I’m busy writing an article for International Documentary magazine about reality TV. It will be in the December issue of the magazine. Over the past couple of days I’ve done some really great interviews with some of the most inspiring people in the doc/reality field. But the fun part is over and the deadline is […]

Just looked at the weekend box office. It’s hard to not notice March of the Penguins still hanging on in the top ten after 13 weeks in theaters. The film has grossed over $70 million now. Dang. I wish I knew how much they spent on P&A.

Last night I saw Dead End at the Ahmanson Theatre in Downtown LA. It’s a play, not a documentary, but it is the MOST like documentary, a play I have ever seen. It originally premiered on Broadway in October 1935. It was an incredible hit and after Eleanor Roosevelt saw it three times it became […]

This is the first in a series of writings about the first twenty years of Academy Award winning documentaries. 1941 1941 was the first year the Academy recognized the documentary with its own category for Oscar. Dutch born documentarian Joris Ivens wrote “I am so very glad that at last we are recognized by the […]

Tonight at the Academy of Arts and Sciences Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood starts the Oscar’s Docs screening series. For the next 13 Mondays (minus Halloween) I’ll be attending The First Twenty Years of Academy Award Winning Documentaries 1941-1960. As far as I know there are still tickets available for $5. Visit Oscars.org for more […]

Just got an email from the Independent Film Channel that they’re showing 2 new docs this weekend. (I just plugged them into the TiVo). WMD: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION about the media and their coverage or lack thereof of 9/11 and The Spaghetti West, an IFC original documentary about the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s. […]

I just finished watching Ross McElwee‘s Bright Leaves. His docs are like nobody else’s. Seemingly haphazard yet perfectly constructed (try to put that quote on your poster). It’s available on DVD. And while you’re at it you might as well rent Sherman’s March too.

Michael Moore sent out this letter today. I’m going to send out a box of supplies. It’s an important way to help. Friends, There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in […]

Josh Tickell, a documentary filmmaker and friend of mine, knows how to make biodiesel (as seen in his short film The Veggie Van Voyage). He’s also from Louisiana. So…he hopped in his Veggie Van and is helping by working with biodiesel suppliers in the Mid West as well as generator companies to bring a convoy […]

Back when I was predicting Ruben Studdard would be the next American Idol I got TiVo. Let’s say April 2003. It’s no joke, and no commercial either, to say that TiVo has revolutionized the way I watch TV. I read about a program and plug it into the TiVo. I don’t have to remember what […]