Documentaries in 2006
(This is one of my heroes, Ross McElwee; he and Errol Morris are the greatest contemporary documentary filmmakers, and they not having films released this year is a serious bummer.)
In addition to all the fiction features I just wrote about, there was a slew of documentaries I didn't see in 2006. What makes this a total sin, however, is that NONE of the 39 films I did see last year were documentaries. This is an incredible anomaly, as I've always loved the nonfiction cinema. Documentaries have experienced an amazing renaissance in the new millenium, not only in terms of prodcution, but also but also of reception. The most lucrative documentaries in history have been released in the last 5 years, which means the public is catching on as well. Nonfiction cinema is serious business for people to deal with, especially with the glut of Iraq documentaries from the last 3 years. (I counted no less than 5 major Iraq doc's released last year to theaters; there were undoubtedly more.)
49 Up (Michael Apted)
51 Birch Street (Doug Block)
The Blood of My Brother (Andrew Berends)
The Case of the Grinning Cat (Chris Marker)
Dave Chappelle's Block Party (Michel Gondry)
The Decay of Fiction (Pat O'Neill)
Deliver Us from Evil (Amy Berg)
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (Jeff Feuerzeig)
The Ground Truth (Patricia Foulkrod)
An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim/Al Gore)
Iraq in Fragments (James Longley)
The Ister (David Barison & Daniel Ross)
Jesus Camp (Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady)
My Country, My Country (Laura Poitras)
Neil Young: Heart of Gold (Jonathan Demme)
Our Daily Bread (Nikolaus Geyrhalter)
Romantico (Mark Becker)
Shut Up and Sing (Barbara Kopple & Cecilia Peck)
The War Tapes (Deborah Scranton)
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee)
Feel free to admonish; I know I have sinned. Peace.