Doc Corner: 'The Fight'

By Glenn Dunks

The Fight is not a film about the ACLU. It’s probably wise to know that before going in. Because lord knows the American Civil Liberties Union have had their fair share of odious choices under the guise of free speech, namely defending anti-unionists, Nazis, the Klu Klux Klan, and—as seen briefly here, the only such moment of critical assessment—the Charlottesville white nationalists and their antisemitic tiki torch parade that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer in 2017.

What The Fight is, however, is a cleverly constructed documentary about four lawyers by three filmmakers who by happy accident or quickly assembled timing placed themselves on the frontlines (so to speak) of the American President’s war against the rights of immigrants, voters, women and transgender individuals. It’s a film that begins on the courthouse steps and in the airport waiting lounges as fast-typing associates battle against the ‘Muslim ban’ and which hasn’t let up in the three and a half years since...

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Podcast Pre-Oscar Show. What Are We Rooting For?

Katey (with her little Charlie in tow) rejoins Nathaniel and Nick to discuss our hopes for Oscar night and various mini conversations on Moana, Moonlight, Arrival, La La Land, Suicide Squad, and many more...

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Animated, Screenplays
08:30 Cinematography, Costumes
16:11 Production Design, Editing
21:00 VFX, Makeup, Score, Song, Sound
30:00 Actor, Supporting Acting
38:00 Documentaries, Actress
41:08 Musical sign-off silliness!

With of course much name dropping and detours including Hacksaw Ridge, JK Rowling, Annette Bening, Viola Davis, Weiner, Janelle Monae, and Michael Shannon. 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Pre-Oscar Show Pt 2: What we're rooting for

Weiner, 13th, and OJ: Made In America Among DOC NYC Short List

One week after La La Land won the Toronto People’s Choice Award – a key indicator of a film’s likelihood of securing an Oscar nomination for Best Picture – another major awards season clue has come to us in the form of the DOC NYC's Short List. DOC NYC is the largest documentary film festival in the country and it has hosted specially curated non-fiction in the city since 2010, but don’t let its infancy fool you. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. And by anywhere, I specifically mean the Academy’s own shortlist for Best Documentary Feature; in the last five years, the ultimate winner of the prize and a bulk of runners-up have played the fest.

This year, the crop of fifteen films headed to DOC NYC include Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s marvelous collision of media and politics Weiner, Roger Ross Williams’ tear-jerker Life, Animated, and Ezra Edelman’s eight-hour saga OJ: Made in America. Legendary documentarians Barbara Kopple and Werner Herzog find themselves in the mix – as does the increasingly ambidextrous Ava DuVernay for her NYFF opener 13th – while well-received titles such as Under the Gun, The Eagle Huntress, and Strike a Pose (reviewed) are left on the sidelines.

The complete DOC NYC Short List is as follows
(Links go to our reviews of these films)

• Amanda Knox (Netflix) Dirs: Rod Blackhurst, Brian McGinn
• Cameraperson (Janus Films) Dir: Kirsten Johnson 
• Fire at Sea (Kino Lorber) Dir: Gianfranco Rosi 
• Gleason (Open Road & Amazon Studios) Dir: Clay Tweel
• I Am Not Your Negro (Magnolia Pictures) Dir: Raoul Peck
• Into The Inferno (Netflix) Dir: Werner Herzog
• Jim: The James Foley Story (HBO Documentary Films) Dir: Brian Oakes
• Life, Animated (The Orchard & A&E IndieFilms) Dir: Roger Ross Williams
• Mapplethorpe: Look At The Pictures (HBO Documentary Films) Dir: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
• Miss Sharon Jones! (Starz) Dir: Barbara Kopple 
• OJ: Made in America (ESPN) Dir: Ezra Edelman
• 13th (Netflix) Dir: Ava DuVernay
• The Ivory Game (Netflix) Dir: Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani
• Trapped (PBS-Independent Lens) Dir: Dawn Porter 
• Weiner (IFC Films & Showtime) Dir: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

Is there an Oscar winner in our midst? Personally, this is a reminder to get myself out to the theater to see Cameraperson ASAP. Which of these are your favorites and which are you most excited to check out?

Review: Weiner

To paraphrase Jean-Luc Godard: if you want your movie to hook an audience, all your story needs is a girl and a smoking gun. In Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s queasily absorbing political documentary Weiner, the two smash against one another on the dick pic-riddled smartphone of disgraced former congressman, Anthony Weiner of New York.

Capturing Weiner’s catastrophic 2013 New York City mayoral campaign from within the scrum and beyond the sack, the film scrutinizes the self-obsession of its candidate against his noble political ideals, and the media’s lethal manipulation of the former and abject disinterest in the latter. It is also a thrilling and meticulous account of a campaign staff in free-fall, with the candidate mistaking the whir of escaping air for flight. If D.A. Pennebaker’s The War Room shows us how the machinations of campaign politics successfully operate around pitfalls and personal indiscretions along the trail, Weiner demonstrates how the media can lethally wedge a dildo right between the gears.

More after the jump...

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