Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, August 9: WOMEN HE’S UNDRESSED

Gilliam Armstrong’s tribute to an acclaimed Hollywood costume designer made its bow at Sydney last year. Additional fest play included DOC NYC, Toronto, Mill Valley, Chicago, Hong Kong, Minneapolis-St Paul, and Seattle, among other events.

Armstrong’s elusive subject is Orry George Kelly, a fellow Australian who made a name for himself in Hollywood as Orry-Kelly, designing costumes for countless classic pictures. While his work is well-remembered and lauded – he won Academy Awards for SOME LIKE IT HOT, LES GIRLS, and AN AMERICAN IN PARIS – he himself is largely forgotten. Faced with a dearth of archival material featuring her protagonist, Armstrong opts for an audacious solution: casting an actor to embody Orry-Kelly in deliberately over-the-top, theatrical settings. As this avatar relates the designer’s life story, the director uses clips from his many films, as well as interviews with several notables – from actresses like Angela Lansbury and Jane Fonda, to fellow costume designers such as Ann Roth, and critics like Leonard Maltin. In the process, this affectionate film pulls back the curtain on old Hollywood, with a particular contemplation of what Orry-Kelly’s experiences as a closeted gay man in a very different time might have been like.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, August 9: KOKO: THE GORILLA WHO TALKS

Jonathan Taylor’s profile of a long-running human/simian communication experiment had its premiere on British television earlier this year. It made its stateside debut last week on PBS.

I previously wrote about the doc here,

Coming to HBO tonight, Monday, August 8: HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT

Kent Jones’ revisitation of a legendary interview debuted at Cannes last year. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, Telluride, Deauville, Toronto, San Sebastian, London, Mill Valley, Tallgrass, Chicago, AFI Fest, Tallinn Black Nights, and Denver, among others.

I previously wrote about the doc here,

Coming to theatres today, Friday, August 5: OLYMPIC PRIDE, AMERICAN PREJUDICE

Deborah Riley Draper’s look at the experiences of African American athletes at the 1936 Olympics made its bow at Los Angeles earlier this Summer. The doc also screened at the American Black Film Festival and the recently wrapped Traverse City Film Festival.

In 1936, just three years into the Nazi regime, Germany hosted the Olympic Games, and saw it as an propagandistic opportunity to take to the world stage and prove Aryan superiority. As popular memory would have it, Hitler’s plan was foiled by one pioneering athlete: African-American track-and-field wonder Jesse Owens, emblematic of America’s melting pot. Draper’s film serves as a corrective to this simplistic and partial history, turning her attention to the other seventeen African-American athletes who also traveled to Berlin to compete for Team USA. Importantly, the film is more than an argument to celebrate their long-forgotten achievements, as notable as they were; instead it contextualizes their participation in the Olympics within a still racially segregated America and which turned its collective back on the champions upon their return. While fairly conventional in its approach, the doc incorporates revealing archival footage as well as audio interviews with some of the athletes, as none is still surviving. Draper successfully conveys the controversies at play in the lead-up and throughout the controversial Games, which the US came close to boycotting; the Olympians’ surprising welcome reception in the Olympic Village; and the sad fates that befell many back home, decades before the struggle for Civil Rights firmly took hold.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, August 5: THE DWARVENAUT

Josh Bishop’s affectionate portrait of a Dungeons & Dragons-obsessed artist made its debut at SXSW earlier this year. It has gone on to screen at IFF Boston, SF DocFest, Calgary Underground, and Fantasia. It now comes to VOD platforms including iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, XBOX, and Vudu.

Going where no D&D player has dared to venture, the titular figure in Bishop’s often amusing film is Stefan Pokorny, a Dungeon Master-turned-game miniature designer. His company, Dwarven Forge, has made a killing among the D&D subculture by providing intricately detailed sets for gaming – modular pieces depicting the terrain of the game, from mazelike caves and dungeon playsets to his newest, most ambitious idea, Valoria, the fictional medieval city in which Pokorny has set his gaming adventures for decades. Having found great success via Kickstarter, Dwarven Forge has turned to the crowdfunding platform once again, but for some reason, this new design isn’t catching fire quite as quickly, putting the company’s fortunes in peril. As Pokorny contends with this literal countdown, Bishop also follows him to different gaming conventions. Although he is shown drinking to excess to a troubling degree at these events, it’s clear this outsider has found his tribe. The offspring of a Korean mother and white American soldier, he was adopted only to be returned into the system before an immigrant couple finally took him in. He reveals a difficult path to his present circumstances, where he’s been able to combine his artistic sensibilities with his gaming passion, and forge his own distinct path. Through his affable, if flawed, protagonist, Bishop celebrates the misfit in everyone.