Doc Corner: The Thrilling 'United Skates'

By Glenn Dunks

Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown’s utterly divine United Skates begins with a tangle of bodies that zig, zag and spin across a roller rink floor in choreographed fashion. Close-ups of sweat-damp skin and excited faces. Neon signs, fluorescent clothes and a thumping beat. In just these brief opening moments before the title crashes on screen, I was hypnotised by the way the camera was capturing these people and embedding itself on the floor, swooping and swinging with as much vigour as the people its watching. The way it captures their passion, their movement and, without even saying a word, their unbridled joy and the memories of days gone by.

It’s my favourite opening of the year; nothing has quite approached the very simple act of hooking me so immediately and in such a way that I bolted upright, eager to see where I was going to be taken. Luckily, United Skates isn’t just about the roller skates and the booty shorts and the basslines. It’s about so much more, smartly using a nostalgic touchstone of African American culture as a means to dissect contemporary issues around race.

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Doc Corner: The Thrilling Failure of 'Shirkers'

By Glenn Dunks

Apologies once again for the recent absense, but working 12-to-15-hour days in an office somewhat curb one's ability to sit down and write reviews. However, we're returning to regularly scheduled programming with one of the best documentaries of the year.

Documentaries about moviemaking aren’t uncommon. We see several released each year, usually offering creative insight and historical context to works of art both great and terrible – and in the case of those like American Movie even surpassing the reputation of the movie they’re about. Documentaries about failed movies are less common, although no less fascinating and often allow their subject to attain something of a mythical status. The latest addition to this sub-genre of non-fiction is Sandi Tan’s Shirkers, a thrillingly assembled combination of cinematic mystery, sombre tribute, and aching paean to lost potential.

“Shirkers” is not only the name of the documentary, but also the name of the film that Tan made in 1992 with her friends Jasmine Ng, Sophia Siddique and the mysterious older man named George Cardona. The original Shirkers was to be the first Singaporean film directed by a woman and was a radical change from the sort of film that the island nation was typically known for like 1972’s They Call Her Cleopatra Wong.

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Oscar's Foreign Race Pt 6 - Stats, Genres, and Queer Cinema

by Nathaniel R

"And Suddenly the Dawn" is the longest film hoping for a foreign Oscar nomination this year at 3 hours and 15 minutes

We've been digging into the 87 films that are up for the Academy Award in Foreign Language Film. So far we've watched the trailers, talked about female directors, first time filmmakers, and international hunks. Today a collection of scattered trivia regarding the list as well as the LGBTQ films in the running. 

LONGEST & SHORTEST
Running times are, we admit, a peculiar TFE obsession but it is what it is. The longest submission this year is Chile's And Suddenly the Dawn at 195 minutes. It's a sprawling fictional biography of a writer returning home after a long absence and takes place in three different time periods of his life: childhood in the 1940s, adulthood in the 1960s/70s, and present day old age. Did their win last season embolden Chile the way directors often get more longwinded the more famous they get? Germany's Never Look Away (just reviewed) and Turkey's The Wild Pear Tree are the only other absurdly long films, each over 3 hours (188 minutes each to be exact). The shortest entries are Costa Rica's university student pregnancy drama Medea (70 minutes) and Lithuania's sports documentary Wonderful Losers (71 minutes) but there are actually quite a few entries that are hovering just below the perfect movie length of 90 minute. In other words, a lot of international filmmakers kept it tight.

Thailand's Malila: The Farewell Flower

Queer cinema, double-category contenders, and more after the jump...

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Doc Corner: Movie Stars - Fonda, Kael and Dukakis

by Glenn Dunks

DOC NYC is still going in New York, running until this Thursday the 15th. We’re looking at just a very small selection of films screening at the festival including these today based around three iconic names in American cinema: film critic Pauline Kael, and Oscar-winning actors Jane Fonda and Olympia Dukakis.

WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL
I noted on social media as I sat down to watch my screener of Rob Garver’s biography that there were certainly worse ways to spend one’s Sunday evening than surrounded by the words of the late, great Pauline Kael and an abundance of film clips. Sometimes a film can give you exactly what you ask for and that’s exactly what I received from What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael about the much loved (and loathed) film critic...

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Critics Choice Documentary Winners 2018

In an unusually successful year for documentaries in terms of audience interest, two of the biggest hits, Won't You Be My Neighbor? ($22.6 million) and Free Solo ($7.3 million and climbing) now have yet more to crow about. They each won three prizes at the 3rd annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards last night. Though they both appear to be likely future Oscar nominees you just never know with the documentary branch. 

The winners in each of the Critics Choice doc categories are listed after the jump... 

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