THE LAMB DEVOURS THE OSCARS: BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Note: This is part of a 32-part series dissecting the 85th Academy Awards, brought to you by the Large Association of Movie Blogs and its assorted members. Every day leading up to the Oscars, a new post written by a different LAMB will be published, each covering a different category of the Oscars. To read the other posts regarding this event, please click here. Thank you, and enjoy!

Did you know that some movie bloggers have already committed to watching nine hours of a Hobbit running around middle earth, but can’t be bothered to sit through a forty minute film that would teach them something about this earth?

Luckily, I’ve got you covered. Not only do I enjoy short men with hairy feet, but I also enjoy short films that have a message. And so it was that I set out on an afternoon adventure to watch the five nominated Documentary Shorts. Along the way, I also discovered some fun facts that even a Hobbit can enjoy.

 Kings Point

The Story: Kings Point interviews several members of a retirement community in Florida. While they moved here to experience paradise in their senior years, and sometimes for health reasons that tore them away from their former colder environments, they find new challenges and, often, a sense of loneliness rather than camaraderie. Love, friendship, estrangement from family and the challenges of aging are dominant themes. The film is dedicated to the director’s grandmother, who was a resident in this retirement community, but is not interviewed on screen.

Bona Fides: Kings Point was a nominee for the International Documentary Association Awards this year. It is Sari Gilman’s first film as a director, but she is well known within the industry for her extensive film editing work, including an Emmy nomination for editing Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib. Also nominated is producer Jedd Wider, who along with his brother Todd is fast becoming one of the most successful documentary producers in the business, with films that include Client 9: The Rise And Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Taxi To The Dark Side, Mea Maxima Culpa and Semper Fi: Always Faithful.

Oscar Chances: The film is done in a way that is quite relatable for all age groups. Viewers of a certain age will recognize universal themes playing out, while younger viewers will rush to call their parents and grandparents. Several funny elements make the story endearing and bittersweet. The film points at larger societal injustices in how we treat the elderly, but tells the story on a very intimate human scale. That may hurt it among Oscar voters who tend to like their documentaries to be a bit more hard hitting.

Fun Fact Even A Hobbit Can Enjoy: Although this documentary is set in a retirement community, all of the retirees are still significantly younger than both Gandalf and Gollum. So don’t judge!

Mondays At Racine

The Story: Mondays At Racine is set at a beauty salon in New York that hosts a special day for breast cancer survivors once a month. The film follows several of the women in different stages of the disease, from chemotherapy through masectomy and beyond. In addition to the medical elements, the film emphasizes the emotional, social and relational challenges that face these women and their families. The beauty shop setting also helps to emphasize the challenges that breast cancer and its treatments pose to traditional representations of femininity, since breasts and long hair are societal markers of beauty that can both be lost from this single disease.

Bona Fides: Mondays At Racine won the audience award at the Boston Independent Film Festival, an honorable mention at SilverDocs, and was nominated for the International Documentary Association Awards. Director Cynthia Wade is a previous Oscar winner in this category for Freeheld, and winner of numerous festival awards for her films Born Sweet and Shelter Dogs. Also nominated is producer Robin Honan, who has co-produced several of Wade’s projects.

Oscar Chances: The large number of people who have had breast cancer or know someone who has gives this film a natural audience to draw upon. The emotional stories of heartbreak and courage will also help the film’s Oscar chances. The challenge, however, is that there is another medical film in the race this year, which will likely draw votes away.

Fun Fact Even A Hobbit Can Enjoy: It may be hard to believe, but sometimes stories have women in them naturally, and don’t need Peter Jackson to invent something for Cate Blanchett to do.

 Inocente

The Story: Inocente is the story of a young artist in San Diego. Struggling with the challenges of homelessness, immigration and growing up, she nevertheless creates beautiful and optimistic artwork from her own spirit and experiences. The vibrant colors of her paintings jump off the screen, and provide a visual treat unparalleled among this year’s nominees, all while telling a very serious story of poverty in America. The artist’s cheerful personality and the transformations she and her family undergo as she prepares her first public art show make for a compelling narrative.

Bona Fides: Inocente has won awards at the Arizona, Heartland and San Antonio Film Festivals, as well as the special UNICEF award at the Educational Broadcast System’s Documentary Film Festival. Directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix are previous Oscar nominees in this category for their film War Dance.

Oscar Chances: Inocente is definitely the “feel-good” film in this year’s competition, and the emphasis on the transformative power of art will appeal to many Academy voters. This is the first year where all members of the Academy will receive the films on screeners and be eligible to vote in this category without attending special showings, and that could very well help if a more populist electorate goes for the film that is the most enjoyable.

Fun Fact Even A Hobbit Can Enjoy: Although he’s never played a hobbit, John Leguizamo has played characters of short stature in both Moulin Rouge and Spawn. He’s also an executive producer of this film!

 Redemption

The Story: Redemption follows several men and women who make their living collecting cans and bottles off of the streets of New York City. In addition to exploring the economic and societal implications of consumerism and recycling efforts, the film gives us a very intimate look at their lives. Known as “Canners”, some are homeless or near homelessness, others are immigrants, former chefs or computer programmers, and seniors whose social security checks are insufficient to live off of. Along the way, we see traditional discrimination play out, as well as incredible acts of kindness and generosity within this community.

Bona Fides: Directors Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill are previous Oscar nominees in this category for China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears Of Sichuan Province, and Emmy winners for Baghdad E.R.  It is also worth noting that Alpert was invited to become a member of the Academy in 2011, so that’s one vote already in the bag!

Oscar Chances: When it comes to traditional documentary filmmaking technique, I would say that this is the strongest of the films. The interviews are conducted on location as people work, instead of having a talking head explain everything. Even the sheer number of canners interviewed dwarfs the other films in competition, and it couldn’t have been easy to convince so many people who speak different languages to participate.

Fun Fact Even A Hobbit Can Enjoy: In the real world, when the corporate dragon takes away your mountain home, they don’t send a wizard to help with your quest.

Open Heart

The Story: Open Heart tells the story of eight Rwandan children who travel to Sudan to undergo heart surgery. As if traveling to another country weren’t enough, they must do so without their parents, and the discrepancy between their living conditions and the high-tech hospital they visit feels like visiting a spaceship. Poverty, international politics, and the state of the medical field are all explored in a way that is even more heartbreaking when we realize that this dangerous surgery is only necessary because they were not treated for a very common childhood disease - strep throat.

Bona Fides: Open Heart was nominated for the International Documentary Association Awards. This is director Kief Davidson’s first Oscar nomination, but his previous films Kassim The Dream and The Devil’s Miner have been rewarded by numerous film festivals and the directors guild. Also nominated is producer Cori Shepherd Stern, whose credits include being an executive producer of the film Warm Bodies, currently in cinemas.

Oscar Chances: The international and political nature of this film makes it the most likely to win the Oscar. Hollywood likes its documentaries to have a cause that can be rallied around, and the film is part of a campaign to provide heart surgery to an additional 52 patients who haven’t been able to receive it, as well as create a sustainable healthcare system in Rwanda. Plus, it just has the “feel” of an Oscar documentary, being a serious world issue which needs immediate attention.

Fun Fact Even A Hobbit Can Enjoy: Damon Lindelof may be most famous for producing LOST, Star Trek and Prometheus, but he’s also an executive producer of Open Heart, proving that fact and fiction can work hand in hand.

The LAMB Devours the Oscars: Best Documentary Short Subject

Note: This post was written as part of “The LAMB Devours The Oscars” series sponsored by The Large Association Of Movie Blogs (The LAMB). In a series of guest posts, 32 bloggers will look at each of the award races and each of the best picture nominees. It’s a great way to get a range of views about the races, in addition to my own. Check out all of the contributions HERE.

Who is ready to learn something? I understand that the Documentary Features may be too long for some of us, but these are the SHORTS, for goodness sake. Has our attention span really gotten so low that we can’t sit through 20 to 40 minutes of a film that doesn’t have explosions or movie stars? SPOILER: Actually, some of these DO include explosions and movie stars, so it’s not like they’re asking us to read a book or something.

Sure, we can blame it on the fact that the films aren’t screening near us (my local art house theater plays the animated and live action shorts, but not the docs), or the fact that the few theaters that are playing these have only been able to get the rights to 4 of the 5, but isn’t it more likely that we’d go watch Ghost Rider or The Vow anway? Who needs to learn about the world when we can escape from it? But for those of you who are up for the challenge, here are your nominees:



1. Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen for The Tsunami And The Cherry Blossom. (Predicted Winner) (previous rank 1).  Trailer.  Official Site. IMDB page. Documenting the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan, this film uses the cherry trees which blossomed in the aftermath to reflect upon the fragility and beauty of life.

Facts: The film premiered at Toronto and won three awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Director Lucy Walker was previously nominated in the feature documentary category for Waste Land, and has been nominated for Independent Spirit and Emmy Awards for Devil’s Playground. She’s also worked on Blue’s Clues! The film is produced by Supply & Demand Integrated and is 39 minutes.

Assessment: I am currently predicting this to win because the cinematography in the trailer is absolutely stunning, and the combination of recent events and the presentation of a “visual haiku” will appeal to unique sets of voters. Plus, it has music by Moby! On the other hand, the Academy often uses this category to highlight societal injustices that demand a call to action, so the environmental causes of this disaster could make it feel less urgent.



2. Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for Saving Face (previous rank 4). Trailer. Official Site. IMDB page. Documenting the phenomenon of acid attacks against women in Pakistan, this film follows several survivors and a London-based plastic surgeon who tries to help them, and also explores the push to pass new legislation that would impose stricter sentencing for the perpetrators of this crime.

Facts: The film is scheduled to debut on HBO on March 8 as part of International Women’s Month. Director Daniel Junge was previously nominated in the documentary short category for The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner, and producer Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Emmy for Pakistan: Children Of The Taliban. The film is produced by Milkhaus/Jungefilm and is 40 minutes.

Assessment: Of all the films, this one has the most in common with past winners of this category, which often focus on inspiring stories of individuals in foreign lands working to fight real injustices. It is also getting good reviews from those who have seen it. Its biggest challenge comes from the fact that the Academy recently wrote new rules focusing on theatrical releases, rather than documentaries designed for television. The rule doesn’t go into effect until next year, but voters who felt strongly about it may bulk at rewarding a film that is being released on HBO two weeks after the ceremony.



3. James Spione for Incident In New Baghdad (previous rank 2). Trailer. Additional Scene. Official Site. IMDB page. My Review. Documenting the horrors of war and their psychological impact on veterans, this film follows Ethan McCord’s journey from soldier to activist. Unlike the war films that the Hollywood studios put out, this one involves the death of journalists and civilians by U.S. helicopters, WikiLeaks revelations of government cover-ups, and the plight of military personnel suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Facts: The film won at both the Tribeca and Rhode Island Film Festivals, and showed at several others including Tallgrass, Camden and Palm Springs. Director James Spione has previously won a Student Academy Award for Prelude. The film is produced by Morninglight Films and is 22 minutes.

Assessment: The continuing wars of the United States and the struggles of returning veterans are the types of issues that we commonly associate with the documentary branch. But the reality is that war films are usually rewarded in the Documentary Feature category, while the shorts tend to focus on smaller personal stories. Indeed, you have to go all the way back to 1991 to find a documentary short winner that directly discussed the military industrial complex in the United States. This year there is additional competition because there is a documentary feature, Hell And Back Again, that covers very similar issues.



4. Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday for The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier Of The Civil Rights Movement (previous rank 3). Trailer. Official Site. IMDB page. This documentary follows James Armstrong, an 85 year old civil rights advocate, as he participates in the election of the first African American president. In addition to his personal story, the film explores the improvements made to elections in the South since the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Facts: The film premiered at Sundance, won at the Ashland Independent Film Festival and played at several others including SilverDocs, Tallgrass, MountainWeek and DocuWeek. One of the directors, Gail Dolgin, has been previously nominated in the feature documentary category for Daughter From Danang. The film is produced by Purposeful Productions and is 25 minutes.

Assessment: Civil rights stories have done well in this category, and the film is getting good reviews, but I wonder how the timing of this nomination will play out in terms of the American election cycle. It feels a few years too late to capitalize on the excitement of President Obama’s historic victory, and Academy members may feel that rewarding the film this close to the next election cycle could be seen as too partisan.



5. Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson for God Is The Bigger Elvis (previous rank 5).  IMDB page. News Article, 20/20 Interview. This film documents the life of Dolores Hart, a movie star from the 1960’s who received Elvis Presley’s first onscreen kiss, and then became a Catholic nun.

Facts: The film is scheduled to debut on HBO in April. Director Rebecca Cammisa was previously nominated in the feature documentary category for Which Way Home, and producer Julie Anderson has been nominated for four Emmy awards. The film is produced by Documentress Films and is 37 minutes.

Assessment: The film doesn’t appear to tackle pressing social issues the way that the other films do, and is another HBO production that looks designed for television. On the other hand, this category has honored interesting figures in the past, and Hart is an actual Academy member who may have old friends and co-workers who would vote for her.

84th Oscar Documentary Short Updates (2/2/12)

I correctly predicted 3 out of 5 of these nominees (60%).



1. Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen for The Tsunami And The Cherry Blossom (Predicted Winner) (previous rank 1) Trailer.  Link To Official Site. IMDB page.
2. James Spione for Incident In New Baghdad (previous rank 2). Trailer. Additional Scene. Link To Official Site. IMDB page. My Review.
3. Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday for The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier Of The Civil Rights Movement (previous rank 3). Trailer. Link To Official Site. IMDB page.
4. Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for Saving Face (previous rank 6). Trailer. Link To Official Site. IMDB page.
5. Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson for God Is The Bigger Elvis (previous rank 7).  IMDB page. News Article.

You can also learn more about several of these films from my previous post for this category.

As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!
To see how I am doing in each race, check out my Track Record Page.
See Documentary Short predictions for other years HERE.
If you’re into documentaries, you might also like the Documentary Features.
If you’re really into shorts, check out the Animated Shorts and Live Action Shorts.
See predictions for other categories at the 84th Oscars HERE.
Switch to another year: 84th,  85th,  86th,  87th,  88th,  89th

LAMBS In The Director’s Chair: Woody Allen

For those who don’t know, The LAMB has a series where bloggers get together each month to write reviews of a particular director’s work. Here at Never Too Early Movie Predictions, I look forward instead of backward, so I thought it might be fun to look ahead at what the director of the month has coming up on his calendar for the next several years.

This month’s director is Woody Allen, a man who is very consistent in making one film a year, but not always as consistent in terms of quality. He has been Oscar nominated 6 times for his directing, once for his acting, and 14 times for his screenplays, and he has won 3 times: for writing and directing Annie Hall, and for writing Hannah And Her Sisters.



Midnight In Paris will most certainly add another Original Screenplay nomination (and possible win) to Allen’s list, and both Best Picture and Best Director nominations are distinct possibilities, especially if films with late releases begin to fall. However, it is also important to note some drawbacks. Both of the films that have garnered him wins and best picture nominations in the past (Annie Hall and Hannah And Her Sisters) also received multiple nominations for other categories (5 and 7, respectively). While it is certainly possible that Midnight In Paris will surprise with some costume, art direction or supporting acting nods, or that the new 5% rule changes the dynamics of the race, it is also possible that the combined impact of the other guild’s accolades will leave the film overshadowed for all but a screenplay nomination. Still, it is the most financially successful of all Allen’s films, so perhaps the past statistics won’t apply.



Paris Manhattan will continue the French theme, with Allen in front of the camera instead of behind it. Directed by first time French director Sophie Lellouche, the film is a romantic comedy starring Alice Taglioni as a pharmacist who is obsessed with Woody Allen. Her family is concerned about her obsession, and attempts to cure her by setting her up with French hunk Patrick Bruel. The film promises to be great fun for anyone familiar with Allen’s work, and is said to use many quotes from Allen’s previous films as part of the dialogue.



Nero Fiddled is Allen’s next directorial project. Formerly known as The Wrong Picture and Bop Decameron, the film will feature four vignettes set in Rome. I’m often wary of these vignette films when it comes to Oscar predictions, but I must admit that Allen has assembled an impressive cast that includes Oscar winners Penelope Cruz and Roberto Benigni, as well as Oscar nominees Judi Davis, Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg and Alec Baldwin. The film will also feature Greta Gerwig, Alison Pill and a host of Italian actors. He’s also re-teaming with Oscar nominated cinematographer Darius Khondji and costume designer Sonia Grande (both of whom worked on Midnight In Paris), as well as production designer Anne Seibel and set decorator Raffaella Giovannetti.

Plot details are still scare, but Allen has said that it will be a broad comedy, and includes a number of travel stories, which could make for an interesting perspective on this tourist city. In one vignette, Allen will be married to co-star Penelope Cruz (who won her Oscar in Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona), as they go to Rome to meet their future son in law and his family. Another vignette will reportedly feature Alec Baldwin as a California architect who comes to visit friends (and I have to wonder, will he also check out the architecture of this famous city?). I suspect that we’ll also see some of Allen’s trademark disorientation as another segment features Italian stars Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi as newlyweds who get lost in the city, while Roberto Benigni will play a man who gets mistaken for a movie star. There’s even rumored to be an homage to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita at Via Veneto.



Allen will also be featured in three documentaries. The first, American Masters--Woody Allen: A Documentary, has already premiered on PBS, and features a plethora of stars talking about their experiences working with the director, as well as original footage from his film sets and his childhood home. A second documentary, Casting By (directed by Tom Donahue) is an inside look at the role of the casting director, which is certainly one of the most important yet little understood jobs in Hollywood, and will include interviews with a large number of famous actors and directors, including Allen. And finally, Masha Vasyukova is directing a documentary short entitled Woody Before Allen, which centers around an attempt to place a statue in Allen's honor in the Russian city of Kaliningrad. You can learn more at the film’s website: http://www.woodybeforeallen.com/

So readers, what do you think of Midnight In Paris’ Oscar chances? Does Nero Fiddled feel like a successful follow up, or does the vignette format leave you as worried as I am? Could Paris Manhattan break into the foreign language race, or Casting By or Woody Before Allen be a surprise documentary winner? Let me know in the comments!



You can keep track of Woody Allen’s Oscar chances for each of these projects on my Director And Screenplay page.
Read what my fellow LAMBS have written about Woody Allen HERE.
Search for other directors featured in LAMBS In The Director’s Chair HERE.  
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What I Saw: Incident In New Baghdad

What I Saw:  Incident In New Baghdad

Everyone has an opinion about war. For some it is the ultimate proof of patriotism. For others, it is an affront to a peace-loving society. But it’s truly unusual to see anyone change their opinion from one stance to another.

Incident In New Baghdad gives us such an opportunity. Ethan McCord came from a military family, and intentionally joined the infantry to get the “real army experience.” But after a particularly gruesome attack in Baghdad, and the response of his military superiors after the fact, his perspective begins to change. The man who so desperately wanted to be part of the system now realizes that we are all part of the war machine, whether we like it or not.

The 22 minute documentary brought two moments of realization for me. The first was the repression, and unintentional later awakening, of our common humanity. Trained to view and speak of the enemy as less than human, even in death scenes which are comparable to horror films, the danger is always that something will break through the facade. For McCord, it is the sight of kids among the attack’s injured, and the parental instinct to recognize them as similar to his own children back home. Director James Spione brilliantly reenacts this comparison through his visual choices during the retelling.

The second realization involves a military psychology that rejects the clinical version most civilians are used to. When McCord asks to talk to someone about his experiences, his commanding officer cautions against seeking help, demanding that he instead tough it out. We instinctively know that denying such care is wrong, but somehow the film also reveals how the commanding officer is right: One cannot continue to be a successful warrior once you have stopped dehumanizing the enemy. There is a fundamental option that must be made between two different psychologies, and in the end McCord has chosen the braver of the two.



Oscar Chances:

In addition to winning awards at the Tribecca, Rhode Island and Tallgrass film festivals, Incident In New Baghdad is on the short list of films for the 84th Oscar Documentary Short category, and I am currently predicting that it will easily receive a nomination for its powerful and timely storytelling. To learn more about the film and see if it is playing at a festival near you, check the website HERE.

My Lamb Score: 4 ½ out of 5 Lambs
What is a lamb score? Click HERE to learn more.
Read more of my reviews HERE.
See Documentary Short predictions for various years HERE.
If you’re into documentaries, you might also like the Documentary Features.
If you’re really into shorts, check out the Animated Shorts and Live Action Shorts.
As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!