Doc Corner: 'Bad Reputation' and 'Matangi / Maya / M.I.A.'

By Glenn Dunks

Biographical documentaries about dead musicians often fall into two camps: the reverential and the tragic. Films that focus too much on the latter like Amy or Whitney  pale in comparison to something like Liz Garbus’ What Happened Miss Simone?, a film that knew that to understand your subject's tragedy you first have to understand the many facets of the artist in question.

This week, however, we get two biographical documentaries about important and influential musicians who are still (thankfully) very much with us, but which nonetheless tell their subjects’ stories in wildly different ways. Bad Reputation is clearly the more traditional of the pair, a fairly standard bio-doc that charts the life and career of Joan Jett, while Matangi / Maya / M.I.A. is more a work of artistic Jenga that roams and rummages through its subject’s life with the anarchistic spirit of her music.

What strikes me as interesting about both films is how Joan Jett and Mathangi [sic] “Maya” Arulpragasam (aka M.I.A.) directly instruct the narrative of ‘their’ films...

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"The Big Short" takes PGA

Adam McKay's The Big Short got a big boost in the Oscar race last night by winning big at the PGA. This is an important win for the film considering that this Best Picture race is more slippery than we've seen in the past few years. You have to go back almost a decade to Little Miss Sunshine to find a PGA winner that didn't align with Oscar (though Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave shared a tie with Gravity).

This win also poses another setback for Spotlight, which is really going to need to win that SAG Ensemble prize this coming Saturday to stay in the game. The Revenant, while it may still be rocking the box office, also missed an opportunity here to claim its post as frontrunner after its hefty nomination tally and Globes success. Any chances Mad Maxy: Fury Road had are probably now cooked, but George Miller is still viable as a Best Director winner, especially if he takes the DGA prize.

Inside Out and Amy gained more distance from their respective competition. Both won PGA's Animated and Documentary prizes and are unlikely to be deafeated on Oscar night. The big television winners were Transparent, Game of Thrones, and Fargo.

A24 Joins the Oscar Crowd

Chris here to celebrate our favorite indie distributor. A24 has been steadily been building their reputation since launching about 3 years ago, and yesterday they finally landed their first Oscar nominations. They've previously housed longshot candidates like Spring Breakers and A Most Violent Year, but this year saw three of their films break through: Room, Ex Machina, and Amy.

A24 started 2015 proving that they could compete with the larger indie outfits by delivering at the box office. Ex Machina was a surprise hit and became their highest grosser, with Amy and Noah Baumbach's While We're Young also breaking out. Room could pass all of them with the help of its four major nominations and The Witch looks primed to be late-winter mini-hit, as well.

The nominations feel richly earned, given that they've fostered worthy candidates like Under the Skin, The Spectacular Now, and A Most Violent Year that eluded the awards race. Their "Consider This Sh*t" campaign for James Franco's bonkers performance in Spring Breakers may not have paid off, but they are now firmly in the Oscar fray.

They've been playing their seven nominations very modestly, true to their understated form showcased in the David Ehrlich profile on them (essential reading if you haven't read already). Hopefully they're enjoying the Oscar news with a well-deserved Ex Machina dance party. Cheers!

Watching the Documentary Finalists: Part 1 - Other People's Lives

Glenn here looking at each of the 15 films on the Academy’s documentary finalists which, five of which will be shortlisted for nominations on January 14th

The documentary finalist list announced last month does us a small bit of good.  While it was sad to see such excellent feats of non-fiction filmmaking as The Pearl Button, In Jackson Heights, Sherpa and Stray Dog (to name just a few) removed from contention, reducing the astronomically long submission list of 124 down to a more manageable 15 titles does help us out dramatically in being able to not only get a grasp on the category for 2015, but also to give us a sample of what the Academy’s doc branch thought of the documentaries of any given year beyond the five eventual nominees. This year’s finalist list has its regular faces, but wasn't entirely devoid of surprises and many of the year’s best films found a spot despite some egregious choices thrown in. Each of the three posts in this series are divided into vague groups – (Pt 1) movies dedicated to other peoples’ lives, (Pt 2) movies about the world on the political edge, and (Pt 3) movies about confrontations.

Activists, actors and musicians after the jump...

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BluRay/DVD: Get high with Kristen & Jesse

Since we haven't done one of these in awhile here is what is new or newish on DVD and BluRay as you try to catch up for your personal year-in-review mania.

• American Ultra - Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg headline this pot-smoking action comedy. Which begs the question...

• Amy - Glenn recently wondered aloud about the ethics of posthumous privacy invasions but that hasn't stopped audience and critics from rallying around this one.
• Cooties -It only took this horror comedy two years since its Sundance premiere to show up for home entertainment.
• Goodnight Mommy -Jose interviewed the directors of this Austrian horror film, one of the most unusual Oscar submissions for 2015. It's done well at the arthouse, breaking the increasingly difficult 1 million mark
• Grace of Monaco - what a long and tortured ride this biopic starring Nicole Kidman has had, huh? We've been covering it for 3 years! A year and a half since its Cannes debut and one cable premiere later and only now is it on DVD?
• The Man From U.N.C.L.E. -This franchise hopeful adaptation of the spy TV series was a pleasant summer surprise featuring Guy Ritchie's best work in ages, heaps of style, and a disgustingly beautiful cast.
• Meru - An Oscar seeking documentary abou t
• Mississippi Grind - Ryan Reynolds & Ben Mendlesohn are pool sharks

• Mistress America - The latest divisive comedy from Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig. I didn't like it much but Jason loved it. As stated, divisive.
• Outlander S1 - Somehow I fell off this series after that super hot super costumed Wedding episode. Should I tune back in?
• Ricki & The Flash -in which Meryl Streep does some of her best and most relaxed work in ages as an aging unsuccessful rocker ... naturally there was little audience reaction and no Oscar buzz as a result! They like to see her sweat for it. Anyway... I liked it. How about you?
• Shaun the Sheep - It shall remain a mystery why this hilarious & sweet Aardman animation effort didn't get US families into theaters to see it (it earned three times as much abroad) considering the absolute garbage parents will take their kids to. The new question is will it be Oscar nominated given the strangely low number of qualifying films in that category this year?
• Stanford Prison Experiment -This ensemble indie (filled with a ton of promising young male actors) about the infamous titular study didn't really catch on but years from now people might look back on it as a "look how many stars are in this!" petri dish.