The following press release is from Tribeca Cinemas:
Tribeca Cinemas Presents: Doc Series 2010
"From the team behind the Tribeca Film Festival, Tribeca Cinemas Presents: Doc Series is an exciting new series of interesting, innovative and thought-provoking documentary films. Join us every other Monday night at Tribeca Cinemas for another must-see film."
February 22, 2010: Dark Days
March 8, 2010: Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison
March 22, 2010: Nerdcore Rising
April 15, 2010: Shooting Beauty
May 10, 2010: Devil's Playground
May 24, 2010: Smile 'Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story
Tickets are $10, $8 for seniors and students with a valid ID and can be purchased online.
All TC Doc Series screenings start at 7:30 pm at Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick Street (at Laight, one block south of Canal).
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tokyo Olympiad
Director: Kon Ichikawa
(1965)
As the 2010 Winter Olympics heat up in Vancouver, Canada and Olympic mania permeates the globe, we look back on the 1964 summer games in Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese government financed their own Olympic coverage, hiring Kon Ichikawa to document the events after the legendary Akira Kurosawa was dismissed from the project. The resulting Tokyo Olympiad offers an exhaustive examination of the games.
Ichikawa focuses on each event with thoughtful reflection, evoking a fascination with the athletes themselves and portraying each event as though they are artistic performance pieces. He allows you to get close to the athletes, and exhibits some restraint in the editing room, allowing events to slowly unfold to the point where the viewer feels like they are sitting in the bleachers.
While the Japanese government was initially not content with this portrayal (they were looking for something more akin to a highlight reel), it is because of this tone that the film remains relevant to this day. Ichikawa’s style not only ensures that his work will remain timeless, but it also points out the inherent silliness of certain events. Like pole vaulting…
Ichikawa’s trademark humor shines through in the film – at one point he focuses on the sagging necks of the judges. He often employs the use of extreme close-ups to highlight abstract absurdity of certain events. Note the exquisite montage from 2:30-2:50 in the following gymnastics clip:
(1965)
As the 2010 Winter Olympics heat up in Vancouver, Canada and Olympic mania permeates the globe, we look back on the 1964 summer games in Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese government financed their own Olympic coverage, hiring Kon Ichikawa to document the events after the legendary Akira Kurosawa was dismissed from the project. The resulting Tokyo Olympiad offers an exhaustive examination of the games.
Ichikawa focuses on each event with thoughtful reflection, evoking a fascination with the athletes themselves and portraying each event as though they are artistic performance pieces. He allows you to get close to the athletes, and exhibits some restraint in the editing room, allowing events to slowly unfold to the point where the viewer feels like they are sitting in the bleachers.
While the Japanese government was initially not content with this portrayal (they were looking for something more akin to a highlight reel), it is because of this tone that the film remains relevant to this day. Ichikawa’s style not only ensures that his work will remain timeless, but it also points out the inherent silliness of certain events. Like pole vaulting…
Ichikawa’s trademark humor shines through in the film – at one point he focuses on the sagging necks of the judges. He often employs the use of extreme close-ups to highlight abstract absurdity of certain events. Note the exquisite montage from 2:30-2:50 in the following gymnastics clip: My uncle recently introduced me to the film, and he advised watching it in Japanese with English subtitles, rather than the dubbed version. I couldn’t imagine watching it any other way. For those that are tempted by the English narration, trust that it doesn’t add the outlandish humor like the dubbing in a kung fu flick out of Hong Kong.
Tokyo Olympiad clocks in at nearly three hours – a marathon in and of itself – though it does lend itself nicely to watching in sections. In the end I just wish I had the resources to be in Vancouver with a camera right now.
Trivial Tidbits:
- The 1964 Summer Games were the first Olympics held in Asia
- The first film documenting the Olympics was Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, which covered the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
2010 Oscar Nominations Announced
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced this year's Oscar nominations in the annual predawn ceremony in Los Angeles. Presumably much of the buzz will be focused on Meryl Streep's record 16th Oscar nomination for Julie & Julia, or AMPAS's decision to nominate ten films for Best Picture (they really couldn't pare that list down any further?!?). However, Doczine is focused on the following two categories;
Documentary Feature:
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home
Documentary Short:
China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit à la Berlin
Hollywood legends Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are slated to host the March 7, 2010 ceremony.
Trivial Tidbits:
Documentary Feature:
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home
Documentary Short:
China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Music by Prudence
Rabbit à la Berlin
Hollywood legends Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are slated to host the March 7, 2010 ceremony.
Trivial Tidbits:
- The only song from a documentary film to win an Original Song Oscar is “I Need to Wake Up” by Melissa Etheridge from the film An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 (the film itself also won in the Documentary Feature category).
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