Fall TV Preview » A

WWII in HD

jpfeiffer — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:57:46 +0000

What’s It All About? Visually astonishing, restored footage from World War II — unearthed from archives and private collections around the world and never before seen by Americans. This “lost” footage has been restored to pristine condition through advanced HD technology, and some of it has not been seen since the 1940s. The footage chronicles the extent of the war and is put into context through the stories of 12 Americans who became thrust into the conflict. These everyday heroes are voiced by actors such as Ron Livingston, LL Cool J, Amy Smart and Josh Lucas, with Gary Sinise narrating the series event. The digital technology used to enhance the images is also applied to original Library of Congress audio recordings from the war. It’s a powerful, visceral experience that really seems to be the closest way to this point — aside from actually having been in the war — of experiencing events that we are most familiar with seeing in black-and-white newsreels, or fictionalized in movies.

By the People: The Election of Barack Obama

jpfeiffer — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:11:06 +0000

What’s It All About? Almost a year before he announced his candidacy, filmmakers began to roll cameras on the then senator. This all-access pass, produced by actor Edward Norton, to campaign life follows Obama and his campaign organizers from the Iowa caucuses to Election Day. Told through exclusive and extremely candid footage, you’ll find yourself laughing, even crying, as you see the behind-the-scenes grassroots efforts that got Obama to the White House. Set your DVRs — you’ll want to own this historic piece of film work.

Brick City

lacken — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:36:56 +0000

At the epicenter of this riveting five-part docuseries is a tall, charismatic and impeccably educated black politician whose gift of gab is eclipsed only by an iron-willed determination to improve the lives of all over whom he governs. But it’s not who you think. It’s the man President Obama hoped might run his newly created Office of Urban Affairs — Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker. Since taking office in 2006, the hands-on Booker has overseen a stunning reduction in violent crime, yet he still faces vocal opposition from residents who are inured to the violence but starved for news of safe and affordable housing, resources for their children, and meaningful employment when one has a record instead of a diploma. The series pulls no punches, training its cameras on the open casket of a murdered 13-year-old girl, the stunned face of the father of two slain college kids at his first support group meeting, a gang shooting caught on surveillance tape. But Booker’s fellow players in this true-life tale of urban (and personal) renewal are mesmerizing, among them Ras Baraka, principal of the city’s crumbling Central High School whose devotion to his students is as steadfast as his determination to open a new facility; “Street Warrior” activist Ali Muslim, with the hint of permanent tear tracks etched into his regal face; and former rival gang members Jayda and Creep, now working as youth mentors and raising a growing family as they struggle to keep their lawless past behind them. Each makes it impossible not to care what happens in Newark after the final credits roll.

Georgia O’Keeffe

lacken — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:21:42 +0000

Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons? On Lifetime? In a biography of America’s most celebrated female artist? Surprised? Then you haven’t been paying attention to the network’s studious evolution from purveyor of entertaining fluff to that of thoughtful, fact-based films that have lured the likes of Shirley MacLaine, Malcolm McDowell, Sigourney Weaver — and now this remarkable pairing, most recently seen together in Impressionism on the Broadway stage. A makeup-less Allen (who also executive produces) is fiercely luminous as the Wisconsin-born O’Keeffe, and her effortless chemistry with Irons’ charismatic Alfred Stieglitz is the showpiece of the film, even as the latter teeters distractingly close to a cape-sweeping caricature toward the film’s end. Tyne Daly is bracing as O’Keeffe’s momentary tormentor-turned-lifelong-friend Mabel Dodge Luhan, the socialite who first introduced O’Keeffe to her beloved Taos. Though O’Keeffe-ophiles may grump that the film — originally optioned by HBO — occasionally smudges the line between fact and fiction, it is nonetheless a stunningly crafted, beautifully detailed love song to the oft-contentious, occasionally cruel and utterly unbreakable bond between the plainspoken artist and the eccentric, New York-based photographer who was the love of her life.

Occupation

ebergstrom — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:13:16 +0000

A look at the Iraq conflict through the eyes of three British soldiers in Basra, and how a single horrifying moment changes all their lives. Nesbitt gives a nuanced performance as Mike Swift, a flawed hero who saves a small child and falls in love with her Iraqi doctor. Graham plays Danny, a man jaded by the conflict, who teams with an American Marine to form a private company and lay claim to some of the billions in cash sent over to finance the country’s rebuilding. Hibbs (Brown), the most sensitive of the three, works as a mercenary with Danny until a horrible act of violence makes him rethink his loyalties.

But the three-part drama is also about Iraq and how, in the five years in which this story unfolds, society crumbled into extremism and violence. There have been a lot of features on this war, but nothing has captured it quite as well as this film.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea

jpfeiffer — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:08:43 +0000

What’s It All About? Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, The War) does it again with another spectacular documentary that continues his obvious fascination with American history, and both the everyday and well-known people who lived through it. This film also adds splashes of a larger, more colorful canvas to the intimate archival photos and film footage he continues to be so masterful at presenting. It’s the story of the history of America’s national parks — which the film describes as an idea “as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence, and just as radical.”

But it is not a geologic, or natural, history of the parks. Although these areas existed on their own for millions of years, and native inhabitants were quite aware of them for thousands of years, Burns’ film picks up as these spaces are beginning to fall under the gaze and potential exploitation of the ever-growing new country of “America.” It begins in 1851, as European settlers are spreading west across the continent and discovering for the first time one breathtaking natural wonder after the next, and starting to think about how best to use or preserve them, beginning a national discussion that has continued up to now.

Unique for Burns’ camera — with which we most likely associate intimately and patiently studied archival photographs, film footage and personal interviews — is the plentiful array of vast, epic shots of nature here. But this does not turn into a simple nature documentary or travelogue. Bringing to life the already spectacular images of America’s 58 national parks and their wildlife are the equally incredible stories of the people who helped create, fight for, maintain and carry on this American tradition of making such open spaces available to all Americans, not just the wealthy.

As he has done before in tackling other subjects that have shaped our country, from baseball and jazz to the Civil War and World War II, Burns is less interested here in presenting the dry facts about these events than in using them — and the touching, dramatic and sometimes funny stories of the people from the periods chronicled — as stepping stones to address topics that have been with the country throughout its history. And the story of the national parks touches upon several themes that resonate in America yet today, from race and gender to politics and the conflict between civilization, exploitation and the natural world. Burns has a knack for mining intimate, unknown stories out of events that one would think had already been covered to death, and he continues that here. It’s an educational and emotional journey through America’s natural and human landscape, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see national park attendance spike in the months after this film airs.