Documentary
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Ancestral Roots
New York-based film critic Godfrey Cheshire was attending a Christmas gathering with his family in North Carolina when he received some surprising news from his cousin Charlie. Midway Plantation, the ancestral home of their extended family since the 1840s, was to be transplanted to a new location. In the name of progress, the city of Raleigh was expanding a highway and strip malls. If the plantation house and its surrounding buildings were not moved, the deterioration of the surrounding environment would be so drastic, future generations would not want to live there. Charlie’s decision sparked controversy within the family, with […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 10, 2008 -
PAUL KRIK’S FAVORITE CONSPIRACY MOVIES, PART TWO
Paul Krik, whose Able Danger opens tomorrow in theaters in four cities, including New York’s Pioneer Theater, gave us a list of his favorite conspiracy films. Two days ago we ran his list of Hollywood conspiracy thrillers. Here is his list of independent 9/11 films. Mohammed Atta and the Venice Flying Circus – Reporter Daniel Hopsicker is on the ground in Venice, Florida, where the terrorists all trained – gumshoeing, knocking on doors, asking questions, turning over stones. His interview with Mohammed Atta’s girlfriend and the time he humped her feet while she slept is absolutely mind-blowing. To say nothing […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2008 -
“LYNCH”
The director known as blackANDwhite gives a rare and revealing glimpse into the mind and working habits of David Lynch. Sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre but always entertaining, the film is as experimental and abstract as the filmmaker it covers. For those who are disappointed never to really get a sense of how Lynch works from the limited extras in his DVD releases, Lynch goes beyond the trademark chain smoking and weird hairdo to show an outgoing, pleasant human being with an insatiable creative drive and a love for Bastille Day. (It will make sense when you see it.) Shot in […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 9, 2008 -
FINNERAN JOINS SUNDANCE INSTITUTE
In a release sent out today, the Sundance Institute announced that Patricia Finneran, festival director at Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, will be coming on as a Senior Consultant of the their Documentary Film Program. According to the release, in addition to representing the Sundance Documentary Program internationally, Finneran will be responsible for recommending film projects, maintaining the Documentary Program’s New York base and working on the Program’s initiatives such as the Sundance Doc Fund and the Skoll Foundation’s Stories of Change: Social Entrepreneurship in Focus Through Documentary. The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program provides year-round support to nonfiction contemporary-issue […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 8, 2008 -
PARTY HOPPING IN TORONTO
Yesterday walking from one theater to another at the Varsity multiplex that houses the Toronto International Film Festival’s Industry Screenings, I thought that things seemed a little quiet, missing the usual crowded hub-bub. No one seemed to agree with me, though. “This will be a rebound market,” predicted one sales agent friend, who thought that a nice flurry of sales would materialize from the screenings this week. Another shrugged at my observation. “Everybody is here,” he said. And later even I didn’t agree with myself after I wound up at two very crowded parties filled with industry players. The first […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 6, 2008 -
NOODLING AT IFC CENTER
Bradley Beesley‘s sequel to his breakout hit Okie Noodling will be screening this Friday and Saturday at the IFC Center in New York. If you’re not familiar with the film, here’s a sum up from the release: In 2001, filmmaker Bradley Beesley brought the strange subculture of barehanded catfishing to the screen in ‘Okie Noodling’, which won the Audience Choice Award and 1st runner-up for Best Documentary at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Now he returns to his home state of Oklahoma to see how the sport has evolved over the last decade in ‘Okie Noodling II’. Revisiting the colorful, […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 4, 2008 -
Chris Smith, The Pool
VENKATESH CHAVAN IN DIRECTOR CHRIS SMITH’S THE POOL. COURTESY VITAGRAPH FILMS. Chris Smith is an interesting conundrum, a filmmaker who brings a narrative verve and energy to his documentaries and approaches fiction films with the delicate restraint and remove of a documentarian. A graduate of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s film program, Smith first appeared on the scene in 1996 with American Job, a low-key narrative feature loosely based on the work experiences of the film’s star and co-writer, Randy Russell. During the editing of that film, he met Mark Borchardt, an oddball wannabe horror filmmaker who became the subject of Smith’s […]
by Nick Dawson on Sep 3, 2008 -
STREAMING NO END IN SIGHT
During this election season I recommend taking a break from the cable talking heads and reviewing some of the independent media that has been produced over the last couple of years about American foreign policy. One of the best documentaries is Charles Ferguson’s Academy Award-nominated No End in Sight. As Ray Pride report at Movie City Indie, Ferguson is streaming the film free on YouTube. Pride reports: No End in Sight is being made available free to the public to reveal the facts about the Bush Administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq to voters concerned with the issues of national […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 28, 2008 -
25 NEW FACES UPDATE #8
M. Dot Strange, writer/director, 2007: Since being the only one hiding his face amongst the 25 I posted my animated feature film We Are the Strange on youtube subtitled in 17 languages where combined it has been viewed over 1.1 million times adding to my international audience. I did an animated music video for the NYC band “Mindless Self Indulgence” for the song “Animal” and it was included with the bands new album “IF” I’m currently completing the animatic for my new animated feature film Heart String Marionette. It is scheduled to be completed in January 2010 with production beginning […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 23, 2008 -
From the Archives: A Hard, Wonderful Look at the Movies in Manny Farber’s Film Class
This piece by filmmaker Barbara Schock appeared in our Summer, 2005 issue. The phenomenal painter, teacher and film critic Manny Farber called his film class “A Hard Look at the Movies.” It was the first upper-division college class I took. I’d transferred from a small college in the Midwest to the University of California at San Diego, and I’d never seen a foreign film, unless you count the Sergio Leone westerns. We watched the following films in a 10-week period, and it turned the way I looked at movies upside down: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Max […]
by Barbara Schock on Aug 19, 2008
