Coming to DVD this Tuesday, June 21: ORGASM INC
For my take on Liz Canner’s doc on female sexuality and the pharmaceutical industry, click here.
Author Archives: basiltsiokos
On DVD: ORGASM INC
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
On Cable: THE KIDS GROW UP
Coming to HBO for its cable premiere this Father’s Day (appropriately enough), Sunday, June 19: THE KIDS GROW UP
Doug Block premiered this exceptional look at father/daughter dynamics and the impending empty nest at IDFA in 2009. Since then, it screened at more than a dozen festivals, including Full Frame, Hot Docs, Dokufest, and Silverdocs, before embarking on a successful limited theatrical release.
Block continues to mine the rich terrain of family relationships that was central to his previous film, 51 BIRCH STREET. While that film focused on his own parents and just how much (or how little) he understood their relationship, THE KIDS GROW UP extends that analysis to Block’s own relationship with his daughter Lucy, whose life he has filmed extensively over the past 18 years. Documenting the last year Lucy spends at home before embarking for college on the other side of the country, Block and his wife struggle with the idea that their home won’t have children in it for the first time since they got married, and, frankly, that Lucy is becoming an adult. Revisiting decades worth of footage featuring Lucy from a toddler through to the present, Block constructs a truly remarkable and unique portrait of not only his daughter, but of fatherhood, aging, and the complex inner workings of family. Like the best of personal documentaries, THE KIDS GROW UP is able to move beyond the individual, specific story of the Blocks and tap into something universal that will resonate with all viewers on a fundamental level.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
In Theatres: BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
Coming to Brooklyn’s indieScreen tomorrow, Friday, June 17: BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky’s look at the Atlantic Yards development debacle took home two awards earlier this month at the Brooklyn Film Festival and now embarks on a one-week hometown theatrical run.
For my take on the film, click here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Northside 2011: Documentary Overview
Brooklyn’s Northside Festival is the third of three posts on events beginning in NYC tomorrow. Now in its third year, the event, organized by The L Magazine, spotlights music, film, art, and ideas – a sort of mini-SXSW in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Running June 16-19, there’s a little bit of something for everyone.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival 2011: Documentary Overview
In this second of three postings about NYC based festivals beginning tomorrow, I’m looking at the non-fiction offerings of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. A mainstay for over twenty years, HRWIFF has separate events in NYC and London, with a selection of films from those lineups included in a traveling festival screening around the US and Canada. The NYC festival brings 18 films to the Film Society of Lincoln Center through the end of the month.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
BAMcinemaFEST 2011: Documentary Overview
In the first of three postings today about NYC festivals all starting this week, we’ll start with BAMcinemaFEST. Now in its third year, this BAM Rose Cinemas based event begins tomorrow and runs through June 26. More or less a successor to Sundance at BAM, which ran for three editions, this popular Brooklyn event features a great selection of strong films culled from top fests, including but no longer limited to Sundance – many films this year made their debuts at Berlin and SXSW. In addition, the fest features special retro and outdoor screenings.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
On TV: KINGS OF PASTRY
Coming to POV next Tuesday, June 21: KINGS OF PASTRY
Documentary masters Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker turn their attention to the most important pastry competition in the world in this film, which had a great fest run last fall and went on to a limited theatrical release.
I posted about this film on the eve of its theatrical release last fall here.
To find out more about the POV screening on PBS, click here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
In Theatres: PAGE ONE
Coming to NYC’s Angelika Film Center and to the brand new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at the Film Society of Lincoln Center as its inaugural first-run release this Friday, June 17: PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES
Andrew Rossi premiered his behind-the-scenes look at our nation’s premiere newspaper this January at Sundance (with a slightly longer subtitle) and has taken it to a number of other festivals leading up to its theatrical release this week.
For my pre-Sundance profile on the film, click here.
The doc will expand to additional cities through the end of July – for additional locations and dates, click here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Releases, Sundance
In the Works: DIRTY POOLE
The director of THAT MAN: PETER BERLIN takes an appreciative look at another figure who is synonymous with the cinematic depiction of frank gay male sexuality in the immediate post-Stonewall era.
Director Jim Tushinski’s previous film (which premiered in Berlin in 2005 and had a theatrical release after its run on the LGBT film festival circuit) served as both a tribute to a gay erotic icon and an introduction to younger generations of gay men who were not familiar with Peter Berlin. His new film, DIRTY POOLE, seems likely to do the same for Wakefield Poole. Poole directed features from the early 1970s until the mid 1980s, most famously the sexually-explicit gay adult films BOYS IN THE SAND and its sequel and BIJOU (available on DVD packaged together as THE WAKEFIELD POOLE COLLECTION – note: NSFW link). Taking advantage of the post-sixties era new openness and newly identifiable out audience, Poole’s films celebrated gay male sexuality and brought these images to theatrical release in major urban centers. Tushinski film explores these contributions to gay cinema while providing more of a context for the filmmaker, who he notes didn’t see himself as a pornographer despite the graphic content of his work – before filmmaking, in fact, Poole was a ballet dancer and a Broadway choreographer, so filmmaking was as much an artistic expression as those endeavors. DIRTY POOLE aims to capture the fullness of Poole’s life and legacy and its specific impact on gay male culture.
Filed under Documentary, Film, In the Works
In Theatres: BUCK
Coming to NYC’s IFC Center next Friday, June 17: BUCK
Having taken the festival circuit by storm since its world premiere at Sundance in January, where it took home the US Documentary Audience Award, Cindy Meehl’s profile of Buck Brannaman, the inspiration for the Horse Whisperer, comes to NYC for its theatrical run.
For my pre-Sundance take on the film, click here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Releases, Sundance
