Now we're talking.
Picking up where the Academy left off, the Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced today and - aside from two-timing LAKE OF FIRE - the list of films in two separate categories steared clear of the 15 films Shortlisted last week by the Academy. In total, the eight features mark some of the most interesting and stylistic films of 2007.
However, in a sign of how rich this year was, some of the year's most acclaimed films including, but not limited to, BILLY THE KID, DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK, MANDA BALA (SEND A BULLET) and KING OF KONG, were passed over this morning. DEVIL competes tonight at the Gotham Awards.
Here are this year's Film Independent Spirit Award Nominees for Best Documentary:
CRAZY LOVE
Directed by Dan Klores
Vital Statistics
IMDb Page
Festival Premiere:
Sundance
Other Major Festivals:
Santa Barbara, Full Frame, Seattle
Festival Laurels:
Best Documentary - Santa Barbara Film Festival
Distribution:
Magnolia
Box Office:
$301,207
Academy or IDA Nominee?
Nominated for IDA Feature Film Documentary. Not on the Academy Shortlist.
Rotten Tomatoes Page:
78% (62 out of 79)
80% Cream
Sample Review:
"It’s as if some disreputable and unending liaison out of Greek mythology had arisen on the streets of the East Bronx to be celebrated not with poetry but with front-page headlines. Like “Capturing the Friedmans,” Klores’s movie uses media archeology to reveal the layers of untoward behavior beneath the responsible surface of American Jewish life." - David Denby, The New Yorker
Notes:
On it's release, CRAZY LOVE was viewed as a disappointment at the box office. However, it's the biggest grossing film of the Spirits field and #11 of all docs for the year. Directed by longtime publicist Dan Klores. The only film on the Spirits list to also be recognized by the IDA. Beloved by many at Sundance, the film may be the front runner going into the Spirits on name recognition alone.
LAKE OF FIRE
Directed by Tony Kaye
Vital Statistics:
IMDb page
Festival Premiere:
Toronto 2006
Other Major Festivals:
Full Frame, Santa Barbara, Sarasota, Seattle, Denver
Distribution:
THINKFilm
Box Office:
$25,317
Academy or IDA Nominee?:
On the Academy Shortlist. No for the IDA.
Rotten Tomatoes page:
95% (37 out of 39)
100% cream
Sample review:
"This is a brave, unflinching, sometimes virtually unwatchable
documentary that makes such an effective case for both pro-choice and
pro-life that it is impossible to determine which side the filmmaker,
Tony Kaye, stands on.." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Notes:
The only Spirit Awards nominee that is also on the Academy's Shortlist. Last year, two films - Laura Poitras' MY COUNTRY MY COUNTRY and Annie Sundberg & Ricki Stern's TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT - held that distinction.
Here's what I wrote when the film was Shortlisted:
Beloved by critics, somewhat less so by audiences (in
part due to its 2 1/2 hour running time), LAKE OF FIRE was the sole
THINKFilm title not to be chosen for DocuWeek this summer. With all
the talk and praise the film has received, some have been shocked by
the film's poor performance at the box office. Surprisingly not
mentioned in discussion of the film is the fact that the vast majority
of the action takes place during the abortion clinic bombings of the
1990s. Like FOR THE BIBLE, the film taps into a religious examination
that seemed to resonate with the Academy last year. Just wondering, do
they know Tony Kaye's reputation for controversy?
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES
Directed by Jennifer Baichwal
Vital Statistics
IMDb Page
Festival Premiere:
Toronto 2006
Other Major Festivals:
Sundance, True/False, Sarasota, Seattle
Distribution:
Zeitgeist
Box Office:
$240,239
Academy or IDA Nominee?
Shortlisted for the IDA Feature Film Documentary. Not on the Academy Shortlist.
Rotten Tomatoes Page:
83% (44 out of 53)
89% Cream
Sample Review:
"As in her excellent Shelby Lee Adams doc The True Meaning of Pictures—which refuses to resolve the tension between genuine concern and freak-show gawking in Adams's Appalachian photographs—Baichwal undercuts easy answers. Her subject is the discrepancy between how an artist sees the world and how the world sees the art. Where Burtynsky sees the coppery glow of a river of toxic waste, we're inclined to see unnatural disaster—until we stand rapt before his elegiac photograph. Manufactured Landscapes challenges us flyspecks to relocate our compass, if we can, within the cosmic enormity of Burtynsky's pitiless vision." - Jim Ridley, Village Voice
Notes:
A beautifully shot portrait of the artist Edward Burtynsky that uses his method of large-scale photography to launch into greater issues of man's destructive power. One of the few docs to be released in the first half of 2007, the film has had remarkable staying power and has been a quiet box office success for Zeitgeist.
THE MONASTERY - MR. VIG AND THE NUN
Directed by Pernille Rose Gronkjær
Vital Statistics
IMDb Page
Festival Premiere:
IDFA 2006
Other Major Festivals:
Sundance, True/False, Full Frame, Hot Docs, Silverdocs, BritDoc
Festival Laurels:
Joris Ivens Award (Best Documentary) - IDFA
Grand Jury Award - Full Frame
Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award - Full Frame
Grand Prix - Chicago Documentary Festival
Distribution:
Koch Lorber
Box Office:
Unreported.
Academy or IDA Nominee?
No and no.
Rotten Tomatoes Page:
79% (11 out of 14)
71% Cream
Sample Review:
"Unlike far too many human-interest docs today, director Pernille Rose Grønkjær's fantastic little character portrait doesn't rest on the strength of its personality, with prudent attention paid to aesthetic nuances (some of the long-shot tableaus are priceless, such as a chorus of nuns singing in squalor) and the growing quasi-love that the titular bickerers have for one another." - Aaron Hillis, Village Voice
Notes:
Perhaps the most beloved documentary of this year's festival crop (witness the plethora of jury prizes), the film was surprisingly met with mixed reaction by film critics (or perhaps this is not so surprising). Eliminated from Oscar consideration following a rogue television broadcast in Belgium, the Spirit Awards nod is a welcome recognition a film that many (including yours truly) consider to be one of the best of the year.
THE PRISONER OR: HOW I PLANNED TO KILL TONY BLAIR
Directed by Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker
Vital Statistics
IMDb Page
Festival Premiere:
Toronto 2006
Other Major Festivals:
IDFA, SXSW, Full Frame
Distribution:
Red Envelope/Truly Indie
Box Office:
Unreported
Academy or IDA Nominee?
No and no.
Rotten Tomatoes Page:
83% (24 out of 28)
93% Cream
Sample Review:
"The filmmakers have crafted a unique and stirring indictment of the Abbas family's not uncommon experience, and the travesty of the U.S. detention system. Structured in titled chapters, with captions razoring out key phrases, and a self-consciously snappy soundtrack, the filmmakers create a forward movement and slightly ironic tone that suit their subject perfectly." - Michelle Orange, Village Voice
Notes:
The only Iraq war film on the Spirits list (contrast with four for the Academy), THE PRISONER takes real risks with craft - depicting the horrors inside US prisons like Abu Ghraib in a series of graphic novel-like still images, designed by co-director Epperlein. A spin-off of sorts from the duo's 2004 film GUNNER PALACE, the film was, like THE MONASTERY, deemed inelligible for the Academy due to a TV broadcast.
Three filmmakers were nominated for the Truer Than Fiction Award, given to an emerging nonfiction filmmaker who has yet to receive proper attention for his/her work. (Full Disclosure: I was on the jury for this particular award.)
Here are this year's Film Independent Spirit Award Nominees for the Truer Than Fiction Award:
Gary Hustwit for HELVETICA
Vital Statistics
IMDb Page
Festival Premiere:
SXSW
Other Major Festivals:
Full Frame, Hot Docs, Silverdocs, BritDoc
Distribution:
Self-distribution
Box Office:
$165,086
Academy or IDA Nominee?
No and no.
Rotten Tomatoes Page:
83% (10 out of 12)
100% Cream
Sample Review:
" This does not sound like promising cinematic material. Yet like its seemingly neutral Swiss-born subject, the film says a great deal without raising its voice, lending wit and grace to an inquiry regarding the way a medium, a squiggle or the precise space between two letters affects a million different messages and a billion different eyeballs." - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Notes:
One of the year's most unexpected docs is also one of the best. A film that changes the way you view the world around you and one of the few films that can truly boast of being unbiased. You never know whether Hustwit thinks that that the font in question is marvelous or awful, only that he thinks the subject is important. And it is. Stunningly shot and briskly edited. A huge accomplishment. Just out on DVD.
John Maringouin for RUNNING STUMBLED
Vital Statistics
IMDb Page
Festival Premiere:
Rotterdam 2006
Other Major Festivals:
CineVegas, Denver, True/False
Academy or IDA Nominee?
No and no.
Rotten Tomatoes Page:
100% (6 out of 6)
100% Cream
Sample Review:
"Roughly 90% documentary and 10% scripted and/or pre-arranged, pic reps a remarkable filmmaking debut -- as well as Maringouin's stark attempt to come to terms with his father, Johnny Roe, a New Orleans artist and drug addict...Visually dazzling and rough in equal measure, pic is edited (by Maringouin and Molly Lynch) to produce a nerve-wracking mood in which awful things could happen at any moment." - Robert Koehler, Variety
Notes:
A criminally overlooked film and one of the most accomplished and disturbing documentary debuts of the past two years. Maringouin steps into the void of any number of "filmmaker searches out distant father" documentary narratives and constructs something that is equal parts experimentation, gothic horror and dark black comedy. And as the Variety review aludes, the film plays with the rules of nonfiction so that the viewer is never quite sure what is real. Available on DVD.
Laura Dunn for THE UNFORESEEN
Vital Statistics
IMDb Page
Festival Premiere:
Sundance
Other Major Festivals:
SXSW, San Francisco, Sarasota, Hamptons, London, AFI, Denver
Academy or IDA Nominee?
No and no.
Rotten Tomatoes Page:
100% (5 out of 5)
Sample Review:
"Observing locally and thinking globally, Laura Dunn's astonishing debut doc feature "The Unforeseen" is the kind of transformative viewing experience that has made the current period a golden age for nonfiction film. Pic takes the history and battles over development and sprawl in Austin, Texas, and launches into a visual, scientific and philosophic rumination of humanity's place on the planet and the limits to growth." - Robert Koehler, Variety
Notes:
One of the most beautifully crafted docs in recent years and one that takes a previously chewed over subject - urban sprawl - and creates something artful and profound. The investigation of what has happened to Austin, as it has become more desirable and congested, becomes a universal look at the push-pull between protecting our resources and so-called progress, without ever becoming didactic or shrill. Executive produced by Robert Redford and Terrence Malick. Set to air on Sundance Channel next year.
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