'Fire of Love' and 'Good Night, Oppy' lead the Critics Choice Documentary Nominations

by Nathaniel R

Seven years ago documentaries got their own division of Critics Choice Awards with multiple categories and thus departed the main show where they were restricted to just one. For the seventh anniversary edition the box office hit Fire of Love (read Glenn's review) about married volcanologists and the space exploration doc Good Night Oppy (for which we just led a Q&A at Middleburg) lead the nominations in 17 categories. The ceremony will be held on November 13th at the Edison Ballroom in Manhattan.

UPDATED 11/14/22 What follows is the full list of nominees AND WINNERS with links going to reviews if we've done them. Thanks to Glenn's expert "Doc Corner" column and various festival peeks, we've reviewed quite a few of them...

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Doc Corner: Riotsville, U.S.A.

By Glenn Dunks

Sierra Pettengill’s Riotsville, U.S.A. begins so strongly. It makes a striking first impression with the usage of an old government film taken of a fake town built on a military base that is being used to train soldiers on how to handle a riot. The entire film, we are informed in an opening title card, will be told using such archival government footage as well as television news coverage. This particular footage is from the 1960s as protest and activism began to take hold of the public, particularly those in predominantly African American communities. In one of the more depressing sights, black soldiers are regularly shown in such footage throughout portraying such (so called) rioters; asked to loot and threaten. The humiliation they must have felt is palpable...

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