Protocol: Bait/Switch
What is the protocol for dealing with civilians? What is the protocol for dealing with the police?
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Posts Tagged: documentary
Welcome to South Bend: When Country Music Came to Town
We tuned in on the wrong night.
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Mama’s Fancy Stripper Heels: Working Mothers Dish
[A] person’s labor is not indicative of their parenting.
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The Queer Syllabus: Chavela by Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi
In The Queer Syllabus, writers nominate works for a new canon of queer literature.
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Revolution Was Coming: A Conversation with Rabeah Ghaffari
Rabeah Ghaffari discusses her debut novel, TO KEEP THE SUN ALIVE.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #146: Andrew Solomon
“I can tell my story with precautions; others strip away my armor and expose a beating heart.”
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I Can’t Shake the Guru Bhagwan
In 1979, my mother decided she wanted to join Bhagwan’s ashram in Pune, India.
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The Girl Next Door: Pot Docs and Loss on the California Coast
[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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Living Proof: A Review of Wild Wild Country
The story of Rajneeshpuram is told in a series of events and everything within it is true. But it is not real. It does not come alive.
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Strong Island’s Horizon
Whose lives are visible? Whose pain is just? Whose grief is vocal? Such inquiry is not rhetorical.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview #118: John Ridley
“It was about showing people taking, or denying, responsibility.”
...moreDavid Bowie’s Final Finale
Bowie is gone now. The Magic Shop, too. It’s all gone—New York City, too, in a way.
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Ready for Change: Discussing Sexual Assault with SafeBAE
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
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.
...moreFetishizing Distress: The Wrong Light and Sex Trafficking
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
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
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
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
The film only grazes the issue, but homophobia is the fuel of the harassment that the targets face.
...moreI Called Him Morgan
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 […]
...moreSound & Vision: Brendan Toller
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.
...moreThe Long Con
Literature is full of imposters and noms de plume, from George Eliot to “Robert Galbraith” (aka JK Rowling), but JT LeRoy is something else. George Eliot never did high-end fashion shoots, or received backstage passes to U2 gigs, or was sent Kabbalah books by Madonna. In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, fake memoirist JT […]
...moreOfficial Marvin Gaye Documentary Announced
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
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
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.
...moreWhen Clothes Don’t Make The Man: What Suited Leaves Out
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
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
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
There were “good” families and “bad” families, and even I, an outsider, was quickly apprised of which was which.
...moreSaunders and Storytelling
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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