because they have nowhere else to go. A brief aside highlights artist Leonard Knight – creator of the gloriously tacky "Salvation Mountain" – an eccentric even for these parts. There are also the grim park rangers who staff a wildlife refuge on the sea's south side. Well aware of the area's "depressing" long-term environmental problems (briefly a pet cause of the late Sonny Bono), they spend much of the work week gathering up dead pelicans felled by disease.

Despite everything, there's an inexplicable, if misguided, feeling of hope shared by many of the residents (in particular, the area's would-be real estate moguls). The wistful Plagues and Pleasures connects with the viewer on multiple levels, coaxing equal parts affection and revulsion while illuminating a little corner of California most folks deliberately give the widest possible berth.

Affection and revulsion also come into play in Slasher, the first doc by longtime feature director John Landis (Blues Brothers, Animal House). This profile of the world's greatest used-car salesman – Michael Bennett, a.k.a. "Slasher" – is thoroughly enjoyable, even when it's dripping with sleaze. The film explores the methods and madness of SoCal-based Bennett as he travels to Memphis, where he's been hired to stage a flashy sale that'll quickly move as many vehicles as possible. The scratchy-voiced, chain-smoking, beer-chugging guru of sales – imagine a cross between Wolfman Jack and Anthony Robbins, and you're halfway there – is a family man who also happens to like strip clubs; he wears a classy tux to close deals on the lot but crassly goads low-income customers into purchasing cars they can't afford. It should be noted, however, that the ickiness you may feel while watching Slasher ain't nothing compared to the squirm-inducing high jinks of pornography king Al Goldstein, whose most recent legal battle is detailed in James Guardino's Goldstein: The Trials of the Sultan of Smut. Goldstein may style himself as a First Amendment crusader, but here he handily proves himself first and foremost a grating, obnoxious blowhard. View at your own risk.

Questionable behavior abounds in Michael Wranovics's Up for Grabs, a film that'll pique local interest for its play-by-play of the fight over Barry Bonds's historic 73rd home run ball. The saga made plenty of headlines a few years back (quick refresher: one guy caught the ball, then lost it; another guy took it home; next step, lawsuit city), but the whole charade is even more ridiculous when encapsulated in a single film. The unevenly paced Up for Grabs could use some tightening, but it's filled with moments of real-life high comedy as well as rich commentary on the nature of sweet, sweet greed.

Indeed, a pattern is emerging here – but as it turns out, not all the DocFest films aim directly for the seedy underbelly. Other worthy docs in a fest with very few misses include Michael McNamara's Radio Revolution: The Rise and Fall of the Big 8, the tale of a Canadian station that, for a brief shining moment in the late '60s, ruled North American rock radio; Icelandic import In the Shoes of the Dragon, which chronicles codirector Hrönn Sveinsdottir's impulsive decision to enter the Miss Iceland contest; David Sampliner and Tim Nackashi's tale of three men with particularly unsavory jobs, Dirty Work; two by Heavy Metal Parking Lot mastermind Jeff Krulik, including the moving World War II tale Hitler's Hat; and Jessica Yu's In the Realms of the Unreal, a meticulous, exquisitely animated portrait of reclusive artist Henry Darger.

San Francisco Documentary Film Festival runs Thurs/13-Sun/16 at various Bay Area locations. See Opening, in Film listings, for more information.