The Devil's Road: A Baja Adventure: The Bruces — Todd, Bri, and J.T. — take us on a spirited ride to hell and back.

This year, the Oceanside Film Festival goes virtual, with over 120 shorts and features. The festival runs August 15 and 16. Visit online for more information and reviews.

The Devil’s Road: A Baja Adventure (2019)

Right after producer Todd Bruce discover his distant relationship to naturalist Edward Alphonso Goldman, he employed the services of daughter Bri (associate producer) and son J.T. (director) to create a modern-day, two-month variation on the expedition his great grandfather and partner Edward William Nelson made through Baja at the conclusion of their 14-year trek across Mexico. Starting in San Diego, the men took the scenic route — loose rocks forced them to zig-zag a path all the way to Cabo. As one ecologist points out, “That’s longer than the length of Italy.” The turn-of-the-century exploration coincided with the dawn of the portable camera, and their visual documentation (and species collection) remains unparalleled. As are the views the Bruces expose us to, leaving one to ponder what the pioneering duo would have done with a drone camera. Through historical trails and Spanish missions, we watch as our trio are aided and abetted by friends and (even more) family members, all backed by an infectious score. This riveting ride through the Baja countryside is part science documentary, part historical adventure, and as good a home movie as any you’re likely to see.

Bess Myerson: The One and Only Jewish Miss America (2020)

My relation to Bess Myerson is so distant as to be vanishing — she was a non-blood relative, far removed on my mother’s side. But don’t think the connection wasn’t made every time little Scooter caught her grilling contestants on I’ve Got a Secret. In addition to her work for Goodson & Todman, Myerson ran for Mayor of New York, wrote an consumer’s advice column for The Daily News, and served as the City’s Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. None of this is made apparent until the eleventh hour, when the narrator supplies a few breezy concluding paragraphs. Apart from that, David Arond’s documentary is confined to the chapter in Myerson’s life dealing with the beauty pageant. (Once Myerson’s daughter appeared as a talking head, one knew there would be no mention of her mom’s high-profile bribery trial and subsequent acquittal.) And in point of fact, Myerson wasn’t only the one and only Jewish Miss America — but she was the first. There were those on the homefront convinced that their lost loved ones sacrificed their lives on account of the Jews, and that America should have adopted a tougher, more antisemitic approach when dealing with Hitler. Her crowning in 1945 was a patronizing nod to Middle America that Jews were okay, particularly the 5-foot 10-inch drop-dead gorgeous variety. (Produced on the cheap, the script refers to its subject as “an academic woman with beauty and looks.”) Still, if the name is unfamiliar, what’s here is worth an hour of your time.

Becoming Lola (2020)

Thirty years pursuing a career in acting, and all Linda (Denice Riddle) has to show for it is a job in a laundromat, fishing loose change from underneath the washers with a ruler. The humiliation continues in this comedy of miscommunication when her stone-deaf agent phones with news of a last minute audition. The part calls for a woman in her fifties, but the cattle call produces a string of starlets half her age. (She’s told 30 is the new 50,) En route to the bathroom, Linda is drawn into another audition, this one for a drag queen, which — without muttering more than an ad-libbed “Lola” when asked her name — she promptly aces. No sooner does the man inside her begin to emerge than Linda/Lola is able to adopt a more confident view of life. But will she be able to keep her secret hidden from the producers? There are laughs to be had, but too many of the gags in writer-director Karen Schuback’s third-rate Tootsie are stretched to the point of strained credulity: the pace slackens when bad food sickens the show’s cast, and the final production is, at best, stale. But Riddle is in it for the long haul, doing her best to piece together a character out of thin(ly-plotted) air.