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December 31, 2011

The Ross Brothers on the River

One of my sheerest pleasures these past two months has been the weekly installments of the Ross Brothers' series about their adventures on the Mississippi. Bill and Turner, who made the wonderful 45365, set out with their other brother Al and friend Kyle and sailed down the Mississippi, more or less, all the way from their homestate of Ohio down to New Orleans over three weeks in October.

Perfectly paced, bite-sized but never too brief, these episodes will be a treat to anyone who loved 45365, and with a combined running time of over two hours already, this is in effect an amazing feature film in and of itself. It is gorgeous nonfiction filmmaking, although there are some moments that stray from strict documentary form in strange and funny and wondrous ways. There's also a scene with some impersonations and a random tree limb in the most recent episode that delighted me to no end.

Here is the first episode.

The Brothers Ross will be returning to the big screen in 2012 with Tchoupitoulas, their portrait of one night in New Orleans. Let's all join hands and look forward to it together.

Posted by David Lowery at December 31, 2011 12:30 PM