ReelPolitik

The Top 11 Political Movies of 2011

A blog about film and politics, and the politics of filmmaking.

Anthony Kaufman is a film journalist and critic, who has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Village Voice and Slate, and contributes regularly to Variety, indieWIRE, the Wall Street Journal Online and the Utne Reader.
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Articles

The Next "Inconvenient Truth"? Jeremy Irons Talks New Cannes Doc "Trashed"

By Anthony Kaufman
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April 30, 2012 9:47 AM
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The Cannes Film Festival isn't best known for its nonfiction, but ever since Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top prize in 2004, there has been a steady increase in the number of important docs at the fest, many of them with a heavily activist bent, from Moore's own "Sicko" in 2007 to "Inside Job" to last year's BP oil spill doc "The Big Fix." This year, my money is on the newly announced documentary "Trashed" to be this year's event doc, complete with a star, Jeremy Irons, and a significant global issue: the dangers of pollution and the world’s overflowing problem of waste.

By Anthony Kaufman
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April 9, 2012 10:00 AM
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3 Comments

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Laura Poitras, the Oscar-nominated director of "My Country, My Country" and "The Oath," has suffered extreme harrassment at the hands of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Customs and Border Control (CBC) while making a new film on America's "War on Terror," according to a must-read report in Salon.com.

By Anthony Kaufman
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April 3, 2012 9:34 AM
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Robert Redford is revving up his activist pursuits with a spate of political-minded projects, from "The Company You Keep," his political thriller starring Shia LaBeouf, which could premiere at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, to a new slate of TV projects, including "All the President's Men Revisited," a 2-hour documentary for the Discovery Channel about the Watergate scandal to be directed by Peter Schnall.

By Anthony Kaufman
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March 30, 2012 9:37 AM
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Robert Greenwald's documentary resume now offers a near complete litany of right-wing scourges: He's gone after, most famously, Fox News ("Outfoxed"), the Iraq War ("Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers"), and Wal-Mart ("The High Cost of Low Price"), and he's just released his latest liberal piece of agit-prop: "Koch Brothers Exposed," which according to Alternet.org, weaves together a series of short films that examines the principals of Koch Industries, one of the nation's top polluters and infamous for their funding of think-tanks that aim to deregulate business and scale back government programs such as Social Security, Medicare and the new healthcare reform law. (The DVD is available here).

By Anthony Kaufman
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March 26, 2012 2:23 PM
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2 Comments

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Adrian Thomas, the man at the center of the award-winning documentary "Scenes of a Crime" (Filmmaker Magazine's Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, Grand Jury Prize Winner at Full Frame and DOC NYC), has not been granted an appeal, a state court has ruled, according to reports. The compelling documentary, which opens in New York on Friday, offers a strong case for Thomas' innocence and striking scientific evidence that suggests Thomas was wrongly convicted and a confession was coerced by police.

By Anthony Kaufman
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March 15, 2012 10:11 AM
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2 Comments

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Last October, I blogged about the belated--and much welcomed--DVD release of Travis Wilkerson's celebrated agit doc "An Injury to One," a stirring, compelling and formally innovative documentary about the lynching of a famous union agitator named Frank Little in Montana nearly a century ago. The film had garnered added relevance with the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, and was singled out by Dennis Lim in an L.A. Times story as "one of American independent cinema's great achievements of the past decade": The film seemed to have found an ideal moment to enter the mediasphere. But not so, according to Wilkerson.

By Anthony Kaufman
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March 9, 2012 8:15 AM
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2 Comments

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The celebrity-driven nonfiction film has become an unwelcome mainstray of the documentary form recently. Not only is Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth") directing commercials for none other than public persona #1 Barack Obama, but a whole slew of pop-docs are premiering at the Tribeca Film Fesival next month, with new films on Joseph Papp, musicians such as Queen and Tony Bennett, and sports figures such as the Red Sox's Tim Wakefield and the Met's R.A. Dickey. There's also star-studded docs on digital cinema ("Side by Side," featuring James Cameron, David Fincher, George Lucas, etc) and Morgan Spurlock's latest "Mansome" (with interviews with Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis, etc). And do I care? Not really.

By Anthony Kaufman
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February 8, 2012 8:03 PM
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The star of upcoming documentary favorite "The Island President," charismatic Maldives president and climate change crusaser Mohammed Nasheed, was forced to resign from office at gunpoint on Tuesday, according to an Op-Ed written by Nasheed that was published by the New York Times today. I spoke with Nasheed for the WSJ.com last year and found him to be an eloquent spokesperson for his people.

By Anthony Kaufman
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January 23, 2012 4:04 PM
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I haven't yet seen "Slavery by Another Name," a new documentary that's premiering in Sundance this week, but the title evokes a theme I've seen running through a number of docs at this year's festival: the prevalence of racism in the histories of America and other countries. While economic-themed docs drew headlines prior to the festival, strong nonfiction films such as "Searching for Sugar Man," "Under African Skies," "The House I Live In" and "The Law In These Parts" suggest darker, and more disturbing undercurrents about discrimination in societies--as well as, in some cases, the power to counteract it.

By Anthony Kaufman
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November 30, 2011 4:37 PM
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2 Comments

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With the announcement of the Sundance competition on Wednesday, the documentary program -- as usual -- is newsworthy: 16 nonfiction films representing some of the most respected filmmakers of the form. As with past Sundance docs, there is a real chance to influence the national discussion on important topics, ranging from American healthcare to nuclear power. I'll never forget trailing Al Gore through the snowy parking lot at the Library before the premiere of "An Inconvenient Truth" some years back. Docs can make a difference, and nowhere is that more apparent than at Sundance.

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RT @antkaufman: Cannes 2012 Preview: What Could Be This Year's THE ARTIST? http://t.co/5ViNhQa7
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RT @TedHope: Hey @antkaufman can you or someone start the BAN SHOOTING IN N.CAROLINA petition (until they allow same sex marriage)? http://t.co/okBe1ZHQ
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RT @TedHope: Hey @antkaufman can you or someone start the BAN SHOOTING IN N.CAROLINA petition (until they allow same sex marriage)? http://t.co/okBe1ZHQ
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@TedHope @antkaufman But there's so many to shoot there. #toosoon?
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