rolling documentary thread 2014

Last year's started with architecture; I'll start there too.

Reluctantly skipped a Philip Seymour Hoffman double-bill (Capote and Boogie Nights) for Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman (which I didn't realize was five years old) and Mock-Ups in Close-Up: Architectural Models in Film. The second is an ongoing project, not a finished film: as advertised, an assemblage of clips, start to finish, of movie scenes involving architectural models. It starts with a Lubitsch silent and ends with The Hangover Part III. No narration, just clips, with a title card identifying the year, director, and country of each.

The directors explained (breathlessly in the case of the guy) their intentions beforehand, and laid out all the meanings we were supposed to look for; I sat there thinking that none of what they were saying made any sense without seeing the film. I couldn't even get my head around what exactly it was I was about to see. Once it began I started thinking of things that might show up, three of which did: The Conversation, The Shining, and Rushmore. Some didn't, either because my memory was faulty or they were left out for whatever reason: The Ten Commandments (I thought we see Heston's grand vision for Egypt in model form first), Dressed to Kill (isn't Keith Gordon working on some kind of model in his basement?), Twin Peaks (Ben Horne's Civil War model--there was at least one TV film included, an old Columbo), and The Music of Chance (about which I remember almost nothing except that I liked it and that I thought there were models involved). The clips were sometimes close to subliminal, like two seconds from The Tree of Life, not even long enough to spot the model. We were told ahead of time that Tim Burton turned up most often, with five different films; Resnais was probably next, with three or four.

At a 160 minutes, a lot. Always interesting, though. And I'll never see another film without consciously making note of any architectural models.

What did you think of Visual Acoustics? For a film that is about photography of form I thought the framing was so-so and the one set piece was kind of shoehorned in. Shulman was a character.

Schulman was so engaging, and the photographs were so great, that the filmmaking became secondary for me (I invariably go easier on documentaries in that department if the subject interests me enough--as long as the filmmaking's not noticeably bad, that is, which it wasn't here.) By set-piece you mean that brief history of modernist architecture, right? Yeah, that didn't fit the rest of the film. I think it'd make a great double-bill with L.A. Plays Itself. My favourite line: "93 helping 92."

also the bit with a cinematographer (?) shooting a house

particle fever is surprisingly good; very compulsive and engaging narrative on a topic that's hard to even begin to understand

― We hugged with no names exchanged (forksclovetofu)

Quite liked it. The science was simplified (dumbed down, if you will) just enough for me. The five principals--Jerry Garcia #1 and #2, the two women, and the old guy--were very engaging. I loved things like the one woman, lost in thought about colliding particles, is oblivious to the cars zipping by as she crosses the street. The one time I thought they overstepped was "Ode to Joy"--not necessary, the moment was strong enough. Peter Higgs tearing up was great, though. I thought of young Woody Allen in Annie Hall towards the end: "He won't do his homework!" "But the Higgs boson particle created us, and now it might be the end of us--what's the point?"

The documentary festival here is getting ridiculously expensive--six tickets cost me $111.

has anyone besides Eric seen The Missing Picture? Looks like today ends the NY premiere run, and it might be a leveler of sorts after my biopsy. :/

http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/the_missing_picture

I'll be in NYC for this:

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/art-of-the-real

I have in fact seen neither of those T Andersen films. I saw Jarman's Blue at the NYFF in '93 w/ dying DJ in attendance.

"Alex Ross Perry as a grandiose filmmaker" = chuckle

he seems p interesting i think but i feel you

Saw "Jodorowsky's Dune" over the weekend and it hit every single one of my nerd buttons. Nicely made and produced and very fun.

with A.R.P., I think it's different if you remember him as "typical Kim's Video clerk"

oh lol

fwiw i liked color wheel pretty okay, thought its blurriness was sorta redeemed by its denouement, but felt sort of modified by listening to this, afterward, which revealed structural dimensions to it i hadn't felt conscious of. just sorta curious where he goes with it. seeing him in his proto comic book store guy phase is a powerful origin story though.

The festival started here Thursday. So far I've seen Slums: Cities of Tomorrow and Concerning Violence, a sort-of essay about Frantz Fanon's work from Göran Olsson, the guy who made The Black Power Mixtape. I felt remiss in not having ever read The Wretched of the Earth. Olsson digs up amazing footage. The woman with no arm feeding her baby with no leg was one of the most numbing things I've ever looked at in a film. Lauryn Hill does the narration. Something I hate: there's an early-'70s interview with a white Rhodesian at one point, saying the kind of hateful things that someone completely losing grip on a situation might say. You could hear scattered laughter in the theatre. There really wasn't anything funny about what he was saying at all.

Excellent title, even if carried over from the book: Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere. (Reminds me of an old Chuck Eddy Voice piece, "Howls from the Heartland.") The filmmaker concedes the heavy influence of both Lynch and Errol Morris--it all felt pretty familiar--but if it comes your way, worth seeing. The story is almost identical to something that happened here within the past few months: teacher disappears without a trace one day, is found dead a few weeks later, no explanation, just theories. (It was a high school teacher here.) That's the main story, anyway, but it breaks off in two or three different and/or parallel directions.

I realize these lists are just filler, but it's amazing that this one would omit Wiseman's Hospital and Near Death (unless the thinking was that they're more about the patients than the doctors).

http://www.villagevoice.com/slideshow/doc-docs-8-powerful-medical-documentaries-41343880/

Saw trailers for The Dog and Rich Hill yesterday--looking forward to both, although John Wojtowicz looks like he might be a little much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjinPRE0bxw

Definitely wanna see The Dog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqE90Y2q88w

RIP William Greaves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5noJA3xDCF4

^this is awesome btw, just saw for the first time.

Hey, no one told me Godfrey Cheshire was reviewing regularly at the Ebert site! Here he is on one of my fave docs so far this year:

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fifi-howls-from-happiness-2014

i don't know cheshire, or do without having noticed his byline, but he pops up on a couple of episodes of a breezy iranian cinema podcast i just started listening to: http://www.hello-cinema.net/?category=Podcast

curious about the fifi doc. i always feel like five waves behind with iranian cinema. the mania akbari & shahram mokri films all sound really neat.

GC was chief film critic of the NY Press in its '90s heyday, and in fact his review of Close-Up when it opened in NYC slayed me.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/29/godfrey-cheshire-on-closeup-abbas-kiarostami-1990

this review is excellent & i'm stopping halfway through as it gallops toward synopsising; i haven't seen close-up in forever & barely remember it beyond its most basic premise. i think i'm as fresh for a rewatch as he thought new viewers were for an epiphany. ty for the intro, anyhow.

discussion of it probably doesn't necessarily belong here - it could as easily be discussed in political, parenting or pbs threads - but: did anybody catch american promise?

didn't

DOC NYC in November:

http://www.docnyc.net/films-events/

Given that it will probably be hard to find in a week, prob will see The Overnighters this evening.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-overnighters-2014

The work week caught up to me about 30 minutes into a late screening of Last Days in Vietnam, after which I drifted for most of the rest. Stupid--what I saw was quite good. It'll be playing again in April on PBS. Mark Samels, who oversees some of the American Experience series (and executive produced Last Days) was there for a Q&A afterwards. Great story about about one of the American servicemen sharing a stage at Sundance with one of the South Vietnamese men left behind in the evacuation.

not exactly a new film, but as anyone seen Chicago Loop by James Benning (1974)? it's playing at my local documentary festival.

I'm reviewing loads of docs at my blog, from CPHDOX.

centrifugue.blogspot.com

The Postman's White Nights, The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, The Reunion, Visitors.

Bad link. This should be better: http://centrifugue.blogspot.dk/

chicago loop's great, vhs
it's part of a bill with something longer, right? american dreams? CL is beautiful

also go see the kazuo hara shit if this is RIDM

Do not miss "The Color of Noise", the amphetamine reptile doc if it shows up near you. Distribution at this point is completely up in the air, and it is awesome.

Open Secret, on Hollywood child/youth abuse incl the Singer case, has its first DOCNYC press screening cancelled -- future in doubt?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-sex-abuse-doc-an-745907

'last days in vietnam' was pretty good. probably could have used slightly more background for younger viewers, but no big complaints otherwise. didn't realize until i googled it afterward that it was directed by RFK's youngest daughter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulryEZ5Iprg

Not entirely sure this works everywhere, but Iron Ministry, brilliant Harvard SEL related doc on Chinese trains, is freely streamable at least from where I am.

http://dafilms.com/download/key/njciTzpjKb

ten films against the crisis (#1 and 4 I'm particularly fond of)

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/top-10-docs

dafilms.com is actually kind of awesome. They have a retrospective of Loznitsa docs up now. The Letter was a fine art-short, Maidan is one of the best films of 2014, so I'll def check out as much as I can. Of course, everyone should watch My Joy, and to-a-lesser-extent-but-still In the Fog.

Oh, and the link, right: http://dafilms.com/event/191-retrospective_sergei_loznitsa/

Knew I'd forgotten something.

now available for viewing in your home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6YNQWzVgpc