Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday March 15: WASTE LAND
I offered my thoughts on Lucy Walker’s Oscar-nominated documentary upon its theatrical release here.
Category Archives: Film
On DVD: WASTE LAND
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Special Screening: HARLAN COUNTY USA
Closing out the Winter season of NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction next Tuesday, March 15: HARLAN COUNTY USA
Premiering at the New York Film Festival, Barbara Kopple’s portrait of striking Kentucky coal miners took home the 1976 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, as well as a special award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Recognized as one of the most significant documentaries on organized labor made in the US, it was added to the US National Film Registry in 1990, the second year of its existence.
Even after 35 years, HARLAN COUNTY USA still retains its impact and relevance, especially given the ongoing controversy in Wisconsin over union rights. The men and women profiled in Kopple’s film wage a long and bitter strike for better working conditions and wages, often facing violence from thugs hired as strikebreakers. Living among the families affected, Kopple and her team themselves face some of this violence as shown in a particularly memorable scene in this beautifully shot and paced documentary. Of note is the focus the film places not only on the striking male workers, but on their wives, strong women who show themselves to be effective organizers and partners in their families’ struggles for a better life.
The event will include a Q&A with Kopple.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations
On DVD: THE PARKING LOT MOVIE
Coming to DVD this coming Tuesday, March 15: THE PARKING LOT MOVIE
Director Meghan Eckman made her documentary feature debut with this look at Charlottesville, VA’s Corner Parking and its many attendants through the years. The film premiered at SXSW last year and went on to screen at Hot Docs, BFI London, and RIDM, among others. It had a limited theatrical release via the reRun Gastropub Theater this past August and also screened on Independent Lens in the Fall.
THE PARKING LOT MOVIE is an incredibly likeable film – Eckman ‘s subjects, the owner and past and present employees of the small business, are an eclectic group, perhaps unified in a general slacker nature. Beyond that, with the film’s small college town setting, many of the attendants are or were students, hailing largely from the anthropology and sociology department, and as a result are prone to philosophizing about their experiences, even as they relate anecdotes about cheapskate customers and drunk frat boys looking to pick a fight while they’re on duty. After all, as the film’s tagline reminds us, “It’s not just a parking lot, it’s a battle with humanity.” It’s a doc that anyone who’s ever suffered the tedium of and frustration with an unskilled job can relate to, and bears a look now that it’s coming to DVD.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
indieWIRE @ Hulu Docs: SXSW Flashback
Since SXSW opens tomorrow, I decided to curate a selection of past SXSW film selections for Hulu’s Documentaries page for indieWIRE. View all of these docs for free now!
For more information about the selections, see my iW article.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Indiewire @ Hulu Docs, Recommendations
SXSW 2011: Documentary Overview
SXSW begins this Friday. I’ve been fortunate to be able to attend the festival for the past two years – the first as a member of the Documentary Competition Jury, and the second with THE CANAL STREET MADAM premiering in that same category – and am returning for a third year, this time mostly to watch films, though I will be taking meetings with filmmakers as a programming Mentor.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Overviews, Recommendations
On VOD: OCTOBER COUNTRY
Now available on iTunes: OCTOBER COUNTRY
The ubiquitous filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher are a welcome sight at whatever festival they come through – I just saw them at True/False this past weekend. I’ve previously written about their beautiful film here.
To access OCTOBER COUNTRY via iTunes, click here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
In the Works: GRANITO Oscar Qualification
Earlier this year, director Pamela Yates brought her sixth documentary to Sundance in the new Documentary Premieres section: GRANITO revisits the story of her award-winning 1982 film, WHEN THE MOUNTAINS TREMBLE, which unexpectedly becomes a key piece of evidence of the genocide perpetrated against the Mayan people by the Guatemalan government. I profiled GRANITO in advance of Sundance here.
Filed under Film, Film Festivals, In the Works, Sundance
True/False 2011 in Brief
My indieWIRE article covering the just-completed 2011 True/False Film Festival in Columbia, MO is now up here.
As a quick clarification – I didn’t catch every film that screened during the four-day festival, and didn’t write about the films that I’d already seen elsewhere. The eight I wrote about at length generally spoke to the two themes I noticed emerging, and I didn’t mean to suggest that these were the only films worth a look, despite the article’s title. There are a number of other films that are well worth seeing, including titles I profiled in anticipation of their Sundance launch (beginning here, and including, to name just a few, THE INTERRUPTERS, PAGE ONE, THE REDEMPTION OF GENERAL BUTT NAKED, and RESURRECT DEAD), films from Toronto and/or IDFA (ARMADILLO, FAMILY INSTINCT), and others viewed at T/F including THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH and BLOOD IN THE MOBILE, among others.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, In Brief, Recommendations, Sundance
In the Works: URBANIZED
Director Gary Hustwit is in the midst of production on URBANIZED, the third film in his design trilogy which began with the acclaimed 2007 doc HELVETICA and continued with 2009’s OBJECTIFIED.
Filed under Documentary, Film, In the Works
On DVD: A FILM UNFINISHED
Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, March 8: A FILM UNFINISHED
I previously wrote about Yael Hersonski’s Sundance award-winning film here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
