what (not) to doc

Coming to VOD via Hulu tomorrow, Saturday, June 3:
DUMB: THE STORY OF BIG BROTHER MAGAZINE

Director:
Patrick O’Dell

Premiere:
Tribeca 2017

About:
A love letter to the controversial, crass skateboarding magazine which served as a precursor to MTV’s JACKASS.

Emerging at a time when skateboarding seemed to be at its nadir, Big Brother went for broke, cultivating a young audience with creative design, outrageous humor, taboo content, and a diversity of topics of interest to their target subculture rather than an exclusive focus on skateboarding. Running afoul of community standards due to obscene material in a publication marketed towards children, the mag was eventually purchased by Larry Flynt, but even the notorious publisher couldn’t keep it afloat forever. O’Dell, though a skateboarding insider, tells the magazine’s tale so that it’s equally accessible to outsiders – though numerous scenes of scatological would-be humor will likely test most viewers’ limits. Leaving that aside, the film offers a curious, if uncritical, appreciation of the writing and editorial staff’s rebellious creativity, and also serves as a backdoor history of JACKASS, featuring interviews with Johnny Knoxville and a number of other contributors who crossed over into mainstream success when they adapted the publication’s brash approach for television.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, June 2:
LETTERS FROM BAGHDAD

Directors:
Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbühl

Premiere:
Beirut 2016

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, London, Haifa, IDFA, Cleveland, Montclair

About:
The story of Gertrude Bell, a British adventurer, spy, and diplomat known as “the female Lawrence of Arabia.”

A contemporary of the famed TE Lawrence, Bell is sadly far less known, yet she played a pivotal role in Western understanding of and involvement in the modern Middle East, particularly in the founding of Iraq after World War I. Oelbaum and Krayenbühl take an unorthodox approach in telling the iconoclast’s story, constraining their history to correspondence and diaries – Bell’s read by Tilda Swinton, while friends and associates’ words are recited on camera by actors in faux period talking heads. More conventional yet well-used and impactful is a wealth of fascinating archival footage of the Middle East, much of it beautifully tinted. Bell emerges as a fearless, influential figure – one ahead of her time, but whose dealings in the region offer a surprisingly modern resonance.