Documentary

THE POWER OF NARRATIVE

Green Cine notes this interesting piece by Andrew Tracy in Cinema Scope about the new director’s cut DVD of James Gray’s The Yards. He’s got a great opener, a provocative discussion of what he sees as the diminished respect given classical movie narrative today that winds up as a preamble for his discussion of Gray’s ’70s-inspired gangster pic. From the piece: As a means of telling us about our world, classical narrative cinema—that is, American narrative cinema—has been steadily losing ground. James Agee’s faith in the scenario seems somewhat quaint in the midst of our fascination with hybridity. Documentary, whether […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 22, 2006
JARECKI/DENBY DUST-UP

Ray Pride’s column over at Movie City News contains a long interview with Why We Fight director Eugene Jarecki in which he takes issue with David Denby’s recent review of his film: PRIDE: I’m not asking you to respond to this specific review, but I was floored by the incredibly jejune review that David Denby wrote in the New Yorker of Why We Fight. This is merely a collage film; this guy went in with a point to make; this is not true filmmaking. Does that trouble you when a reviewer is so obstinate, so resistant to whatyou’ve made? JARECKI: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2006
THE FIRST $20 MILLION GROSSING SXSW HIT?

Over at the Movie City News “Hot Blog”, David Poland reports on what he predicts could, with the right distributor, become the first big hit to get picked up out of the SXSW Festival. The film is Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, and here’s what Poland has to say about it: First time director Scott Glosserman was here with his entire family for the premiere of Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon. Title sucks. Poster looks like a conventionally crappy cheapo horror film. The only two acting names you’re likely to recognize are Freddy Englund […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2006
GORDON PARKS, 1912 – 2006

Multiple sources are reporting the sad news that pioneering black director and photojournalist Gordon Parks died today in New York. He was 93. In 1969, Parks completed his first film, The Learning Tree, based on his own novel about growing up in Kansas in the 1920s. In doing so, he became the first black American to write and direct a studio motion picture. Later he would go on to achieve commercial success with the seminal “blaxploitation” film Shaft. More recently he appeared in an HBO documentary on his work, Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks. His […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 7, 2006
CURRY’S ROAD TO THE OSCARS

The Reeler has a good piece up on Marshall Curry, whose Street Fight opened today at New York’s IFC Center. From the piece: “While viewing Curry’s riveting film last week, it occurred to me that this could absolutely be the dark horse nominee come March 5. In chronicling Newark’s 2002 mayoral race between relative newcomer Cory Booker and Jersey’s reigning machine-politics king Sharpe James, Curry captures a system imploded by racism, corruption, lies and at least a few physical altercations. Perhaps more shockingly, Street Fight reflects the assured work of a first-time feature filmmaker–a guy who quit his job, bought […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 22, 2006
SEXIER THAN PARIS HILTON

Good article in The Guardian about Al Gore’s trip to Sundance with the documentary An Inconvenient Truth. From the piece: “What can a film that has helped make Al Gore sexier than Paris Hilton possibly be about? A partial list of its contents would include the greenhouse gas effect, the proliferation of carbon dioxide, the convection energy of hurricanes, the paradoxical flood-drought syndrome, melting methane in Siberia, the history of the Ice Age and the physics of solar ray absorption. It becomes no clearer why this film is having such an impact when you learn that it largely takes the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 5, 2006
“LION IN THE HOUSE” DIRECTOR BATTLES CANCER

Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez post upsetting news in Indiewire today that filmmaker Julia Reichert who, with her partner Steve Bognar (together pictured), directed Lion in the House, a Sundance Competition doc about children dealing with cancer, was herself diagnosed with lymphoma. She received the news just after arriving in Utah for the film’s premiere. After her third screening she flew back home to Ohio where she is now hospitalized and receiving treatment. Julia’s work has been covered in Filmmaker and she has a long association with IFP. We send her our best wishes for her recovery, and friends and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2006
A VISION OF SHIRLEY TEMPLE

One of the more unusual indie film stories forwarded to us as Filmmaker is that of Minnesota producer and writer Christopher Harmon. Profiled here in the Minnesota-St. Paul Star Tribune, “Harmon can’t see, but he has vision. Can’t hear, but has imagination. Can’t move, but in his mind, he can dance and sing and dream about giving the rest of us films with messages of hope and triumph.” Harmon has a rare neurological condition called spino cerebellar degeneration which prevents communication and requires his use of a respirator to breathe. With writer Doug Klozzner, however, Harmon, who communicates through interpreters, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 12, 2006
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER… AND EVER… AND EVER

Via The Reeler comes this link to Jen Cheung’s interview with Brooklyn-based filmmaker Kareem Edouard in The Gothamist. Edouard has recently made a short doc, Bling: Consequences and Repercussions that takes a look at the abuse of young African workers in the diamond minds of Sierra Leone. It’s the subject tackled by Kanye West in his hit of last year, “Diamonds are Forever,” but Edouard fills in more of the blanks, aided by a v.o. from Public Enemy’s Chuck D. The film is downloadable by clicking on the link above, and Edouard’s site even allows it to be sampled in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 7, 2006
STREET FIGHT, THE SEQUEL

I missed the event held last night at the Tribeca Cinemas by the makers of Street Fight, the engrossing documentary on the 2002 Newark mayoral race. Director Marshall Curry, one of our “25 New Faces of 2005,” followed Cory Booker as he challenged five-term mayor Sharpe James for the job and was shocked when James not only attacked Booker but also turned his ire on Curry as well. I guess the event must have been a kick-off to Booker’s 2006 campaign, but there’s no word yet on a film sequel. I hope Curry considers it. His films could be the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 7, 2006

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