Doc Corner: Tales of the City at DOC NYC

by Glenn Dunks

The massive DOC NYC festival begins this week in – would you believe it – New York City. The festival runs from November 9 - 16 and showcasing over 250 films and events. We’re going to look at some of the films screening there that will hopefully make their way to theatres and VOD over the next year. This edition of our weekly Doc Corner is devoted to three films about cities and the way people interact within and around them.

12th and Clairmont
It is inevitable that Brian Kaufman’s 12^th and Clairmount will be compared with Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit considering both focus on the 1967 riots of the city. But whereas Bigelow’s production zeroed in on just one incident of the five-day series of violent and destructive action on the streets of the city, Kaufman’s film examines a much larger canvas, covering the time before, during and after the city's people responded to the significently white police force's swarm of brutality.

It’s a tactic that proves essential to beginning to understand the events that one person in this often compelling documentary describes as “the days of madness in July”...

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Sneak Peek Review: Pixar's “Coco”

Jorge Molina reporting from Mexico where Coco has already opened...

The main thing that unifies all Pixar movies (and a big part of what makes them so successful) is how deeply they are rooted in specificity. A movie set in the world of toys, in the world of bugs, in the world of monsters, of superheroes, of cars.

But in all their movies until now, this very specificity has been universal. We’ve all had to let go of toys, and feared monsters, and wanted to become superheroes. With Coco, Pixar dives into their first film that is truly specific, based around a world, a culture and a folklore that only exists for one particular group of people.

A group of people that I happen to be part of...

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Review: "Thor: Ragnarok"

by Chris Feil

The hilariously self-absorbed God of Thunder returns for Thor: Ragnarok, a top tier addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to the smart and snappy voice of director Taika Waititi. Even though the film is comedy first and action second in its priorities, it is like getting stuck in the best game in the arcade for two hours.  

This time around, Thor faces the unshackling of his apocalypse-hungry sister Hela, played by a horned and horny Cate Blanchett. Hela aims to make good on her prophecy to destroy Asgard in retribution for her banishment, and presents Thor’s greatest physical threat to date. Once Thor is cast off himself to the technicolor planet Sakaar, he finds a cast of characters that might help him save his home, including lost Avenger Bruce Banner.

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TIFF & NYFF & Middleburg Wrap-Ups

Another autumn whizzes by and with it a look back on the festivals we've covered. Here's everything we reviewed from TIFF and NYFF and Middleburg this year in case you missed it. Reviews from Jason Adams, Manuel Betancourt, Nick Davis, Sean Donovan, Murtada Elfaldl, John Guerin, Chris Feil, and Nathaniel R

TIFF 2017

the films 
The Breadwinner •  Darkest Hour • 
Death of Stalin • Disaster • Downsizing • 
Euphoria • Film Stars Dont Die in Liverpool • 
First They Killed My Father • 
The Florida Project • Happy End • I, Tonya • 
The Killing of a Sacred Deer • Kings • 

Lady Bird • Lodgers • Mademoiselle Paradis • 
Mary Shelley • mother! • 
Never Steady Never Still • On Body and Soul • 
The Racer and the Jailbird • Revenge • 

The Seen and Unseen • The Shape of Water • 
Sheikh Jackson • Thelma • 
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri • 
Tigre • Western • The Wife • Zama

parties, events, randomness
greatest party photo ever • "I'm Armie" • 
Helena Bonham-Carter • mother! moods • 
portraits from the fest • PODCAST FINALE

NYFF 2017

the films 
Arthur Miller: Writer • BPM (Beats Per Minute) • Before We Vanish • 
Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat • 
Faces Places • Félicité • First Reformed • The Florida Project • 

Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold • Lady Bird • Let the Sunshine In • 
The Meyerowitz Stories • Mrs Hyde • Mudbound • The Rider • Spielberg •
Thelma

 parties, events, randomness 
red carpet prayer • PODCAST FINALE

MIDDLEBURG 2017

the films
Darkest Hour • A Fantastic Woman • Last Flag Flying • Mudbound •
Novitiate • Wonderstruck

parties, events, randomness
James Ivory talk • Nicholas Britell in concert

"Wonderstruck" and "Mudbound"

Lynn Lee continuing our Middleburg Film Festival adventure

Dee Rees and Mudbound cast earlier this year. © Daniel Bergeron

It’s always a little weird to attend a talk with a director before seeing the film they’re being interviewed about.  That’s what happened with Mudbound, which concluded a day that began with a very engaging conversation between director Dee Rees and Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday and festival founder Sheila Johnson’s presentation of the 2017 “Visionary” award to Rees.  Rees was charming, articulate, and impressively self-possessed, and had many interesting comments on the directorial choices she made in Mudbound, which I wasn’t sure whether I should keep in mind or set aside while watching the film that night.  Rees made clear that she resists being pigeonholed as a director of color, female director, or female director of color, an aversion reflected in her somewhat bland mantra “let excellence be the standard.”  At the same time, she agreed that the current system is structurally biased against prioritizing excellence and needs to be opened up...

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