Do you like Italian gangster flicks? Mike Malloy’s upcoming documentary Eurocrime: The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled The ’70s appears to be on the same wavelength as Not Quite Hollywood, in that it pays tribute to a wave of underground films coming out of one country at a particular point in time. It may not have Quentin Tarantino’s name on it, but it looks to have plenty of fascinating war stories, not to mention a kick ass soundtrack as well.

Featuring interviews with Fred Williamson, John Saxon, Franco Nero, and Henry Silva (among others), the movie is currently in production over at Subgenre Entertainment. There’s a nice 5-minute promo reel floating around the web right now courtesy of Twitch. Check it out below and see what you think.

Do we really need a feature-length documentary about the Chicago Cubs? Director John Scheinfeld seems to think so. After gaining some critical acclaim for his film The U.S. vs John Lennon, he’s gone and made a passion project called We Believe that is a tribute to the city of Chicago and its love of baseball. I watched the trailer looking for some sort of hook, but I didn’t really find one. Then again, I don’t like baseball and I don’t live in Chicago either so go figure!

The thing they keep touching on is the fact that the Cubs haven’t won the World Series for over 100 years now, but still the fans keep coming out. Isn’t that what baseball fans do? I’m not really convinced this is anything more than a 90-minute ad for the Cubs, but it does seem very well shot and it has a lot of big name interviews (it’s narrated by Gary Sinise). I’m still a bit surprised that this is getting some sort of theatrical release, but hey, if you like the Cubs, I’m guessing you’ll like this! For more info visit the film’s official website.

I just realized we haven’t posted anything about Not Quite Hollywood here on The Documentary Blog so far, but with all the great reviews the movie has been getting, I thought we should probably throw up the new red band trailer to help get the word out. It’s a documentary about Australian genre films from the ’70s and early ’80s, and how absolutely out of control they were. It features interviews with all kinds of people who were involved in the making of these movies (Dennis Hopper, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Russel Mulcahy) to people who were influenced by them (Quentin Tarantino, James Wan).

This movie had its North American Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last year, and it was since picked up by Magnolia Pictures, who are supposed to be releasing it sometime this summer. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see it soon. For more more information visit the film’s official website.

It’s been five months and I’m still slowly catching up on a bunch of documentaries I missed at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Luckily, this week I received a screener for Liz Garbus’ ‘Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech’ in the mail thanks to the wonderful folks at HBO, so now I can check one more doc off my ‘must watch’ list!

Director Liz Garbus sits down with her Dad, First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus, to explore the many complexities involved in upholding free speech in America. We do get a little bit of history — from McCarthyism to Carlin’s seven dirty words — with most of the film consisting of experts and commentator’s sharing their thoughts on what constitutes free speech and moments where the right to speak freely has been threatened or flat out ignored. The film presents a series of case studies separated into multiple individual stories ranging from a University professor’s controversial views on 9/11 and his subsequent dismissal to statements about homosexuality written on a high school students t-shirt. The cool thing about these segments is once you put them back to back, you really get a sense of the challenges of maintaining the right to free speech. Fighting for the rights of the Westboro Baptist Church to carry ‘God Hates Fags’ signs in public might be tough to swallow, but it’s all part of the package. As the title states, these stories are truly on the edge of free speech.

The film is well shot and makes good use of its structure to break up what could’ve been a bland talking heads piece. The rapport between Liz Garbus and her Father elevated the discussion into a casual ‘talking shop’ sort of honesty that you can imagine taking place at a Garbus Family holiday or get-together. And as I mentioned previously, the selection of case studies and the order in which they’re presented really worked for me and completely sold the idea that support of free speech is not limited to your own opinions or beliefs. A great use of structure to directly support the content. My only complaint is the film felt a little short, but I appreciated the lean but informative presentation. Watch for Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, premiering June 29 on HBO.

It’s still not quite clear what the current status of proposed Arrested Development feature film is; last we heard, it was moving full steam ahead and there were even rumours of a shoot already happening in New York City, but they turned out to be false. Michael Cera recently came out and said that he does think it will happen, but probably not for a while. The good news is that in the meantime there’s another Arrested Development movie that fans can look forward to. It’s an untitled documentary about the AD fan phenomenon intended to “provide awareness and education of this brilliant, witty and original comedy”.

While I’m generally suspicious of these types of fan-made documentaries, and the project’s official website really doesn’t have anything substantial other than a photo gallery of fans, the fact is they now actually have a “final” trailer for this thing and it showcases quite a few interviews with members of the cast and creative team. As expected, they’re all just talking about how amazing and ahead of its time the show was, but for hardcore fans, that’s probably more than enough. A solid release date has not yet been set, but it seems like they are currently in post-production and hoping to have it ready sometime in 2009. More on this as it develops. Check out the trailer below.

One of the disappointing things about Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming Bruno movie is that it doesn’t seem to be as focused on poking fun at the fashion industry as his previous segments did on Da Ali G Show. Fortunately, it looks like we may have an alternative of sorts in the form of R.J. Cutler’s documentary The September Issue. The documentary is not directly critical of its subject, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, but the trailer definitely seems to play up her reputation as an ice queen and is also keenly aware of some of the excesses of the fashion world.

Roadside Attractions picked up the film for distribution at Sundance earlier this year, and it could be a minor hit for them, especially since it is the real-life version of The Devil Wears Prada. Cutler previously directed the controversial reality series Black. White. for FX. The September Issue hits select theatres on September 11th; check out the trailer below.

If you’re a fan of movies, you can’t help but love hearing the crazy behind-the-scenes stories of what goes into the making of a major Hollywood film — the unfortunate thing is that a lot of the best stories go unheard, because no one wants to publicly bad mouth anyone or burn bridges in the industry. Well, somehow Peter Hanson and Paul Robert Herman managed to get an impressive line-up of highly respected folks to sit down and talk about their experiences, specifically related to the topic of screenwriting. The result is the documentary and accompanying non-fiction book Tales from the Script.

I have to admit, it was names like John Carpenter, Frank Darabont, and Paul Schrader that initially attracted my attention, but after watching the trailer for the film, every single one of these interviews seems compelling. The movie clearly delves into the fact that screenwriters are the unsung heroes of Hollywood, and that they must endure constant abuse in order to get their stories out there in some way, shape or form. Tales from the Script premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival earlier this year; hopefully the rest of us will get a chance to see it soon.

I’ve been hearing some good things about Pressure Cooker, a recently released documentary about a well-known culinary arts teacher at an inner city high school in Philadelphia. I’m not quite sure you can call Wilma Stephenson the female Gordon Ramsay, but she certainly has a no-nonsense approach to cooking and criticism, and she pushes her students to do the very best they can. There are scholarships on the line, and the opportunity for students to make a better life for themselves and their families.

The movie seems like it will share some similarities with Hoop Dreams and a number of other basketball documentaries, but also Mad Hot Ballroom in that it is an unlikely activity providing inspiration some of these inner city kids. With any luck, it could be both hilarious and uplifting, which is always a good combination… plus there is a competition element to the story as well. Pressure Cooker is currently playing in select theatres; check out the trailer below. (Thanks to Falsk for the heads up!)

Julie Matlin has been hosting a series of posts over at The NFB blog titled ‘The Insider’s Guide to the Film Industry’. So far it’s been an insightful and informative series that would definitely be of interest to any aspiring filmmakers out there. Today she’s added a new post detailing the launch of a pretty amazing new NFB site dedicated to exploring the process documentary filmmaking. Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary features interview segments with a number of leading documentary filmmaker’s on a wide variety of topics in regards to documentary production and storytelling. Here’s what she had to say in her post:

…we’ve just put up a brand new Web site called Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary that contains a treasure trove of answers, anecdotes and advice on the craft from some of its greatest masters. And I’m talking about people like Errol Morris, Albert Maysles and Nick Broomfield, among others. We’ve also got a documentary by the same name, which was the inspiration for the Web site.

The site has over 160 clips featuring documentary filmmakers talking about their work. From getting started to shooting to editing, they offer a wealth of information invaluable to any established or aspiring filmmaker. There’s even an educational guide to aid teachers in using the film and clips and help them incorporate documentary films into the classroom.

The site itself is set up quite intuitively with a series of video thumbnails that are extremely easy to navigate through. There’s a lot of information at hand, so any readers out there with an interest in documentary filmmaking will have quite a bit of great stuff to go through. As mentioned in the original post, the site was inspired by an NFB film of the same name, which is currently available on DVD through their store. I’ve embedded the trailer below for those who are interested. Check it out!

One of the talked about documentaries at this years Sundance Film Festival was director Louie Psihoyos’ ‘The Cove’. Me and Sean saw some good docs in Park City, but unfortunately missed out on this one. It’s too bad too, because I’ve heard amazing things about it and the trailer, which has recently shown up online, looks absolutely amazing. Here’s an excerpt from the Sundance synopsis:

Flipper was one of the most beloved television characters of all time. But ironically, the fascination with dolphins that he caused created a tragic epidemic that has threatened their existence and become a multibillion dollar industry. The largest supplier of dolphins in the world is located in the picturesque town of Taijii, Japan. But the town has a dark, horrifying secret that it doesn’t want the rest of the world to know. There are guards patrolling the cove, where the dolphin capturing takes place, who prevent any photography. The only way to stop the evil acts of this company and the town that protects it is to expose them….and that’s exactly what the brave group of activists in The Cove intend to do.

I like that the film carries a message, but doesn’t shy away from selling the film’s espionage-esque thriller elements. I love documentaries that manage to inject genre elements. My only hesitations towards this film is the apparent graphic footage of Dolphins being slaughtered, but I guess that’s the whole point. The Cove hits theatres — limited I’m sure — Friday, August 7th.

Current.com and The Rotten Tomatoes Show have been getting a lot of interesting directors and actors to pick their top 5 movies in a short video segment called Five Favorite Films. This week’s guest is documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. I’ve listed his picks below… interesting to note: only one is a documentary!

5. Detour (Dir. Edgar Ulmer)
4. The Fallen Idol (Dir. Carol Reed)
3. Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
2. Sullivan’s Travels (Dir. Preston Sturges)
1. The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Dir. Kazuo Hara)

On a related note, Errol Morris also recently wrote a 7-part series of articles for The New York Times about master of forgery Han van Meegeren. It seems thorough and exhaustive as only Errol Morris can be.

There’s really not much to say about it, but USA Today has debuted the first official photo from Michael Moore’s upcoming bailout documentary. It shows Moore talking to a security guard outside the Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan. Details are still scarce, and the movie is still untitled, but a release date of October 2, 2009 has been set by Overture Films and Paramount Vantage.

Strangely, Moore seems quick to play up the entertainment value rather than the educational or political content of the film:

“If you go to see my movies, even if you don’t agree with everything in the movies, you’re going to have a good laugh… I want them to walk out at the end saying ‘Wow, that was something!’ And in this case, maybe they also walk out asking the ushers, ‘Um, excuse me. Where are the pitchforks and torches?’ “

Are you looking forward to this film or have you had enough of Michael Moore?

Update: Here’s the first teaser for the film.