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ReelPolitik
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.
[Email Me]
Articles
- "Piracy May Be an Indie Filmmaker's Best Friend" (Indiewire, October 2011
- "The Decline of Indies on Netflix" (indieWIRE, Sept, 2011)
- "Secretariat" Isn't Hollywood's Only Secretly Conservative Blockbuster" (IFC News, October 2010)
- "Absurdistan: The New Iraq War Cinema" (Village Voice, April 2008)
- "Is Foreign Film The New Endangered Species?" (New York Times, January 2006)
ReelPolitik
Israeli Occupation Doc "The Law In These Parts" Opens as Violence Escalates in Israel
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- November 15, 2012 2:48 PM
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- 0 Comments
While I'm sure no one is happy that war is about to break out in the Middle East after Israel's targeted assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed al-Jabari on Wednesday, the timing couldn't be more perfect for this week's Film Forum release of "The Law In These Parts," Ra'anan Alexandrowicz's sound attack on the Israeli legal system that has sanctioned the illegal occupation and oppression of the Palestinian peoples. As the UN Security Council meets in an emergency session and rockets fire from the Gaza Strip, killing Israelis in retaliation, Alexandrowicz's compelling documentary explores how we got into this mess in the first place.
"Informant": How Brandon Darby Went from Anarchist to F.B.I. Stool-pigeon
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- November 13, 2012 10:49 AM
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- 0 Comments
One of the best political documentaries last year, "Better This World" examines the government's crackdowns on civil disobedience, the ubiquity of surveillance and the injustice of our justice system. One of the most compelling characters in that taut, tense story of two boyhood friends who go from political neophytes to would-be domestic terrorists, accused of planning violent acts at the 2008 G.O.P. Convention, was Brandon Darby, the anarchist activist turned F.B.I. informant who may have helped instigate the very crimes the young men were convicted of. In a worthy quasi-sequel to "Better this World," Jamie Meltzer's "Informant"--which screens today at DOC NYC--presents the story from Darby's perspective, offering his own personal, paranoid justifications for his actions.
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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- 0 Comments
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.
Homeland Security Interrogates and Harasses Oscar-Nominee Laura Poitras During Making of New Doc
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 9, 2012 10:00 AM
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- 3 Comments
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.
Robert Redford's Political Action Cinema; Revisits Watergate and Weather Underground
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- April 3, 2012 9:34 AM
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- 0 Comments
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.
Activist Filmmaker Robert Greenwald Attacks Koch Bros, "Worst of 1%"
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 30, 2012 9:37 AM
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- 0 Comments
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).
"Scenes of a Crime": Unjust Verdict Upheld as Doc Winner Hits Theaters
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 26, 2012 2:23 PM
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- 2 Comments
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.
An Injury to One is An Injury to All... Filmmakers
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 15, 2012 10:11 AM
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- 2 Comments
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.
A Certain Tendency of the Documentary Cinema
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- March 9, 2012 8:15 AM
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- 2 Comments
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.
"The Island President" Forced Out of Office at Gunpoint; Doc Filmmakers Respond to Unrest in Maldives
- By Anthony Kaufman
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- February 8, 2012 8:03 PM
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- 0 Comments
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.
Recent Comments
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Of course, because don't we want all our movies to be politically correct and focus-group
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Documentary filmmaking, particularly of the type likely to turn up at major festivals and be
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A close friend of mine works at ITVS. I can tell you that it is a secretive place where the managers
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