This year's Milwaukee Film Festival is off to a great start. Some amazing films were screened during the first three days of the festival. Today, is my first chance to highlight some of my picks. I will be doing this everyday during the film festival.
I'm a huge documentary film buff, and the following are some of the cream of the crop. The first pick screens today at 5pm at The Oriental. There is a great documentary about the artist Wayne Wright, who was the designer and puppeteer behind Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Beauty is Embarrassing is the film, and it looks at the creative life of this unique artist. Wright, who started his career as a cartoonist in the East Village, went on to work on projects such as Pee-Wee's Playhouse, music videos for Smashing Pumpkins, and Peter Gabriel.
"For two years, filmmaker Neil Berkeley traveled with White through Houston, Miami, New York, Chattanooga, Nashville and Los Angeles retracing Wayne’s steps from childhood to parenthood. He peeled back layer after layer of Wayne’s singular creative process and his astonishingly prolific career. In addition to the 300+ hours of footage shot by Berkeley and his team, the director discovered hours of video which White shot throughout his career including never-before-seen behind the scenes footage of the making of Pee-wee’s Playhouse – now included in Beauty Is Embarrassing."
Catch Beauty is Embarassing today at 5pm at The Oriental during the Milwaukee Film Festival.
