Posts Tagged: documentary

Mama’s Fancy Stripper Heels: Working Mothers Dish

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[A] person’s labor is not indicative of their parenting.

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The Girl Next Door: Pot Docs and Loss on the California Coast

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[A]s with any documentary, every one of our stories eventually becomes a ghost story. On a long enough timeline, that is.

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Strong Island’s Horizon

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Whose lives are visible? Whose pain is just? Whose grief is vocal? Such inquiry is not rhetorical.

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Ready for Change: Discussing Sexual Assault with SafeBAE

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The co-founders of SafeBAE discuss the challenges and victories of teaching students about rape culture, consent, and anti-bullying.

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There Is Simply No Time for This: Whose Streets? and Civil Rights Cinema

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It is unlikely I will see the US justice system evolve toward an egalitarian ideal in my lifetime. But Whose Streets? does offer a clearly visible North Star.

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Fetishizing Distress: The Wrong Light and Sex Trafficking

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Josie Swantek Heitz’s and Dave Adams’s The Wrong Light, theatrically released in NYC through Cinema Guild on July 14, is disturbing on several levels. First, there’s the story itself. The filmmakers set out to create a portrait of the Children’s Organization of Southeast Asia (COSA), a nonprofit boarding school of sorts founded in 2005 by […]

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How The Keepers Reframes Confession as a Feminist Act

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Critics have noted how The Keepers is similar to other prestige documentaries but with a significant difference—its focus on the victims and their stories.

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Casting JonBenét and the Pageantry of Brokenness

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It is an uncomfortable admission, but we hunger for stories that sensationalize the extremes of human behavior. We want to crawl under the police tape and see the outlines of bodies.

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The Rumpus Interview with Laura Albert

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Laura Albert discusses her alter ego JT LeRoy, Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary Author: The JT LeRoy Story, her complicated relationship with her mother, and life as a hustler.

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Macho Prey: Homophobia and Unlikely Victims in Tickled

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The film only grazes the issue, but homophobia is the fuel of the harassment that the targets face.

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I Called Him Morgan

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A new jazz documentary is making its way around the festival circuit. Directed by Kasper Collin, I Called Him Morgan traces the career of trumpet player Lee Morgan, who worked with greats like Art Blakey and Dizzy Gillespie before being murdered—shot dead on stage mid-performance—by his wife. Part jazz chronicle, part murder mystery, the one thing we do know […]

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Sound & Vision: Brendan Toller

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Allyson McCabe talks with Brendan Toller about his love of vinyl records, buying music in local stores, and his latest documentary film Danny Says, an examination of publicist and manager Danny Fields.

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Official Marvin Gaye Documentary Announced

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An official documentary about Marvin Gaye is finally in the works, and has been approved by the late singer’s family. The film will be titled What’s Going On, Marvin? and will center around the making of the seminal album. The artist’s children released a joint statement about their excitement for the film, saying: Our father was complex, but we […]

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Cooked: The Story of Everything

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Because Cooked samples from all of its predecessors in style and topic, it becomes a show that can’t be pigeonholed into the tired and dry mechanisms of foodie-media.

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Podcatcher #3: Poetry Jawns

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Emma Sanders and Alina Pleskova charm us with their affection for each other, DIY ethos, and belief on Poetry Jawns, what matters is the work.

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When Clothes Don’t Make The Man: What Suited Leaves Out

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Jason Benjamin’s HBO documentary Suited, produced by HBO’s Girls co-creators Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, is an eye-opening journey into the niche subject of dressing for success when you’re a gender nonconforming individual. Brooklyn bespoke tailoring company Bindle & Keep is a no-frills, two-person operation consisting of straight, cisgender male founder Daniel who fell into his calling […]

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Spotlight: The Rumpus Review of Panthers in the Hole

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Brandon Hicks reviews Panthers in the Hole, a new graphic novel from by Bruce and David Cénou.

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The Circle Is Watching

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In a world where boundaries between private and public are already blurring, Tim and Nicolaas wanted to find out what would happen if those boundaries disappeared altogether.

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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Making a Murderer and “Bad” Families

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There were “good” families and “bad” families, and even I, an outsider, was quickly apprised of which was which.

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Saunders and Storytelling

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Brevity’s nonfiction blog takes a look at a recent short film about writer George Saunders’s thoughts on storytelling, and applies his advice to essay and memoir: With nonfiction, looking underneath is often less interrogating our imagination and more out-there-with-a-recorder research. It can be challenging to change our own minds, especially about an experience or situation […]

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