Doc Corner: 'Dick Johnson is Dead'

By Glenn Dunks

One of the heartiest laughs I have had in months comes towards the end of Dick Johnson is Dead during Dick’s funeral as his best friend pulls out a bugle to play a tune and bid his buddy farewell. Why is it funny? Well, you’ll have to watch the film to find out. But it’s a moment that epitomises what the entire film, directed by Johnson’s daughter, Kirsten Johnson, does so well. It confronts our own morbid idea of life and death and laughs in the face of the idea that we have any sort of real control over our mortality.

For a film about death and grief, Dick Johnson is Dead is also probably one of the funniest movies of the year.

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The 5th Annual Team Experience Awards!

As teased in this week's podcast installment, it's time for The Team Experience Awards, our fifth yearly celebration! While Nathaniel begins his own Film Bitch Awards, here is our growing team's turn to bestow their year-end accolades without our host.

Last year we went all-in on Todd Haynes's Carol, and this year we have another favorite that receives quite a few prizes: Barry Jenkins's Moonlight. And this wasn't even close: the film was the only one to appear on every ballot in at least one category and was a landslide victory to the big prize. Consider Moonlight the consensus favorite here at The Film Experience. On to our awards:

BEST PICTURE
Moonlight
Runner-Up: The Lobster

BEST UNRELEASED FILM
Personal Shopper
Runner-Up: The Ornithologist

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A Year with #52FilmsByWomen

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today Glenn on his year with #52FilmsByWomen

The hashtag ‘52FilmsByWomen’ was started by Women in Film as a means of getting people to consciously watch at least one film a week directed by a woman. It seems like a simple mission considering the number of films many of us watch for both work and pleasure, but I have no doubt that of the 10,000+ people who pledged to do it, many didn’t reach the goal. That’s all right, though, because I saw enough for two.

No, really. In 2016, I watched 105 titles including feature films, shorts, and documentaries. They cover classics, new releases, hidden gems, animations, comedy, horror, and from all over the world. Here are...

TEN OBSERVATIONS FROM MY YEAR OF #52FILMSBYWOMEN

Subverting Toxic Masculinity
We don’t just want more women making films for their fine-tuned insights into the lives of women – Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women and Anna Rose Holmer’s The Fits being perhaps the most obvious examples among this year’s releases that I saw – but also for their unique takes on men and masculinity.

Look no further for Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier for a film that couldn’t have been made by a man, but which has so much to say in this year of “toxic masculinity”. What a shame it didn't catch fire with arthouse audiences and award voters. I wasn't too taken by Tsangari's Attenberg, but I responded to Chevalier more than any of Yorgos Lanthimos' works so far, so make of that what you will.

I’ll Go Anywhere with Andrea Arnold
From the surveilled streets of Scotland in Red Road, the council estates of Essex in Fish Tank, the moors of Wuthering Heights, and now, apparently, the American Midwest...

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Documentary Oscar Race Narrows to 14 Films (Plus 1 Mini-Series)

Oscar has winnowed down that massive Best Documentary Semi-Finals list to a more manageable fifteen. We've reviewed just over two thirds of them. Nine are currently available to stream online (handy links provided) and four are in select theaters. The finalists for the five nominations are...

• Cameraperson (IN THEATERS / on Criterion Collection Blu-Ray February 2017)
• Command and Control  (coming to PBS in January)
• The Eagle Huntress (IN THEATERS)
• Fire at Sea (IN THEATERS)
• Gleason (available to rent on Amazon)
• Hooligan Sparrow (streaming on Netflix)
• I Am Not Your Negro  (IN THEATERS FEB 2017)
• The Ivory Game (streaming on Netflix)
• Life, Animated (available to rent on iTunes)
• O.J.: Made in America (series available to purchase on iTunes)
• 13th (streaming on Netflix)
• Tower (IN THEATERS)
• Weiner (available to buy on iTunes)
• The Witness (streaming on Netflix)
• Zero Days (available to buy on iTunes)

What's missing? Well, what isn't. There are always scads of depressing omissions. Let us focus our tears on the delicious Sondheim retrospective reflection about "Merrily We Roll Along" The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened which really deserves a big audience. But all told this list is not surprising finals list. In fact I am quite shocked to tell you that in my Top 20 Most Likely To Oscar chart page (being revised at the moment) I missed only two of these fifteen (Command and Control and The Witness) in favor of films like Newtown and Miss Sharon Jones. 

Weiner, 13th, and OJ: Made In America Among DOC NYC Short List

One week after La La Land won the Toronto People’s Choice Award – a key indicator of a film’s likelihood of securing an Oscar nomination for Best Picture – another major awards season clue has come to us in the form of the DOC NYC's Short List. DOC NYC is the largest documentary film festival in the country and it has hosted specially curated non-fiction in the city since 2010, but don’t let its infancy fool you. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. And by anywhere, I specifically mean the Academy’s own shortlist for Best Documentary Feature; in the last five years, the ultimate winner of the prize and a bulk of runners-up have played the fest.

This year, the crop of fifteen films headed to DOC NYC include Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s marvelous collision of media and politics Weiner, Roger Ross Williams’ tear-jerker Life, Animated, and Ezra Edelman’s eight-hour saga OJ: Made in America. Legendary documentarians Barbara Kopple and Werner Herzog find themselves in the mix – as does the increasingly ambidextrous Ava DuVernay for her NYFF opener 13th – while well-received titles such as Under the Gun, The Eagle Huntress, and Strike a Pose (reviewed) are left on the sidelines.

The complete DOC NYC Short List is as follows
(Links go to our reviews of these films)

• Amanda Knox (Netflix) Dirs: Rod Blackhurst, Brian McGinn
• Cameraperson (Janus Films) Dir: Kirsten Johnson 
• Fire at Sea (Kino Lorber) Dir: Gianfranco Rosi 
• Gleason (Open Road & Amazon Studios) Dir: Clay Tweel
• I Am Not Your Negro (Magnolia Pictures) Dir: Raoul Peck
• Into The Inferno (Netflix) Dir: Werner Herzog
• Jim: The James Foley Story (HBO Documentary Films) Dir: Brian Oakes
• Life, Animated (The Orchard & A&E IndieFilms) Dir: Roger Ross Williams
• Mapplethorpe: Look At The Pictures (HBO Documentary Films) Dir: Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
• Miss Sharon Jones! (Starz) Dir: Barbara Kopple 
• OJ: Made in America (ESPN) Dir: Ezra Edelman
• 13th (Netflix) Dir: Ava DuVernay
• The Ivory Game (Netflix) Dir: Kief Davidson, Richard Ladkani
• Trapped (PBS-Independent Lens) Dir: Dawn Porter 
• Weiner (IFC Films & Showtime) Dir: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg

Is there an Oscar winner in our midst? Personally, this is a reminder to get myself out to the theater to see Cameraperson ASAP. Which of these are your favorites and which are you most excited to check out?