HBO’s LGBT History: The Case Against 8 (2014)

Manuel is working his way through all the LGBT-themed HBO productions.

Last week we talked about the thrilling and necessary anger fueling Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, something not even Ryan Murphy’s at times clumsy direction could quell. From that we turn to what might be the limpest most inessential HBO LGBT film I have encountered in this entire series (sorry, The Out List, you had a good run): Ben Cotner and Ryan White’s The Case Against 8.

There’s a fascinating, informative, and entertaining doc to be made about the circuitous road to overturning California’s same-sex marriage ban, but Cotner and White’s film isn’t it...

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HBO LGBT History: 1989 Oscar Flashback Best Documentary

Last week we enjoyed the eloquent musings of one Stephen Sondheim and quibbled over whether Todd Haynes’s intentionally queasy and dizzying take on “I’m Still Here” was worth including in James Lapine’s documentary on the Broadway composer. This week we’re taking a break from our regular programming and going back in time to celebrate one of HBO’s earliest Oscar victories.

As you may or may not know, films produced by HBO have won over 20 Oscars. Last year alone, HBO dominated both documentary categories with Citizenfour and Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 emerging victorious in their respective categories. And so, let us travel back to March 1990 when Robert Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (discussed here) won the Best Documentary Oscar. [More...]

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Watching the Documentary Finalists: Part 3 - Confrontations

Glenn here looking at each of the 15 Academy’s documentary finalists from which five will be nominated for the Oscar.

We're at the final of three parts looking at the 15 finalists for the Academy's best documentary category. In the first part we examined people, in the second part we looked at world politics, and now confrontations. It's something that can come in a myriad of forms. Confrontations can be between enemies on TV sets around the nation or in the towns and jungles of Indonesia. Whether it’s the confrontation of death, or the confrontation of major religious corporation, these films encompass big themes that have a longstanding tradition in cinema but each go about it some wildly different ways.

All that after the jump

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Watching the Documentary Finalists Part 2 - The Political Edge

Glenn here looking at each of the 15 Academy’s documentary finalists from which five will be nominated for the Oscar.

In the first part of this three-part series, we looked at social activists, rape survivors and famous artists in documentaries that took us from Pakistan to America to Britain to Africa. This selection of films is even more globe-trotting as we look at a group of documentaries that show us the conflict across several continents and the personal traumas that come with it. They include some of the best and worst films of the year.

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT
Director: Michael Moore (one nomination, one win)
Synopsis: In typically irreverent fashion, Michael Moore visits foreign nations in an effort to learn how they deal with social problems differently to the United States.
Festivals: Toronto (premiere), New York, Chicago, Hamptons
Awards: Chicago International Film Festival (Audience Choice Award), Hamptons International Film Festival (Audience Award)
Nominations: BFCA, Austin Film Critics, Chicago Film Critics, Houston Film Critics, Phoenix Film Critics, Satellite Awards
Box-Office: Qualifying run; theatrical release in February, 2016.
Review: Manuel was more forgiving, but I thought it was utterly disgraceful!

More about Invade plus we go to Ukraine, Mexico, Africa and the streets of Florida after the jump.

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Watching the Documentary Finalists: Part 1 - Other People's Lives

Glenn here looking at each of the 15 films on the Academy’s documentary finalists which, five of which will be shortlisted for nominations on January 14th

The documentary finalist list announced last month does us a small bit of good.  While it was sad to see such excellent feats of non-fiction filmmaking as The Pearl Button, In Jackson Heights, Sherpa and Stray Dog (to name just a few) removed from contention, reducing the astronomically long submission list of 124 down to a more manageable 15 titles does help us out dramatically in being able to not only get a grasp on the category for 2015, but also to give us a sample of what the Academy’s doc branch thought of the documentaries of any given year beyond the five eventual nominees. This year’s finalist list has its regular faces, but wasn't entirely devoid of surprises and many of the year’s best films found a spot despite some egregious choices thrown in. Each of the three posts in this series are divided into vague groups – (Pt 1) movies dedicated to other peoples’ lives, (Pt 2) movies about the world on the political edge, and (Pt 3) movies about confrontations.

Activists, actors and musicians after the jump...

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