Today, Mongrel Media is releasing the excellent documentary Cutie and the Boxer on all home entertainment platforms, including iTunes.  The film reveals the relationship between two aging New York artists with warring styles, the eccentric cardboard sculptor and boxing painter Ushio Shinohara and his wife Noriko, as well as their adult son Alex who is also a struggling artist in his own right.

Director Zachary Heinzerling follows them through a vérité style as they struggle to make a living and get their work seen, revealing the often heartbreaking backstory behind their over forty years of marriage through animations of Noriko’s stylized illustrations.  Recently receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary, Cutie and the Boxer is an involving and emotionally resonant film that draws parallels between art and love, two of the purest forms of emotional expression.

Cutie and the Boxer is 82 minutes and rated PG.

-John Corrado