LOUIS THEROUX DOCUMENTARIES

DVD

SUMMARY:

Long before Comedy Central’s The Daily Show was a glimmer in creator Lizz Winstead’s eye, there was another program that brilliantly satirized programs like 60 Minutes and 20/20 - it was Michael Moore’s TV Nation. One of the TV Nation correspondents was a Brit by the name of Louis Theroux, whose segments included memorable visits with the “new” Klu Klux Klan and NRA rocker Ted Nugent.

In fact, it was exactly those profiles of subculture and celebrity that Theroux would explore with his post-TV Nation series Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends, which originally aired on Bravo in the US and the BBC in the UK. In it, Louis traveled around America, seeking out and trying to make sense of fascinatingly oddball American subcultures such as professional wrestling, rappers, swingers, UFO enthusiasts, etc. In addition, he’s spent face-to-face time with various unique, somewhat eccentric celebrities in his series When Louis Met…. - QuickStop

VIDEO: WHEN LOUIS MET THE NAZIS



Other films:

• Louis Theroux and the Brothel
• Louis Theroux Extreme Body-Building
• Louis Theroux on Fundamentalist Christianity
• Louis Theroux African Hunting Party
• Louis Theroux And Michael Jackson
• Several more HERE

REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• Guardian interview with Louis Theroux
• Louis Theroux: 'When I work I like to be invisible' (Article from The Independent)
• Sound of Young America audio interview with Louis Theroux
• Louis Theroux fan site
• Louis Theroux bio

HENRY MILLER ASLEEP AND AWAKE

(1975) Director: Tom Schiller

SUMMARY:

Filmed when the author was 81, HENRY MILLER ASLEEP & AWAKE is a voyage of ideas about life, writing, sex, spirituality, nightmares, and New York that captures the warmth, vigor and high animal spirits of a singular American artist. The man is Henry Miller and the room is his bathroom. It's a miraculous shrine covered with photos and drawings collected by the author over the course of his long and fruitful life. Graciously, in his raspy, sonorous voice, he points out the highlights of his improvised gallery, speaking of philosophers, writers, painters, mad kings, women, and friends.

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• Dailymotion interview with director Tom Schiller (VIDEO)
• Tom Schiller Wikipedia page

NOTES:

• (Director) Tom Schiller grew up in LA and met Henry Miller when he was 18 assisting another filmmaker shooting at the author's home. Schiller's other works include documentaries on Willem de Kooning, Buckminster Fuller and Anais Nin, before joining Saturday Night Live as an original writer. There, he won three Emmy's and created the short film segments "Schiller's Reel" and "Schillervision" and worked with John Belushi, Bill Murray and Gilda Radner among others. Schiller later wrote and directed an MGM/UA feature film entitled "Nothing Lasts Forever" and has been directing television commercials for over a decade. He lives in New York City and Connecticut with his wife, Jacque.
• Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company: A Henry Miller Blog
• Henry Miller: Personal Collection
• The Henry Miller Library
• Download torrent

HATED: GG ALLIN AND THE MURDER JUNKIES

(1994) Director: Todd Phillips

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

HATED is the highly acclaimed, controversial, award winning debut from New York film maker Todd Phillips. GG Allin infected the punk scene for fourteen brutal years. Touring between prison sentences, Allin caused mayhem wherever he went, accompanied by his band the Murder Junkies and a legion of die-hard fans. Hated is a hard hitting documentary of the final New York visit which resulted in several injuries, heavy police activity and the director's near expulsion from New York University (after a brief but catastrophic GG spoken word performance). Allin's apocalyptic tirade was fuelled by hatred and anger. Despite his indisputable devotion to the extreme, Allin never delivered his promise of committing suicide on stage as he died of a heroin overdose soon after HATED was completed (scenes from GG's atypical funeral can be witnessed after the end credits). - Video dustjacket

VIDEO: VARIOUS SCENES







REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• SuicideGirls Interview with director Todd Phillips
• Some of Todd Phillips other directing credits include: School for Scoundrels (2006), Starsky & Hutch (2004), Old School (2003), Road Trip (2000), Frat House (1998)
• DocumentaryBlog review
  

NOTES:

• Hated was re-released with new footage in 2007. The first 5,000 copies came with free temporary tattoos based on some of Allin's real tattoos, and a mail-in offer for a poster featuring artwork of Allin painted by serial killer and friend John Wayne Gacy.
• GG Allin's last day alive (VIDEO)
• GG Allin official site
• Download torrent
  

TOUCHING THE VOID

(2003) DIRECTOR: Kevin Macdonald

DVD

NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

TOUCHING THE VOID, directed by Kevin Macdonald, reconstructs the story of a fateful climb Joe Simpson and his mountaineering partner Simon Yates undertook in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. Screening to acclaim at the 2003 Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals, this feature documentary combines dramatic reconstruction of the climb and interviews with the two climbers it nearly killed. Joe Simpson and Simon Yates set out to climb the west face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. It was 1985 and the men were young, fit, skilled climbers. The west face, remote and treacherous, had not been climbed before. Following a successful 3 1/2 day ascent, disaster struck. Simpson fell a short distance and broke several bones in his leg. With no hope of rescue, the men decided to attempt descent together with Yates lowering Simpson 300 feet at a time in a slow, painful process that could have potentially been deadly for both. -IFC

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE



Remainder of film can be found on YouTube

REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• 'Making the Cut: How Joe Simpson's best-selling thriller became a stunning film epic' (Outside Online)
  
• How They Made Touching The Void: Filmmaking on the Edge (Channel4)
• Film production notes
• AV Club review
  
• CineScene review
• At The Movies review (VIDEO)
• Director's statement
• Some of Kevin Macdonald's other credits include: One Day in September (1999), A Brief History of Errol Morris (2000), Being Mick (2001), The Last King of Scotland (2006)

NOTES:

• To take this story from the page to the screen was an enormous challenge. Over the past 15 years numerous attempts had been made, but all to no avail. In the late 90s Actress Sally Field's Fogwood Films acquired the option, intending to turn the story into a Hollywood feature film that was to star Tom Cruise. However, no feature film has been made. One major creative problem is that up until now writers have struggled as to how to bring TOUCHING THE VOID to the screen, given that there are only two protagonists and they are separated for most of the story.
  
• The twenty-two day shoot was made more arduous by the lack of any contingency days and some of the worst snowstorms of the decade in the Alps. "It was terribly difficult," says Macdonald. "The camera freezing up, the lenses fogging over, the actors and ourselves getting pulled aside by the safety guys because they said it was too cold and we were going to get frostbitten. We had to go in and out half an hour at a time. And it's a lot of action with no dialogue so it's not like you can just resort to dialogue scenes, you've got to be very physical non-stop. Every day was a fight just to get things done, just to get even some of it covered and that was exhausting." - Production Notes

EARLY DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

DVD: Landmarks of Early Film

SUMMARY:

The filmmaker John Grierson used the term documentary in 1926 to refer to any nonfiction film medium, including travelogues and instructional films. The earliest "moving pictures" were, by definition, documentaries. They were single-shot moments captured on film: a train entering a station, a boat docking, or a factory of people getting off work. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. These short films were called "actuality" films. Very little storytelling took place before the turn of the century, due mostly to technological limitations, namely, that movie cameras could hold only very small amounts of film. Thus many of the first films are a minute or less in length... - Wikipedia

VIDEO:

ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN AT LA CIOTAT (Lumière Brothers 1896)



ELECTROCUTING AN ELEPHANT (Thomas A. Edison 1903)



ROUGH SEA AT DOVER (Birt Acres and Robert W. Paul 1895)



RINGKAMPFER (Max Skladanowsky 1895)



PRESIDENT MCKINLEY AT HOME (1897)

PACK TRAIN AT CHILKOOT PASS (1898)

LINKS:

• Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
• The History of the Discovery of Cinematography
• The films shown at the first public screening (VIDEO)
• Early Cinema.com

NANOOK OF THE NORTH

(1922) Director: Robert J. Flaherty

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

Nanook of the North is regarded as the first significant nonfiction feature, made in the days before the term "documentary" had even been coined. Filmmaker Robert Flaherty had lived among the Eskimos in Canada for many years as a prospector and explorer, and he had shot some footage of them on an informal basis before he decided to make a more formal record of their daily lives. Financing was provided by Revillion Freres, a French fur company with an outpost on the shores of Hudson Bay. Filming took place between August 1920, and August 1921, mostly on the Ungava Peninsula of Hudson Bay. Flaherty employed two recently developed Akeley gyroscope cameras which required minimum lubrication; this allowed him to tilt and pan for certain shots even in cold weather. He also set up equipment to develop and print his footage on location and show it in a makeshift theater to his subjects. Rather than simply record events as they happened, Flaherty staged scenes -- fishing, hunting, building an igloo -- to carry along his narrative. The film's tremendous success confirmed Flaherty's status as a first-rate storyteller and keen observer of man's fragile relationship with the harshest environmental conditions. - Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

VIDEO: 8 MINUTE EXCERPT



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• How I Filmed Nanook of the North (Essay by director Robert J. Flaherty)
• A New Look at Robert J. Flaherty's Documentary Art (Essay by Gerhard Lampe)
• Roger Ebert's Great Movies Essay
• The Criterion Contraption’s review

NOTES:

• In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
• The film was shot near Inukjuak, on Hudson Bay in Arctic Quebec, Canada. Having worked as a prospector and explorer in Arctic Canada among the Inuit, Flaherty was familiar with his subjects and set out to document their lifestyle. Flaherty had shot film in the region prior to this period, but that footage was destroyed in a fire started when Flaherty dropped a cigarette onto the original camera negative (which was highly flammable nitrate stock). Flaherty therefore made Nanook of the North in its place. Funded by French fur company Revillon Freres, the film was shot from August 1920 to August 1921.
• As the first nonfiction work of its scale, Nanook of the North was ground-breaking cinema. It captured an exotic culture in a distant location, rather than a facsimile of reality using actors and props on a studio set. Traditional Inuit methods of hunting, fishing, igloo-building, and other customs were shown with accuracy, and the compelling story of a man and his family struggling against nature met with great success in North America and abroad.
• Flaherty has been criticized for deceptively portraying staged events as reality. Much of the action was staged and gives an inaccurate view of real Inuit life during the early 20th century. "Nanook" was in fact named Allakariallak, for instance, while the "wife" shown in the film was not really his wife. And although Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting, Flaherty encouraged him to hunt after the fashion of his ancestors in order to capture what was believed to be the way the Inuit lived before European influence. The ending, in which Nanook and his family are supposedly in peril of dying if they can't find shelter quickly enough, was implausible, given the reality of nearby French-Canadian and Inuit settlements during filming. Flaherty also exaggerated the peril to Inuit hunters with his claim, often repeated, that Allakariallak had died of starvation two years after the film was completed, whereas it is now known that he more likely died of tuberculosis. On the other hand, while Flaherty made his Inuit actors use spears instead of guns during the walrus and seal hunts, the hunting itself did involve actual wild animals.
• Flaherty defended his work by stating that a filmmaker must often distort a thing to catch its true spirit. Later filmmakers have pointed out that the only cameras available to Flaherty at the time were both large and immobile, making it impossible to effectively capture most interior shots or unstructured exterior scenes without significantly modifying the environment and subject action. For example, the Inuit crew had to build a special three-walled igloo for Flaherty's bulky camera so that there would be enough light for it to capture interior shots.
• Kabloonak is a 1995 film about the making of Nanook of the North. Charles Dance plays Flaherty and Adamie Quasiak Inukpuk (a relative of Nanook) plays Nanook. - Wikipedia
• Flaherty went on to make more sophisticated films, notably "Tabu" (1931), an uneasy collaboration with the great German filmmaker F.W. Murnau, who was more interested in story and style than documentation; "Man of Aran" (1934), about the hard lives of the Aran Islanders off the coast of Ireland; "Elephant Boy" (1937), starring Sabu in a fiction based on a Kipling story, and "Louisiana Story" (1948)
• Upon Flaherty's death in 1951, poet e.e. cummings called him "a god among man," and Orson Welles compared him to Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, describing him as "one of the two or three greatest people who ever worked in the medium."
• Rated #6 in 2002 by International Documentary Assn. on its list of Top 20 Documentaries of all time.

BARAKA

(1992) Director: Ron Fricke

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

Named after a Sufi word that translates roughly as "breath of life" or "blessing," Baraka is Ron Fricke's impressive follow-up to Godfrey Reggio's non-verbal documentary film Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was cinematographer and collaborator on Reggio's film, and for Baraka he struck out on his own to polish and expand the photographic techniques used on Koyaanisqatsi. The result is a tour-de-force in 70mm: a cinematic "guided meditation" (Fricke's own description) shot in 24 countries on six continents over a 14-month period that unites religious ritual, the phenomena of nature, and man's own destructive powers into a web of moving images. Fricke's camera ranges, in meditative slow motion or bewildering time-lapse, over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Ryoan-Ji temple in Kyoto, Lake Natron in Tanzania, burning oil fields in Kuwait, the smoldering precipice of an active volcano, a busy subway terminal, tribal celebrations of the Masai in Kenya, chanting monks in the Dip Tse Chok Ling monastery...and on and on, through locales across the globe. To execute the film's time-lapse sequences, Fricke had a special camera built that combined time-lapse photography with perfectly controlled movements of the camera. In one evening sequence a desert sky turns black, and the stars roll by, as the camera moves slowly forward under the trees. The feeling is like that of viewing the universe through a powerful telescope: that we are indeed on a tiny orb hurtling through a star-filled void. The film is complemented by the hybrid world-music of Michael Stearns. - Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• Variety review
• The making of Baraka (VIDEO)
• Interview with Baraka producer Mark Magidson
• Excerpt from Ron Fricke's directorial debut Chronos (1985)
  

NOTES:

• Baraka was the first film in over twenty years to be photographed in the 70mm Todd-AO format, an extremely high definition wide-screen film format developed in the mid 1950s. The previous film filmed in this particular format was The Last Valley (1970).
  
• Was filmed by a three person crew over a period of 14 months in 24 countries across 6 continents. -IMDB
• A sequel to Baraka, Samsara, is planned to be released in 2009

AMERICAN MOVIE

(1999) Director: Chris Smith

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

It takes a village to make a movie, but when that village is Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin and not Hollywood, CA, the results are at times bizarre, comical, and very American. With the help of his mother, his 82-year old uncle, and a local cast of hilarious and lovable characters, filmmaker Mark Borchardt fights his way through internal and external roadblocks to achieve his goal--to make his movie, his way.
Mark's vision for his dream film is unlike most in independent filmmaking today. His inspiration comes from films as disparate as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Seventh Seal, as well as his experiences growing up amidst the grey skies, rusty cars, and ranch houses of Milwaukee's Northwest side.
AMERICAN MOVIE is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, AMERICAN MOVIE is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream. - americanmovie.com

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• The New Cult Canon: American Movie (AV Club essay)
• 'The horror of indie filmmaking: Scary movie director and "American Movie" star Mark Borchardt talks about living the examined life.' -Salon.com
• IndieWire interview with director Chris Smith
  
• Mark Borchardt on David Letterman
• Roger Ebert review
• Chris Smith's other documentaries include: The Yes Men (2003) and Home Movie (2001)
• Official site

NOTES:

• Chris Smith attended University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Graduate Film Program in 1995, having just completed his film American Job. Chris met Mark Borchardt while editing American Job, and began filming a documentary about the making of Mark's psychological thriller Coven. Both films played at the Sundance Film Festival, and American Movie won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. Sony bought the picture for $1 million.
• Theme song from Coven
• Mike Schank's phone number: 414-466-Mike
• "No one has ever, ever paid admission to see an excuse." - Mark Borchardt

ROBERT DREW DOCUMENTARIES

(Active 1960-) Director: Robert Drew

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

Robert Drew is a documentary producer, who, during the late 1950s and 1960s, pioneered a new documentary form for application in the network news departments. This form, which Drew dubbed "Candid Drama," also known as "Cinema Verite" or "Direct Cinema", did not, ultimately, reshape news programming, but it did provide the medium with a radically different way of covering historical and cultural events.
"Candid Drama", according to Drew, is a documentary filmmaking technique which reveals the "logic of drama" inherent in almost all human situations. In sharp contrast to typical television documentaries, which are simply "lectures with picture illustration," and for that reason usually are "dull," the candid drama documentary eschews extensive voice-over narration, formal interviews, on-air correspondents, or other kinds of staged and framed television formulae. Instead, through the slowly acquired photography and long, single takes--called real-time photography--of verite technique, the details and flavor of a scene become the important elements: the fatigue experienced by candidates on a campaign trail (Primary), the fervid concentration of a race car driver (On the Pole) capture our attention as much as the factual information about a campaign or the Indianapolis 500. According to Drew, the purpose of candid documentary is to engage the viewer's "senses as well as his mind." Over a career that spans more than 30 years, Drew has produced over 100 films and videotapes, most of which employ the theory and methods of verite technique; and unlike other practitioners of the form, he has also tried to procure a regular slot for verite on prime time network programming. -MBC

VIDEO:

PRIMARY (SCENE)



CRISIS: BEHIND A PRESIDENTIAL COMMITMENT (SCENE)



YANKI NO! (TRAILER)



ON THE ROAD WITH DUKE ELLINGTON (SCENE)



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• THE MAKING OF THE CINEMA VERITE BREAKTHROUGH IN AMERICAN FILM
• IFC interview with Robert Drew
• Albert Maysles discusses Primary (VIDEO)
  
• Excerpt from 'Nonfiction Film: A Critical History'
• Drew Associates official site

NOTES:

• Drew was first introduced to the power of documentary photography just after World War II, while demonstrating a new fighter plane for a Life magazine reporter and photography team (Drew had served as a fighter pilot during the war). Struck by the power of the resulting article, Drew, at the age of 22, became a staff reporter for Life.
• The engineering of the first small sync sound and picture camera unit, which he undertook with filmmaker Richard Leacock, has undoubtedly had an enormous impact on numerous documentarians working both for the major networks and independently. Sensitive and ephemeral moments could now be more easily captured than with the cumbersome camera, large camera crew and lighting system that had been used in news coverage to date.
• Also at this time, Drew formed his company, Drew Associates, which enabled him to hire freelance cameramen and filmmakers, some of whom, such as D.A. Pennebaker, Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles, have since gone on to establish celebrated careers of their own.
• The rough immediacy of the hand-held camera in Primary is said to have influenced Goddard's Breathless.
• Kennedy, upon viewing Primary, liked it so much that he consented to Drew's request to make further candid films in his role as President.
• "Good films have to be subjectively made -- the viewer has to be seeing them subjectively. If he's seeing it objectively, it won't work as film. So, if the viewer needs a subjective experience, then the filmmaker has to render a subjective experience -- something that's from the viewpoint of the filmmaker. The filmmaker's job is to tell a story, but he doesn't want to stand off and not be involved or have the camera on a pedestal that doesn't move. The camera must go with the action or the characters, and to that extent, it's subjective." -Robert Drew

HEARTS OF DARKNESS

(1991) Directors: Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

Hearts of Darkness is an engrossing, unwavering look back at Francis Coppola's chaotic, catastrophe-plagued Vietnam production, Apocalypse Now. Filled with juicy gossip and a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at the stressful world of moviemaking, the documentary mixes on-location home movies shot in the Philippines by Eleanor Coppola, the director's wife, with revealing interviews with the cast and crew, shot 10 years later. Similar to Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's absorbing portrait of Werner Herzog's struggle to make Fitzcarraldo, the film chronicles Coppola's eventual decent into obsessive psychosis as everything that could go wrong does go wrong. Storms destroy sets, money evaporates, the Philippine government continually harasses the director, Coppola has romantic affairs, and he can't write the story's ending. Everything is captured on film. In the most disturbing scene, we watch Martin Sheen have a drunken nervous breakdown while his director goads him on (he eventually suffered a heart attack, but finished the film). Other incredible footage is not visual, but aural as the film includes tapes Eleanor Coppola recorded without Francis's knowledge. In them, he truly sounds like a madman as he confesses his fears about making a bomb of a movie. But while Hearts of Darkness is an amazing, voyeuristic experience, its importance lies in the personal reflections offered by those involved. Sheen, Coppola, and Dennis Hopper speak frankly without embarrassment, offering us an essential piece of film history. - Dave McCoy

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• Eleanor Coppola, Locating the Hearts of Darkness (NPR Interview with Eleanor Coppola)
• IGN interview with Francis Ford Coppola about Hearts Of Darkness
• The Top 20 Movies About Movies from Screengrab
• Film Education's breakdown of Hearts Of Darkness
• Roger Ebert review
• AV Club review

THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

(1981) Director: Penelope Spheeris

Not Available on DVD.

SUMMARY:

The performers, attitudes, and music of late '70s, early '80s Los Angeles punk scene are documented in this film by director Penelope Spheeris. Not merely a compilation of concert footage, The Decline of Western Civilization compiles numerous viewpoints on the meanings of the punk movement, from journalists -- one of whom calls punk the folk music of the 1980s -- to club security guards, to the punks themselves. The center of the film, however, is the music, which is fast, loud, and abrasive and often played with purposeful ineptitude; the lyrics are intentionally controversial and shocking, often seeming to embrace violence, sexism, racism, and even Nazism, though usually in an ironic manner. The performances, by bands such as Black Flag, X, The Circle Jerks, and Fear, are mostly shot from within the audience, where the camera often becomes an unwitting participant in the crowd's slam dancing. Especially fascinating are the performances by The Germs, thanks to the antics of their violently self-destructive lead singer Darby Crash, who would later die of a drug overdose and gain a martyr status within the punk community. The film was followed several years later by a sequel focusing on the world of heavy metal. - All Movie Guide

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE



(Remainder can be found on YouTube HERE)

REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• Penelope Spheeris on the Henry Rollins Show
• Penelope's World; Spheeris Returns With Third Punk Doc (Interview IndieWIRE)
• No Future (Interview Filmmaker Magazine)
• Some of Penelope Spheeris' other director credits include: Black Sheep (1996), The Little Rascals (1994), The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), Wayne's World (1992), Suburbia (1984) FULL FEATURE
• There is no such thing as New Wave

NOTES:

• Bands featured in the film: Black Flag, The Germs, X, Alice Bag Band, Circle Jerks, Catholic Discipline, Fear
• Portions of the film are featured in the documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (2004) directed by Alexandra Cassavetes
• According to director Penelope Spheeris this film was financed by two businessmen who originally wanted to finance a porn film.
  
• After the film was screened in Los Angeles, punk music fans got into so many fights and caused so much trouble that then-L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates wrote the filmmakers a letter asking them not to screen the film again.
• Other titles in the DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION series: The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years (1988) and The Decline of Western Civilization III (1998)
• Official site

BEYOND THE MAT

(1999) Director: Barry Blaustein

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

In a rare foray into documentary filmmaking, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment produced this behind-the-scenes look at professional wrestling, shot on digital video by director (Barry W. Blaustein), screenwriter of several hit Eddie Murphy comedies. An unabashed wrestling fan since childhood, Blaustein nevertheless takes an unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the "sport," as he shadows a trio of wrestlers representing three very different aspects of the profession. Mick Foley is a superstar shown to be the complete opposite of "Mankind," his successful wrestling character. At work, Mankind is a bloodthirsty animal, but when his mask is off, he's a loving, doting father clearly worshipped by his two young kids, who are traumatized when they witness Foley being bloodied at an Anaheim, California, event. Terry Funk is a portrait of what Foley could become, a former legend now at the end of his career and in desperate need of knee surgery, but continuing to perform dangerous stunts in the ring. Jake "The Snake" Roberts, on the other hand, travels in second-class wrestling circles, a recovering drug addict who has a painful reconciliation with his daughter. Blaustein also interviews the World Wrestling Federation's boastful bigwig Vince McMahon. McMahon later tried to block the release and promotion of the film. - Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• Interview with director Barry Blaustein from dvdtalk.com
• Rotten Tomatoes reviews
• Official site

NOTES:

• World Wrestling Entertainment chairman Vince McMahon tried to block its release after deciding that the film reflected badly on him and the WWF.
• Three editions of the film were released to video, including a "special edition" and a "ringside special edition," each of which had different extras and slightly different footage.
• Filmed over a three year period.

HOOP DREAMS

(1994) Director: Steve James

DVD
NETFLIX

SUMMARY:

This documentary follows two inner-city Chicago residents, Arthur Agee and William Gates, as they follow their dreams of becoming basketball superstars. Beginning at the start of their high school years, and ending almost 5 years later, as they start college, we watch the boys mature into men, still retaining their "Hoop Dreams". Both are recruited into the same elite high school as their idol, former Detroit Piston superstar Isaiah Thomas. Only one survives the first year; the other must return to a high school closer to his home. Along the way, there is much tragedy, some joy, a great wealth of information about inner city life, and the suspense of not knowing what will occur next.

"One of the best films...I have ever seen." - Roger Ebert

VIDEO: FULL FEATURE



REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS, CREDITS:

• Criterion Collection essay by John Edgar Wideman
• Original 1994 Roger Ebert review
• Roger Ebert adds Hoop Dreams to his Great Movies list
• Interview with Peter Gilbert about the making of Hoop Dreams
• Hoop Dreams 10 years later (Update on Arthur and William)
• "Hoop Dreams" Tops IDA's 25 Best Docs List
• Steve James interview with AV Club
  

NOTES:

• Filmmaker bios
• Frederick Marx official site
• Arthur Agee official site
• Arthur's Myspace page
• Other films by Steve James: Stevie, Reel Paradise, At the Death House Door
• Hoop Dreams music video