Continue reading »]]> A key passage in Tom Wolfe’s blistering architectural critique, From Bauhaus to Our House, recounts a tumultuous public meeting attended by the residents St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe housing project, called by the city to get input on how to salvage the seriously deteriorating facility and notable for ending with the assembled tenants joining in on the chant, “Blow it… up! Blow it… up! Blow it… up!”

Wolfe’s description of the event is vivid (no surprise), but barely gets into the morass of Utopian ideals, modernist design, flawed social engineering, and unintended racism that, over two decades, doomed a project meant to raise the city’s poorest out of their poverty. Using extensive research, archival footage, and interviews with the people who lived and grew up in Pruitt-Igoe (some of whom still harbor fond memories of the place), filmmaker Chad Freidrichs fills in the blanks in his incisive documentary, THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH: AN URBAN HISTORY, which opens at New York’s IFC Center on January 20th.

Check out the trailer below.

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Nowhere Near a Gilded Cage: Mikhail Khodorkovsky in custody in KHODORKOVSKY.

“World’s richest political prisoner,” now there’s a term you don’t hear much. And while OWS can make a case that there are select representatives of the 1% that deserve to see the inside of jail cell, in the case of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now serving time in his home country for charges of tax evasion and embezzlement (both trumped-up, in the opinion of many), the argument is not so clear.

In the new documentary, KHODORKOVSKY, filmmaker Cyril Tuschi incorporates interviews, stark, stylized animation, and his own personal journey to explore the story of a man who went from committed socialist to successful capitalist to political pariah. In the process, the film explores the paradoxes not just of Khodorkovsky’s own rise — a narrative that incorporates canny leveraging of a still-nascent financial system, a high-profile flaunting of his good fortune, and an ill-advised face-off with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin — but of a financial system that, in transitioning from communist to capitalist, wound up a Frankensteinian combination of both.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Tuschi.

KHODORKOVSKY
Trailer

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Official Website:
kinolorber.com/khodorkovsky

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A double agent was pivotal in the success of D-Day in GARBO THE SPY

Of all the film clips director Edmon Roch uses to compose his WW II documentary, GARBO THE SPY — and they include such eclectic sources as documentaries, dramas, both Allied and Nazi propaganda, and cartoons — the ones that he seems to rely on most come from Carol Reed’s OUR MAN IN HAVANA, the film where Alec Guinness snookers the British Secret Service by fabricating a network of Cuban-based spies under his control. Turns out that the story’s original author, Graham Greene, didn’t come up with that idea from whole cloth — during the war, a mysterious Spaniard operating in Great Britain was able to convince the Nazis that the D-day landing at Normandy was just a diversion for the actual invasion, all thanks to information provided by his own network of equally fictional informants.

GARBO THE SPY explores both the history of that spy, Juan Pujol Garcia — known to the Germans as Alaric, “Man of Trust,” and to the British as Garbo for his skill at assuming a convincing role — and how the story of his pivotal role in the war was uncovered by a group of journalists, writers, and scholars. Roch brings a wry outlook to the story — fitting, given Pujol’s rather unusual background — that turns this into an entertaining tale of high-stakes deception.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Roch.

GARBO THE SPY
Trailer

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OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
firstrunfeatures.com/garbothespy

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The Blank Generation Gets Filled In: NOFX's Fat Mike confronts the responsibilities of fatherhood in THE OTHER F WORD.

It’s a curious path that takes one from rock outcast to full fatherhood, yet many of the practitioners of that most confrontational of  musical forms, punk, find themselves following it. In THE OTHER F WORD, filmmakers Andrea Blaugrund Nevins and Cristan Reilly have tracked down the men who built lives upon artistic rebellion — prime amongst them their main subject, Pennywise’s Jim Lindberg, but also Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath, Blink-182′s Mark Hoppus, Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Flea, Everclear’s Art Alexakis, and Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, among others — and explored the effort that goes into reconciling one’s creative soul with shopping for school supplies.

The final result is a fascinating and occasionally moving exploration of men who confront not only careers that demand increasing amounts of time away from home just when it’s least advantageous, but who also have to face how their own rebellious and sometimes tortured youths might affect how they approach their responsibilities as fathers.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Nevins and Reilly.

THE OTHER F WORD
Trailer

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OFFICIAL WEBSITE
theotherfwordmovie.com

Continue reading »]]> You never forget your first Roger Corman film. Mine was THE TERROR, which I admittedly was drawn to out of a combined curiosity over a film that was shot in two days on leftover sets, and that featured a young Jack Nicholson before he became THE Jack Nicholson. But whether it was the cheap-ass drive-in fare with unforgettable titles like ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS or the surprisingly trenchant horror-comedy cheapies like LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS or the lush Poe adaptations that essentially defined Vincent Price for the balance of his career, or the first shots he gave to directors like Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich (TARGETS, yeah!) and Joe Dante, or BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, the STAR WARS knock-off that was more entertaining than any of the official prequels, the man has placed his indelible stamp in the minds of countless genre film fans.

Corman was at the con to sign autographs and promote the new, career-spanning documentary, CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL, and took a few minutes to talk with us.

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Justice Does Not Sleep: The brutal crimes commited in 1982 are avenged in Pamela Yates' GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR

Listen, there’s nothing particularly wrong with a documentary about the war between two Donkey Kong champions; it’s very good, actually (it’s KING OF KONG, in fact). It’s just that you have to admit that there’s a considerable span between that and a film that has a tangible effect in seeing a man responsible for genocide called to justice.

The one thing Pamela Yates knew while filming WHEN THE MOUNTAINS TREMBLE in 1982 was that she wanted to see the Guatemalan generals in charge of the slaughter of Mayan villagers punished for their crimes. It took over two decades, but when the legal team preparing the case against former dictator General Rios Montt were preparing their case for the international court, they turned to Yates and her hours of out-takes for evidence. GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR is not only about Yates’ quest for the incriminating footage, but a personal recollection of her time shooting MOUNTAINS in 1982 and, ultimately, an examination of justice can only be served through the courage and determination of many hands. It may not give you insight into how to make it to the 22nd level, but it’s a heartening testament to the notion that, if people will it, monsters can ultimately be vanquished.

GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR
Trailer

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OFFICIAL WEBSITE

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Steve James (with camera), Alex Kotlowitz (to James' right), and Zak Piper (with microphone) capture "violence interrupter" Ameena Matthews on the job for THE INTERRUPTERS.

In the movies, one man and one gun is all it takes to keep the peace. In reality, when you’re talking about the fear, anger, and frustration generated from poverty and exacerbated by drugs, territorial conflict, and just plain ego, a more empathetic approach is probably better.

In the new documentary, THE INTERRUPTERS, director Steve James (director, HOOP DREAMS) and producer Alex Kotlowitz (author, There are No Children Here) follow several members of CeaseFire — an organization that mobilizes “violence interrupters” to the streets of Chicago — as they attempt to defuse conflicts before they occur. With the intermediaries coming from the neighborhood streets themselves — and in some cases having served time for their own violent pasts — what James and Kotlowitz manage to capture is a powerful portrait of a populace struggling to rise to its better self through the mediums of reason and community.

Click on the player to hear my interview with James and Kotlowitz.

THE INTERRUPTERS
Trailer

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interrupters.kartemquin.com

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The world of Marc Singer's DARK DAYS.

Before everyone larks out for the long, long weekend, I just wanted to let NY’ers know that Marc Singer’s debut documentary, DARK DAYS is having it’s re-release at the Cinema Village starting July 1.

The film will be out on homevid in a couple of weeks, but for those of us in Manhattan, seeing a community of outcasts living in the bowels of a train tunnel in the 1990′s has a certain, especial impact. Singer shot the film — in an evocative black and white — employing the residents of the underground community, and brought in turntablist DJ Shadow to do the soundtrack — the result is a revelatory exploration of survival and humanity under the most dire of circumstances.

Check out the trailer:

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Saving the Memory: A fading world is celebrated in GENERAL ORDERS NO. 9.

I tend to lose patience with people who go the “words cannot describe…” route when they’re talking about something. There are always words, if you know how to use them. I gotta admit, though, GENERAL ORDERS NO. 9, the enigmatic debut work of filmmaker Robert Persons (no relation), is something of a challenge. A meditation on small-town South — Georgia in specific — its connection to the natural world and its death at the hands of growing populations and commercial interests, the film is quiet, beautiful, and strangely moving. It’s also the kind of thing you have to sit down and experience for yourself, ideally when (like a certain film journalist who has maybe overindulged on CG-gorged, three-explosions-per-minute summer fare) you’re ready for something that repays your rapt attention with still, thoughtful grace.

Click on the player to hear my interview with Robert Persons.

Trailer
GENERAL ORDERS NO. 9

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OFFICIAL SITE
generalordersno9.com

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An Explosion of Words: The Steinmenauts electrify LOUDER THAN A BOMB.

I’m basically down with anything that celebrates language, but LOUDER THAN A BOMB is something special. Based around the 2008 Louder Than a Bomb youth poetry slam that took place in Chicago, the film focuses on four high school teams as they face the difficulties of prepping and competing in the event. In the midst of that, we get a look at the wide diversity of teens courting the muse of poetry, from a Jewish prep school student who brings an incendiary attack to his material, to a young man brought up in a household ravaged by drugs and a young woman confronting her responsibilities in helping to raise an autistic brother. Similar to THE ARBOR, which we covered previously, the film explores both the opportunities and limits of art to help shape a life. Unlike THE ARBOR, there’s more than a little hope in the outcome.

Click the player to hear my interview with directors Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel.

LOUDER THAN A BOMB
Trailer

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louderthanabombfilm.com