Doc Corner: Fun facts about the Best Documentary finalists

By Glenn Dunks

Elizabeth Chai Vasarheyi & Jimmy Chin won just 4 years ago with "Free Solo". They're back again with "The Rescue"

Cutting a list down from 138 to 15 is always going to be a daunting and even cruel task, but the shortlist is here for Best Documentary Feature so it is the end of the line for 123 of this year’s non-fiction works. I have been churning through a very long list of titles before even contemplating doing my Top 25 Documentaries list, but I can say that my personal list is looking very different.

AMPAS has selected the following titles to battle it out for a nomination and then the Oscar statue...

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Thankful for... Nick Taylor!

This year for our "thankful for" column we're mixing it up a bit. Instead of asking our contributors to share a brief list of favourite things, I wanted to share with you, dear readers, why I love the team so and then ask them a few key questions so you can get to know them better.  NICK TAYLOR. 

Nick has been with us for about two years, and we first got to know him because he regularly voted and wrote up beautiful emails for the Smackdown. Since joining us he's looked at supporting actresses that weren't nominated. Some of our favourites include the Evil Witch in Snow White, Taraji P Henson in Hustle & Flow, and Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus. But he also pops in for contemporary festivals.

Our mini interview follows...

When did you first fall in love with the movies?

I've been into movies my whole life. Lotta Animal Planet docs and Disney movies growing up, but that feels different from the way I love and think about film as an adult...

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Doc Corner: Todd Haynes and 'The Velvet Underground'

By Glenn Dunks

It feels like something of a miracle that The Velvet Underground is as good as it is. Music bio-docs are hardly the most invigorating brand of documentary these days, and the story of this band and their Factory adjacent avant-garde artworld has been told many, many times before. So much so that Andy Warhol, the emperor of this New York underground art scene, would have probably been impressed by the assembly line of documentaries that emerged about him and his assorted acolytes, hangers-on, and affiliated artists whose fame (and/or infamy) are directly tied to him.

That Todd Haynes has made a great movie out of this all is hardly a surprise, though. After all, he is the man behind the 1998 glam rock opera Velvet Goldmine. Having said that, the recent milieu within which he has been working in Dark Waters and Wonderstruck hardly signposted that he had something so frenetically electric in him. If we never get another documentary about The Velvet Underground then it probably wouldn’t matter because we have this.

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NYFF Reveals 2021's Main Slate

by Jason Adams

Like a kid high on candy canes staring at the boxes under the tree on Christmas morning, wondering what wonders await, so go I, wild-eyed and very very awake now, ogling the just-announced roster of the New York Film Festival's "Main Slate" for 2021 (which runs from September 24 – October 10). Like three bears or bowls of porridge we'd already sized up the spectacular threesome that is Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth opening the fest, Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog closing it, with Pedro Almodovar's milky-eyed Parallel Mothers sandwiched in the Centerpiece between, but now... now! Now comes all the meat and fixins and I, for one, am full to burst. Droolin' over here, everybody!

NYFF is often framed as an also-ran when it comes to the full Festival Season since it doesn't get a ton of World Premieres -- most of these movies will have played at Toronto or Venice or heck even back to Sundance (I see you, Passing -- no really I already saw you and reviewed you right here) -- but as my much-loved hometown fest I don't care what's first, I care what's best, and the curation these folks do remains to my eye top-notch...

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Cannes Diary #3: From Haynes to Trier, a binge-watch kind of day

TFE is thrilled to have a correspondent on the ground in Cannes this year. Thank you to Elisa Giudici.

The Velvet Underground

by Elisa Guidici

It was a really intense day. I was greedy, I could not say no to the majority of the movies screened today so I basically spent the third day inside Palais, running from one screening to another. Six in all (!) With some positive surprises.

The Velvet Underground  (Todd Haynes)
OUT OF COMPETITION

It is perhaps predictable that Todd Haynes would do a fine job in telling the story of Velvet Underground in his newest documentary. He is the man behind Velvet Goldmine and I'm Not There so he has already shown an understanding of the sensibility and the struggle of rock music genre and inner restlessness...

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