New Delhi, July 11 (Ians) The Delhi High Court has asked social media platform LinkedIn to provide information regarding its grievance officers and the process they follow when receiving complaints under the It (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules.
A bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh further instructed LinkedIn to submit the regulations applicable to individuals who create profiles on its portal.
The court also directed LinkedIn to make the physical and email addresses of its grievance officers publicly accessible on its website.
The court’s order came on a response to a legal case filed by Tata Sky Ltd against LinkedIn and other entities.
Tata Sky, a prominent Direct-To-Home (Dth) and Pay TV platform in India, underwent a rebranding last year and adopted the name Tata Play to reflect its expanded business endeavors. It claimed that several people had falsely represented themselves as employees of the company by creating profiles on LinkedIn.
A bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh further instructed LinkedIn to submit the regulations applicable to individuals who create profiles on its portal.
The court also directed LinkedIn to make the physical and email addresses of its grievance officers publicly accessible on its website.
The court’s order came on a response to a legal case filed by Tata Sky Ltd against LinkedIn and other entities.
Tata Sky, a prominent Direct-To-Home (Dth) and Pay TV platform in India, underwent a rebranding last year and adopted the name Tata Play to reflect its expanded business endeavors. It claimed that several people had falsely represented themselves as employees of the company by creating profiles on LinkedIn.
- 7/11/2023
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
The passing of documentary film champion and Participant Media executive Diane Weyermann has left a mark on the film community. The Participant chief content officer and former director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program died on Thursday at the age of 66 after a battle with cancer.
Weyermann played a formative role in the documentary space, executive-producing Oscar-winning documentaries such as Davis Guggenheim’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” Laura Poitras’ “Citizenfour,” and Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s “American Factory.” While at Participant, she oversaw films including “Darfur Now” (2007), Robert Kenner’s “Food, Inc.” (2008), Errol Morris’ “Standard Operating Procedure” (2008), Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Look of Silence” (2014), Morgan Neville’s “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” (2015), and Marc Silver’s “3 1/2 Minutes” (2015).
“Diane and I met while I was directing ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and I immediately was struck by her creative brilliance,” said Davis Guggenheim in a statement.
Weyermann played a formative role in the documentary space, executive-producing Oscar-winning documentaries such as Davis Guggenheim’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” Laura Poitras’ “Citizenfour,” and Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s “American Factory.” While at Participant, she oversaw films including “Darfur Now” (2007), Robert Kenner’s “Food, Inc.” (2008), Errol Morris’ “Standard Operating Procedure” (2008), Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Look of Silence” (2014), Morgan Neville’s “The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble” (2015), and Marc Silver’s “3 1/2 Minutes” (2015).
“Diane and I met while I was directing ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and I immediately was struck by her creative brilliance,” said Davis Guggenheim in a statement.
- 10/15/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Diane Weyermann, chief content officer at Participant and former director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program died Thursday of cancer in New York. She was 66.
For the last three decades, Weyermann played a seminal role in supporting the documentary community and shaping the nonfiction landscape during stints at Participant and the Sundance Institute. Oscar winning docus including Davis Guggenheim’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006), Laura Poitras’ “Citizenfour” (2014) and “American Factory” (2019) are among the many projects that Weyermann helped shepherd.
Weyermann joined Participant in 2005 – one year after Jeff Skoll founded the socially conscious production company. For 12 years, she was responsible for the production company’s documentary feature film and television slate. In 2017, Weyermann was promoted to president, and in 2019 named chief content officer of the L.A.-based media house, where she was responsible for Participant’s documentary, feature film and television slate.
During her tenure at Participant, Weyermann oversaw production of docus,...
For the last three decades, Weyermann played a seminal role in supporting the documentary community and shaping the nonfiction landscape during stints at Participant and the Sundance Institute. Oscar winning docus including Davis Guggenheim’s “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006), Laura Poitras’ “Citizenfour” (2014) and “American Factory” (2019) are among the many projects that Weyermann helped shepherd.
Weyermann joined Participant in 2005 – one year after Jeff Skoll founded the socially conscious production company. For 12 years, she was responsible for the production company’s documentary feature film and television slate. In 2017, Weyermann was promoted to president, and in 2019 named chief content officer of the L.A.-based media house, where she was responsible for Participant’s documentary, feature film and television slate.
During her tenure at Participant, Weyermann oversaw production of docus,...
- 10/15/2021
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
New Delhi, March 12 (Ians) The first batch of the six-member England shooting team arrived on Friday to compete in the World Cup starting here from March 18 at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, said an official of the National Rifle Association of India (Nrai).
The European team consisting of Ben Llewellin, Karl Killander, Jack Fairclough, Amber Hill, Steven Seligmann and Paul Hughes will have to stay in seven days' quarantine as per Standard Operating Procedure (Sop) in the team hotel.
The two-member Brazil team including Rio Olympic medallist in 10-metre air pistol Felipe Wu has also reached the team hotel.
"The South American team too will have to stay in a seven-day quarantine," said an official familiar with the team's arrival.
Qatar's six-member team that arrived on Thursday will not have to go for a seven-day quarantine period as the Asian nation is not facing a new surge of virus...
The European team consisting of Ben Llewellin, Karl Killander, Jack Fairclough, Amber Hill, Steven Seligmann and Paul Hughes will have to stay in seven days' quarantine as per Standard Operating Procedure (Sop) in the team hotel.
The two-member Brazil team including Rio Olympic medallist in 10-metre air pistol Felipe Wu has also reached the team hotel.
"The South American team too will have to stay in a seven-day quarantine," said an official familiar with the team's arrival.
Qatar's six-member team that arrived on Thursday will not have to go for a seven-day quarantine period as the Asian nation is not facing a new surge of virus...
- 3/14/2021
- by Glamsham Bureau
- GlamSham
By Navneet Singh
New Delhi, March 1 (Ians) World-record holder para-athlete Sandeep Chaudhary could face a problem after he failed to take an out-of-competition dope test when a foreign team of officials reached his room at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here last week, said an official of the Paralympic Committee of India (Pci).
Jakarta 2018 Asian Para Games javelin champion, Chaudhary, 24, was attending an Olympic Games preparatory camp along with two other javelin throwers.
"When a team of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) reached his room at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to take a sample for an out-of-competition dope test, he wasn't present in his room. He missed the test and it could go against him in the Wada records," the Pci official told Ians.
The test was to be as per the Wada whereabouts clause, according to which athletes provide their locations to the visiting officials so that they could take samples for out-of-competition test.
New Delhi, March 1 (Ians) World-record holder para-athlete Sandeep Chaudhary could face a problem after he failed to take an out-of-competition dope test when a foreign team of officials reached his room at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here last week, said an official of the Paralympic Committee of India (Pci).
Jakarta 2018 Asian Para Games javelin champion, Chaudhary, 24, was attending an Olympic Games preparatory camp along with two other javelin throwers.
"When a team of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) reached his room at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to take a sample for an out-of-competition dope test, he wasn't present in his room. He missed the test and it could go against him in the Wada records," the Pci official told Ians.
The test was to be as per the Wada whereabouts clause, according to which athletes provide their locations to the visiting officials so that they could take samples for out-of-competition test.
- 3/1/2021
- by Glamsham Bureau
- GlamSham
New Delhi, Jan 29 (Ians) The 24th edition of the Federation Cup athletics, to be held next month in Patiala, will serve as a qualifier for this year's Tokyo Olympics, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) said on Friday.
The Federation Cup was initially scheduled to be held from April 10 to 13 this year before being postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The competition will now be held from March 15 to 19 at the National Institute of Sport (Nis) in Patiala.
The Olympic Games are scheduled be held from July 23 to August 8.
Athletes will have to submit their entries online with the AFI, as offline entries will not be accepted. The last date for athletes to send their names is March 7. AFI secretary Ravinder Chaudhary said this in a letter addressed to all its affiliated units, and uploaded on the AFI website.
In keeping with the AFI's Standard Operating Procedure (Sop) for conducting competitions amid the pandemic,...
The Federation Cup was initially scheduled to be held from April 10 to 13 this year before being postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The competition will now be held from March 15 to 19 at the National Institute of Sport (Nis) in Patiala.
The Olympic Games are scheduled be held from July 23 to August 8.
Athletes will have to submit their entries online with the AFI, as offline entries will not be accepted. The last date for athletes to send their names is March 7. AFI secretary Ravinder Chaudhary said this in a letter addressed to all its affiliated units, and uploaded on the AFI website.
In keeping with the AFI's Standard Operating Procedure (Sop) for conducting competitions amid the pandemic,...
- 1/29/2021
- by IANS
- GlamSham
Hyderabad, Dec 6 (Ians) Cinema halls in Hyderabad and rest of Telangana are back in business with the audiences returning after more than eight months to enjoy their favourite entertainment.
Since reopening on December 4, most of the theatres have seen 80-90 per cent occupancy in the permitted 50 per cent seating, giving a hope for revival of the film industry after severe blow due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Owners of the majority of 175 movie screens in Greater Hyderabad are happy over the public response received during the last three days and they see it as a positive development for the recovery and revival of the film exhibition business.
Telangana, which has about 600 theatres, was late compared to many other states in allowing reopening of screens but authorities justified the move in view of the pandemic situation. They moved ahead with their plans only after significant drop in Covid cases.
As the daily count...
Since reopening on December 4, most of the theatres have seen 80-90 per cent occupancy in the permitted 50 per cent seating, giving a hope for revival of the film industry after severe blow due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Owners of the majority of 175 movie screens in Greater Hyderabad are happy over the public response received during the last three days and they see it as a positive development for the recovery and revival of the film exhibition business.
Telangana, which has about 600 theatres, was late compared to many other states in allowing reopening of screens but authorities justified the move in view of the pandemic situation. They moved ahead with their plans only after significant drop in Covid cases.
As the daily count...
- 12/6/2020
- by Glamsham Editorial
- GlamSham
New Delhi, Dec 5 (Ians) The national camp for India's elite javelin throwers, including Asian Games gold medallist Neeraj Chopra, has shifted from the National Institute of Sport (Nis) in Patiala to the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) said in a statement on Saturday.
"We are here for the training for Olympics 2021. In 2017, I won gold here (at the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships) and have fond memories of the city. With our best efforts we are hoping to do well at the Olympics," said Chopra.
"Safety of squad being priority, a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (Sop) has been prepared for the team training, which lays down numerous Covid-19 protocols and guidelines in an exhaustive manner," said the AFI.
Earlier, the AFI announced the appointment of Radhakrishnan Nair as the new chief coach for Indian athletics. Nair, 62, had been a deputy to Bahadur Singh, who resigned from the post in July,...
"We are here for the training for Olympics 2021. In 2017, I won gold here (at the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships) and have fond memories of the city. With our best efforts we are hoping to do well at the Olympics," said Chopra.
"Safety of squad being priority, a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (Sop) has been prepared for the team training, which lays down numerous Covid-19 protocols and guidelines in an exhaustive manner," said the AFI.
Earlier, the AFI announced the appointment of Radhakrishnan Nair as the new chief coach for Indian athletics. Nair, 62, had been a deputy to Bahadur Singh, who resigned from the post in July,...
- 12/5/2020
- by IANS
- GlamSham
By Khurram Habib
New Delhi, Dec 3 (Ians) The Board of Control for Cricket in India (Bcci) may bring in a 'force majeure' clause if it decides to bring in a contract for all first-class cricketers, who are set to lose match fees as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has put uncertainty around the 2020-21 first-class season.
As of now, there are chances that only limited-overs tournaments may happen this season from January.
While concerns to compensate the players for the losses have been raised, the Board may not do it as there are currently no contracts in place with the players. Only the Uttarakhand and Punjab state associations have until now thought about having contracts, although the plans have only been in the works.
"If there was a contract system with first-class or Ranji players, men or women, then yes Bcci and Apex Council can think about compensation. They could have...
New Delhi, Dec 3 (Ians) The Board of Control for Cricket in India (Bcci) may bring in a 'force majeure' clause if it decides to bring in a contract for all first-class cricketers, who are set to lose match fees as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has put uncertainty around the 2020-21 first-class season.
As of now, there are chances that only limited-overs tournaments may happen this season from January.
While concerns to compensate the players for the losses have been raised, the Board may not do it as there are currently no contracts in place with the players. Only the Uttarakhand and Punjab state associations have until now thought about having contracts, although the plans have only been in the works.
"If there was a contract system with first-class or Ranji players, men or women, then yes Bcci and Apex Council can think about compensation. They could have...
- 12/3/2020
- by IANS
- GlamSham
By Khurram Habib
New Delhi, Oct 16 (Ians) The Indian domestic cricket season usually lasts from October to April. But a player representative on the Indian cricket board's Apex Council says she would suggest at Saturday's meeting that the 2020-21 tournaments could be played between February and December, if Covid-19 pandemic doesn't allow the season to begin soon.
A February-to-September or February-to-December season has perhaps never happened, but if her suggestion is accepted it would be nothing short of a revolutionary change from set practice.
All types of hurdles, like weather, could crop up during a February-to-September season, if it were to be accepted by the Sourav Ganguly-headed Apex Council. Indian domestic season is among the agenda items for the meeting.
"I think age-group cricketers or women cricketers can lose interest and enthusiasm if they don't get to play. So, I will suggest that they have the season from February till September,...
New Delhi, Oct 16 (Ians) The Indian domestic cricket season usually lasts from October to April. But a player representative on the Indian cricket board's Apex Council says she would suggest at Saturday's meeting that the 2020-21 tournaments could be played between February and December, if Covid-19 pandemic doesn't allow the season to begin soon.
A February-to-September or February-to-December season has perhaps never happened, but if her suggestion is accepted it would be nothing short of a revolutionary change from set practice.
All types of hurdles, like weather, could crop up during a February-to-September season, if it were to be accepted by the Sourav Ganguly-headed Apex Council. Indian domestic season is among the agenda items for the meeting.
"I think age-group cricketers or women cricketers can lose interest and enthusiasm if they don't get to play. So, I will suggest that they have the season from February till September,...
- 10/16/2020
- by IANS
- GlamSham
TollywoodOnly the Unlock 5.0 guidelines are not enough, Sop and state government approval are also required to reopen business, say theatre owners in the states.Rajeswari ParasaAccording to the ‘Unlock 5.0’ guidelines given by the union government on Wednesday, movie theatres in the country can reopen from October 15. Theatre owners in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have started discussing the matter among themselves, and the measures that can be implemented for the safety of theatre-goers. However, the state governments are yet to give official orders on whether or not the businesses can start functioning again. For though the union government gave the Unlock 5.0 guidelines, the Standard Operating Procedure (Sop) for the same is yet to be released by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Theatres have remained shut across the nation due to the coronavirus for more than six months. In regard to Tollywood, Alavaikuntapuramuloo, Sarileru Neekevvaru and Bheeshma were among the last...
- 10/1/2020
- by Rajeswari
- The News Minute
Errol Morris’ American Dharma Screens at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave) Sunday December 8th through Tuesday December 10th. The film begins each evening at 7:00pm. A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here
MacArthur Genius Grant winner Errol Morris has long been attracted to those on the fringes of society and/or problematic figures. He has made past documentaries about people on death row (The Thin Blue Line), those involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal (Standard Operating Procedure), a Holocaust denier (Mr. Death), Donald Rumsfeld (The Unknown Known), and Robert McNamara. And yet American Dharma, a feature-length interview with Steve Bannon, is the Morris film that has most struck a cultural nerve. Never one to shy away from tangling with controversy, and more than capable at holding his own in an interview when need be, Morris offers American Dharma as a vital text to...
MacArthur Genius Grant winner Errol Morris has long been attracted to those on the fringes of society and/or problematic figures. He has made past documentaries about people on death row (The Thin Blue Line), those involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal (Standard Operating Procedure), a Holocaust denier (Mr. Death), Donald Rumsfeld (The Unknown Known), and Robert McNamara. And yet American Dharma, a feature-length interview with Steve Bannon, is the Morris film that has most struck a cultural nerve. Never one to shy away from tangling with controversy, and more than capable at holding his own in an interview when need be, Morris offers American Dharma as a vital text to...
- 12/2/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Courtney Sexton has been promoted to Svp of CNN Films.
In her new role, Sexton will work day-to-day with filmmakers to supervise the production of documentary films for theatrical exhibition and distribution across CNN’s platforms.
Among the 40-plus features and shorts Sexton’s team has acquired, co-produced or commissioned since she joined CNN in 2013 are Rgb, Three Identical Strangers Love, Gilda, all of which Sexton executive produced; the recent Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, Halston and Apollo 11; and the upcoming Scandalous.
Her other credits include Blackfish, Life Itself, Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me and Elian.
Prior to joining CNN, Sexton worked for eight years as a development executive at Participant Media in documentary production. Her projects there included the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc., Standard Operating Procedure...
In her new role, Sexton will work day-to-day with filmmakers to supervise the production of documentary films for theatrical exhibition and distribution across CNN’s platforms.
Among the 40-plus features and shorts Sexton’s team has acquired, co-produced or commissioned since she joined CNN in 2013 are Rgb, Three Identical Strangers Love, Gilda, all of which Sexton executive produced; the recent Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, Halston and Apollo 11; and the upcoming Scandalous.
Her other credits include Blackfish, Life Itself, Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me and Elian.
Prior to joining CNN, Sexton worked for eight years as a development executive at Participant Media in documentary production. Her projects there included the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth, Food, Inc., Standard Operating Procedure...
- 9/13/2019
- by Erik Pedersen
- Deadline Film + TV
August warmth is a harbinger for the fall theatrical season, which is already revving into gear. Magnolia Pictures’ Cold Case Hammarskjöld continues recent non-fiction theatrical debuts that are eyeing awards season. Cold Case won the Best Director prize in the World Documentary section at Sundance in January. Sony Pictures Classics is opening doc Aquarela in select locations. The Participant-produced title debuted at last year’s Venice Film Festival. India’s Fip will have the widest Specialty start on this continent this weekend for drama Mission Mangal headlined by Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar. Sundance comedy Adam begins its run in two New York and L.A. theaters, while Slamdance honoree Birds Without Feathers by Wendy McColm launches exclusively in Manhattan.
Other limited releases include Roberto Minervini’s What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? via KimStim. Halfway Crooks Entertainment has Low Low in L.A. starting Friday, while...
Other limited releases include Roberto Minervini’s What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire? via KimStim. Halfway Crooks Entertainment has Low Low in L.A. starting Friday, while...
- 8/16/2019
- by Brian Brooks
- Deadline Film + TV
Distributor plans 2019 release.
Spc has picked up all rights in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Scandinavia, South Africa, and India from Participant Media to Victor Kossakovsky’s Aquarela.
The film received its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival and also screened at the BFI London Film Festival. Spc plans a 2019 release.
Aquarela was shot in 96 frames-per-second and explores the transformative power of water in nature, from the frozen waters of Russia’s Lake Baikal, to Miami in the wake of Hurricane Irma, to Venezuela’s mighty Angels Falls.
“For me, Aquarela represents a personal journey that...
Spc has picked up all rights in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Scandinavia, South Africa, and India from Participant Media to Victor Kossakovsky’s Aquarela.
The film received its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival and also screened at the BFI London Film Festival. Spc plans a 2019 release.
Aquarela was shot in 96 frames-per-second and explores the transformative power of water in nature, from the frozen waters of Russia’s Lake Baikal, to Miami in the wake of Hurricane Irma, to Venezuela’s mighty Angels Falls.
“For me, Aquarela represents a personal journey that...
- 10/19/2018
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Like many others who work in the film business, I find none (zero) of the revelations about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior even remotely surprising. His abusive work style was widely known, and, until two weeks ago, even admired by many of his male colleagues and/or competitors. And as is becoming increasingly clear, he was most definitely not alone. Pretty much everyone within a 1,000-mile radius of the biz is well aware that Sex-for-Work is Standard Operating Procedure in Hollywood. As Quentin Tarantino recently explained, in its treatment of women, Hollywood has been “operating under an almost Jim Crow-like system.” Precisely. Within […]...
- 10/30/2017
- by Nina Menkes
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Big Pictures Worth A Thousand Words: Morris and Dorfman Dig Through The Archives
Errol Morris’s interest in still photography is no secret, having written the Penguin published text “Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography” back in 2011 to much acclaim, yet his cinematic projects have never explicitly dealt with the subject, except briefly as the damning visual evidence at the heart of Standard Operating Procedure.
Continue reading...
Errol Morris’s interest in still photography is no secret, having written the Penguin published text “Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography” back in 2011 to much acclaim, yet his cinematic projects have never explicitly dealt with the subject, except briefly as the damning visual evidence at the heart of Standard Operating Procedure.
Continue reading...
- 6/30/2017
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Former President Jimmy Carter gave his fellow airplane passengers a memorable experience last week, taking the time to shake hands with everyone on his flight from Atlanta to Washington, D.C.
Footage from the flight on Thursday shared on Twitter by James Parker Sheffield showed Carter making his way down the aisle with a smile on his face as he said hello to other travelers.
“Jimmy Carter is on my plane to DC from Atl and just shook every hand of every passenger,” he captioned the video.
Sheffield tells People that it was “nice to have a warm and humble moment connected to politics,...
Footage from the flight on Thursday shared on Twitter by James Parker Sheffield showed Carter making his way down the aisle with a smile on his face as he said hello to other travelers.
“Jimmy Carter is on my plane to DC from Atl and just shook every hand of every passenger,” he captioned the video.
Sheffield tells People that it was “nice to have a warm and humble moment connected to politics,...
- 6/12/2017
- by Stephanie Petit
- PEOPLE.com
Documentarian Errol Morris has something of an obsession with cameras, both as a tool of his trade and as a subject for his work. His 2010 documentary Tabloid derived much of its power from the lurid draw of the captured image, while 2008’s Standard Operating Procedure explored the Abu Ghraib prison scandal through the lens of the guards’ bizarre drive to photograph their abuses. Now, Morris is exploring the sweeter, more nostalgic side of snapping photos, releasing a trailer for his latest doc, The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography.
Massachusetts-based Dorfman has spent nearly 50 years working as a photographer, capturing families, friends, and a number of influential Beat generation figures on her distinctive large-format Polaroid film—which has since been discontinued by the company, forcing Dorfman to delicately ration her remaining stock. The trailer shows Dorfman leading Morris’ own camera through decades of work, reflecting on her ...
Massachusetts-based Dorfman has spent nearly 50 years working as a photographer, capturing families, friends, and a number of influential Beat generation figures on her distinctive large-format Polaroid film—which has since been discontinued by the company, forcing Dorfman to delicately ration her remaining stock. The trailer shows Dorfman leading Morris’ own camera through decades of work, reflecting on her ...
- 4/20/2017
- by William Hughes
- avclub.com
Spliced together from interviews, establishing shots, and dramatic reenactments, its subjects’ homegrown aphorisms set against the forceful tinkling of the score, “The Eye Doesn’t Lie” might’ve been made by Errol Morris himself.
Inspired by “The Thin Blue Line,” the fourth episode of IFC’s inventive, erudite “Documentary Now!” — from the frenzied imaginations of director Rhys Thomas and “Saturday Night Live” alumni Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Seth Meyers — mimics the filmmaker’s work so precisely that it comes to resemble an X-ray, showing the bone structure of his distinctive style while (gently) poking fun at it. In this sense, to describe “Documentary Now!” as a parody is to undersell: It’s a wildly funny act of criticism, deconstructing the mechanics of nonfiction in an age defined by the slippage between “reality” and the real.
Starring Armisen and Hader in an ever-changing series of roles—in a pungent send-up of Vice Media, they even play three indistinguishable pairs of plaid-clad, ne’er-do-well correspondents on the trail of a Mexican drug kingpin — “Documentary Now!” is designed with an in-depth knowledge of the form, down to the title sequence. A clever nod to public television, replete with evolving logo, synthesized theme music, and Helen Mirren’s refined introductions, the homage to the likes of “Pov,” “Frontline,” and “Independent Lens” is telling. Though tough, at times, on the familiar tropes of Morris and the Maysles, the creators’ treatment of documentaries is affectionate; their approach is closer to Christopher Guest’s warm, playful comedies, from “Waiting for Guffman” to “For Your Consideration,” than to the sharp satire of “Drop Dead Gorgeous” or “Tanner ’88.”
This is born, it seems, of their interest in the power of nonfiction narratives, and in the process by which such stories take shape. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, “Documentary Now!” is lavish in its praise — Hader’s version of Little Edie Beale, in the series’ tribute to “Grey Gardens,” replicates several memorable moments in the film almost exactly — but it’s when the series turns toward exaggeration and hyperbole that its understanding of the form’s fakery is on fullest display. Against the “direct cinema” aesthetic of the Maysles, “Documentary Now!” depicts the siblings, here known as the Feins, eliciting performances from their subjects, searching the shadows of “Sandy Passage” for the most compelling variant of the truth. (It comes back to bite them, in a way that acknowledges the elements of Gothic horror in “Grey Gardens” by blowing the original to bits.)
Understanding documentaries as a set of narrative techniques, and not simply as a reflection of “the facts,” “Documentary Now!” is at its most astute in the first season’s “Kunuk Uncovered.” Based on 1988’s “Nanook Revisited,” itself an investigation of the stagecraft in Robert Flaherty’s 1922 silent, “Nanook of the North,” “Kunuk” renders explicit the series’ animating principle: “Was the first documentary a documentary at all,” the narrator intones, “or was it something else?” As William H. Sebastian (John Slattery) attempts to mold his subject, Pipilok (Armisen), into the “Eskimo” of his ethnocentric assumptions, mounting dog sledding and spear fishing scenes, he loses control of the project to its central figure. “Kunuk” becomes an artful farce, part Hollywood excess and part careful craft.
Pipilok first demands compensation, securing the managerial services of a local pimp, and then displaces Sebastian altogether, transforming into a tortured auteur. (At one point, he curses out the cast in his native tongue, a true diva of the directing chair.) His aesthetic innovations — recording sound, building sets, developing “point of view” and new forms of movement — are those, roughly speaking, of realism, and “Kunuk” is, in essence, a reminder that the style that doesn’t seem like a style is no less fabricated for convincing us otherwise. In “Documentary Now!” nonfiction is always “something else”: A performance, a manipulation, a construction, adjacent to “the real” but not a mirror image of it.
In fashioning a new short film for each installment—with the exception of the two-part “Gentle and Soft: The Story of the Blue Jean Committee” — the series is an outlier in the Emmys’ nascent Variety Sketch category. Last year’s inaugural field featured five nominees on the traditional “sketch” model, including “Saturday Night Live” and winner “Inside Amy Schumer,” and all, including the final season of the excellent “Key & Peele,” are among this year’s twenty eligible series (up from 17). But given the TV Academy’s tendency to settle into firm patterns, to the point that one might call them ruts, it would behoove voters to honor the heterodox, learned, distinctly non-topical comedy of “Documentary Now!” while the contours of the category are still in flux.
If there’s one aspect of the series we know Academy members can appreciate, it’s the brilliant impression: Schumer and Ryan McFaul were nominated last year for directing the dead solid perfect satire “12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer” as if inhabited by the spirit of Sidney Lumet, a feat “Documentary Now!” manages many times over, and in myriad registers. Its sketches succeed, in the end, because they’re not sketchy at all, but rather fully realized, remarkably savvy reconsiderations of their subject, which is the creative, sometimes-deceptive act of documentary filmmaking itself.
“The Eye Doesn’t Lie” recalls not only “The Thin Blue Line,” then, but also, by dint of its title, the filmmaker’s examination of visible evidence in “Standard Operating Procedure.” “The pictures spoke a thousand words,” as Army Special Agent Brent Pack says in the latter of photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, launching into the kind of Morris-esque paradox that IFC’s series so beautifully distills. “But unless you know what day and time they were taken, you wouldn’t know what story they were telling.” The eye does lie, of course, and the brilliant “Documentary Now!” is always catching it red-handed.
Related storiesHow 'Mike Tyson Mysteries' Season 2 Pushed Wacky Retro Designs Even Further (Emmy Watch)Taraji P. Henson's 'Empire' Highlight Reel Has to Be Seen to Be Believed'You're the Worst' Star Aya Cash Explains Why You Shouldn't Vote For Her at the Emmys (But You Really, Really Should)...
Inspired by “The Thin Blue Line,” the fourth episode of IFC’s inventive, erudite “Documentary Now!” — from the frenzied imaginations of director Rhys Thomas and “Saturday Night Live” alumni Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Seth Meyers — mimics the filmmaker’s work so precisely that it comes to resemble an X-ray, showing the bone structure of his distinctive style while (gently) poking fun at it. In this sense, to describe “Documentary Now!” as a parody is to undersell: It’s a wildly funny act of criticism, deconstructing the mechanics of nonfiction in an age defined by the slippage between “reality” and the real.
Starring Armisen and Hader in an ever-changing series of roles—in a pungent send-up of Vice Media, they even play three indistinguishable pairs of plaid-clad, ne’er-do-well correspondents on the trail of a Mexican drug kingpin — “Documentary Now!” is designed with an in-depth knowledge of the form, down to the title sequence. A clever nod to public television, replete with evolving logo, synthesized theme music, and Helen Mirren’s refined introductions, the homage to the likes of “Pov,” “Frontline,” and “Independent Lens” is telling. Though tough, at times, on the familiar tropes of Morris and the Maysles, the creators’ treatment of documentaries is affectionate; their approach is closer to Christopher Guest’s warm, playful comedies, from “Waiting for Guffman” to “For Your Consideration,” than to the sharp satire of “Drop Dead Gorgeous” or “Tanner ’88.”
This is born, it seems, of their interest in the power of nonfiction narratives, and in the process by which such stories take shape. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, “Documentary Now!” is lavish in its praise — Hader’s version of Little Edie Beale, in the series’ tribute to “Grey Gardens,” replicates several memorable moments in the film almost exactly — but it’s when the series turns toward exaggeration and hyperbole that its understanding of the form’s fakery is on fullest display. Against the “direct cinema” aesthetic of the Maysles, “Documentary Now!” depicts the siblings, here known as the Feins, eliciting performances from their subjects, searching the shadows of “Sandy Passage” for the most compelling variant of the truth. (It comes back to bite them, in a way that acknowledges the elements of Gothic horror in “Grey Gardens” by blowing the original to bits.)
Understanding documentaries as a set of narrative techniques, and not simply as a reflection of “the facts,” “Documentary Now!” is at its most astute in the first season’s “Kunuk Uncovered.” Based on 1988’s “Nanook Revisited,” itself an investigation of the stagecraft in Robert Flaherty’s 1922 silent, “Nanook of the North,” “Kunuk” renders explicit the series’ animating principle: “Was the first documentary a documentary at all,” the narrator intones, “or was it something else?” As William H. Sebastian (John Slattery) attempts to mold his subject, Pipilok (Armisen), into the “Eskimo” of his ethnocentric assumptions, mounting dog sledding and spear fishing scenes, he loses control of the project to its central figure. “Kunuk” becomes an artful farce, part Hollywood excess and part careful craft.
Pipilok first demands compensation, securing the managerial services of a local pimp, and then displaces Sebastian altogether, transforming into a tortured auteur. (At one point, he curses out the cast in his native tongue, a true diva of the directing chair.) His aesthetic innovations — recording sound, building sets, developing “point of view” and new forms of movement — are those, roughly speaking, of realism, and “Kunuk” is, in essence, a reminder that the style that doesn’t seem like a style is no less fabricated for convincing us otherwise. In “Documentary Now!” nonfiction is always “something else”: A performance, a manipulation, a construction, adjacent to “the real” but not a mirror image of it.
In fashioning a new short film for each installment—with the exception of the two-part “Gentle and Soft: The Story of the Blue Jean Committee” — the series is an outlier in the Emmys’ nascent Variety Sketch category. Last year’s inaugural field featured five nominees on the traditional “sketch” model, including “Saturday Night Live” and winner “Inside Amy Schumer,” and all, including the final season of the excellent “Key & Peele,” are among this year’s twenty eligible series (up from 17). But given the TV Academy’s tendency to settle into firm patterns, to the point that one might call them ruts, it would behoove voters to honor the heterodox, learned, distinctly non-topical comedy of “Documentary Now!” while the contours of the category are still in flux.
If there’s one aspect of the series we know Academy members can appreciate, it’s the brilliant impression: Schumer and Ryan McFaul were nominated last year for directing the dead solid perfect satire “12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer” as if inhabited by the spirit of Sidney Lumet, a feat “Documentary Now!” manages many times over, and in myriad registers. Its sketches succeed, in the end, because they’re not sketchy at all, but rather fully realized, remarkably savvy reconsiderations of their subject, which is the creative, sometimes-deceptive act of documentary filmmaking itself.
“The Eye Doesn’t Lie” recalls not only “The Thin Blue Line,” then, but also, by dint of its title, the filmmaker’s examination of visible evidence in “Standard Operating Procedure.” “The pictures spoke a thousand words,” as Army Special Agent Brent Pack says in the latter of photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, launching into the kind of Morris-esque paradox that IFC’s series so beautifully distills. “But unless you know what day and time they were taken, you wouldn’t know what story they were telling.” The eye does lie, of course, and the brilliant “Documentary Now!” is always catching it red-handed.
Related storiesHow 'Mike Tyson Mysteries' Season 2 Pushed Wacky Retro Designs Even Further (Emmy Watch)Taraji P. Henson's 'Empire' Highlight Reel Has to Be Seen to Be Believed'You're the Worst' Star Aya Cash Explains Why You Shouldn't Vote For Her at the Emmys (But You Really, Really Should)...
- 6/15/2016
- by Matt Brennan
- Indiewire
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Diverse, awe-inspiring and memorable treasures that have sadly fallen off the radar
The noughties were a tough decade for film music fans. Not only was there the unprecedented loss of four great masters in the form of Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Michael Kamen and Basil Poledouris; the nature of the industry itself began to go through some seismic changes, not all of them for the better.
With the art of film scoring becoming ever more processed, driven increasingly by ghost writers, electronic augmentation and temp tracks, prospects looked bleak. However, this shouldn’t shield the fact that there were some blindingly brilliant scores composed during this period. Here’s but a small sampling of them.
25. The Departed (Howard Shore, 2006)
When it came to the sound of his Oscar-winning crime thriller, director Martin Scorsese hit on the inspired notion of having composer Howard Shore base it around a tango,...
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Diverse, awe-inspiring and memorable treasures that have sadly fallen off the radar
The noughties were a tough decade for film music fans. Not only was there the unprecedented loss of four great masters in the form of Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Michael Kamen and Basil Poledouris; the nature of the industry itself began to go through some seismic changes, not all of them for the better.
With the art of film scoring becoming ever more processed, driven increasingly by ghost writers, electronic augmentation and temp tracks, prospects looked bleak. However, this shouldn’t shield the fact that there were some blindingly brilliant scores composed during this period. Here’s but a small sampling of them.
25. The Departed (Howard Shore, 2006)
When it came to the sound of his Oscar-winning crime thriller, director Martin Scorsese hit on the inspired notion of having composer Howard Shore base it around a tango,...
- 3/3/2016
- by simonbrew
- Den of Geek
We’re in the final push now! Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice arrives in theaters in less than a month. Pre-sale tickets are officially available. Emojis have appeared on Twitter. And Jimmy Kimmel debuted a brand-new clip that features the first moments of the titular icons duking it out. At the end of the clip, a momentarily defeated Batman takes out a device and detonates a smoke bomb. Standard operating procedure for the Dark Knight. Superman looks perplexed by this turn of events before barreling through the smoke to confront Batman. But the vigilante isn’t there! Instead, he’s firing a gun of some sort at the Man of Steel! It’s a great bit of action. But there’s a small hiccup. Why couldn’t Superman — he of both X-Ray and superhuman vision — see through the smoke? One explanation would be the smoke is laced with kryptonite.
- 2/29/2016
- by Donna Dickens
- Hitfix
Us documentary director to also be subject of a retrospective.
Us director Errol Morris is to compile this year’s Top 10 at Idfa (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam), whcih runs November 18-29.
Morris, the director of seminal documentaries including The Thin Blue Line (1988), A Brief History of Time (1992), The Fog of War (2003) and Standard Operating Procedure (2008), will also be the subject of a retrospective at the festival.
Morris will attend the festival to talk about his work and his choices for the Top 10 in a masterclass.
Previous directors to compile a top 10 for Idfa include Werner Herzog, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Ulrich Seidl, Heddy Honigmann and Rithy Panh.
Us director Errol Morris is to compile this year’s Top 10 at Idfa (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam), whcih runs November 18-29.
Morris, the director of seminal documentaries including The Thin Blue Line (1988), A Brief History of Time (1992), The Fog of War (2003) and Standard Operating Procedure (2008), will also be the subject of a retrospective at the festival.
Morris will attend the festival to talk about his work and his choices for the Top 10 in a masterclass.
Previous directors to compile a top 10 for Idfa include Werner Herzog, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Ulrich Seidl, Heddy Honigmann and Rithy Panh.
- 6/30/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
After narrowing the Oscar documentary feature shortlist to five at the 87th Academy Award nominations Jan. 15, a number of notable exclusions were featured, particularly Al Hicks‘ Keep on Keepin’ On, which documents the mentorship and friendship of a jazz legend and a blind piano prodigy, and Steve James‘ Life Itself, about the life and career of famed film critic Roger Ebert. (James is no stranger to snubs and the exclusion of his 1994 film Hoop Dreams led to rule reform within the documentary category.) Both films hold 97 percent positive ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some films surprised when they didn’t even land a spot on the shortlist, such as Red Army, which examines the rise and fall of the Soviet Union’s hockey team from the perspective of its coach. That film holds a 100 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In light of these best documentary feature snubs,...
Managing Editor
After narrowing the Oscar documentary feature shortlist to five at the 87th Academy Award nominations Jan. 15, a number of notable exclusions were featured, particularly Al Hicks‘ Keep on Keepin’ On, which documents the mentorship and friendship of a jazz legend and a blind piano prodigy, and Steve James‘ Life Itself, about the life and career of famed film critic Roger Ebert. (James is no stranger to snubs and the exclusion of his 1994 film Hoop Dreams led to rule reform within the documentary category.) Both films hold 97 percent positive ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some films surprised when they didn’t even land a spot on the shortlist, such as Red Army, which examines the rise and fall of the Soviet Union’s hockey team from the perspective of its coach. That film holds a 100 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In light of these best documentary feature snubs,...
- 1/23/2015
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Finding Vivian Maier documents Maloof’s journey to discover more about Vivian Maier after purchasing a box of her negatives in 2007. He began the search a few years later, after he realized the negatives consisted of some of the best undeveloped street photography of the 20th century. After some searching, it was revealed that Maier was a career-nanny who had died in 2009.
Since the documentary is in serious contention for a best documentary feature Oscar, we thought we’d check to see how many other photography-related films have managed to resonate with the Academy’s documentary branch and land a nomination in the same category. We found six.
The Naked Eye (1956)
Directed by two-time Oscar winner Louis Clyde Stoumen, this documentary celebrates photography through history by looking at pioneers in the field, such as Margaret Bourke-White. Though he covers works by multiple photographers,...
Managing Editor
Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Finding Vivian Maier documents Maloof’s journey to discover more about Vivian Maier after purchasing a box of her negatives in 2007. He began the search a few years later, after he realized the negatives consisted of some of the best undeveloped street photography of the 20th century. After some searching, it was revealed that Maier was a career-nanny who had died in 2009.
Since the documentary is in serious contention for a best documentary feature Oscar, we thought we’d check to see how many other photography-related films have managed to resonate with the Academy’s documentary branch and land a nomination in the same category. We found six.
The Naked Eye (1956)
Directed by two-time Oscar winner Louis Clyde Stoumen, this documentary celebrates photography through history by looking at pioneers in the field, such as Margaret Bourke-White. Though he covers works by multiple photographers,...
- 11/7/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
Something You Should Know Before Seeing The Unknown Known
In this era—thank you Fox News, thank you Rush Limbaugh—where vitriol supplants discussion, where bombast and partisan opinion quashes reason, Errol Morris’s new film has ignited some low-wattage controversy. The Unknown Known is a bloodless portrait of former U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, an exposé only in a laissez-faire sense; unlike The Fog of War, Morris’ other documentary on a former Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, which was a Greek tragedy of hubris and self-excoriation, with a sort of sad happy ending where McNamara is haunted with regret. In The Unknown Known there is no Bill O’Reilly pugnacity, shouting at his subject, calling him a dirty traitor and shutting off his mic, or no Michael Moore (the Left’s equivalent of Bill O’Reilly, thank God for it) making his subject into a buffoon. Why...
In this era—thank you Fox News, thank you Rush Limbaugh—where vitriol supplants discussion, where bombast and partisan opinion quashes reason, Errol Morris’s new film has ignited some low-wattage controversy. The Unknown Known is a bloodless portrait of former U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, an exposé only in a laissez-faire sense; unlike The Fog of War, Morris’ other documentary on a former Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, which was a Greek tragedy of hubris and self-excoriation, with a sort of sad happy ending where McNamara is haunted with regret. In The Unknown Known there is no Bill O’Reilly pugnacity, shouting at his subject, calling him a dirty traitor and shutting off his mic, or no Michael Moore (the Left’s equivalent of Bill O’Reilly, thank God for it) making his subject into a buffoon. Why...
- 4/12/2014
- by Dr. Garth Twa
- Pure Movies
Entertainment Geekly is a weekly column that examines pop culture through a geek lens and simultaneously examines contemporary geek culture through a pop lens. So many lenses!
As a capitalist idea, The Walking Dead is transformative: The cable TV show that cut the last fragile residual cords of broadcast television dominance, the meteor that ended the age of dinosaurs. Analogically, it is to the economics of television what The Sopranos was to the aesthetics of television: A demarcation between What Was and What Will Be. As pure creative destruction, the show is fascinating. But as a work of creativity, the show has been frustrating.
As a capitalist idea, The Walking Dead is transformative: The cable TV show that cut the last fragile residual cords of broadcast television dominance, the meteor that ended the age of dinosaurs. Analogically, it is to the economics of television what The Sopranos was to the aesthetics of television: A demarcation between What Was and What Will Be. As pure creative destruction, the show is fascinating. But as a work of creativity, the show has been frustrating.
- 3/20/2014
- by Darren Franich
- EW.com - PopWatch
Entertainment Geekly is a weekly column that examines pop culture through a geek lens and simultaneously examines contemporary geek culture through a pop lens. So many lenses! This week there are two columns inspired by True Detective, partially because True Detective was a thought-provoking TV show which deserves a significant amount of thoughtful analysis, but mainly because I missed a column last week. Yesterday: A consideration of where the show’s ending fits into the pantheon. Today: A meditation on the show’s meaning, or lack thereof. Spoilers follow.
At the end of True Detective’s second episode, philosophizing detective...
At the end of True Detective’s second episode, philosophizing detective...
- 3/14/2014
- by Darren Franich
- EW.com - PopWatch
Apparently there is a lot of fightin’ going on in Neil Burger’s sci-fi “Hunger Games”-wannabe “Divergent,” which is a bit of a surprise. But judging from the batch of 40-plus new images for the movie, apparently it’s all fightin’ and shootin’ and climbin’ and punchin’ all the time. That should make for a decent movie for the boys who will no doubt be dragged to this thing by their significant others who have read the Veronica Roth books from which it’s based. The sequel, we’re told, is already scheduled to shoot. But then again, when isn’t a sequel already “scheduled” to shoot or being “developed”? That’s like saying Hollywood loves money. Standard operating procedure these days. Divergent is a thrilling action-adventure film set in a world where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley) is warned...
- 3/10/2014
- by Nix
- Beyond Hollywood
Entertainment Geekly is a weekly column that examines pop culture through a geek lens and simultaneously examines contemporary geek culture through a pop lens. So many lenses!
Measuring time in specific decades is a fallacy, but it’s a fallacy that everyone believes in. There’s no legitimate reason that we should set aside the passage of time between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1989 as a specific and clearly defined unit of time. 1979 wasn’t too different from 1980; most of the movies released in 1990 were probably shot in 1989. People used to refer to the ’80s as “the MTV Decade” before every decade...
Measuring time in specific decades is a fallacy, but it’s a fallacy that everyone believes in. There’s no legitimate reason that we should set aside the passage of time between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1989 as a specific and clearly defined unit of time. 1979 wasn’t too different from 1980; most of the movies released in 1990 were probably shot in 1989. People used to refer to the ’80s as “the MTV Decade” before every decade...
- 1/23/2014
- by Darren Franich
- EW.com - PopWatch
Catching Fire is inventing new kinds of money to make. So, lest there was any doubt, there will be a Mockingjay movie. Or rather, two Mockingjay movies. Heck, they’re filming the movies right now; maybe they’ll squeeze out a third one in their spare time. Book-splitting isn’t so much a trend as it is Standard Operating Procedure for now: Popularized by Harry Potter, debased by Twilight, taken to ludicrous extremes by The Hobbit. But splitting up Mockingjay offers a particular challenge to the filmmakers: How do you turn that book into two different PG-13 movies?
I’m...
I’m...
- 11/25/2013
- by Darren Franich
- EW.com - PopWatch
Over the last 10 years, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has been preoccupied with the methodology behind warfare, specifically investigating the mismanagement of American armed conflicts from Vietnam to Iraq. With the exception of his fascinating 2010 crime doc Tabloid, his output over the last decade has been a sober postmortem on our recent overseas failures: The Fog of War, Standard Operating Procedure and now The Unknown Known, which is the best of the bunch. Where his earlier documentaries looked at aspects of the military mindset, his newest feels nearly definitive, putting a face to hawkish policies....
- 11/12/2013
- Pastemagazine.com
In a national culture that thrives on irony, detachment, the postmodern hum of advertising, and the communicative cool enforced by technology, good old sincerity — remember that golden oldie? — can seem not just out-of-date but a little embarrassing. Who wants to be caught saying what they mean and meaning what they say, or wearing their heart on their earnest, pleading sleeve? John Carney does. He’s the Irish-born writer-director of Can a Song Save Your Life?, an unapologetically sincere movie that is modeled on the beautiful, almost desperate sincerity of the music-movie that put Carney on the map: Once, that lovely...
- 9/11/2013
- by Owen Gleiberman
- EW - Inside Movies
Pixar’s fifteenth feature film The Good Dinosaur will hit theaters next May. It might sound strange, then, that the beloved animation studio has just fired the film’s director, Bob Peterson, from the project, according to the La Times. But Pixar has lately made swapping directors Standard Operating Procedure — most controversially with last year’s Brave, the company’s first-ever female-headlined film, which was also going to be its first-ever female-directed film before the ousting of original helmer Brenda Chapman. Chapman now works for cross-court rivals DreamWorks Animation, and recently implied to the New York Times that Pixar chief John Lasseter micro-manages; coincidentally,...
- 8/30/2013
- by Darren Franich
- EW - Inside Movies
Over a career spanning more than 30 years, Errol Morris has risen to become one of the most respected documentarians working today, with critically acclaimed films such as The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War, and Standard Operating Procedure among his credits. Thus, many were interested to learn of a new documentary from Morris, this time focusing on former Us Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rather than a standard documentary, however, this film, titled The Unknown Known, is a one-on-one interview of Rumsfeld, conducted by Morris. A new clip for the film, which will be screening at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, has been released, and can be seen below.
(Source: Indiewire)
The post Tiff 2013: See a clip from ‘The Unknown Known’, the new documentary by Errol Morris appeared first on Sound On Sight.
(Source: Indiewire)
The post Tiff 2013: See a clip from ‘The Unknown Known’, the new documentary by Errol Morris appeared first on Sound On Sight.
- 8/30/2013
- by Deepayan Sengupta
- SoundOnSight
Already one of the fall’s more eagerly anticipated films, “The Unknown Known” – Errol Morris’s take on the beloved Donald Rumsfeld, the very idea of which makes our toes curl -- seems poised to be the biggest doc of the season. Word is it's not only been invited to the Telluride and Toronto Film Festival but it's become the first of two docs ever accepted into competition at the Venice Bienale (the other being the homegrown “Sacro Gra” by Gianfranco Rosi). But that doesn't mean that the latest work by the director of “The Thin Blue Line,” “Fast Cheap and Out of Control,” “Standard Operating Procedure” and the Oscar-winning “Fog of War,” a filmmaker who defines the state art of nonfiction, and a director who can also turn out a pretty mean TV commercial, will make the exalted lineup at this fall's New York Film Festival, which takes place...
- 8/8/2013
- by John Anderson
- Thompson on Hollywood
by Joseph Leray
We haven't heard much about "Deep Down" since it was revealed at Sony's PlayStation 4 press conference in February, but the flagship game for Capcom's new Panta Rhei engine re-emerged during the publisher's Network Game Conference yesterday.
In typical teaser trailer fashion, the new video consists mostly of logos and quick cuts of a creepy manta ray-person-skeleton-demon. That's Videogame Industry Standard Operating Procedure, but there's info to gleaned here and gold in them grimdark fantasy hills.
For starters, "Deep Down" is sporting a Capcom Online Games logo, which -- to my knowledge -- is a new department. Japanese site 4Gamer attended the Network Game Conference and reports that "Deep Down" is an online role-playing game, though its unclear if this means it will have online elements or be a full-blown massively multiplayer game. It might just mean that "Deep Down" requires an internet connection to play.
Secondly, "Deep...
We haven't heard much about "Deep Down" since it was revealed at Sony's PlayStation 4 press conference in February, but the flagship game for Capcom's new Panta Rhei engine re-emerged during the publisher's Network Game Conference yesterday.
In typical teaser trailer fashion, the new video consists mostly of logos and quick cuts of a creepy manta ray-person-skeleton-demon. That's Videogame Industry Standard Operating Procedure, but there's info to gleaned here and gold in them grimdark fantasy hills.
For starters, "Deep Down" is sporting a Capcom Online Games logo, which -- to my knowledge -- is a new department. Japanese site 4Gamer attended the Network Game Conference and reports that "Deep Down" is an online role-playing game, though its unclear if this means it will have online elements or be a full-blown massively multiplayer game. It might just mean that "Deep Down" requires an internet connection to play.
Secondly, "Deep...
- 8/3/2013
- by MTV Video Games
- MTV Multiplayer
In a video that many may find difficult to watch, actor and rapper Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) attempts to undergo a force-feeding procedure that has been used on hunger strike participants at the Guantanamo Bay prison. The demonstration, which Bey abruptly stops due to apparent discomfort, is part of a campaign protesting the force-feedings.
Bey, 39, agreed to the procedure as part of the Stand for Justice campaign, timed to coincide with the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which begins Monday. The footage was released to The Guardian by British human rights group Reprieve.
Warning: Graphic Video Below
At more than 4 minutes long, the clip shows the "Italian Job" star -- dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit -- being restrained in a chair as anonymous medical personnel in scrubs attempt to force a plastic tube into his nostril. Bey is brought to tears during the procedure,...
Bey, 39, agreed to the procedure as part of the Stand for Justice campaign, timed to coincide with the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which begins Monday. The footage was released to The Guardian by British human rights group Reprieve.
Warning: Graphic Video Below
At more than 4 minutes long, the clip shows the "Italian Job" star -- dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit -- being restrained in a chair as anonymous medical personnel in scrubs attempt to force a plastic tube into his nostril. Bey is brought to tears during the procedure,...
- 7/8/2013
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
In the absence of a full official copy of Manning's statement, journalists have had to rely on their own note-taking from court
Bradley Manning read out a personal statement to the court in Fort Meade, Maryland, at a pre-trial hearing over his prosecution for leaking the largest trove of state secrets in Us history. It provides the first account in his own words and under his own name of how he came to download hundreds of thousands of classified documents and videos from secure military databases and transmit them to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
The Us government has refused to publish contemporaneous transcripts and documents from the Manning court martial, prompting legal complaints from open government groups. In the absence of a full official copy of Manning's statement, journalists covering the case have had to rely on their own note-taking from the courtroom.
Here the Guardian publishes a transcript compiled by independent journalist Alexa O'Brien,...
Bradley Manning read out a personal statement to the court in Fort Meade, Maryland, at a pre-trial hearing over his prosecution for leaking the largest trove of state secrets in Us history. It provides the first account in his own words and under his own name of how he came to download hundreds of thousands of classified documents and videos from secure military databases and transmit them to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
The Us government has refused to publish contemporaneous transcripts and documents from the Manning court martial, prompting legal complaints from open government groups. In the absence of a full official copy of Manning's statement, journalists covering the case have had to rely on their own note-taking from the courtroom.
Here the Guardian publishes a transcript compiled by independent journalist Alexa O'Brien,...
- 3/1/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
On this week’s episode, Michael & I sit down and talk about the new Don Coscarelli film John Dies at the End – which is available now through Video On Demand via Amazon, the Playstation Network, Xbox Video and through various cable companies.
Show Notes:
Intro
What We’ve Been Watching
Michael: Lady Terminator, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Gangster Squad (read Michael’s review), Standard Operating Procedure, Zero Dark Thirty
Andy: Robocop, Lady Terminator, Sleep Tight, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty
Picks of the Week – DVD & Blu-Ray Releases for January 15, 2012
Andy’s Pick
Michael’s Pick
John Dies At The End Discussion
Outro
Contact us Email Michael & Andy at podcast@destroythebrain.com Leave us a voicemail at 206-338-4259
Leave us a review & Subscribe on iTunes | Follow us on Twitter & Facebook | Join the Facebook Group Here!
Show Notes:
Intro
What We’ve Been Watching
Michael: Lady Terminator, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Gangster Squad (read Michael’s review), Standard Operating Procedure, Zero Dark Thirty
Andy: Robocop, Lady Terminator, Sleep Tight, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty
Picks of the Week – DVD & Blu-Ray Releases for January 15, 2012
Andy’s Pick
Michael’s Pick
John Dies At The End Discussion
Outro
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- 1/15/2013
- by Andy Triefenbach
- Destroy the Brain
Given the absolute glut of documentaries produced about the military excursions into Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s surprising that so few have dealt with the experience of coming home. We know plenty about the moral and the political implications of the wars from Standard Operating Procedure and Taxi to the Dark Side: we know significantly less about the process of recovering from that experience, or what its implications for the rest of your life are. Against that background, High Ground feels like a breath of fresh air. Though it isn’t always as well-paced or assured a film as you’d like, its voice is reassuringly apolitical and positive.
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- 11/6/2012
- by Anders Nelson
- JustPressPlay.net
The Elfman Project, a three-year exploration of the work of composer Danny Elfman by the American Youth Symphony, is set to launch May 6 with a free symposium and concert at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Westwood. The hourlong symposium starts at 4 p.m. with a discussion of Elfman’s work and includes a live performance featuring music from the 2008 documentary Standard Operating Procedure. Los Angeles Times music critic Jon Burlingame will moderate the discussion, and composer and American Youth Symphony guest conductor David Newman will participate. The concert begins at 7 p.m. with relevant music from Stravinsky
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- 5/1/2012
- by Cynthia Ruiz
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The last time a past Secretary of Defense sat down for an interview with Errol Morris, the documentarian earned himself an Oscar. 2003's The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara featured Morris' breakdown of the man who presided over the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. Now, having been able to sit down with the second-longest tenured Secretary of Defense (McNamara himself being the first), Morris is looking to replicate his award-winning documentary by focusing on Donald Rumsfeld. Not shying away from such sensitive topics as the torture of suspected terrorists at Abu Ghraib prison in his 2008 work, Standard Operating Procedure, Morris will surely delve into the incidents which occurred under Rumsfeld's reign. What's less clear is how history will remember Rumsfeld, whether as Nixon's "anti-poverty czar," a proponent for governmental transparency or just another bungler in the Dubya administration. Undoubtedly, Morris's work will have...
- 3/15/2012
- by Dave Trumbore
- Collider.com
Controversy has never scared off Errol Morris, and in fact, it has powered some of his best work. From the true crime tale "The Thin Blue Line," powerful portraits of war in "The Fog of War" and "Standard Operating Procedure," and more recently the JFK assassination (in the astounding short "The Umbrella Man"; watch it here) he has faced some tough material head on with tremendous insight. And his next effort promises nothing less.
Vulture reports that Morris and his Interrotron sat down last month with Donald Rumsfeld for a series of interviews covering his entire career. If somehow you have no idea who this guy this (and really, you should), he has impacted American politics in huge and very controversial ways. Most know him as the Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush who came up with the framework for "enhanced interrogation techniques." Or as the guy who eluded...
Vulture reports that Morris and his Interrotron sat down last month with Donald Rumsfeld for a series of interviews covering his entire career. If somehow you have no idea who this guy this (and really, you should), he has impacted American politics in huge and very controversial ways. Most know him as the Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush who came up with the framework for "enhanced interrogation techniques." Or as the guy who eluded...
- 3/14/2012
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Errol Morris, London
The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.
Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue
French Film Festival, On tour
There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...
The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.
Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue
French Film Festival, On tour
There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...
- 11/5/2011
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Joyce McKinney is a woman with a lot of love to give and in 1977 she found a man to devote herself to completely. This man was Kirk Anderson and according to Joyce the two fell madly in love. The only problem was that Kirk Anderson was a Mormon and following their whirlwind romance Kirk ‘disappeared’. The circumstances surrounding Kirk’s disappearance are the first of many situations in which the real story is almost impossible to discern. It later appeared to transpire that Kirk had moved to the UK for Mormon missionary work but Joyce was adamant that he had been kidnapped and taken to the UK against his will.
Hiring a private investigator, a pilot and bodyguards she traveled to find Kirk, liberate him from the Mormon church and continue their relationship. Liberate him she did, and not just from the church. Hiding out in a cottage in Devon...
Hiring a private investigator, a pilot and bodyguards she traveled to find Kirk, liberate him from the Mormon church and continue their relationship. Liberate him she did, and not just from the church. Hiding out in a cottage in Devon...
- 11/3/2011
- by Craig Skinner
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
"Painfully stark yet utterly magnetic," begins Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times, "You Don't Like the Truth: 4 Days Inside Guantánamo presents excerpts from the 2003 interrogation of the 16-year-old Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen accused of killing an American soldier during a firefight in an Afghan village. Working from seven hours of recently declassified tapes, the Montreal-based filmmakers Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez have assembled an even-tempered glimpse behind a very dark curtain."
Glenn Heath Jr in Slant: "Countless documentaries have walked down this road before, dissecting America's dark and unethical dealings in the name of national security, most notably Michael Winterbottom's The Road to Guantánamo, Laura Poitras's The Oath, and Errol Morris's Standard Operating Procedure. But what sets You Don't Like the Truth apart from these other, more accomplished films is its subject's age: Omar was the youngest detainee at Guantánamo at 16. Labeled a terrorist by...
Glenn Heath Jr in Slant: "Countless documentaries have walked down this road before, dissecting America's dark and unethical dealings in the name of national security, most notably Michael Winterbottom's The Road to Guantánamo, Laura Poitras's The Oath, and Errol Morris's Standard Operating Procedure. But what sets You Don't Like the Truth apart from these other, more accomplished films is its subject's age: Omar was the youngest detainee at Guantánamo at 16. Labeled a terrorist by...
- 9/29/2011
- MUBI
In the 10 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks, film directors have responded in myriad ways. Peter Bradshaw charts the rise and fall of the 9/11 movie
At the Venice film festival last week, George Clooney unveiled his new backstairs political drama, The Ides of March, about a Democratic presidential candidate getting bogged down in compromise, backstabbing and the dark political arts. Clooney said that he could conceivably have completed the film before now, but President Obama had been doing too well, and therefore the time wasn't right.
Perhaps Clooney was being serious and perhaps he wasn't. But the remark typifies the dwindling of the memory of 9/11 in Hollywood cinema. The Obama presidency, ushered in by the catastrophe of the Bush reign, is now perceived to be in trouble, and this enables a prominent Hollywood liberal to make the kind of savvy, ahistorically pessimistic political movie that could have been produced at...
At the Venice film festival last week, George Clooney unveiled his new backstairs political drama, The Ides of March, about a Democratic presidential candidate getting bogged down in compromise, backstabbing and the dark political arts. Clooney said that he could conceivably have completed the film before now, but President Obama had been doing too well, and therefore the time wasn't right.
Perhaps Clooney was being serious and perhaps he wasn't. But the remark typifies the dwindling of the memory of 9/11 in Hollywood cinema. The Obama presidency, ushered in by the catastrophe of the Bush reign, is now perceived to be in trouble, and this enables a prominent Hollywood liberal to make the kind of savvy, ahistorically pessimistic political movie that could have been produced at...
- 9/9/2011
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – What Errol Morris does so well is very, very difficult. He takes unusual interview subjects (“Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control,” “Mr. Death), sometimes even with a political background (“The Fog of War,” “Standard Operating Procedure”) and makes them completely riveting. Clearly inspired by the Morris filmography, Jeff Prosserman’s “Chasing Madoff” attempts that blend of personality and history but falls flat on its face. Rarely has a documentary taken a more interesting story and told it in a more annoying manner.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
Chronicling the men who smelled something foul in the Bernie Madoff portfolio years before anyone paid attention to what would eventually become one of the stinkiest situations in the economic downfall, “Chasing Madoff” has interesting interview subjects at its core. I’d love to actually be able to sit down and listen to what they did without all the over-dramatization of this movie. I’m not sure...
Rating: 1.5/5.0
Chronicling the men who smelled something foul in the Bernie Madoff portfolio years before anyone paid attention to what would eventually become one of the stinkiest situations in the economic downfall, “Chasing Madoff” has interesting interview subjects at its core. I’d love to actually be able to sit down and listen to what they did without all the over-dramatization of this movie. I’m not sure...
- 9/2/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Tabloid
Directed by Errol Morris
United States, 2010
Errol Morris makes documentaries about half-truths. The Thin Blue Line, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, Standard Operating Procedure all function on a level where truth is relative depending on the speaker. Unlike other directors, Morris’ work is not always the search for truth – though sometimes it’s found regardless – as much as it is the search for the definition of truth, where honesty and fact are neither synonym nor antonym.
If The Thin Blue Line is a documentary disguised as a police procedural (or the other way around), Tabloid is a documentary disguised as satirical farce. Former beauty queen Joyce McKinney is charged, in 1978, with kidnapping her boyfriend, Kirk Anderson after he disappeared and was, according to McKinney, brainwashed by the Mormons. As pulpy as Sam Fuller, Tabloid accelerates through a lunatic tale of S&M, cloning, false wigs and moustaches, and sensationalism.
Directed by Errol Morris
United States, 2010
Errol Morris makes documentaries about half-truths. The Thin Blue Line, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, Standard Operating Procedure all function on a level where truth is relative depending on the speaker. Unlike other directors, Morris’ work is not always the search for truth – though sometimes it’s found regardless – as much as it is the search for the definition of truth, where honesty and fact are neither synonym nor antonym.
If The Thin Blue Line is a documentary disguised as a police procedural (or the other way around), Tabloid is a documentary disguised as satirical farce. Former beauty queen Joyce McKinney is charged, in 1978, with kidnapping her boyfriend, Kirk Anderson after he disappeared and was, according to McKinney, brainwashed by the Mormons. As pulpy as Sam Fuller, Tabloid accelerates through a lunatic tale of S&M, cloning, false wigs and moustaches, and sensationalism.
- 8/2/2011
- by Neal Dhand
- SoundOnSight
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