Doc Corner: Five Highlights from the 159-deep Documentary Longlist

By Glenn Dunks

Have you heard? The Academy has announced the longlist of eligible titles for the 2019 Best Documentary Feature category. All 159 of ‘em; they don’t call it a longlist for nothing. The 15-wide shortlist will be derived from these and from there the five nominees will be chosen by the documentary branch.

As I suspected, Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old is not on the list. It is also worth noting – as I have done all year – that Amazing Grace gambled with the odds last year on a qualifying run and sadly didn’t make it. There were only a few films that we have written about in Doc Corner that either did not submit or were not eligible including Vision Portraits, The Raft, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché and Beyoncé’s Homecoming would be the best of that lot.

All the big titles that we have long expected to show up, however, did. Box office hits like Apollo 11, The Biggest Little Farm, Maiden and Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice sit next to streaming heavyweights American Factory, The Edge of Democracy and Knock Down the House (Netflix), One Child Nation and Citizen K (Amazon), Gay Chorus Deep South (MTV), The Apollo (HBO) and big-name specialty titles like Western Stars and Diego Maradona with buzzy, low-key titles waiting to pounce like Advocate, Honeyland, The Kingmaker, 5B and Roll Red Roll.

We still have many of the movies featured on there to watch and (hopefully) get the chance to discuss. But we’re going to cheat and use this as a moment to play catch-up with some short paragraphs on some of the titles featured on the long list.

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10th Anniversary: The Young Victoria

by Cláudio Alves

It's difficult to follow the Oscar race each year without developing a prejudice against prestige biopics. At times it seems its the genre where creativity goes to die, where formulas thrive and the appearance of respectability is more important than genuine artistic merit. These words are perchance, too harsh, because specific qualities do manage to shine through the baseline of expected mediocrity on numerous occassions. Take The Young Victoria, Jean-Marc Vallée's perfectly serviceable retelling of Queen Victoria's early years and marriage to Prince Albert. Rewatching it ten years after its initial release, the film isn't as despairingly dry as you may have remembered. The Young Victoria is one of Emily Blunt's lesser efforts, but she's luminous nonetheless, bringing a sense of modernity that rubs abrasively against the historical setting. She never convinces as a 19th-century ruler, but that manages to feel more like a feature than a fault. As for Rupert Friend's Albert, he remains a charming romantic ideal, establishing great chemistry with Blunt.

And then, of course, there are Sandy Powell's Oscar-winning costumes…

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Soundtracking: Rachel Getting Married

by Chris Feil

Jonathan Demme’s career was populated with a musical sensibility that bordered on spirituality, more obviously so in his many music documentaries and the definitive Stop Making Sense. His narrative films could stealthily incorporate a hum of music integral to the world he was presenting, as keenly observed as his character details. From Something Wild to Philadelphia to even Ricki and the Flash, Demme would use music to make his stories come alive in authentic ways. Rachel Getting Married, his late career masterpiece, has a musical language all its own, one that represents the film’s simmering grief and provides its necessary catharsis.

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Campaign flex - Lupita comes on strong

Between this hard-to-miss Variety ad and her recent campaign flex, reprising "Red" from Us at a haunted house, Lupita Nyong'o's Best Actress dream doesn't feel so far-fetched does it? Are you starting to be convinced that her second nomination could happen? We're getting there.

Horror is a great genre for actresses, as Jason's column often reminds us, but when it comes to Oscar nominations for the genre, they only happen if the movie was a huge hit (think The Sixth Sense, The Exorcist, Silence of the Lambs, etcetera). Us has got that part covered, too, since it's the only original film to secure a spot in the box office top ten of 2019 which is otherwise full of spin-offs and sequels. 

"Bombshell" and "Rocketman" are the stars of the Makeup and Hairstyling Honors this year.

by Nathaniel R

The acronym MUAHS always amused us since it sounds like a goofy platonic kiss --“Mwahh!” Perhaps that’s appropriate since Make Up involves many pairs of lips. The Makeup and Hairstylists Guild, an organization about 2100 members wide, have announced their nominees for 2019 in movies and television and theatre. The gala where the winners will be announced is on Saturday, January 11, 2020. “Bombshell” and “Rocketman” lead the movie portion of the awards... 

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