Doc Corner: 'One of Us' and 'Thy Father's Chair'

by Glenn Dunks

Not content to let scientology corner the market in controversial religion exposes, directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady focus their attention on New York’s Hasidic community in their latest feature. A dramatic change of pace after last year’s celebrity bio-doc Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, the filmmakers return at least somewhat to the themes of their most famous film, the Oscar-nominated Jesus Camp. Yet despite the potential cross-over to be found in the pair that seek to uncover the alarming practises of organised religion, One of Us is a much different beast.

Unlike that earlier film, which trained its cameras on the inner-circle of a camp for raising the next generation of evangelicals, One of Us observes from the outside, following the stories of three individuals who have attempted to extract themselves from the community and tell some often haunting and traumatic tales of their times within it...

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I'm fluent in "Cher"

I discovered that I can read if not speak Cher fluently. So if you are not so blessed I shall translate this tweet for you after the jump...

Just finished Song🎂
Think Benny will Like it.
Think Ol will Love it
Think ML will laugh & Dance around with me👻👻

— Cher (@cher) October 23, 2017

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"Wonderstruck" and "Mudbound"

Lynn Lee continuing our Middleburg Film Festival adventure

Dee Rees and Mudbound cast earlier this year. © Daniel Bergeron

It’s always a little weird to attend a talk with a director before seeing the film they’re being interviewed about.  That’s what happened with Mudbound, which concluded a day that began with a very engaging conversation between director Dee Rees and Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday and festival founder Sheila Johnson’s presentation of the 2017 “Visionary” award to Rees.  Rees was charming, articulate, and impressively self-possessed, and had many interesting comments on the directorial choices she made in Mudbound, which I wasn’t sure whether I should keep in mind or set aside while watching the film that night.  Rees made clear that she resists being pigeonholed as a director of color, female director, or female director of color, an aversion reflected in her somewhat bland mantra “let excellence be the standard.”  At the same time, she agreed that the current system is structurally biased against prioritizing excellence and needs to be opened up...

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Hertzfeldt's Return to "World of Tomorrow"

Chris here. Even the most niche of cinema is getting sequelized these days. Remember Don Hertzfeldt's masterwork animated short World of Tomorrow? Of course you do. The mini-major was an unforgettable science-fiction mix of rudimentary and complex visuals with equal bits silliness and profundity, and gained as much popularity as any short film in recent memory. Well we'll get to revisit Emily Prime for Hertzfeldt's follow-up, World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts.

Hertzfeldt has been teasing the new short on Twitter for a few months and it played Fantastic Fest to equally high praise as its predecessor. Could this mean that Hertzfeldt could be back in the Oscar shorts race again after losing two years ago? The bigger question might actually be found in the film's not-so-short title: is Hertzfeldt planning an entire saga on Emily Prime or is "episode" simply a cheeky word choice? 

Based on a new teaser, the filmmaker will be delivering on more hypnotic visuals and melancholy wit that made the first so very special. Take a look at what is in store - and if you haven't seen World of Tomorrow yet, it's still on Netflix. Hello Again, Emily!

Beauty vs Beast: Sisterly Sensibilities

Jason from MNPP here using this week's "Beauty vs Beast" to wish a happy birthday to one of our favorite directors, the great Ang Lee. In a strange coincidence I spent some of this weekend talking Ang on Twitter even though I hadn't realized it was about to be his birthday today, so I'd say Fate chose this week's contest. And because more than anything a battle between actresses livens you folks up, let's face down the Sisters Dashwood of Ang's 1995 classic Sense & Sensibility.

And no before anyone asks I don't think Kate Winslet or Emma Thompson to be beastly in any manner. But seeing as the film itself pits their two ways of existing at odds with one another for the majority of its run-time (only to eventually decide, with fine wisdom, that the sisters could clearly stand to learn a little from one another) it doesn't seem completely far-fetched to pitch them against one another here. They are, for all their adoration of one another, each other's main antagonists once the who's who of romance falls away.

PREVIOUSLY Even though Angela Lansbury's original Manchurian Candidate performance won somewhat decisively over Meryl Streep's in the remake (she took 74% of the vote) it was a real battle in the comments. Said Jono:

"I am surprised this never came up before. I voted for Meryl because Angela will get more votes, and I love both performances. The Demme version is kind of underrated - everyone in it is uniformly great. But the original with Angela is impeccable."