True/False co-director David Wilson presented recent Oscar winner Alex Gibney with the festival’s True Vision Award on Saturday, before a screening of Gibney’s latest opus, Gonzo. The film takes a comprehensive look at the zeitgeist-defining glory years and post-middle-age decline of journalist Hunter S. Thompson, whose commitment to truth through fictionalization inspired Wilson to brand him “a man who could well be the patron saint of True/False.” In introducing Gibney, Wilson noted that the festival was proud to host the director on his first stop after last week’s Oscar ceremony. When he reached the mic, Gibney corrected the record. “This is not my first stop after that event in Hollywood,” the filmmaker said. “I looked at that as a warm-up to True/False.”

The True Vision Award is designed to honor mid-career filmmakers who, in the words of Wilson, “are pushing the non-fiction form forward.” It’s a bit of a disappointment, then, that formally, Gonzo swings wildly between stylistic experimentation and rote talking-head traditionalism. Shooting on high def video to appease producers Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban, who will release the film theatrically under the auspices of Magnolia before broadcasting Gonzo on their HD Net TV, Gibney seems to struggle to transcend the standard visual tropes of the medium. The bulk of the film consists of sit-down interviews with expert witnesses, including Thompson’s son and two ex-wives, Jann Wenner and Pat Buchanan; much of the rest of the footage is culled from fiction films about Thompson and previous documentaries. When Gibney does take chances––such as when he casts actors in a home-video style reenactment set to an actual audio recording of Thompson’s visit to a Nevada taco stand, the transcription of which formed a chapter of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas––the end result is not dissimilar to something one might see on basic cable. There are inspired ideas here, but with its sometimes awkward video effects and general made-for-TV patina, the whole thing looks a little downmarket for a filmmaker of Gibney’s caliber.

Which is not to say that Gonzo doesn’t offer valuable insight into Thompson’s life, work, and, especially, the power of his celebrity. …Read more

• Naked pictures of a stripper? Not news. Naked pictures of a stripper-turned-Oscar winning screenwriter? Eh. Pictures of a stripper-turned-Oscar winning screenwriter emulating the naked-but-for-whipped-cream scene from the classic James Van Der Beek vehicle Varsity Blues? News enough!
• Meanwhile, proving that no good-intentioned attempt to bridge the cultural-political divide goes unpunished, some people are mad that soldiers presented Oscars. Interestingly, most of the complaints conflate the two documentary awards into the claim that the Academy implicitly mocked the soldiers by forcing them to give an award to the anti-Iraq war film Taxi to the Darkside. In fact, the soldiers presented the Best Documentary Short award, which went to Freeheld. Debbie Schlussel, probably the most hateful of the Hollywood haters, gets that part right, but she also repeatedly insists that Diablo Cody is fat, which, as the above pictures of her ribcage should show, is definitely wrong.
• David Bordwell credits “piracy” for ensuring the classic status of His Girl Friday. “If Columbia had renewed its copyright on schedule, would this film be so widely admired today?” Jason Mittel agrees in theory, but takes issue with Bordwell’s use of the p-word. “Once the film lapsed into the public domain, all of the resulting shoddy copies were legal and licit, not pirated. A more accurate term would be ‘unauthorized’…”
• I guess WIRED bloggers aren’t allowed to say “fuck.”

Bloggy reactions are starting to float in on that whole MPAA vs. Taxi to the Dark Side thing, and although we’re sill seeing the predictable squabbling over ideology, pretty much everyone seems to be united on one thing: the poster itself is far less offensive than the MPAA’s stance on it.

AJ Schnack spoke with Taxi director Alex Gibney, who characterized the ruling as “a cover-up”:

Removing the hood is the ultimate cover-up. [The U.S.] didn’t use to do that sort of thing. Removing the hood sends the same message as the Bush administration with the CIA tapes. It’s OK to do it, it’s just not OK to show it.

Hammering home roughly the same message, The Cinetrix proposes a protest campaign:

This movie needs to be seen. These images need to be seen. Fuck, I’m willing to run the one-sheet image every day here until the decision is reversed.

Meanwhile, the boys at conservative film blog LIBERTAS think that the very idea of the film is reprehensible…which is why they’re mad at the MPAA for drawing more attention to it by giving the poster an air of snuff. In a post broken by images of the World Trade Center aflame, Dirty Harry writes:

…Read more

• The MPAA has rejected a proposed one-sheet poster for Alex Gibney’s documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. The original design incorporated an image from a news photo, of a hooded detainee flanked by two soldiers. The MPAA says since they won’t allow hoods on posters for torture porn, they can’t allow similar imagery to promote a torture doc. Distributor ThinkFilm plans to appeal.
• Brad Pitt is in talks to replace Heath Ledger, who was previously cast opposite Sean Penn, in Terrence Malick’s upcoming drama, Tree of Life. There are still few details to report about the project itself, although I guess we can reasonably deduce that whatever character Ledger was going to play has suddenly become about 14 years older.
• Midwestern exhibition chain Marcus Theaters has declined to book Sweeney Todd on any of its 49 screens, on the grounds that Paramount is asking for too much money for the prints. This seems like a late-game decision, considering the film is scheduled to open semi-wide on Friday, but Paramount says the release will be unaffected.
• Nancy Buirski is stepping down from her role as head of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, in order to create and manage “a fund to incubate and produce independent docus and fiction films.”

Last night the Tribeca Film Festival announced the winners of their various jury prizes, and you know what that means: it’s time to take another look at the Tribeca 2007 Buzz-O-Meter, my oh-so scientific analysis of the pre-Fest attention derby. Here’s a rundown of which films lived up to the buzz, which films didn’t, and which come-from-behind contenders soiled the betting pool.

Buzz Fulfilled

Taxi to the Dark Side
Pre-Fest Buzz Class: Earth-Shattering
Pre-Fest Odds of Living Up To Buzz: 10:1
What Happened This Week: Alex Gibney’s torture doc won the Festival’s highest documentary prize, despite mixed reviews. At indieWIRE alone, Howard Feinstein criticized the film for covering familiar ground and dismissed it as “slow [and] right for TV”, while Anthony Kauffman allowed for Taxi’s similarities to Sundance hit Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, but said Gibney’s film “nevertheless still gripped me by the throat and never let go.”
What Happens Now: Expect a distribution deal to be announced soon.

A Walk Into The Sea
Pre-Fest Buzz Class: Earth-Shattering
Pre-Fest Odds of Living Up To Buzz: 5:1
What Happened This Week: Esther Robinson’s doc kept up a steady stream of blog buzz throughout the week, ultimately taking the “NY Loves Film” award for best homegrown non-fiction film at the Fest.
What Happens Now: With two major fest prizes in tow (the pic was also named Best Documentary at Berlinale in February), Sea continues its tour of the circuit with screenings at the Seattle International Film Festival later this month.

Still Life
Pre-Fest Buzz Class: Earth-Shattering
Pre-Fest Odds of Living Up To Buzz: 2:1
What Happened This Week: Still Life failed to make a mark on the competition (it lost out in the Narrative feature category to David Volach’s My Father My Lord), but nine months after the film’s premiere at Venice 2006, it finally secured North American distribution.
What Happens Now: New Yorker Films is planning a platform release, beginning this fall in New York City.

Buzz Deflated

Gardener of Eden
Pre-Fest Buzz Class: Earth-Shattering
Pre-Fest Odds of Living Up To Buzz: 20:1
What Happened This Week: To be fair, Eden earned a fair amount of admiration from the difficult-to-impress Tribeca press, especially considering its dubious pedigree (a highly-stylized directorial effort from a flavor-of-the-month TV star? Considering Tribeca’s track record with these sorts of films, it’s amazing anyone bothered reviewing this at all). But while director Kevin Connolly and producer Leonardo DiCaprio head back to Hollywood with their share of friendly ink, Eden failed to make an impression on the Tribeca jury. It’s also, as of this writing, without a distributor.
What Happens Now: Even as bloggers drool over the Eden poster, the pros express skepticism that the film will ever see the mainstream light of day. As Mike Goodrich put it as Screen Daily, “Leonardo DiCaprio’s [involvement] might entice buyers to take the risk, but otherwise there is not enough novelty here to distinguish a low-budget US independent in today’s brutally crowded distribution marketplace, domestically and especially overseas.”

WTF? Buzz Spoiler

The Education of Charlie Banks
Pre-Fest Buzz Class: Not on the Buzz-O-Meter. I made the crucial mistake of underestimating the directing prowess of the former tattoo artist/rapcore sensation/amateur porn star who gave it all for the nookie. My bad!
What Happened This Week: Um…Durst went to Morimoto with a guy from the New York Times while critics dismissed his film as “facile“. Then last night, out of nowhere, Alex Gibney (yeah, that Alex Gibney), Minnie Driver and the rest of the “Made in NY” jury named Charlie Banks as the best locally-produced narrative in the Festival. Weeee!
What Happens Now: One presumes Durst will manage to parlay a combination of this shot of cred and his own F-list celebrity into some sort of distribution deal. But will Tribeca–already a festival desperately in need of an identity fix–*ever* be able to regain its dignity as a showcase for important independent film, after giving The Dude From Limp Bizkit one of their highest salutes?