Celebrate the Planet This Monday With Doc Channel’s Earth Day Marathon
You’ve probably noticed that Documentary Channel is devoting the entire month of April to the Earth. Every night at 8pm we’re airing nonfiction films devoted to the planet. For instance, tonight we’ve got Test Site, which is on just about everything pertaining to the North American desert (love, death, music, ritual, people and more), and Gathering Remnants, which deals with …
Read MoreThe Joy of Les Blank: On Five Wonderful Docs By the Late Filmmaker
When I heard of Les Blank‘s death last Sunday, I felt rather embarrassed. I’d only seen one of his films, the most obligatory for all movie fans, Burden of Dreams. This “making of” doc on the production of Werner Herzog‘s Fitzcarraldo is one of the greatest about filmmaking ever made. Plus it’s easily seen, either by streaming online or on …
Read MoreFilmmaker Focus: We Need More Documentaries From Charles Ferguson or More Filmmakers Like Him
With yesterday being the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, this is an appropriate week for revisiting films about the subsequent war and occupation. There are a lot of great documentaries on the subject, but the one I first thought of as necessary viewing is No End in Sight. The first of two films by Charles Ferguson, it is …
Read MoreYou’ve Seen ‘The Story of Film,’ Now Watch Mark Cousins’ ‘The First Movie’ on Documentary Channel
Obviously I’m making a presumption that you’ve seen The Story of Film, Mark Cousins‘ 15-part documentary on the history of cinema around the world. It’s very popular on Netflix Watch Instantly, and I’d think it enjoyable especially for those of you whose documentary love is only one part of a broader cinephilia. Never mind that Cousins says Nanook of the …
Read MoreLet’s Start the Campaign to Add ‘Paradise Lost’ to the National Film Registry
Every year, the Library of Congress‘s National Film Preservation Board selects 25 films for the National Film Registry. And they encouragingly invite the American public to help them pick out the most deserving titles. These are cinematic works of any sort from any time between the dawn of motion pictures to ten years prior to the year of addition (so …
Read MoreFilmmaker Focus: Oscar Nominee Kirby Dick Deserves Greater Recognition
This week a website called Voice of America posted an article on the Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature, and the writer consistently wrote Kirby Dick‘s name incorrectly as “Dick Kirby.” This is a stupid mistake for any journalist to make with anyone’s name, but it is especially weird for a piece in which Kirby Dick’s is one of the …
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