We could write something really meaningful about documentaries and how they impacted the decade, changed our lives, made us cry, made us angry, gave us a call to action, or shined a light on something we otherwise might not know about. We could talk about the portraits of people we adored, people we lost, or chronicles of injustice or venality or obscure spotlights on little-known subjects. And we’ll do that, eventually, but right now, it’s Friday, and we just want to sleep and drink and possibly never wake up, so please enjoy our Best Documentaries of The Decade feature, this placeholder we may or may not update when we’re feeling alive, and our genuine thanks and appreciation for all your reading, sharing, clicking, etc.

Continue reading The Best Documentaries Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

“Free Solo” isn’t just the biggest hit, but it’s had a ton of support from AMPAS members. “RBG” is also a substantial art-house hit. That and Academy love for its subject, Ruth Badger Ginsberg, could give it an edge, but most voters will see “Solo” as the more cinematic choice and that might be the difference. [Updated Feb. 12]

Predictions
1. “Free Solo” – Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Evan Hayes and Shannon Dill
2.

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In what has become a rewarding Christmas tradition, the last couple of weeks have been spent, in between shopping, cooking, arguing, eating, boozing and crying jags, catching up on some of the non-fiction releases from the past year. In recent times, the increase in quality documentary filmmaking — more about an increase in availability and profile, perhaps, but a borderline Cambrian explosion nonetheless — has been an incredible bounty, but also a bit of a daunting prospect.

Continue reading The 20 Best Documentaries Of 2018 at The Playlist.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the shortlist for the 2019 Documentary Feature Oscar and other related categories, and fans in the documentary branches should be relatively pleased. 15 films made it to the shortlist round including most of the favored and critically-acclaimed movies: Focus Features‘ Mr.Rogers film, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the highest-grossing docu of 2018 so far, National Geographic‘s “Free Solo,” Magnolia‘s Ruth Bader Ginsberg portrait “RBG,” “Minding the Gap,” “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” “Three Identical Strangers” and more.

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If you were to guess which films would top the list of the best films of 2018, as chosen by Film Comment magazine, you’d probably think that the publication would tend to go a bit more art-house and international than your average critic. And with the robust selection of incredible foreign-language films in 2018, it’s no surprise that the Film Comment top 10 has only three English-language films.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2018

Topping the list is a film that was critically lauded after its debut at the 2017 Venice Film Festival, “Zama.” After making the fall festival rounds, Lucrecia Martel’s film got a formal release in early 2018 and has largely been overlooked by many of the Best Of lists so far.

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What moments are used to represent a place? What moments are used to represent a character?

In a film brought to you by Executive Producer Danny Glover and award-winning photographer and director RaMell Ross, these questions are two that the documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” examines.

Winner of the Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, this film follows the lives of two African American men, Daniel Collins and Quincy Bryant, in Hale County, Alabama. 

Continue reading ‘Hale County’ Trailer: Sundance Award-Winning Doc Examines Lives Of Two Kids From Rural Alabama at The Playlist.

Film festivals are hyperbole’s rookery. If you need convincing, try reading festival programming notes or, better still, put your eye holes on festival reviews as journalists feverishly crank out piece after piece, screening after screening; the scramble to beat everyone else to the punch and find the Next Big Thing™ before the rest of the pack is real and often inimical to the movies they champion. Hype, to an extent, is an understandable and even natural component of the festival dynamic, but if the verbiage sounds far-fetched, it probably is.

Continue reading You Haven’t Seen Anything Quite Like ‘Hale County This Morning, This Evening’ Before [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.