There are nine documentaries competing for the award for Best Documentary at the RiverRun International Film Festival.

There was not a screener available for me to preview The Queen of Versailles. a riches to rags story about a couple building the biggest house in America, but I have seen the other eight.  Overall, it’s a very strong program of films; here are my picks in order:

Ethel.  One of my favorites is Ethel, a film about Ethel Kennedy directed by Rory Kennedy, the daughter Ethel was carrying when her husband Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.  The documentary makes great use of archival materials – it’s a good thing rich people used to shoot home movies on 16mm film – and it is polished and interesting.  I do wish a little more attention was paid to Ethel’s life after her husband’s death, but the film still presents a vivid portrait of her as a strong individual.

Chasing Ice.  I particularly like one of the two environmental films in the mix.  Chasing Ice documents one man’s incredible photographic quest to document the shrinking of glaciers in different countries.  Amazing visuals and a strong story to go along with them.

Love Free or Die.  This film covers the skirmishes in the Episcopalian church over ordaining gay bishops and sanctifying gay marriages in states where they are legal.  I didn’t learn much from the film because I have heard coverage on NPR and in major newspapers, but for people who are not familiar with the work of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, it’s a good primer on the issue.

The Boy Who Was a King.  I thought The Boy Who Was a King was the most beautifully photographed of the films along with Chasing Ice.  The Boy Who Was a King is about the last king of Bulgaria, who is displaced at age 9 then returned as Prime Minister after decades in exile.  Let’s just say he has a bumpy ride as an elected official.

Indie Game:  The Movie.  I didn’t know about independently produced video games for XBOX live, games like Super Meat Boy and Braid and Fez, until I saw Indie Game:  The Movie.  The first half hour drags a little, but the final hour sails along at an engaging clip.  That’s the problem with a number of docs, really, the story is often established in less than 90 minutes, but filmmakers feel compelled to extend the film to what they consider feature length.

Jiro Dreams of Suchi.  This film is about an 85-year old man who runs a ten-seat restaurant inside a bland-looking office building in Tokyo that has the best sushi in the world and three Michelin stars to prove it.  Lunch there costs something like $360 and must be booked weeks in advance.  At little uneven at times but fun to watch.

The Island President. This is the second environmental film in the group and covers efforts of the president of the Maldives to fight rising tides of global warming that threaten his island nation.  Unfortunately, the film focuses a little too much on international meetings to develop a stronger storyline that connects viewers to daily lives of the island citizens and challenges they already face.

Detropia.  This is the latest film by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, and it looks at the challenges facing Detroit after the collapse of the automobile industry.  I loved their film Jesus Camp and think this latest work suffers a bit from not having indelible characters and the striking context that marked the earlier film.  It feels a bit underdeveloped.

 

Why are there so many great shows on Sunday nights?  I can’t DVR more than two at a time.  Fortunately, some of them are available on demand, but still…I resent this.

Spread the programming wealth (and there is some) across the week.

How nice to meet someone whose work you admire and find that he is grounded, gracious, and immensely entertaining.

Morgan Spurlock spoke for about an hour and a half at the Reynolda Film Festival (engaging the audience the entire time) then answered lots of questions.  Afterward, he interacted with the festival organizers and invited guests at a private reception.

What a great guy.

Big switch now (get ready!) to The Hunger Games.  The film is a faithful adaptation of the book that downplays the violence a bit to get the PG-13 rating, but it’s pretty solid as a film.

Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss is softer than the heroine in the book, but that’s probably to be expected in this type of film.  Would I have preferred the harder edge?  Yes.  Does the adaptation diminish the book?  No.  The film moves along at a brisk clip, and the central ideas of the novel are intact on screen.

All in all, I liked it.  After all, books and movies are different things and should be considered that way.

I went to the movie with my niece, a discerning viewer who had not read the book.  She “got it” in terms of the major story elements (I’ve heard some devotees of the book complain that certain ideas and characters are minimized in the film) and seemed to enjoy the movie a lot.

In fact, now she plans to download the book!

I’m really looking forward to Morgan Spurlock’s keynote address tonight at the Reynolda Film Festival (for information, check out http://www.reynoldafilmfestival.com/schedule-2/portfolio-category-1/).

His latest doc was one of my favorite films of last year (see text of previous post below), and I remember the life-changing effect his film Supersize Me had on my son:  he stopped drinking soft drinks and eating fast food for years.  He’s still off the soft drinks, but I think he does occasionally to go McDonald’s now for coffee.

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I loved Morgan Spurlock’s new film, Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.  Spurlock, who burst on the scene in 2004 with Supersize Me, has created a polished, mature, and very important film that looks at the role product placement plays in the entertainment business. 

This is a funny but very smart film that deserves to be widely seen.  You won’t regret searching it out!

 

This morning I appeared on the WGHP Morning News to talk about The Hunger Games with Cindy Farmer.  She’s pretty enthusiastic about the series of books and plans to see the film tonight at midnight.

Though I won’t to see the movie until Sunday, I’m kind of excited, too, thanks to my students.

At the beginning of the semester, I asked students enrolled in Film Theory and Criticism if there was anything in particular they wanted to learn more about; I didn’t make any promises but felt there was a little room in the syllabus to respond to their interests.

Several suggested talking about book-to-screen adaptations and, specifically, The Hunger Games.  Despite the fact that the film was shot in North Carolina (more on that later), I had never warmed to the storyline.  Two kids from twelve national districts selected at random to fight to the death?  On television?  Not appealing.

But, I agreed because some of them seemed so enthusiastic about the series.

Good thing I did because the book is actually quite the page-turner, and now I’m excited about seeing the movie, too.   An additional inducement for me is that Jennifer Lawrence is the lead.  She was terrific in my favorite film year before last, Winter’s Bone.

As for the North Carolina angle, this is an economic development success story.  I serve on the Piedmont Triad Film Commission, which is an entity geared to bringing film production to the Triad area, helping productions with logistical matters while on location, and helping connect the local crew base to the jobs.

Though not shot in the Triad, The Hunger Games was shot exclusively on location in North Carolina (mostly in the western part of the state around Asheville but also in Concord, Shelby, and Charlotte) and pumped over 60 million dollars into the state economy.  There were over 600 positions for our well-trained, local crew base and 5,000 jobs that were connected to the production in some less direct way (this might include food service and hotel jobs, for example).

North Carolina offers a 25% tax credit incentive program for productions over a certain budget, and that has helped bring new business into the state.  Last year was the biggest year to date for film production in North Carolina with 40 feature film projects bringing in 220 million dollars in revenue.  That doesn’t include all of the commercials, educational projects, and promotional films shot here.

There are hopes that the film (which is projected to be wildly successful) will not just spur more film production but will also give tourism a boost.  This is a potential win-win-win:  good movie, good employment for North Carolina crew, and tourism growth in western North Carolina.

More reasons to go see The Hunger Games.

Uh…Tim Tebow is not going to know what hit him in NY.  But, I still say, Tebowing is best done in private.

No, this is not a sports post.  Not really.

I’m happy, though, that Peyton Manning is going to the Broncos and hope that sooner rather than later the hoopla about Tim Tebow will die out.

The problem for me is not that he can’t throw.  The problem for me is that the fanatics who follow him lower the national discourse on faith.  I’m just sayin’.

After hearing Chris Matthews rave about the HBO movie Game Change all last week on Hardball after viewing a preview copy then hearing other pundits and journalists pick up the cheering after a premiere screening at the Newseum late in the week, I was wondering if I would be headed for a letdown after actually watching the docudrama.

Let me add a bit of context before talking about Game Change.  I have traditionally drawn a firm line between fiction and non-fiction, and this film would have landed on the fiction side of the equation.

About ten years ago, two things happened that changed my perspective a bit on hard and fast rules in this area.

While attending a small, international conference of film scholars in Wales (with such luminaries as Laura Mulvey, Brian Winston, and Peter Wollen), I became more aware of how the rich tradition of British documentary has shaped cultural understanding of the genre.  In the UK, docudramas are considered a subset of documentary while in the US that has not been a conventional understanding of category.

Also, in 2003, I saw the film American Splendor, a brilliant movie that blurs lines with amazing success to present a portrait of cartoonist Harvey Pekar that includes animation, interviews, archival footage from The Late Show With David Letterman, and narrative sequences performed by actors but developed from Pekar’s comic book accounts of his lived experience (books authored by Pekar but drawn by various artists).  How to categorize this film?  I haven’t any idea, but it is a terrific movie.  I also believe it is “true.”

Game Change takes one piece of the nonfiction book by journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin called Game Change:  Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime and crafts it into a film about Sarah Palin’s role as vice presidential candidate alongside John McCain.

It is “true”?  That may depend on the viewer’s perspective because parts of the film are certain to be contested, but filmmakers worked closed with the political journalists who wrote the book and conducted additional interviews to try to achieve as much authenticity as possible.

Of course, the lines are blurred further also because so much actual interview footage and elements such as real political ads and Saturday Night Live spoofs are included and integrated into sequences with actors playing key roles.  And, the actors do a tremendous job.  Chris Matthews said repeatedly that he felt like he was watching Sarah Palin in the film, and I couldn’t agree more.  Julianne Moore is terrific as are her co-stars including Woody Harrelson and Ed Harris.

Still, before actually watching, I was lukewarm about the prospect of sitting down and watching the movie.  Haven’t we all seen that before?  Especially those of us who are political junkies?  Watching the film is another matter.  I was riveted to the screen.

If you don’t have HBO, find a friend who does and commandeer the small screen.  Chris Matthews said he watched it twice in a row (I didn’t do that) and that he’s sure he’ll watch it at least 20 more times in his lifetime (I won’t do that), but I will watch it again with friends (like Denise Franklin) who are clamoring to see Game Change.

 

 

The coverage of this video all week has been as interesting as the video Kony 2102.

Some positive stories  (the number of views), some negative (the ratio of raised funds that actually goes into efforts on the ground as opposed to administrative), and some mixed (activists in Africa who say that outsiders making films without understanding the context do no realize that if captured Kony would just be replaced another without systemic change).

It was interesting earlier in the week, too, to hear the rumors that popped up about Kony being a hoax, etc.

Undeniably, though, it was talked about a lot the first three or four days of the week in all types of media in addition to blowing up on the web (network newscasts, NPR, etc.).  Overall, I think this is significant to follow because of the way the spread of the story speaks to the power of social media.

 

I spend a lot of time musing about what makes some movies work while others fall short.  And, it seems to me that most great love stories don’t really fit particular genres.

Most of the films I return to because they are romantic or erotic have to work on several different levels.  To frame this discussion, I have selected several films made during my adulthood that I have admired so much that I’ve watched them again recently.

Let me start with a couple of literary adaptations.  Michael Mann’s Last of the Mohicans is exquisite.  There isn’t a lot of dialogue, but what is there is choice, and the score is one of the most passionate I can recall.  It’s as if all of the longing that builds up inside the two main characters as they are separated then reunited is expressed in the music.  More than in almost any other film for me, music is etched into my appreciation of this movie.  The film is set during the French and Indian War of the 1750s, but the story is timeless.

I’m also fond of The Painted Veil.  Naomi Watts and Edward Norton play a newly married couple who are ill-suited but who come to an appreciation of one another when each finally sees the other in roles outside of spouse in a remote Chinese village during a health crisis in the 1920s.  The moment when the wife really “sees” then husband and he returns the gaze arrives after so much build-up that the release is indescribable.  The film is lush and beautifully photographed, but the one scene in which this man and woman truly become husband and wife is what draws me to The Painted Veil.

Two Jane Campion films make my list of movies that are hard for me to escape – The Piano and Bright Star – both historical dramas, like Last of the Mohicans and The Painted Veil, and Holly Hunter earned an Oscar for Best Actress in The Piano.  One reason these two Campion films work so well for me is perspective.  Writer-Director Jane Campion subverts the male gaze that dominates most films.  There is also a tactile element to her films that seems to pull me into the screen when I’m watching.  It seems that looking and touching are central themes for me when thinking about love and the movies.  How could it be otherwise?

Looking is certainly essential to The Secret in Their Eyes, one of my favorite films in recent years.  Looking and longing, yes, those are key ingredients for the most romantic and most erotic of films.  I don’t want to talk about the plot because that do a disservice to your first viewing of this Argentinean film, but the heartbreak and separation conveyed in the train station scene wash over me anew as I write this.  (Why do I suddenly think now of Casablanca?  You know why.)

There are many other evocative films I could talk about, Henry and June, for one, but all of my favorite films about love aren’t heavy.  I appreciate a range of emotional tones.

To prove it, I’m a sucker for teen movies from the late 80s, particularly Cameron Crowe’s film Say Anything starring John Cusack and Ione Skye.  After high school graduation, an undistinguished student but stand-up guy starts dating the smartest girl in school.  In its own way, this film is a little subversive, too, because Cusack’s character Lloyd Dobler wants to do whatever he can to take care of and support the beautiful and brainy Diane Cort as she leaves for England to attend graduate school.  I think I still have a crush on Lloyd Dobler after all of these years. He’s such a great guy – I want an age-appropriate Lloyd Dobler for myself.