DOC COLUMN | Music Documentaries Take Center Stage

When the movie started to roll, the image was only a quarter the size of the screen. I'm wondering if I'm in the right place -- the IMAX Theater at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin -- just as black and white images of Martin Scorsese begin to flash across the screen. He directed the movie I'm about to watch so I'm convinced I'm in the right spot, but won't it cover whole screen? Why show it at IMAX? I'm not sure of the exact moment, but suddenly the movie is filling the screen and like a roller coaster ride, we are at the top just waiting for the big drop that is The Rolling Stones as they take the stage of the Beacon Theater in New York City for a legendary performance.
[ read more in Movies ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Lead Story, Monthly Doc Column ]

"Hoop Dreams" Tops IDA's 25 Best Docs List; Morris' "Blue Line" #2

Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the International Documentary Association (IDA) has announced a list of the 25 best documentaries, as selected by its membership (and presented by Netflix). The IDA's 3,000 members, including filmmakers, executives and educators, named Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Frederick Marx's "Hoop Dreams" as the best documentary, selecting the movie from a list of some 700 films. In the #2 spot is Errol Morris' "The Thin Blue Line." According to the IDA, its members ranked and submitted choices, with the option of also including write-in suggestions. The full list, included below, will be published in the Nov./Dec. issue of Documentary, the IDA magazine, which will be published next week and will include essays on the selected films.
[ read more in Movies ]   [ 25 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Lead Story, Monthly Doc Column ]

DOC COLUMN | Showing Movies, Making Change: P.O.V. at 20 Years

As film lovers, we tend to remember our significant film moments. One such moment for me was Elizabeth Barret's "Stranger with a Camera." In it, Barret revisits the 1967 murder of filmmaker Hugh O'Connor by a Kentucky local who was fed up with what he considered exploitation of people and poverty in his hometown. Barret, who grew up in Appalachia herself, uses her personal and regional history to explore the relationship between filmmaker and subject, with profound results. The story is at once personal to the filmmaker, and to me having grown up in West Virginia, while it also explores our nation's collective ambivalence and fascination with poverty and relationship to media. My experience with the film steered me toward a career in media because, like the staff of P.O.V. which aired the film in 2000, I whole-heartedly believe that media has power to change the way that we think and influence our actions.
[ read more in Movies ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Lead Story, Monthly Doc Column ]