Tag Archives: documentary

Denton’s Thin Line Film Festival Starts Tonight: 11 Days of Docs!

Patricio Guzman's 'Nostalgia for the Light' (Thin Line Film Fest)

Our very own all-documentary film festival — to be fair, Denton deserves the credit — starts tonight. Here’s the article I wrote for Twitch:

North of Dallas, Texas, lies the college town of Denton, where more than 100,000 people go to sleep at night, wondering if Bonnie and Clyde will ever return. The 1967 film version of their lives was partially shot in Denton, where the outlaws once hid out. Nowadays, film buffs who are fascinated by real life stories gravitate toward documentaries, and Denton’s own Thin Line Film Fest has a dandy, 11-day program that’s filled with nothing but documentaries. It’s set to start rolling out tomorrow.

To quote from the press release, the fest kicks off Friday night “with the Texas premiere of Battle for Brooklyn with Director and Producer Suki Hawley in attendance. …

“On Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 12:30 pm at the Square Donut Theater, the film Kaziah the Goat Woman will screen. The film is about a woman (Kaziah) who for the last few years has painted works of fallen soldiers to give to their families. Three paintings for two DFW families, who will be in attendance, will be presented to them during the screening on behalf of the artist.

“On Saturday, February 18, 2012 at 7:00p, Brilliant Life tells the story of Barry Weatherall, a plumber who was completely blinded when a chemical mixture exploded in his face. After years of darkness and depression, he discovers new delight in life through outdoor adventure. Both the film’s director, Marilyn Bright, and star will be in attendance.”

The picture above is from Patricio Guzman’s Nostalgia for the Light, which screens on February 16. The doc, from Chile, has received some great reviews; it “travels 10,000 feet above sea level to the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where atop the mountains astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars. The sky is so translucent that it allows them to see right to the boundaries of the universe.” Nostalgia for the Light also received a Honorable Mention from our own Ben Umstead as part of his “Best of 2011″ review.

Now in its fifth year, the festival has been steadily growing, expanding its program over more and more days. I’ve had to beg off from attending again this year, due to personal schedule conflicts, but what I like about the fest is that they don’t program the same films that everyone else is programming. There’s a greater focus on films from around the world, instead of just American-centric docs, which also adds to the variety on tap.

The Thin Line Film Fest is a wonderful example of a local festival that seeks to improve and expand every year. It runs through Monday, February 20, with more than 20 filmmakers scheduled to be in attendance, and deserves to be on your radar.

The Thin Line Film Festival starts tonight at various venues; check the official site for much more information.

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‘Inside Job’: Don’t Miss Your Second Chance

Inside Job
Inside Job

Talking heads offering insight into the 2008 financial crisis. (Sony Pictures Classics)

On the heels of its nomination for an Academy Award as Best Documentary, Charles Ferguson’s ‘Inside Job’ returns to select theaters today for a limited return engagement,specifically  at AMC Grapevine, Cinemark Denton, and Cinemark 12 in Rockwell. If you’re in Denton or Rockwell, it’s a no brainer, but even if you have to plan a longer trip to Grapevine, it’s worth the time and effort to see this exceptionally fine film in a theater.

For one thing, it will stir your blood, which I hear is healthy.

“As Charles Ferguson argues in his bracing, outraged, essential documentary “Inside Job,” the disaster in waiting can be traced back to the early 1980s. And it could have been avoided.

“Ferguson does a much better [job] of laying out the evidence than can be recounted here. He’s rounded up an impressive number of experts, and done his best to get a few of the culpable parties to sit for interviews.

“The result is a well-paced film that provokes increasing disgust with the financial system that is in place and the politicians that have enabled the system to continue merrily along. Politicians, economists, and financial company executives are walking away rich and smug, while our friends and neighbors are losing their homes and wondering how to feed their families.“

You can read my entire review at Red Carpet Crash. ‘Inside Job,’ narrated by Matt Damon, is best experienced in a theater, with other people, so you can share the anger.

Review: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers is a very funny person.

If you agree, then Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, which opens today at the Landmark Magnolia and Angelika Plano, will prove to be a revealing and honest accounting of a year spent in her company. The documentary, directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, sticks very closely to Rivers throughout its running time. Interviews with others are kept to an absolute minimum, and almost all are with members of her camp. What results is a claustrophobic portrait, painted from one angle, that, nevertheless, is compelling to watch.

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Review: Best Worst Movie

Best Worst Movie

The cast of 'Troll 2' reunites for 'Best Worst Movie'

Sometimes the least-likely subjects make for the most engrossing documentaries.

Best Worst Movie, directed by Michael Stephenson and opening exclusively today at the Inwood in Dallas (featured interviewee George Hardy will appear for both screenings tonight), is warm, funny, insightful, affectionate, touching, and self-aware. Did I mention insightful? Stephenson, who played the child hero in 1990′s Troll 2, popularly known as ‘the worst movie ever made,’ knows the movie is terrible. What’s more, he realizes now that his dreams of movie stardom were, at best, incredibly uninformed. But, most important, he has a sense of humor about the whole thing, and that’s allowed him to grow up and make one of the best films of the year.

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Review: Casino Jack and the United States of Money

(Would you buy a bottle of ketchup from this man?)

“Stupid people get wiped out.”

Shockingly dull despite a bloated wealth of detail about its subject, Casino Jack and the United States of Money makes for a plodding, too-clever examination of lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  The new film is directed by Alex Gibney, a talented documentarian who lacks the snark of Michael Moore and the encyclopedic view of Ken Burns (though neither of these are necessarily bad things).  Gibney’s two previous efforts, Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room were so powerful and well-made that they make Casino Jack look like a rank amateur’s first try.  From awkwardly obvious and blaring musical cues to a no-style film style, Gibney trudges through a case well-documented by every news outlet in America without ever shedding any new light on matters or revealing anything of interest.  When, late in the film, an image starts to skew slightly (as “arch villains” were displayed on the old Batman series), you really feel like he has nothing to offer on the subject. Continue reading →

Review: Racing Dreams

Here’s an unqualified recommendation: See this movie.

Annabeth Barnes in 'Racing Dreams'

The basic premise of Racing Dreams, which opened yesterday at limited engagements in Dallas (AMC The Grand 24), Lewisville (Studio Movie Grill), Mesquite (AMC Mesquite 30), and Fort Worth (Rave North East Mall 18),  may sound deceptively limited. Directed by Marshall Curry, the documentary follows three young people, aged 11, 12, and 13, in their pursuit of a national championship title in go-kart racing. But these are not the type of go-karts you can rent at your local amusement center — they zoom along at 60-70 miles per hour — and these are not ordinary kids.

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Review: A Surprise in Texas

A Surprise in Texas

Transportive.  The classical music that is caught in live performance makes A Surprise in Texas essential viewing for anyone searching for great piano playing. The young musicians who travel from around the world to Fort Worth every four years for the Cliburn Competition are incredibly talented. To watch their fingers dance across the keyboard is a marvel to behold.

Beyond the considerable attraction of hearing beautiful music performed by gifted young people, however, the film may leave you wanting. Directed by Peter Rosen, the documentary, which opened tonight at the Angelika Dallas and Angelika Plano (it’s also opening in limited engagements in Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio), assumes a basic knowledge of the importance of the Cliburn Competition, and prefers to spend time listening to the music rather than delving very deeply into the lives of the competitors.

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Review: When You’re Strange

“Being drunk is a good disguise…“    — from the poetry of Jim Morrison

Tom DiCillo’s When You’re Strange gives a lopsided view of ’60s- and ’70s-era rock band The Doors, and a cursory one at that.  The film seems more about the gradual disintegration of front man Jim Morrison rather than the band as a whole, as it persistently circles back to arty footage of Morrison travelling alone through the desert (these scenes taken from Paul Ferrara’s 1969 film Hwy: An American Pastoral) that only serve as a stilted reminder that drug culture doesn’t age well.  When You’re Strange does benefit, however, from a seemingly endless supply of archival footage that suggests the band members were never far from cameras.

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