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Documentaries in issue 64 "Just Another Man": On James Toback's Tyson "Toback, to his credit, and despite the empathy he feels toward his subject, doesn't pull his punches." in issue 63 What Is Cheaper Than Nothing at All? Czech Dream, Culture Jamming, and Consumerism "I jam because I am without ID." Liverpool Lullaby: On Terence Davies' Of Time and the City "Through cinema the past is regained." in issue 62 Out of Oblivion: Chris Marker and Cinematic Memories of Israel in Dan Geva's Description of a Memory "It is an opportunity to film people and events that could be recalled at any time to affirm, lament, or challenge a moment in time in this troubled region." in issue 61 When I Knew When did you know you were gay? That's the simple premise of Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's engaging Cinemax documentary Married in America 2 Tracking nine couples from wedding to married life when the celebrations end and the problems begin Na Kamalei: The Men of Hula An endearing, often moving portrait of a group of men for whom hula has been a kind of salvation For the Bible Tells Me So Director Daniel Karslake showcases five average, churchgoing American families, all raised on boilerplate "God hates fags" propaganda. in issue 60 What's Up, Docs? Nonstandard Operating Procedures in Recent Documentaries, and Interviews with Patricio Henriquez and Doug Pray "Why didn't you just stick to the truth?" in issue 59 Innocence Lost or Regained? The Clear-Eyed Vision of Jesus Camp "Real things happening to real people" in issue 58 The Passion of the Auteurist: On Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient "It's not enough to like this movie" Made in China: Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky on Their Travels Across Manufactured Landscapes "We've created a world that buffers us from nature." in issue 57 Stay Well, or Else . . .: Michael Moore's Sicko "What these Americans have could happen to us. And this is frightening." Closing the Closet: QDoc: The 2007 Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival "We couldn't figure out how to divide the cat . . ." in issue 56 Treed by the Family: On 51 Birch Street For boomers, "the idea that Mom and Dad are flawed human beings with complicated histories and real feelings can be hard to accept." On the Border of the Thermian Gulf: The Ninth Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival "The documentaries that most stood out have a near fictional flair, blurring the border between reality and fable." in issue 55 Spirit in the Dark: Barbara Kopple on Filming the Group That Wouldn't Shut Up & Sing "Just put your sneakers on and go. Go on the journey." in issue 54 Cultural Equity: On the Documentary Lomax the Songhunter "Every smallest branch of the human family at one time or another has carved its dreams out of the rock on which it has lived." (Alan Lomax) in issue 53 The Image-Makers, at Dusk: On the Documentary Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography "Glassman uncovers networks of influence and inference, whole microhistories around the camera . . . " Eco-Apocalypse and the Powerpoint Film: Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth "The film is a kind of subtle argumentation by analogy, whose success rests on the viewer's desire to identify with Gore." in issue 52 Surreal Women: Leonor Fini and Kay Sage Documentaries "All there is to do now is scream." Great Scott! Herzog Profiles God's Angry Man On the madness of Dr. Gene Speaking Out: Pioneering Doc Word Is Out Turns 29 Assimilate this in issue 51 Buried Alive: On Frederick Wiseman's Juvenile Court "The great legal scholar Lenny Bruce once observed that in the halls of justice the only justice is in the halls . . ." in issue 50 Riefenstahl's Heights and Wiseman's Follies: Allegories of Flesh in Olympia and Titicut Follies The body beautiful meets the body besieged in issue 49 Ready to Rumba? Dance Fever Doc Mad Hot Ballroom Busts a Groove The kids are all right The Rage from Nowhere? Arthur Dong's Licensed to Kill Interviews Murderers of Gays "I'm bad, but I'm locked up." Rebel Girls: Six Documentaries by Kim Longinotto On Dream Girls, The Day I Will Never Forget, Divorce Iranian Style, Shinjuku Boys, Gaea Girls, and Runaway in issue 48 In the Realm of the Real: The 3rd Chicago International Documentary Film Festival "The governments will be forgotten but the masterpieces will remain." in issue 47 Shocking Times: Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue on DVD While the counterculture turns on, Miles plugs in with startling results in issue 46 Defending the Deviates: Evelyn Hooker Documentary Changing Our Minds on Video "It had something to do with my sexual intercourse" Going Mental: The Travesties of Tarnation "He'd fuck himself if he could" in issue 45 Do the Wrong Thing: Confronting The Corporation A Succession of Presents: Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train "Pay attention to that man behind the curtain Jack-Ass II: Downsizing Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me Spurlock's no Sherlock Ai-yi-yi, Robots! Survival Research Laboratories: Ten Years of Robotic Mayhem on DVD A Cruel and Rebellious Plot to Pervert the Minds of Viewers to Unholy Uses in issue 43 A Memoir of Circumstance and Substance: My Architect A son looks at a father and sees much more in this super doc "Being There": No Maps for These Territories on DVD "I was just doing my job." in issue 42 Cinerama Adventure "See it without glasses!" in issue 41 Put the Camera on Us! Documentaries at the 2003 SFILGFF Reality cinema celebrates homos of this year and yesteryear His Brother's Keeper: Steve James' Stevie The ills of this wounded Everyman may be beyond healing Trembling Before G-d, or Die Volkschmiere Who will judge the judges trembling before sex? The atheists! in issue 40 Bowling a Strike for Columbine Michael Moore hits the screen with both barrels blasting in issue 39 Fidel Estela Bravo's documentary offers an affectionate, in-depth portrait of the enduring world leader who stood up to the U.S. in issue 37 San Francisco Int'l Lesbian & Gay Film Festival: The Docs! As usual, reality trumps the alternatives The Revolution Starts with Glitter! The Cockettes The legendary campsters of the counterculture take a bow in this diverting documentary in issue 34 Occupied Territory: Sylvie Groulxs In the Shadow of Hollywood Americas cultural colonizing is scored in a French-Canadian documentary youll probably never see Mondo Tranny: Monika Treuts Gendernauts This love letter to San Franciscos tranny community is a little too loving Rave On: Five Indie Music Docs on Four DVDs Jello Biafra meet 90s D.I.Y. meet Patti Smith meet Rave Kulture meet Beauty and the Beast: The Architecture of Doom on DVD and VHS The artistic underpinnings of Nazi terror Fear of Darkness: Light Keeps Me Company on VHS Bergmans cinematographer found more solace on the set than in real life in issue 33 Something to Come Out To: Queer Docs Triumph at the 2001 SFILGFF A bumper crop of docs scale the heights and trawl the depths of queer culture Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes Livin large with the Hung One Bob Dylans Dont Look Back on DVD The dude with the tude Stephen Sondheims Company on DVD Life is shit: Let's put on a show! Louis Prima: The Wildest! on DVD The illustrious history of the king of the hepcats (and the queen of deadpan) Feedback from the Global Village From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China offers three documentaries on DVD for the price of one; Genghis Blues is too shaggy for words in issue 32 Yugoslavia in Focus: Observations From the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Archival footage, dramatizations, and dark satire capture the dire end-of-century events in the former Yugoslavia San Franciscos 2001 International Human Rights Watch Festival Celebrating activism and exposing some of the more chaotic corners of world politics Too Haute to Handle: Jazz on a Summers Day on DVD The best jazz documentary just got better in issue 31 The Jaundiced Eye Nonny de la Pena's grimly effective documentary looks at the near-ruination of a family when a father and son are falsely convicted of molesting the son's five-year-old boy Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment The "moment" is both defined and celebrated in this exceptional documentary in issue 30 Long Night's Journey into Day Post-apartheid South Africa's rituals of admission and absolution Fetishes Literal commodity fetishism in the far fringes of New Yorks S&M scene in issue 29 Sex: The Annabel Chong Story Liberated porn queen or psychological wreck? You be the judge The Sex Pistols in The Filth and the Fury Julian Temples engaging documentary about everybodys favorite spitting, puking punk band Documentaries in the 2000 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival Tammy Faye Bakker, bitter rent boys, and South Africas liberated queens are part of this years queer reality parade in issue 28 Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street Going down in San Franciscos street-kid smack underground Richard Dindo in issue 26 The Source A look at all things Beat The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl Hitlers hired hand and master filmmaker Riefenstahl is both wonderful and horrible in Ray Mullers 1993 documentary in issue 25
Documentaries in the 1999 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival Gendernauts, military drag queens, communist queers and, oh yes, John Waters distinguish this year's docs in issue 24 Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverance Flashing needles and literal crowns of thorn mark the work and the body of performance artist Ron Athey Contested Flesh: Paulina Land rights and body rights clash in this striking docudrama about a woman wronged Pierre et Gilles: Love Stories The love in this film about the two lost boys of Eurotrash art is mostly self-love in issue 23 Frank Capra's American Dream This beloved film artist was driven as much by self-doubt as by his belief in the power of the "little man" I Am Cuba The early '60s political epic shows that art and agitprop can happily coexist. Unmade Beds This very effective quasi-documentary looks at the mostly miserable lives of a quartet of aging New York singles in issue 21
in issue 20 Love's Debris Werner Schroeter's film on love, death, and opera in issue 19 Gay U.S.A. Queer activism circa 1977 showed a diverse optimistic community moving ever closer to unity before the body blow of AIDS in issue 18 Afro Promo Curator Jenni Olson looks at the history of marginalized groups through one of the most ephemeral cultural forms, the movie trailer. Her latest compilation of coming attractions focuses on blacks in mainstream and low-budget Hollywood films from 1946 to 1976 in issue 17 Gay Cuba A refreshing look at Cuba's gay community The Queen This grimy, exciting artifact from the '60s shows how important beauty contests were to the queens who ruthlessly and kind of sadly mimicked their straight counterparts Synthetic Pleasures After seeing this film that features everything from body and mind modifications to cryogenics to the fresh hell of cyberspace, you may want to go eat some dirt in issue 16 Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business Carmen Miranda's story is far more complex and heart-wrenching than one would expect From the Journals of Jean Seberg Writer-director Mark Rappaport has devised an ingenious strategy for examining Jean Seberg's life and career. He hired Mary Beth Hurt to play the actress as if she didn't commit suicide in 1979 but lives on like all actors through the magic of film, reincarnated as a sort of performance artist, film historian, and cultural commentator. in issue 14 Dialogues with Madwomen A complex, moving portrait of women in whom depression, schizophrenia, and multiple personalities coexist with powerful, sometimes inspired levels of creativity. |
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New book from the
editor and writers of
Bright Lights Film Journal
Action! Interviews with Directors
from Classical Hollywood to
Contemporary Iran
(Anthem Art and Culture),
by Gary Morris (Editor),
Bert Cardullo (Introduction),
Jonathan Rosenbaum (Foreword).
London and New York:
Anthem Press, 2009.
"I dare anyone to squeeze between
two covers a more varied, useful and
flat out entertaining sampling of
the personalities that make the
seventh art the liveliest."
David Hudson, IFC.com
Interviews
Robert Bresson
Roger Corman (with Bruce Dern
and David Carradine)
Allan Dwan
Clint Eastwood
Douglas Sirk
Robert Wise
Mania Akbari
Lars von Trier
Michael Haneke
Allie Light
Melvin and Mario van Peebles
Otto Muehl
The Brothers Quay
Barbara Kopple
Federico Fellini
Abbas Kiarostami
François Truffaut
Caveh Zahedi
Peter Bogdanovich and
Joseph McBride
on Orson Welles