SXSW: Running With Arnold

My first SXSW story for Netscape just went live. Here's an excerpt:

The South By Southwest Film Festival is widely considered to be one of the top showcases for documentary film in North America, and if we're to take the 2007 lineup as an indicator of general trends, then there is currently no hotter nonfiction genre than the election movie. The Festival (which began last Friday and runs concurrently with the famed SXSW Music Conference through March 18) is screening at least five feature films focused on elections. An inordinate amount of attention has already been bestowed on just one of SXSW 2007's election films, the Michael Moore expose Manufacturing Dissent. But while that production by Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine offers an undeniably alluring behind-the-scenes peek at the documentary world's biggest blowhard, another SXSW election doc has managed to embroil pop culture notables as disparate as Alec Baldwin and Jello Biafra in a massive smear against the most powerful man in California.

Read the rest HERE.

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Steven Boone on Iraq in Fragments at The House Next Door:

...transferred to 35mm and projected on the big screen, it is as beautiful to behold as Days of Heaven. As I ogled this beauty recently at New York’s Film Forum, I found my hands clasped in front of my chin as if in prayer. I could not believe that I was watching the product of a camera Uncle Lou might use to document his vacation sexploits... Iraq in Fragments is the first camcorder movie with no excuses.

Read on for Boone's argument as to why James Longley's documentary "represents the true beginning of The Future of the Movies." The essay is tech-heavy, but not intimidatingly so. Also, my interview with Longely can be found here.

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