Documentary Archives

07/21/2007	FISH KILL FLEA—Interview With Jennifer Loeber, Aaron Hillis and Brian Cassidy Aaron Hillis graciously forwarded a screener DVD of Fish Kill Flea ("Fish")—co-created with Brian Cassidy and Jennifer Loeber—when I wanted to participate in its SXSW premiere by chiming in from San Francisco, which I thought would be good, wholesome Internet... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/18/2007	Beautiful Noise: A Shoegazer Documentary I don't post much around these parts unless I happen to be up in Toronto for the odd film festival. However, I found this news too exciting to ignore. If you want to get me to listen to a... (10 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/13/2007	Line-Up Announced for New York Korean Film Festival 2007 (August 19 – September 2) The Korea Society will be presenting its 7th edition of the New York Korean Film Festival from August 19 through September 2. Events planned include a screening of 15 contemporary Korean films, a 5-film retrospective of director Im Kwon-taek, 7... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/09/2007	Review: Tan Pin Pin's Invisible City For Trailer and Link to the Official Website, see the bottom of this article Tan Pin Pin is perhaps Singapore's best known documentarian, having had her previous documentary Singapore GaGa play to sold out screenings, and being voted the Best... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/03/2007	*DVD Review: La fille du juge* (My Dad is into Terrorism) (2006)** Some of the most engaging films coming out of France these days are not dramas or thrillers, but documentaries, often made on tight budgets and restricted to broadcast on national television, then promptly forgotten. William Karel, whose documentaries have for... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/29/2007	TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES: SPIELBERG ON SPIELBERG—Interview With Richard Schickel It has become a common practice among movie directors today to provide audio commentary for DVD releases of their films. One notable exception, however, is Steven Spielberg, who has never created such a commentary and according to reports has no... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/22/2007	Website and Trailer for Anthony Gilmore's Behind Forgotten Eyes Here's a chapter of world history that I'm sure a great many people would like to forget but Anthony Gilmore doesn't plan to let them. During Japan's period of military expansion hundreds of thousands of women - an estimated two... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/18/2007	For All Those Who've Spent Sleepless Nights Finishing A Level ... A middle-school science teacher and a hot sauce mogul vie for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic, Donkey Kong. It's arguably the best movie tag line ever. It's a documentary. It's totally real. If Dee Snider were involved... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/18/2007	How To Start A Rebellion With a Very Tall Bike. So. I had this friend back in my college days, a guy from a family of eleven children, all of them but one - the second youngest - boys, and all of them home schooled. He was a little odd,... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/18/2007	*Danny Wallace's How To Start YOur Own Country* FINALLY Makes It To DVD** Put this one in the "It's About Bloody Time" file. Danny Wallace's How To Start Your Own Country ran on UK television all the way back in 2005 and was originally slated to hit DVD in October of that year.... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/05/2007	MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES—Interview With Director Jennifer Baichwal and Photographer Edward Burtynsky "Which way to go? Some line gets drawn. What line is this? Which way to go? Could be a threshold or a precipice."—Joni Mitchell, "Fiction" from Dog Eat Dog. Edward Burtynsky is known as one of Canada's most respected photographers.... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/01/2007	WTH....APRIL DVD IN REVIEW The intro to my DVD column is a way to let you know what you’ll find inside it. But this time it also serves as a declaration of war. April almost killed me. There were DVDs I had to review,... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/01/2007	IIFF 2007 - CRAZY LOVE review Burt Pugach and Linda Riss were an upwardly mobile New York couple who garnered Lindbergh Baby-level headlines in the late ‘50s when Pugach, spurned by Riss, hired two men to disfigure her face with lye. He succeeded and found himself... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/21/2007	DVD Review: 'A Great Disturbance' In April 2005, a film crew followed five delusional fans during their preparation, trip, and return from the third Star Wars Celebration in Indianapolis. Phil, a computer repairman who thinks he is the greatest and funniest fan of all time.... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/16/2007	THE RAPE OF EUROPA—INTERVIEW With Bonni Cohen and Richard Berge Quick on the heels of its two sold-out screenings at SFIFF50, The Rape of Europa is opening Friday, May 18 in Bay Area theatres (Embarcadero Center Cinemas in San Francisco, Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley and Smith Rafael Film Center in... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/16/2007	2007 SFIFF50—Michael Hawley's Wrap-Up The Golden Anniversary edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival came to a close last week. I wish I could say it was the festival to end all festivals, but I can't. That's because, for me at least, the... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/13/2007	2007 SFIFF50—Off the Hip Capsule Reviews Though Cinematical's James Rocchi enjoyed the pairing of Victor Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage with Jonathan Richman's "score", I found the experiment an irksome failure. I would have much preferred silence to this squawky, screechy, lurching composition that Richman imposed upon... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/11/2007	*[Korean DVD News] Park Jin-pyo's Faction-Drama Voice of a Murderer* [그놈 목소리] Up For Pre-Order** We reported a few months back conflicting predictions concerning the eventual box office success of Park Jin-pyo's (You Are My Sunshine, 2005) docudrama Voice of a Murderer, which opened on February 1, 2007. One critic foretold a huge flop, while... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/09/2007	Werner Herzog Retrospectives Lined Up for May-June Is German cinema undergoing a renaissance? It would certainly seem so, given the success of films like Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (Der Untergang), featuring Bruno Ganz as Hitler, Fatih Aiken's Head-On (Gegen die Wand), Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's outstanding debut The... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/03/2007	*Website and Trailer For Audience of One* ...** ... and Todd scrapes jaw off floor ... Michael Jacobs' Audience of One is a documentary about a Pentecostal minister convinced that he has been told by God Himself to direct a big budget sci-fi epic based on the life... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/02/2007	IIFF 2007 - GLASTONBURY review Veteran music video director Julien Temple’s Glastonbury could’ve been an amazing concert film, with almost 40 years’ worth of performances from Britain’s foremost music festival to cull from. It could’ve been the definitive exploration of the event’s tangled history, from... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/01/2007	REVIEW OF KOCH VISION TREASURES OF SACRED ART: TUSCAN JOURNEYS TREASURES OF SACRED ART: TUSCAN JOURNEYS Koch Vision The price tag on this set is considerably lower online or on the secondary market but even at $100 you’d be getting good value. It’s just astounding how well presented this... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/01/2007	REVIEW OF A&E ENGINEERING AN EMPIRE DVD ENGINEERING AN EMPIRE A & E Home Video Engineering An Empire has been out awhile but there was no way I'd let it go by without a review. My wife and I have said repeatedly that if we had cable... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/28/2007	*A Trailer For Norwegian Documentary Pornostjerne?* (Pornostar)** Let's get this out of the way: upcoming Norwegian documentary Pornostjerne? deals with an explicit topic in an explicit manner and this trailer is very definitely not recommended for everybody and is a long, long way away from being work-safe.... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/28/2007	Finally! A Full Trailer For Asger Leth's Ghosts of Cite Soleil We've been awaiting a proper trailer for Asger Leth's Ghosts of Cite Soleil ever since the film was announced as part of the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival but, although the official website was loaded with clips from the film,... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/28/2007	2007 SFIFF50—REVIEW of Forever Using my write-up on Olivier Dahan's La Vie En Rose as a segue into commentary on Heddy Honigmann's Forever, I pay another visit to Edith Piaf's grave in Père-Lachaise Cemetery while faint refrains of La Goualante de Pauvre Jean drift... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/26/2007	2007 SFIFF50—Michael Hawley's Preview What follows are some alphabetically-arranged thoughts on the films Michael Hawley had the chance to preview for this year's San Francisco International Film Festival. With the exception of Flanders and La Vie en Rose, all were seen on screener DVDs.... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/24/2007	CORNERSTONE FESTIVAL IMAGINARIUM SCHEDULE ANNOUNCED Hi Guys, Yours truly here to shamelessly plug an event that I co-founded more than a decade ago. The Cornerstone Festival Imaginarium is in a large part a retrospective of cinema oriented around the examination of specific themes or ideas.... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/22/2007	BLOOD, BOOBS & BEAST Review This week I was lucky enough to see John Paul Kinhart's documentary "BLOOD, BOOBS & BEAST". What lured me into seeing it was the subject: a few eccentric individuals who produce horror and science fiction movies, independently and on a... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/18/2007	Shunji Iwai's Ichikawa Kon Documentary Hits DVD June 29th I think I'd be a little more excited if it were a new fiction film from director Shunji Iwai but any new Iwai is a good thing and Ichikawa Kon Monogatari should prove to be just as personal a project... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/12/2007	SOUND OF THE SOUL—Interview With Stephen Olsson Stephen Olsson has produced and directed documentary films, television series and feature news reports throughout the world. He has been the recipient of television's three major awards: the National Emmy Award, the Du-Pont-Columbia Silver Baton for excellence in broadcast journalism... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/10/2007	Tahani Rached's THESE GIRLS This entry is embarrassingly overdue. Not only did this film come out in the beginning of 2006, but I saw it in 2006! That said, I'm still thinking about it, and still thinking that others should see it. THESE... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/06/2007	"Lynch" - The Documentary Teaser While waiting (impatiently) for David Lynch to bring his 3 hour digitally filmed opus Inland Empire up to Toronto, there has been no shortage of Lynch news items popping up on the radar. Perhaps the most interesting is that... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/05/2007	*Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma* Finally Available On English-Subtitled DVD** We can finally announce that Godard's elusive Histoire(s) du cinéma is available for order (really!). We first reported back in December 2005 that the 4-disc set was available for pre-order, then came the endless delays. Special features include: A press... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/04/2007	AFI Dallas Extra: New Year Baby, Running on Empty, Horror Shorts Saturday night was a protypical night at a film festival: a heart-wrenching documentary about genocide, an existential German road movie, and a program of short horror films. Socheata Poeuv's New Year Baby looks at the devastation that was wrought upon... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/03/2007	Greg & Gentillon: Opens this weekend! Hilarity and no Celine! Well, I'll hand it to them, they're really stinkin' busy. Finishing the shooting schedule for Hank & Mike mere days ago (they've got a new teaser, by the way), their first full-length: Greg & Gentillon (review here) is being... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/03/2007	The 23rd Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival is about to start In a few weeks the 23rd Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival will be held from the 18th of April till the 25th of April. The AFFF website shows their complete program and lists of films. Festival director is the always certifiably... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/02/2007	ITALIAN CINEMA—Antonioni Shorts PFA Program REVIEW Returning home to Miami via San Francisco after five months in Thailand, Twitch team mate Peter Nellhaus and I met briefly for the Pacific Film Archive's first Antonioni shorts program yesterday afternoon, part of their Antonioni retrospective. We didn't have... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/31/2007	AFI Dallas Report: Catching Up with Capsules Once you get a Press Pass in your hot little hands at a film festival that is screening more than 190 films (about half full-length features), the temptation is to try and see as much as humanly possible. I've done... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/31/2007	DVD-review: PERVERSION STORY aka ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER A rant of mine concerning Lucio Fulci: if there is one film in my collection which failed to live up to my anticipation, it's his "Zombi 2". Seeing as how that has many titles I'll elaborate: it's the one with... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/28/2007	AFI Dallas Report: A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar... Review Director Eric Chaikin examines another aspect of competition with his latest documentary. He previously co-directed Word Wars, "a look into the obsessive world of competitive Scrabble," according to IMDB. Here he outlines the frustrations -- often humorous, sometimes emotional --... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/27/2007	AFI Dallas Report: The King of Kong Review Freakin' awesome! The temptation is to use a certain nine-letter word when describing this movie. Using that word is accurate but might cause some to skip it and others to knock it without even seeing it. Why dance around the... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/26/2007	[Korean DVD News] Documentary "Between" [사이에서] (2006) Available For Preorder Between, a documentary about Korean shamanism by Lee Chang-jae, is available for pre-order on DVD. The digitally-shot work received enthousiastic praise last spring at the Jeonju International Film Festival, an event which showcases digital, independent and art films, and attracted... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/24/2007	MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET)—The Center For Latin American Studies Q&A With Director Jason Kohn I went to Berkeley yesterday evening fully intending to catch a PFA screening of SFIAAFF's The Great Happiness Space: Tale Of An Osaka Love Thief and became distracted by boisterous posters announcing a free screening of Jason Kohn's Manda Bala... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/23/2007	1st Annual Taiwanese Film Festival in Vancouver I'll be honest with you. The last person I ever thought I would get a story lead from would be my dad. But there it was in my inbox this morning; an e-mail from my old man introducing me to... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/23/2007	Starbucking Trailer "Hi my name is Winter and for the past 8 years I've been on a mission to visit every Starbucks in the world" Before you can say "Morgan Spurlock", here comes a documentary which combines commentary on the worlds largest... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/23/2007	Helvetica. A graphic designer friend of mine has been salivating for months at the prospect of this documentary on the typeface of Helvetica. The enthusiasm for this film has grown on me with the clips available on the films website. In... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/22/2007	'Provoked,' 'Vanaja' to Bookend Indian Film Fest in LA Aishwarya Rai, Naveen Andrews, Miranda Richardson and Nandita Das star in Jag Mundhra’s Provoked, which will open the 5th Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles on Tuesday, April 17. The festival says the English-language film features Aishwarya Rai "as a... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/22/2007	Ban On Amir Muhammad's VILLAGE PEOPLE RADIO SHOW Is Final Looks like Amir Muhammad is on a roll now. The Appeals Commmittee of the Malaysian Censorship Board has made its final decision and upholds the ban on Amir's new documentary, Village People Radio Show (Apa Khabar Orang Kampung?). This is... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/21/2007	Hot Docs 2007 announces line up Hot Docs 2007 announced their lineup yesterday. North America's premiere doucmentary film festival will showcase 129 films from around the world from April 19-29, 2007. The complete lineup can be seen here. Follow the button for the full press release.... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/19/2007	Forum Reviews, Part Three. Never really intended to be seen on the main page of the site, yet I am still more likely to put shortish (less polished) reviews in the forum as a way of sharing the viewing experiences I've had the night... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/13/2007	2007 SFIAAFF—Michael Hawley's Preview Michael Hawley offers his tips for the upcoming San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival. Thank you, Michael! Several weeks have passed since the dispiriting experience of learning that none of the films on my SFIAAFF07 wish list would be part... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/11/2007	SXSW Report: Campaign and The Ten -- Reviews The intrepid Wells Dunbar recounts his experiences from Day Two of the South by Southwest Film Festival, notably a doc that sounds like a pleasant discovery The crazy season that is SXSW started churning weeks ago seemingly, despite the festival... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/10/2007	*Website and Trailer For Blood, Boobs and Beast, A Documentary on Cult Film Maker and Cinemagic* Founder Don Dohler** While you may not recognize Don Dohler by name if you're reading this site it's almost inevitable that his influence has had some sort of effect on you. While his own films are legendarily bad - a fact he openly... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/28/2007	Ghosts of cite soleil, a fasinating film to look out for. I was browsing through the vast domain of “Internet” (as a reporter called this phenomena in a 1993 news report) and came across stills from a film that I thought at first were from a “City of God” rip... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/23/2007	GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB—The World Affairs Council Q&A With Rory Kennedy and Mark Danner As something of a companion piece to my Greencine interview with Rory Kennedy regarding her documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, which premiered last night on HBO, I offer up this report of her onstage appearance at San Francisco's Cowell Theater,... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/22/2007	Amir Muhammad's THE LAST COMMUNIST DVD available on Amazon Amir Muhammad's "semi-musical documentary", The Last Communist (Lelaki Komunis Terakhir), is now available on Amazon. The film, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival last year, is in Mandarin, Malay, Cantonese, Hokkien, Tamil and English with full subtitles. The... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/17/2007	2007 SFIAAFF—Line-up Back in 1982, The San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival offered 13 films to its fledgling audience. The festival's exponential growth in 25 years now caters to an expected audience of 30,000 with a line-up that includes 128 films from... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/12/2007	Fuck on DVD Because I believe that Twitch readers are intelligent people with perverse imaginations, I leave it to you to wonder why Steve Anderson's very funny and insightful documentary Fuck is being released on Region 1 DVD the day before Valentine's Day.... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/09/2007	JANUARY MAINSTREAM DVD IN REVIEW The beginning of the new year brought good, bad and downright ugly DVD my way and since a lot of Twitchers don’t keep up with what they can find stateside (let’s face it Regions 2-8 are just more fun!) here’s... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/07/2007	2007 PSIFF—The French Line-up Michael Hawley reports on the French fare he caught at Palm Springs, including La Tourneuse de pages (The Page Turner, 2006); OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions (OSS 117: Nest of Spies, 2006); Fair Play (2006), Au-delà de la haine... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/04/2007	Thai Documentary: Final Score In order to give King Naresuan maximum play, no new films received wide release until last Thursday. I finally got to see Curse of the Golden Flower, dubbed in Thai, with English and Chinese subtitles. Final Score is only... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/03/2007	ROMÁNTICO—Interview With Director Mark Becker Mark Becker's Romántico—which has carried over into its third week in Bay Area Landmark theaters (the Lumiere in San Franciso and the Shattuck in Berkeley)—had its premiere at Sundance and screened at several festivals, including Los Angeles, San Sebastian and... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/02/2007	*A Trailer for Heidi Specogna's The Short Life Of José Antonio Gutierrez!* Our own Michael Guillen has become a bit of a champion of this film and having finally had the chance to see the trailer, it's easy to understand why. Heidi Specogna's The Short Life Of José Antonio Gutierrez is the... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/29/2007	2007 PSIFF—Cine Latino/Mexico—En El Hoyo (In the Pit) PSIFF's Cine Latino program was especially inviting this year. I wish I could have taken much more advantage of their fare, but, am grateful for what I got to see. From Mexico, I was eagerly anticipating Juan Carlos Rulfo's In... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/29/2007	*Did Spielberg Steal E.T.? Joaquín Blázquez Thought So ...* Big thanks to Aaron for sending me to the website for Melvin vs. E.T. - The History of Joaquín Blázquez. The film is a documentary about the life of famed Spanish comic artist and illustrator Joaquín Blázquez, who worked on... (6 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/28/2007	CINE LATINO—Sundance Film Festival Winners Eugene Hernandez and Brian Brooks report at indieWIRE: "A pair of Latin American stories won the top prizes at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival …. Christopher Zalla's Padre Nuestro [Our Father], a Spanish-language immigrant drama set in New York City... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/28/2007	Rescue Dawn - Trailer While the film was more admired than loved around these parts, watching the trailer for Werner Herzog's latest really shows off the stellar cinematography on display. The film has a really strong cast including Christian Bale and Steve Zahn (against... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/27/2007	MEXICAN CINEMA—San Franciscan Dispatches A shout out to Rob Davis who recently interviewed (or should I say recently posted his interview with) Carlos Reygadas for Errata. Not only does this fascinating interview delve into the director's filmmaking subjectivity of sound and image, his use... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/26/2007	2007 BERLIN & BEYOND—Interview With Rainer Hoffmann, Cinematographer for The Short Life Of José Antonio Gutierrez * UPDATED * A little bit of news on this film ... Canada's Atopia Pictures have just secured all North American rights to The Short Life Of José Antonio Gutierrez and plan a limited theatrical run in April to be followed by a... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/26/2007	Mizushima Plans Revisionist Nanjing Massacre Documentary Satoru Mizushima, a veteran helmer of TV dramas and pics ("Snow Falls on the Southern Island," "Miracle Mountain"), has announced plans to make a doc correcting what he describes as the "myth" of the Nanjing Massacre. At Sundance, Fortissimo Film... (6 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/25/2007	2007 BERLIN & BEYOND—Festival Overview The 12th annual Berlin & Beyond Film Festival, presented by San Francisco's Goethe-Institut, was once again venued at The Castro Theatre commencing Thursday, January 11 and running through Wednesday, January 17, 2007. A two-film recap took place on Saturday, January... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/24/2007	CHILEAN FILM—SF360 Report by Miljenko Skoknic A shout-out to Chilean filmbud Miljenko Skoknic whose site Millions of Images has long been on my Evening Class blogroll. He also blogs at Dr. Mabuse's Kaleido-Scope and writes for La Fuga. Susan Gerhard at SF360 has astutely signed Miljenko... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/24/2007	Website and Trailer For Grace Lee's American Zombie Grace Lee's American Zombie has just rolled out at this year's edition of Slamdance and the word coming backis quite good. This film began life as a moc-doc about zombies living life as normal Americans but judging by the trailer... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/23/2007	2007 OSCARS—Quick Takes & Initial Responses The Oscar nominations are set and Kurt has done a great job of getting the Twitch buzz going on today's announcements! As questionably cruel as the Oscar elimination process might be—according to Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck—he must be exhaling a... (7 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/22/2007	Ryûichi Hiroki's BAKUSHI: World première at International Film Festival Rotterdam Ryûichi Hiroki's documentary Bakushi is scheduled to have its world première at the 36th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) on January 27th at 7:30 p.m., and to subsequently be screened there on January 29th at 10:15 p.m. and February 2nd... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/15/2007	Sad Vacation and AA: Two New Titles From Shinji Aoyama When you hear the name Shinji Aoyama it's always best to pay attention. One of Japan's most consistently intriguing directors Aoyama, like his friend and mentor Kiyoshi Kurosawa, is a bit of a chameleon who loves to skip between genres... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
12/30/2006	Borat R2 UK DVD Available for Pre-Order, Released March 5th 2007. Why the interest in the DVD release then? Well, completely missed it at the cinema. Intentionally. Because it's not the sort of thing I fancied sharing with an audience, completely hidden away in darkness or not. I just didn't want... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
12/16/2006	DUBAI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2006 - V.H.S. KAHLOUCHA Greetings from the Dubai International Film Festival! As promised, I have seen almost exclusively Arabic language films while here, (often sadly having to pass up some good-looking Bollywood fare) and I am pleased to say there are a few... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
12/07/2006	Singapore Films Released on DVD As Todd mentioned in an earlier post, Singapore just had its first online DVD store launched. Which means an international audience will now have an opportunity to sample some of this year's theatrical releases from Singapore on DVD format. I... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
12/03/2006	[Korean News] A Book on Comfort Women Published in Germany A book on victims of sexual crimes by the Japanese military during World War II was published on November 29th in Germany. The book takes an in-depth look at the issue of Korean women forced to serve as sexual slaves... (13 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/27/2006	NOVEMBER 14-21 DVD IN REVIEW Here’s the next installment for November. Remember folks. It ain’t always what I like, or even what’s most important but mainly what crosses my desk and compels me to respond that you’ll hear about. Next Week Novemeber wrapup with a... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/14/2006	INTERVIEW WITH JOHN SINNO - PRODUCER OF IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS I got a bit of flak from y'all about saying there were too many docs about Iraq. Come on, guys. I KNOW it's important. Perhaps the MOST important political issue out there today. But that doesn't mean we have... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/10/2006	*'Fck' Opens Today in NY/LA: Interview with Director Steve Anderson** The title of Steve Anderson's entertaining and provocative documentary is Fuck, but you might not see it advertised that way. Some theater marquees will show multiple asterisks -- or another desciption entirely -- instead of the four-letter title. Even for... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/09/2006	IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS Think there are already too many documentaries about the war in Iraq? Yeah, me too. Except finally there is one actually worth seeing. This weekend, IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS will be released in art houses across America. Not only is... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/08/2006	El Perro Negro Trailer Hungarian director Péter Forgács has taken home-film footage of two families from just before the Spanish Civil War right into the thick of it and compiled all of it to form a narrative of Spain at that dark time. El... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/04/2006	AFI Fest Report: Searching for Orson, Cashback, and The Host (Redux) Friday was another gently warm Los Angeles day, and the hazy sunshine invited quiet contemplation of one of cinema's greats. As it happens, I've been reading the fascinating This is Orson Welles, a lengthy series of conversations between Welles and... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/01/2006	Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon – Review One of the chief pleasures of watching genre films is to encounter the entry into a particular genre which upholds the rules and yet still manages to find transcendence. The success of folks like Quentin Tarantino, John Frankenheimer, Joss Whedon... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/28/2006	DELIVER US FROM EVIL—Interview With Director Amy Berg Deliver Us From Evil marks Amy Berg's directorial debut. For the past five years, she has produced documentary segments for CNN Investigations and the CBS News program 30 Minutes of Special Assignment. Her work at CBS News earned her Emmy... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/28/2006	DELIVER US FROM EVIL—Q&A With Director Amy Berg Amy Berg's Deliver Us From Evil opens this weekend at San Francisco's Landmark Lumiere Theater after a successful festival run that scored her the Target Documentary Award and its unrestricted $50,000 cash prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Most... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/26/2006	Toronto After Dark Diary: Day 5 - SL8N8 and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon Toronto After Dark drew to a close on Tuesday night on a very high note. The return to the real world wasn’t nearly as horrific as TIFF was and I can only attribute it to one thing. Not enough time... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/20/2006	AL FRANKEN: GOD SPOKE—Interview With Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob have been partnering with documentary legend D.A. Pennebaker (Don't Look Back, Monterey Pop) since the 1970s, turning their handheld cameras on diverse subjects ranging from politics to rock and roll. The trio recently codirected HBO's... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/19/2006	SDAFF Report: The Last Atomic Bomb Review Apologies for the delay in posting Wells Dunbar's review of the film that won honors for Best Feature Documentary at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, which concludes tonight. Hibakusha are of a rare, terrible distinction: they are the survivors... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/13/2006	Pre-Order 'Death of a President' R2 UK DVD Released October 30th 2006. It's time to decide for yourself I suppose. Relatively expensive way of doing it, but considering a couple of cinema chains in America see themselves as guardians of public welfare you could say this is a key example of how... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/04/2006	Website and Trailer for Nacho Cabana's Luchador Documentary Tres Caidas Welcome to the world of Mexican wrestling, one of the strangest and most compelling subcultures in the world ... shot over a four month span in Mexico, Nacho Cabana's Tres Caidas is a behind the scenes look into this very... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/30/2006	Death of a President Trailer Gabriel Range's faux-doc was heavy on controversy at this years TIFF. First because it takes existing news and other media and recontextualizes it to tell the story of the assassination of current US president George W. Bush in 2007 and... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/28/2006	AMERICAN HARDCORE—Interview With Director Paul Rachman and Screenwriter Steven Blush Just as the music of hardcore punk rock was not to everyone's liking and went generally unheralded even during its heyday in the early '80s, so too the relentlessly-charged documentary American Hardcore is not going to be everyone's idea of... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/23/2006	The U.S. vs. John Lennon REVIEW More than just the latest political documentary, and not just another Beatle-relate retrospective, “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” attempts to weave the two topics while slyly implying a relevance to today’s world. It is a documentary that swirls around a... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/17/2006	TIFF Report: Death of a President Review [TIFF info page here.] I’ve just found out that Death of a President (previously titled D.O.A.P. before, I don’t know, they decided it wasn’t obviously controversial enough) has just won the Prize of the International Critics (the FIPRESCI Prize) at... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/15/2006	TIFF Report: S&MAN review Thwarted in an attempt to make a film about a local perversion scandal director JT Petty turns to another passion, underground horror films. As he interviews filmmakers, actors and field professionals for his film he comes across a very intriguing... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/15/2006	TIFF Report: A Conversation with JT Petty This week I got a chance to sit down with S&Man director JT Petty and chat with him for a while about his new documentary S&Man, shortly before his film made its Canadian premiere as part of the Midnight Madness... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/13/2006	DVD: Donald 'Dr. Don' Smith's THE COMPLETE WORKS OF DR. DON - VOL. 1: 1998-2000, w/ Todd Russell's documentary A CASE OF OBSCENITY - THE CASE OF HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN VS DON SMITH, CANADIAN FX ARTIST Those who are interested in watching a documentary regarding a creator of pseudo-snuff material and his works, and/or who are interested in seeing the works themselves, may wish to check out The Complete Works of Dr. Don - Vol. 1:... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/13/2006	TIFF Report: S&Man Review [Mathew finally makes his belated appearance as a member of the Twitch team at the Toronto International Film Festival with a review of the hotly anticipated and debated documentary, S&man, playing tonight as part of the Midnight Madness programme.] [TIFF... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/07/2006	'Man Bites Dog' Director Remy Belvaux Dead at 38 Years Old. No cause of death given, so the situation isn't entirely clear, but a family statement has been given... another great Director lost. Rest in Peace. [Source : BBC Entertainment / Hollywood Reporter].... (8 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/07/2006	Hotwax : 'Female Yakuza Tale' Soundtrack & Much More... Muldoon at AsianDVDGuide has put together a thread to help explain all the nice Soundtrack reissues appearing in Japan for films that have had some recent interest our way... 'Stray Cat Rock' with Meiko Kaji, the 'Sukkeban Guerilla' series (don't... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/07/2006	Remember, 'Japanorama' Series Two Starts Tonight... ...On BBC Three here in the UK, and across Europe on Free-to-Air Digital Broadcasts (don't know how that works, but folk do get BBC Broadcasts in Europe, right?) at 11:00 pm GMT, and this first episode of six is also... (7 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/05/2006	San Diego Asian Film Festival Announces Line-Up The San Diego Asian Film Festival has quickly built a reputation for seamless organization, enthusiastic crowds, and sharp programming, and the upcoming 7th edition looks like it will be more of the same. Ham Tran's widely-acclaimed Journey From the Fall... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/01/2006	2006 FRAMELINE XXX—Interview With John Cameron Mitchell [TIFF information page.] San Francisco has just wrapped up its 30th Frameline Film Festival. One of the highlights for me was the morning I picked up my phone and heard John Cameron Mitchell introducing himself. I mustered all my resolve... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/19/2006	Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul Review If you want to understand a people, Fatih Akin’s Crossing the Bridge advises early on, listen to their music. It’s good advice that Akin follows to some remarkable places in this, his exploration of the wildly varied music of Turkey.... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/16/2006	A Trailer For Kirby Dick's This Film Is Not Yet Rated We've not commented on Kirby Dick's MPAA doc This Film Is Not Yet Rated since back in January when he caught them illegally making copies to distribute amongst its members and called them out for breaking the very rules they... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/15/2006	Davin Hutchins' Refugee Doc The Art Of Flight Available Free Online Hutchins tells this particular story far better than I ever could, so I'm going to largely leave it to him. But I will say that his documentary tracking Sudanese refugees in Egypt is obviously something he feels strongly about -... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/14/2006	Twitch-O-Meter: Take Off, You Hoser! Hoser (hōz ´әr): noun. 1. A clumsy, boorish person, especially an uncouth, beer-drinking man often clothed in a flannel lumberjack coat, Kodiak boots and a toque. 2. What you call your little brother when your mother isn't in the... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/12/2006	Once Again, It's the Best Rock-Doc Ever. This Time With Details. I posted the trailer to Gunhild Asting's It's Hard To Be A Rock'n Roller with no explanation a couple days back, simply because I was in awe ... here it is again, with all the relevant info. A documentary about... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/10/2006	Fuck Coming in November Sorry, it doesn't appear possible to write a headline for this piece that won't offend someone. Steve Anderson's very fine and funny documentary Fuck had its World Premiere at AFI FEST last November. ThinkFilm acquired worldwide rights in March 2006... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/08/2006	AFFD Report: First Five Nights From its humble origins in the spring of 2002 as a weekend festival filled mainly with retrospective titles, the Asian Film Festival of Dallas quickly grew in ambition and scope. Now celebrating its fifth edition, it was recently described by... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/03/2006	It's the Best Rock Doc Ever. Don't ask, just click.... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/02/2006	THE JOY OF LIFE—Interview With Jenni Olson Jenni Olson summarizes her film The Joy of Life as "an unconventional blending of documentary and experimental narrative strategies, combining stunning 16mm landscape cinematography with a bold, lyrical voiceover (performed by L.A.-based artist/actor Harriet 'Harry' Dodge) to share two San... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/28/2006	Documentary Titles Announced For TIFF 2006 The Toronto Film Festival has announced the slate of documentary features for the 2006 film festival and there's plenty there of interest, from American Hardcore to films about Kurt Cobain and John Lennon, to a one man show by John... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/27/2006	2006 SFJFF—Interview With Amos Gitaï I attended the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's afternoon tribute to Amos Gitaï at the Castro Theater. They screened House, News From House / News From Home, and Free Zone, with Gitaï introducing each film and returning to the stage... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/23/2006	The Concrete Revolution Review A friend of mine recently returned from a week-long business trip to Beijing. He talked about the tremendous size of the city, the ten traffic loops that surround it, the incredible cleanliness (people mopping the roads), and the complete absence... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/19/2006	'Alive', 10-Episode TV Series from the Makers of 'Touching the Void'. Documentary fans would do well to move to the U.K., they're thick and fast on TV here, with all kinds of subjects and approaches. Some have gained legendary status (for example, 'John's Not Mad', the film about the lad with... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/11/2006	A Trailer For American Hardcore Sony Pictures Classics have just released a trailer for American Hardcore, a documentary by Steven Blush and Paul Rachman charting the rise of the American hardcore punk scene, featuring extensive interview footage with, well, just about everybody. The trailer also... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/28/2006	CANFIELD REVIEWS WHY WE FIGHT REGION ONE DVD Are we ignoring the prophets of our times? In the main the obvious answer is yes. But why? Politically slanted documentaries are a dime a dozen these days and one hardly expects to achieve balance of worldview watching them. Why... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/27/2006	LAFF Report: The Wild Blue Yonder Review Even Werner Herzog's misfires are fascinating. His interests are far-ranging, and his passionate explorations often result in illuminating insights into human nature, which makes it easy to overlook his tendency toward self-indulgence in his choice and treatment of subjects. The... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/25/2006	LAFF Review: Who Killed the Electric Car? Review (Michael Guillen conducted a great, lengthy interview with the filmmakers when the picture screened at the San Francisco Film Festival in April. Sony Pictures Clasics will open it in New York and Los Angeles this Wednesday, June 28. Check the... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/18/2006	A Trailer for JT Petty's S&Man JT Petty's upcoming doc S&Man has all the markings of a film destined to stir up controversy in all corners. Right leaning conservative types will surely be up in arms purely because Petty has gone out and made a documentary... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/08/2006	North American Trailer for Fatih Akin's Crossing The Bridge! After winning huge international acclaim for his searing Head On - review here - Turko-German director Fatih Akin took a bit of a left turn and recruited Einstuerzende Neubauten bassist Alexander Hacke to help him explore the many musical traditions... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/04/2006	DVD Review: Metal: A Headbanger's Journey Sam Dunn, trained anthropologist and metal-head, took us on a wicked tour of the metal music universe. Like Mola Ram in Temple of Doom, Sam ripped the still beating heart out metal’s chest to show everyone. We saw the roots... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/31/2006	Europe's Last Dictatorship ... This is a bit outside the normal scope of things here, but it's unusual enough and topical enough that it deserves mention. The Pioneer Theater in New York is about to launch into a limited run of a pair of... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/28/2006	loudQUIETloud Website and Trailer Another much belated post here ... it seems to be the day for that. This one is for loudQUIETloud, the much anticipated new documentary about The Pixies. The Pixies, of course, are quite simply the greatest rock band to ever... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/28/2006	GuinnessSize Me Trailer Please, sir, I'd like some more ... "On the 23rd of May 2005, against all medical advice, two local filmmakers decided to find out what would happen if they consumed nothing but Guinness for a week. Armed with a car... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/24/2006	Interview With Amir Muhammad On the Ban Of The Last Communist When Dave Hudson alerted via the Greencine Daily that Amir Muhammad's latest film The Last Communist was banned in Malaysia, I was disconcerted and meant to write an entry, but was overtaken by reportage from 2006 SFIFF. I've since caught... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/23/2006	4th Annual Human RIghts Watch Film Festival Facets Cinematheque isn't just a fan of film lovers but of the way film can help put the focus on film's power to effect change. I love it when a festival event can be linked to the world I live... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/21/2006	Cannes: Seville International pre-selling Metal follow up. Seville International Pictures will spend some time during Cannes pre-selling the follow up documentary to Sam Dunn's awesome film Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. Global Metal is the follow-up to the worldwide success, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. Sam Dunn, headbanger and... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/14/2006	An Inconvenient Truth Review Former US Vice President Al Gore did not appear as advertised for an advance screening of AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH in Dallas, Texas on Friday. It was described as an "unavoidable schedule conflict," but it felt a bit like a "bait... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/11/2006	"By Far, the Most Terrifying Film You Will Ever See" Without an alien, ghost, serial killer or zombie in view, the tag line for AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH is quite bold, but check out the trailer linked below before dismissing it as mere hyperbole. Davis Guggenheim's documentary "offers a passionate and... (8 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/11/2006	Who Killed The Electric Car Trailer Fresh off Michael's coverage of the Dean Devlin produced documentary on the demise of General Motor's electric car technology from the San Francisco Film Festival, we've got a trailer for you. With GM going broke because they invested in SUV's... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/10/2006	2006 SF DOCFEST—Letters From the Other Side Review Heather Courtney's Letters From the Other Side, which Variety's John Anderson has described as "sensitive . . . effective and emotionally potent" as well as "a much-needed examination of the collateral damage of illegal immigration" is sadly informative. It is... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/08/2006	Hot Docs Report: 37 Uses for a Dead Sheep REVIEW 37 uses for a dead sheep, you say? I can only think of one, and once I’ve done that I’ll be pretty sleepy, so I wouldn’t be any good for the other 36 anyway. That’s a joke, by the way.... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/08/2006	Hot Docs Report: Black Gold REVIEW So the first question you have to ask yourself before you decide to go and see a film about the devastating effects of the global coffee industry upon agriculture in Africa is – Do you even like coffee? Because if... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/05/2006	Hot Docs Report: Dear Pyongyang REVIEW Since my lambasting from a regular poster of comments in an earlier review of A State of Mind, in which apparently declared my undying allegiance to Kim Jong Il or something (hey, just because I can respect a showman doesn’t... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/05/2006	Hot Docs Report: Darkon REVIEW Contributor Mathew Kumar has been hard at work covering North America’s largest documentary film festival, Hot Docs, this week, and his first report is a review of the live action role-playing documentary Darkon. When I was a child (collective sighs... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/03/2006	EMPIRES: GREAT RELIGIONS- PEOPLE AND PASSIONS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD What with the soon to be released Davinci Code set to ice the cake on spurious religio rumor mongering (it is darned entertaining read though) I thought I'd remind everyone that there are actually some reasonably accurate portrayal of the... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/02/2006	Metal: A Headbanger's Journey DVD specs, cover and more Woo hoo. Oh baby. I love this movie and cannot wait to pick up the DVD when it comes out. Seville Pictures sent us the specs and cover images to share with you so that metalheads and wannabes like me... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/22/2006	SFIFF Report: Michael Guillen Interviews The Team Behind "Who Killed The Electric Car?" Here's Michael Guillen with more excellent reporting from the San Francisco International Film Festival ... who knew Dean Devlin had a social conscience? The opening night gala at the Regency with its Perhaps Love circus atmosphere was truly fun! I... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/17/2006	Zidane, un portrait du XXIe siècle. by Douglas Gordon & Phillipe Parreno (2006). Also known simply by the title 'Zidane' and the more complicated 'Zidane : A 21st Century Portrait' then, I must admit my main reason for being interested in this film is Mogwai. Yes, the incredibly loud and very cinematic (well... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/15/2006	San Fran Report: The Dignity of the Nobodies Review Michael Guillen reports ... The U.S. premiere of Fernando Solanas' The Dignity of the Nobodies is being presented at 2006 SFIFF in association with the United Nations Association Film Festival and Global Exchange. The second in a projected series of... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/15/2006	San Fran Report: The Heart of the Game Review Michael Guillen reports from San Francisco ... I'm so glad that Ruby Rich acknowledges the optimistic heart of Ward Serrill's The Heart of the Game. "It's being described as a hoop dreams for girls, but I don't think that's fair... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/10/2006	Philly Fest Report: Danielson, A Family Movie Review Full disclosure time: I've known Danielson's Dan Smith for many years now. Though we see each other so seldom these days that calling him a friend feels like over selling the relationship he is certainly more than an acquaintance and... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
04/07/2006	NHK's 'Professional' TV Show : Miyazaki & Suzuki on 'Gedo Senki' and more. Another great slice of TV footage from Japan, thanks to Peter from Ghibli World and his friend Takahiro, this time showing a whole range of behind-the-scenes happenings involving the major figures at Ghibli as they work on various projects -... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/26/2006	AWESOME; I FUCKIN' SHOT THAT - Review Eisenstein was a Pussy. MTV-style editing has nothing on the number of cuts-per-minute in Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That (hereafter, AIFST). In fact, AIFST may just well be the defining film for the DIY video aesthetic of the first decade... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/24/2006	World, Get Ready: FUCK is on its way, courtesy of Think When Todd posted my review of this film in late October 2005, he commented: "Somehow I think this one won't be landing distribution any time soon, but I really want to see it ..." Well, Todd, now you and... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/23/2006	'Invisible Children' needs screening time I've been mentoring teens for near 15 years now. What is especially rewarding is watching their lives change and then seeing that change motivate them to change the lives of those with any need. So I use whatever power I... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/20/2006	Louis Theroux Is Returning. Good news, Louis is back soon - a new series of ten TV shows in going into production, with all subjects remaining secret at this point. Looking forwards to these already, and may venture back and pick up his book,... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/06/2006	Anything You Want to Hear About From England? Comedies? Dramas? Actors? OK, my taste isn't shifting, but I have come to realise over the last year that there's very few sites that cover UK stuff in a way which offers anything beyond actual news snippets - and they're often hard to... (15 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
03/03/2006	Dave Chappelle’s Block Party REVIEW As note-worthy as the always-hilarious Dave Chappelle starring in this free-form comedy/hip-hop concert film starring seems to be, even more noteworthy is the fact that it was helmed by visionary director Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). Gondry’s... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/27/2006	Here comes the face melter! Metal doc in theatres! Great Gravy! Just a reminder to the Twitch faithful that Metal: A Headbanger's Journey opened in theatres across Canada [B.C, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec] this past Friday. Even if your brush with metal music came way back in the day... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/24/2006	The Proper Care and Feeding Of An American Messiah Website and Trailer "Brian thinks he is a messiah. Not the messiah, mind you. Just a local, regionally-selected messiah for his own hometown ..." So goes the introduction to The Proper Care and Feeding of an American Messiah, a moc-doc shot in Waco,... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/19/2006	Nobody's Gonna Say "Hey, Put Down The Hatchet ..." I grew up on the edge of 'cottage country' here in Canada, a part of the country that prizes outdoor recreation and where weekends are frequently spent in the great outdoors. Thus, virtually everyone I grew up with has at... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/14/2006	Joe Strummer doc on the way If done right music movies can be freakin' sweet. And doing a movie about one of the pillars in the foundation of new rock is just awesome. Documentary filmmaker Julien Temple will be making a doc on Clash frontman Joe... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
02/03/2006	Danielson: A Family Movie Site and Trailer! I should probably declare up front that I've got a healthy personal bias here ... it's been a while since we've had any significant contact but I lived in pretty close quarters with Dan Smith (AKA Brother Danielson) for a... (7 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/24/2006	MPAA Called Out For Illegally Copying Doc About The MPAA. Are you paying attention Alanis? Rain on your wedding day is not ironic. The lawsuit happy, anti-piracy crusading MPAA being called out for illegally duplicating a movie critical of the MPAA's ratings process? That's ironic. This Film Is Not Yet... (6 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/24/2006	The Devil And Daniel Johnston Trailer Online I remember talking to Mathew shortly after he saw The Devil and Daniel Johnston at this past year's Toronto International Film Festival and he could just barely speak about the film. Not because it wasn't good - it was, very... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/20/2006	PSIFF Report: Family Matters -- Capsule Reviews of L'Enfant (The Child), El Cielo Gira (The Sky Turns), and Rusevine (The Ruins) L'ENFANT (THE CHILD) dazzles with the audacious simplicity of its storyline and the ruthless depiction of its main character. Sonia (Deborah Francois) arrives home with newborn child Jimmy only to discover that her boyfriend Bruno (Jeremie Renier) has sublet her... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/17/2006	A State of Mind REVIEW How much do you know about modern North Korea? I’m guessing that, unless you’ve just escaped from North Korea (and been pretty quick at learning to read English competently / use the internet / gain a love of obscure cinema... (12 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
01/11/2006	Johnathan Ross' 'Asian Invasion', Episode 1 : Japan. Review. More in tune with both my knowledge and taste, still not too keen (and never really have been) on the production values (in story and filming styles) available in Hong Kong, for the most part. As for Korea, well I... (16 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
12/23/2005	Guy Maddin Spills Details on Two New Projects! Back when I interviewed Guy Maddin at the Toronto Film Festival he was kind enough to give me his card and tell me to be in touch if I wanted details on any of his future films. I've taken him... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
12/08/2005	Spike Lee Presents C.S.A: The Confederate States of America Scroll down a mere three entries and you'll see Kurt commenting on the general strangeness of Spike Lee directing a straightforward, glossy heist flick with his upcoming The Inside Man. But not to worry, he hasn't lost his edge or... (6 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
12/05/2005	Favela Rising Website And Trailer A little something here I just came across over at the always informative Greencine Daily ... Favela Rising is a Brazilian docu-drama set in one of Rio's poorest and most violent slums. Following a brutal anti-drug crackdown a former dealer... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/17/2005	Take your Big Box retail and shove it up your... Ah the American Dream. How it ebbs and flows and no one can really put a finger on what it really is until they realize they aren't part of it anymore. And it seems that is what is happening in... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/11/2005	Review of the Manu Chao and Radio Bemba rockumentary "Babylon's Fever" Jean-Luc Godard has been quoted as saying: "Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and [Michael] Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary." Such a comment, originating from one of the cinema’s arch-leftists, is addressed... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/10/2005	Guided by Voices : The Electrifying Conclusion. R1 USA DVD November 15th 2005. Strange film? maybe... not seen it yet. 4 hours though, as you could always expect good value for money from a GBV gig or record. Only saw them a couple of times myself, a fan for a decade or more,... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
11/07/2005	Love Him Or Hate Him, You Can't Get Away From Him. Lars Von Trier is a busy man ... his horror flick Antichrist has apparently been abandoned - and the Kingdom fan in me is very sad at that news - but he's got three others in the pipeline. The largest... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/26/2005	Savage Eden: New From the Creators of Koyaanisqatsi If the category system allowed for it here I'd be filing this one under 'head trip' ... the creators of Koyaanisqatsi are hard at work on their next film, Savage Eden, and the website has turned up online, though if... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/25/2005	*AFI Report: Fck Review** Peter Martin is back with more from AFI, this time looking at Steve Anderson's documentary about everyone's favorite curse word ... somehow I think this one won't be landing distribution any time soon, but I really want to see it... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/24/2005	Update: Trailers for five movies by Nobutaka Yamaoka (a.k.a. 'Nobu' Yamaoka) - FIX; SORANO; PIG'S INFERNO; ZEKI, FLORIAN AND KELLY!; and PICKLED PUNK - plus one for Tadanobu Asano's TORI From November 12th to December 9th, the Atman Cinema Fair @ Uplink (both the Uplink X and Uplink Factory) is screening five movies that were directed by Nobutaka Yamaoka (a.k.a. 'Nobu' Yamaoka): Pickled Punk [1993], Zeki, Florian and Kelly! [1996],... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/20/2005	Hey Look! Someone Made a Movie About George Michael! And the trailer's edited really, really badly! Sorry. It won't happen again. But I can't not post it, now can I? Trailer (downloadable Quicktime)... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/19/2005	Facets and Tidepoint Team Up For Asian Edge I know what you're thinking. You're thinking the specialty DVD market is getting a bit tight, what with all the new labels popping up lately. But you're wrong. There's room for at least one more. Chicago's Facets and California's Tidepoint... (6 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/16/2005	Punishment Park - R2 DVD Review “What seems quite clear now is that instead of trying to bring the estranged and exploited Americans (such as these people) back into the national community, the administration has chosen to accept and exploit the present division within the country... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/12/2005	'How To Start Your Own Country' with Danny Wallace on R2 UK DVD Soon. Just noticed the six part show makes its R2 UK DVD appearance on 24th October 2005. There's a whole host of details and links about it from my original post back in early August 2005 from when the show began... (2 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
10/06/2005	Space Race. Best thing I've seen on TV this year, pretty much. Like anything that's exceptionally well done from top to bottom, the subject matter could have been something you weren't entirely keen on to start with. For the most part it's... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/22/2005	Punishment Park R2 DVD - October 5th One of the most overlooked filmmakers on the planet, Peter Watkins stirred up some major controversy in the early 70s with what is possibly (next to The War Game) his most famous film: Punishment Park. "Punishment Park's pseudo-documentary style places... (8 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/16/2005	TIFF Report: China Blue Review Ha! This article title amuses me greatly. Back in the UK when I was a student there used to be this program on Channel 5 (a legendarily lowest common denominator type of channel) called ‘European Blue Review’, one of those... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/15/2005	TIFF Report: Metal: A Headbanger's Journey Review Let me see your devil horns! Hell ya! There were a couple things that I learned from last night's viewing of the music documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. One: as far as tattoos go I have fallen a bit behind... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/15/2005	TIFF Report: Souvenir of Canada Review Here is an idea that should be a CBC executive’s wet dream: A documentary based on Douglas Coupland’s quirky coffee table picture-book Souvenir of Canada. Let’s all get together and celebrate the iconic mundaneness of Canada! Go Canadian Shield!... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/15/2005	Z Channel : A Magnificent Obsession. R1 USA DVD October 11th 2005. Walking straight into something I know nothing at all about here, a Documentary by Xan Cassavetes about Los Angeles' very own 'Z Channel' which ran from 1974 - 1988 and broadcast odd, obscure, little-seen movies to around 90 thousand local... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/15/2005	TIFF Report: Diameter of the Bomb Review This Canadian documentary, which was made jointly between the National Film Board and the BBC, retells the events of a suicide bombing of the #32A bus in Jerusalem in 2002 which claimed the lives of over 20 people and injured... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/12/2005	TIFF Report: The Devil and Daniel Johnston Review A few days ago I happened to catch Viggo Mortensen speaking, he wasn’t talking to me or anything, I was just there. And he said (I’m paraphrasing) “Life is pain. Being born is painful, adolescence is weird and painful,... (4 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/10/2005	TIFF Report: Workingman's Death Review Workingman’s Death is a terrible documentary. It is also, without a doubt, one of the most shocking and beautiful films that I have seen all year. I understand that this sounds like cognitive dissonance, but I cannot recommend this film... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/10/2005	TIFF Report: The Giant Buddhas Review 'Yet Freedom! yet thy banner torn but flying, Streams like the thunder storm against the wind; Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying; The loudest still the tempest leaves behind.' - Lord Byron, “Childe Harold's Pilgrimage”... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
09/09/2005	'Greg & Gentillon': Hilarious Duo Snags Official Selection at Calgary and Montreal Film Festivals.. Trailer Even! 'Greg & Gentillon' presented by PeepingTom Films Hey there kids. It's story time. It was 3 years ago that I attended a fundraiser for a stage production a friend was running. Part of the fundraiser was a two-man routine performed... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
08/11/2005	Toronto International Film Festival Announces Doc Lineup The Toronto International Film Festival has announced the bulk of this year's documentary lineup and - big surprise - it looks quite strong. A Sydney Pollack shot doc on architect Frank Gehry; films about Leonard Cohen, Orson Welles and Jean... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/21/2005	Crying Tigers - Major Studio Doc from Thailand If you do not regularly visit Varietys Asian Film Blog, Kaiju Shakedown (run by the talented and plugged-in Grady Hendrix) you should. He has a some great information on an upcoming theatrically released Thai documentary CRYING TIGERS from Ba Ram... (1 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/21/2005	BFI. 'Watch This!' Top 50 Film that Children Should Watch. I saw this mentioned on the news this morning, the BFI (British Film Institute) top 50 films that children should watch. Not entirely the 'Top 50 films that children like watching' but a list compiled by adults (i think, but... (6 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/14/2005	EGOSHOOTER - Jonathan Caouette meets Darren Aronofsky? After the international success of Jonathan Caouette's TARNATION, more of these personal video diaries were bound to surface. Here is an interesting one from Germany, produced by Wim Wenders, which has some style buried beneath it's zero-budget aesthetic, particularly the... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
07/03/2005	Antarctic Journal. Starring Song-Kang Ho. R3 Korean DVD July 26th 2005. Oooh. Cool. Another one of those new Korean movies that caught my eye this year. Really nice trailer is out there, so search the archives after noting down this lovely announcement of a DVD for the film in Korea, with... (5 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
06/16/2005	DiabolikDVD.com Now More User Friendly. Todd rates the company highly, and I say they easily have the best eye and knowledge for obscure film releases on DVD from across the world. There's a very impressive range of stuff over there, and I always drop by... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/16/2005	Morgan Freeman and the March of the Penguins Trailer. Okay, this'll be quick cause I'm busy chuckling. First, Morgan Freeman narrating anything can make it sound so terribly cool. That, and I sure hope it's not bad to laugh at penguins, because penguins are definately funny. Warner Independent's got... (3 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us
05/09/2005	Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room Review Let's start with a summary: Film Opens: Greedy. Selfish. Bastards. End Credits. Viewing this movie reminded me of the boiling frog analogy. (y'know, if you gradually turn up the heat, the frog won't notice.) In the same way, it's like... (0 Comments) / Digg This / Add To del.icio.us

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