Doc Corner Goes to Slamdance

by Glenn Dunks

Okay, so if we had really gone to Slamdance I feel like you would have noticed with some extra coverage given that it runs at the same time and in the same city as Sundance. So despite not travelling to the snowy surrounds of Park City, I was still nonetheless lucky enough to get a peek at Slamdance’s documentary slate. And here we are telling you about FIVE of the titles in this super-sized edition of Doc Corner. Those five include outback savages, musical amateurs and geniuses and more that should be coming to festivals and VOD over the next year...

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Review: "Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo"

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

You've seen the moment many times. Two future lovers see each other in a crowd, and something clicks. In West Side Story that moment prompts a blur on the edges of the frame, with only the lovers in focus. In La La Land, it takes the form of a camera push-in with all the lights, but for a spotlight, going out. The moment is so familiar in fantasies (and desired in reality) that there's even an old showtune about it.

Some enchanted evening, you will meet a stranger
You will meet a stranger across a crowded room.
And somehow you know, you know even then...

The last place you might expect to see it deployed is in a new French film which begins with 18 minutes of explicit activity in a sex club...

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Doc Corner: The Timely Reminder of 'Antarctica: Ice and Sky'

Director Luc Jacquet ventures into the past to show us our future in Antarctica: Ice and Sky, one of the best enviro-docs that I have seen in recent times. A film about climate change that revels in the captivating splendour of its natural subject as much as it does science and the ravages of humanity. It’s an appropriate film to watch right on the outset of what could very well be four of the most environmentally disastrous years on record. A timely reminder that even in the depths of the Cold War, the USA, France and Russia worked together for the greater good of the planet.

Like he did with Oscar-winning March of the Penguins, Jacquet shows a distinct knack for taking the potentially dry blueprint of a nature documentary and manipulate it into something more broadly cinematic. With the particularly impressive work of editor of Stéphane Mazalaigue, Jacquet has taken the 16mm archival footage of French glaciologist Claude Lorius’s expeditions to Antarctica and turned them into a compelling, thrilling story of scientific breakthroughs.

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TV Review: Taboo

by David Upton

Tom Hardy gets a mythical movie star introduction as Taboo opens, hidden alternately by camera and cloak before he pulls back his hood and the camera creeps reverently below him. The FX and BBC collaboration is a real passion project for the British actor, co-created with Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and Hardy’s father Edward ‘Chips’ Hardy...

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Doc Corner: Debbie and Carrie's Bright Lights

“Take your broken heart, make it into art.” That was Meryl Streep at last weekend’s Golden Globe Awards ending her lifetime achievement speech with a quote by her friend Carrie Fisher. Despite working as a suitable mantra for much of Fisher’s autobiographical work, a broken heart lingers over Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, not just because the pair passed away in quick succession leaving behind generations of fans whose lives were forever changed by this most unique mother and daughter team.

No, there is also the very real breaking heart of Fisher who saw her mother’s health deteriorating and decided she needed to document her mother while she still had the chance. How was she or any of us to know the tragic circumstances that would befall the two of them and surround Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens’ documentary.

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