One afternoon last week, I found myself explaining the benefits of transcendental meditation — and its much cheaper, guru-free alternative Natural Stress Relief — to a junkie at an East Village pizza joint. (He asked.) You see, I was predisposed to love The Dhamma Brothers, a documentary about inmates of an Alabama high security prison [...]
-
"A fast, complex, exhilarating roadster ride through history and time.... Kino is an intoxicating Euro-brew, written with enormous skill and dedication." — Frederick Barthelme
"Jürgen Fauth's deft mashup of genre and historical period is both a full-throttle literary thriller of ideas and a contemplative examination of film and fascism. Kino is a debut of great intellectual force."– Teddy Wayne
"A surprising alternative history. Kino brings the golden age of German cinema to light with loving, sometimes gritty, detail and great precision." – Neal Pollack, author of Jewball.
"A delirious melange of conspiracy, magic, sex, history, bad behavior, and cinema, Kino is a stellar entertainment, and Jürgen Fauth is a writer of rare, sinister imagination." – Owen King, author of Reenactment
"A light-hearted romp that leads straight into darkness and back through the shadows on the wall."– Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
"Movie nuts arise! A happy and felicitous debut."– Terese Svoboda
All posts tagged documentary
The Dhamma Brothers
Posted by Jürgen on April 15, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/04/15/the-dhamma-brothers/
Jimmy Carter Man from Plains
If you drive a couple of blocks down Konrad-Adenauer-Ring from where I was born, you come to what used to be the biggest American military hospital in Europe. It was here that in 1981, the diplomats that had been held hostage in Teheran made their first stop after they were released. Jimmy Carter, the first [...]
Posted by Jürgen on April 1, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/04/01/jimmy-carter-man-from-plains/
Wetlands Preserved
From 1989 to 2001, the Wetlands Preserve flourished just off of New York’s Houston Street. Founded by a Deadhead, the club attracted rising bands in the burgeoning “jam bands” scene, along with ska and hip-hop acts, while maintaining an activism center that held “eco-saloons” and launched inventive street theater protests. Dean Budnick’s Wetlands Preserved, produced [...]
Posted by Jürgen on March 9, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/03/09/wetlands-preserved/
The Rich Have Their Own Photographers
Ecstatic worshipers in store-front churches, steel workers in their homes, the down-and-out inhabitants of Buffalo’s skid row: social documentary photographer Milton Rogovin was never interested in the well-to-do. Thus, the quote that serves as the title of Ezra Bookstein’s sharp and fully realized portrait of Rogovin, now 98 years old. In the fifties, Rogovin was [...]
Posted by Jürgen on February 3, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/02/03/the-rich-have-their-own-photographers/
Faubourg Tremé
The last time we saw Dawn Logsdon and Lucie Faulknor, we were shaking our bones to Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers at the Jazzfest fairgrounds. Now arrives their documentary, directed by Logsdon and produced by Faulknor, telling about a storied New Orleans neighborhood that barely appears in the textbooks — even though in the [...]
Posted by Jürgen on January 13, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/01/13/faubourg-treme/
The Axe in the Attic
A few months after Hurricane Katrina, Ed Pincus and Lucia Small went on a road trip though the South to trace the stories of Americans who had lost not just their homes but also their trust in the government in the storm. Along with heartbreaking stories of FEMA trailers, red tape, grief and loss, they [...]
Posted by Jürgen on October 1, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/10/01/the-axe-in-the-attic/
Berlin, Symphony of a Great City
Walther Ruttmann‘s non-narrative rhythmic portrait of Berlin, usually connected to the “kino-eye” of Dziga Vertov, also had a clear influence on Godfrey Reggio. Much more upbeat than Koyaanisqatsi, Symphony covers a “regular day” in the metropolis circa 1927, celebrating modern life before the speed and exploitation turned sour. No dire Hopi prophecies here, even though [...]
Posted by Jürgen on September 26, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/09/26/berlin-symphony-of-a-great-city/
Air Guitar Nation
There are exactly three reasons why this competition doc is much more enjoyable than The King of Kong, this summer’s other film about major-league nerds making fools of themselves: Unlike The King of Kong, which wimps out in the third act, Air Guitar Nation tells a complete story, from the inception of the U.S. Air [...]
Posted by Jürgen on August 30, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/08/30/air-guitar-nation/
Tulpendiebe
