Upcoming and Current Documentaries

[Lino]

I thought this thread would be a nice idea to keep track on current and future documentaries and to promote discussion on what I think is an ever-growing form of innovative filmmaking.

That said, I think this one deserves the tag "This year's Hedwig and the Angry Inch!".

Take a look

[swingo]

The best mexican documentary in years, won several prizes and might be 'easy' to release in dvd somehow in the future, although it can be screened at the U.S. at least.

Eugenio Polgovsky's "Tropico de cancer" (Tropic of Cancer) the story of a family that the only earnings they have is by selling animals they catch in the desert.

[Lino]

In the Realms of the Unreal, a film by Jessica Yu

Trailer

Has anyone catched this one in the theaters? It's coming out on DVD in the summer and by the looks of it, I feel that there's something special in there for me.

[Gregory]

I'm very much looking forward to a screening of it on monday. Most of what I know about Henry Darger came from the excellent book Raw Creation: Outsider Art and Beyond and from various articles. I haven't seen any of Yu's work, but I've heard good things about this. I'll let you know my thoughts on it after I see it.

[todcraproductions]

I saw this a couple months ago; it's... all right. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think I'll be picking up the DVD. One of the most maddening things in it is all of the recycled footage; Yu gets a few images and uses them over and over. I can understand using the same photos of Darger, since only 3 exist; so no problem there... however, she keeps going back to the same images from his artwork, too -- strange, considering you'd think that with, what, 10,000 pages, there'd be enough to choose from?

The little-girl narration didn't bother me too awfully much. The animation wasn't the worst idea in the world, but it wasn't done particularly well, and the way she kept putting Darger's drawings into stock footage (and not bothering to make them match the quality of the footage) was incredibly clumsy. But, then, I'm a real stickler for that sort of thing -- if you're going to drop stuff in, I don't want it to be a matter of something crystal clear dropped in behind a grainy, soft-focus car, say. If you're going to do that, you might as well make it look right, y'know?

That, and, as mentioned a few times on the IMDB page, the whole everyone-in-close-up thing gets a bit tiring.

Overall, I'd say this is definitely a rental. It's too bad this wasn't better, as the Darger story is incredibly interesting and deserves better. This film's worth seeing, though, but I don't think it's terribly rewatchable.

[milkcan]

I'm looking forward to seeing Excavating Taylor Mead - did anyone on this board attend the Tribeca Film Festival and see it? Mead's quite a character, and I loved him recently in Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. He's apparantly also currently starring in another film called Curious White Boy.

Let's hope Excavating Taylor Mead gets a wider release, or at least a DVD.

[Lino]

THX1378 wrote:

I just watched the premiere of IFC's new documentary film about LA's Z Channel. I was pretty much blown away not really by the documentary, but by the fact that a channel like this was even around in the late 70's to the early 80's. I mean where else at this time and place could you see Empire Strikes Back playing on the same channel as The 400 Blows. Z Channel it seems opened up the gates for other cable channels latter on like IFC, but it seems that no one will ever come close to what the Z Channel was. Major hollywood films shared airtime with smaller indies and European cinema. What is sad about the film is that it's not just about a cable channel, but about a man named Jerry Harvey. He battled personal demons that he couldn't control and used movies as his way to escape his world. All in all this is a great film, but there are some things that are lacking in the film. One thing is that they show a lot of shots of the magazine that was sent out to show was what coming on for the month, but we never really get a overview of what would be playing for that month. What would have been cool is if they would have shown some sort of a listing for a week of programing to show us how all over the map the programing was. Like I said above, one minute the channel would be showing a Star Wars film and then next up after that they would be showing a set of Robert Altman films. The other thing is that we never seen any footage of the channel at all, which I thought was odd. We see footage from the films that were shown, but never any footage of intro's to the films or even the station logo. I found it funny that Alexander Payne says that he still has 100's of hours of Z Channel stuff on tape, which means that if any of the footage was lost that they could have asked him if they could use what he had. He even had on a Z Channel t-shirt. But over all this is a great film to watch when it's replayed. It really makes you wish we had a channel like this again and not channels that replay the same things over and over or films that no one really cares about at all.

See this thread

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Having been a big fan of the book its based on, I am quite excited at the prospects of seeing this doc.

From Yahoo! Movies:

Shock and gore in Cannes to mark Friday 13th

Cannes is celebrating celluloid shock and gore to mark Friday 13th.

A documentary by Stuart Samuels explores the impact of six mainly low budget films that became cult classics after they were shown at midnight screenings by American arthouse cinemas during the 1970s.

Beginning with Alejandro Jodorowsky's "El Topo" (1970), many of the counterculture films were commercial flops before theaters like the Elgin in New York rescued them from the mainstream and transformed them into underground hits.

Directors and theater owners interviewed in "Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream" recall hundreds of fans queueing around the block and screens barely visible for the cannabis smoke.

"A den of cinematic iniquity" was how one owner described those nights.

Not only were people there for blood, guts, fear and fun, but, with the outrageous "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" the audiences adopted the costumes of characters and became a part of the film itself.

In the words of Rocky creator Richard O'Brien: "Don't dream it, be it."

For the most part the films were made on shoestring budgets, using stables for studios and tape to put together film reels. Only Rocky was a bigger affair, with a $1.25 million budget. But even that, after initially bombing at the box office, was rescued at midnight and went on to make at least $175 million.

IT ALL BEGAN IN CHILE

The midnight movie phenomenon began with "El Topo" ("The Mole"), an ultra-violent film by Chilean director Jodorowsky that began with a single-lined advertisement in a U.S. newspaper and became a ritual for thousands wanting to be shocked.

Then there was "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), the gory zombie flick with political resonances including the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King and the Vietnam war.

Director George A. Romero is in Cannes on Friday to present 20 minutes of clips from his new film "Land of the Dead."

John Waters's "Pink Flamingos" was "shlock" as much as shock, featuring lead actor Divine eating a poodle's excrement.

"An exercise in poor taste," was how the zany director described it. "Beyond pornography."

Perry Henzell's "The Harder They Come" (1972), a violent tale of a Jamaican country boy making it big in the city, and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," got fresh leases of life from the late showings, as did David Lynch's disturbing "Eraserhead."

But then came "Jaws," "Star Wars," and the video machine, and shock and awe became movie mainstream, which, according to the documentary, spelled the end for the late night ritual.

"The death of the midnight film is a sad thing," Lynch said.

[Morbii]

In the Realms of the Unreal, a film by Jessica Yu

She came to my school last quarter, and we watched part of it ("Breathing Lessons" was screened) - seemed interesting.

[Lino]

I really want to see this one! It's about the first ladies of professional wrestling! Take a peek on Lipstick and Dynamite!

And another one: Rize, by master photographer David Lachapelle

[colinr0380]

I was glad to see that the BBC documentary Power of Nightmares was being screened at Cannes (a two and half hour film edited from three one hour episodes). It certainly presented a coherent argument in its series form and made me feel strangely calmer about the current world situation. I guess that learning more about the roots of a situation, even if being unable to change it, does have a calming effect, and it certainly reinforces the point of the series that misinformation is a good method of creating a general sense of fear, making people easier to control. Hopefully it will get some wider exposure through its release.

There is an interview with the director, Adam Curtis on the theory behind the series on the Cinema Scope site.

It made me think of the other excellent documentary that was screened on the BBC around the same time as Power of Nightmares last year. The House of Saud is very good and I'm hoping that this might also get wider exposure somehow.

[emcflat]

The new Entertainment Weekly has a nice spread about some upcoming Doc's. Most excited to see: "Murderball" and "Grizzly Man."

[Lino]

What are those about?

Here's a review for the upcoming DVD release of the Nomi Song

Another review, this time for the Henry Darger docu.

[emcflat]

Murderball

Grizzly Man

[JonoQ]

I'd like to encourage everyone to watch Bearing Witness, a new film by Barbara Kopple, Marijana Wotton, and Bob Eisenhardt, airing tonight (5/26) at 9PM on A&E. The film follows five female war reporters over the course of a year, mostly in Iraq.

I may be biased, since I worked on it, but I think it turned out very well.

Jonah

[colinr0380]

has anyone heard anything about the next up series film...isn't 49 Up due to come out soon??

From the BritMovie site:

In a recent interview Mr Apted said he's going to start shooting "49 up" in the Spring of 2005, so I imagine it will be shown around Christmas time [in the UK], with a bit of luck!

From the MediaEd website:

According to Variety, the latest news on 49-Up (which is due next year) is that it will be broadcast by ITV. So it seems that the switch to BBC for the 42-Up instalment was a one-off. ITV wants to show the programme next year as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, so no doubt it was prepared to pay much more than the BBC.

Quite unusual, surely, for a documentary to become the basis for a bidding war? Les

Also, from the Millimeter web site:

As a director, Apted is on the front lines of the film vs. digital debate. He's had his own internal conflicts since he experimented with high definition for his documentaries Married in America (2002) on A&E Television Networks, and a not-yet-released film on the Rolling Stones. Scheherazade will be shot in 35mm, but 49 Up will be HD even though the previous installments were captured on 16mm film.

He enjoys the fact that video equipment can be less obtrusive and, especially on something heavily interview-based, that he can shoot longer without changing magazines. “When we shot 16mm,â€

[DDillaman]

There's a fistful of documentaries playing at the Auckland Film Festival, including BE HERE TO LOVE ME: A FILM ABOUT TOWNES VAN ZANDT, TELL THEM WHO YOU ARE, A LABYRINTH OF TIME, DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE, THE FUTURE OF FOOD, BRASILIERINHO, MONSTER ROAD, SHAPE OF THE MOON, PROTOCOLS OF ZION, OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND, SISTERS IN LAW, HELL ON WHEELS, THE TAKE, and TOUCH THE SOUND, as well as established quantities such as THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON, GRIZZLY MAN, THE WHITE DIAMOND, ENRON, and Z CHANNEL. If anybody can recommend or de-recommend any of the less familiar ones, though, please do. (I did see TOUCH THE SOUND director's previous film, RIVERS AND TIDES, and am therefore inclined to check the new one out.)

[Brian Oblivious]

The only one outside the established quantities I've seen is Shape of the Moon which is a pseudo-verite depiction of the disintegration of a Christian family living in Muslim Indonesia. The filmmaker has a cinematic eye but also a very heavy hand. The film seems purposely designed to scare Westerners.

[zedz]

The only one outside the established quantities I've seen is Touch the Sound which is a pseudo-verite depiction of the disintegration of a Christian family living in Muslim Indonesia. The filmmaker has an cinematic eye but also a very heavy hand. The film seems purposely designed to scare Westerners.

Ah, I think that's Shape of the Moon. If so I agree with your penultimate sentence (and I think that "pseudo" is well-deserved).

[Brian Oblivious]

Yes, that's right. Sorry about the brain fart.

Werner Herzog has often railed against verite filmmaking (and both the White Diamond and Grizzly Man are strongly informed by his philosophy of "the accountant's truth"), but I wonder what he would make of this film, which attempts to mimic the look and feel of a verite film without actually adopting its approaches.

[Martha]

There's a fistful of documentaries playing at the Auckland Film Festival, including BE HERE TO LOVE ME: A FILM ABOUT TOWNES VAN ZANDT, TELL THEM WHO YOU ARE, A LABYRINTH OF TIME, DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE, THE FUTURE OF FOOD, BRASILIERINHO, MONSTER ROAD, SHAPE OF THE MOON, PROTOCOLS OF ZION, OCCUPATION: DREAMLAND, SISTERS IN LAW, HELL ON WHEELS, THE TAKE, and TOUCH THE SOUND, as well as established quantities such as THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON, GRIZZLY MAN, THE WHITE DIAMOND, ENRON, and Z CHANNEL. If anybody can recommend or de-recommend any of the less familiar ones, though, please do. (I did see TOUCH THE SOUND director's previous film, RIVERS AND TIDES, and am therefore inclined to check the new one out.)

I'm incredibly curious about Darwin's Nightmare-- it got very high praise here, and just sounds like a fascinating story, whether it's a great film or not. Anyone seen it?

[zedz]

I'm incredibly curious about Darwin's Nightmare-- it got very high praise here, and just sounds like a fascinating story, whether it's a great film or not. Anyone seen it?

I'll let you know tomorrow.

I'm incredibly curious about Darwin's Nightmare-- it got very high praise here, and just sounds like a fascinating story, whether it's a great film or not. Anyone seen it?

I've seen a lot of grim documentaries lately, but this one takes the rotting fish head. Very powerful, but extremely depressing. Technically, the film seems fairly basic, at times even ramshackle, and at first the structure seems to be haphazard, as we drift from topic to topic, but as calamity piles upon calamity, the director's strategy becomes clear. What begins as an avalanche of exploitation (cultural, economic, sexual, political, religious, ecological - no stone is left unturned) ends up as a coherent network of disaster. Sauper makes a persuasive case that all of these aspects of the predicament are interconnected, and offers illustrations to this effect. Most of the footage is verite observation or interviews. With rare exceptions, the filmmaker's comments are limited to fact and identification-based intertitles, so the building of a coherent argument through juxtaposition, without overriding narration, is actually a fairly impressive feat. The down-side, emotionally, is that Sauper's spider's-web reconstruction of the Tanzanian dilemma makes it abundantly clear that there is no simple solution. Address one disaster and another one will flare up even worse.

[Lino]

Another thread from the dead.

I was wondering about Easy Riders and Raging Bulls and A Decade under the Influence, the 2 documentaries on 70's filmmaking. Which one is the best, does anyone have an opinion? Both seem to be flawed in some ways but which one do you recommend?

[Oedipax]

Another thread from the dead.

I was wondering about Easy Riders and Raging Bulls and A Decade under the Influence, the 2 documentaries on 70's filmmaking. Which one is the best, does anyone have an opinion? Both seem to be flawed in some ways but which one do you recommend?

A Decade Under the Influence is way, way better in my opinion. I don't know if some of that is because I saw that first, and as a result Easy Riders feels like a retread, but in general I liked how Decade was put together a lot more. The interviews are great, the structure is solid (the end of the classical hollywood era, the explosion of European art films in the 60s, the film brat generation coming up, the successes and excesses, and of course, the fall and the aftermath - Jaws, Star Wars, etc), the clips are all excellent (and you'll probably find some stuff you've missed - I know I did), and it's also longer, which gives it the ability to go deeper into each area.

Easy Riders the documentary didn't have one tenth of the gossip of the book, which I thought was always one of the book's biggest draws. It feels more like a warmed-over Decade Under, but suffering greatly from being compressed into such a short length. It's worth a rental, but Decade is the keeper.

As for problems with both documentaries, I think they do err on the side of hagiography sometimes - nostalgia for the golden era the 70s represent for many cinephiles. One does get the impression that great cinema died at the end of the 70s, which we all know isn't the case.

[Cosomatli]

agreed, a decade under the influence its a nice review of 70´s film, great interviews, great overall