Favorite new film genre - Autobiographical Documentary

I'm just coming home with a natural high from seeing the film Ingrid Bergman: In her own words. It showed a collection of her home movies, clips from movies she starred in, readings from her diaries, photos and 3rd party videos all woven into a seamless documentary. She had a movie camera since she was young and through her life, three marriages and 2 Academy Awards. It is a first person account of her life. It is amazing that pictures and 8 mm footage survived a century. She was born in 1915.
It reminds me of the award winning documentary i saw last year: Listen to me Marlon.

In Marlon Brando's autobiographical documentary, he made 1,000's of audio tapes like a journal. These were interwoven with pictures, home films, the films he starred in and third party pictures and videos. It was jaw dropping when I saw this. I couldn't believe his career beginning in Streetcar Named Desire in 1951 until his death of 2004 were documented and tightly edited into 90 minutes and very well.
I see these movies as an achievement in the art of archiving. Without archivists who painstakingly catalog and categorize thousands and thousands of hours of footage, these films wouldn't be possible.
I credit myself as an amateur archivist and I have been collecting family photos, journals, audio and scrap booking for decades. It is my dream to assemble an autobiography of all these things. Once it's done I can let go of all the hard copies and just have a little well edited 90 minute film.

Click Here for Listen to Me Marlon Excerpt



Around this time - My favorite Documentary came out - WolfPack.

Click Here for WolfPack Trailer

20 20 Interview on The WolfPack Brothers

Excerpt from WolfPack shown at Film Festival - I didn't see it there

I started a website

I started a website, it's harder than I thought. It's about a trip i took around Spain.

Pre-Cinema Class June Films

I'll fill my thoughts in later.

Mexico City: Frida, tourism, traffic, art, sadness - food.

Tangerine - West Hollywood, CA

A day in the life of two transgender hookers in West Hollywood, CA. Not just any day, but Christmas eve and the day that Sin-Dee is released from her 28 days in prison. The movie takes place in one day and revolves around Donut Town where they hangout. The filmmakers say that they met the transgender women first and then the story developed from their experiences. "The film was shot entirely on several iPhone 5S cameras (with a prototype adapter lens). The end product combines intimate wide-angle photography with a saturated palette as colorful as its central characters and a soundtrack as vibrant and varied as the neighborhood." They paid less on the filming but industry standard quality on the sound. I did not know and couldn't tell it was filmed on iPhones (Three iPhone 5's). I kept thinking the color looked like it was tuned up via the Instagram lens X-Pro-II. I was right in that they did enhance by saturating the colors toward the red and orange (One of the reasons for naming it Tangerine). The color and the music made it visually pop. One of the filmmakers said that he watches Vine (an app my nieces showed me) videos a lot and liked the music on a 17 year old's video. He asked to buy it and they just gave it to him. The story they said was partially improvised except for a part with an Afghani family. This was the weak spot of the film for me.

Welcome to Me - U.S. Indie?

Kristen Wiig is a quirky bipolar obsessive TV watcher, especially watching Oprah. She takes her lacy parasol to the local store to buy her O magazine and lotto tickets compulsively. One day she checks her lotto numbers on TV and finds out that she has won 86 million. So what does a bipolar, borderline personality person (off medication) do with her interests and money? Buy her own TV show of course so she can be like Oprah. Except she has no guests, the talk show is about herself and she floats in on a swan. Things eventually turn dark as she turns sicker and more narcissistic. After a hospitalization, all ends well in one big show finale. In fabulous style she is able to regains her friends that she has alienated.

Click Here for the Movie Trailer

p.s. I loved this movie that I saw 5 years ago and it never got distributed. I thought it was a great idea and story.