This Week In Documentary
Theatrical & Streaming Releases - New & Recommended - March 22-28, 2024
Spring has sprung, and we’re heading into the last full week of March and the thick of the men’s college basketball tournament. Getting in the mood for the season is easy with Mikhail Kaufman’s In Spring, a city symphony set in Kyiv that is available in various spots on YouTube, and the second episode of Frozen Planet (streaming on Max and Discovery+), which is titled “Spring.” Some interesting docs to watch during March Madness include The Scheme (on Max), Disgraced (Showtime via Paramount+), and Elevate (PlutoTV), which is about players from Africa aiming to play college ball.
Notable documentarian birthdays over the next week include Charles Ferguson, on March 24. His Oscar-winning film Inside Job is available on all major VOD platforms, and his Oscar-nominated documentary No End in Sight, about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is on many streaming outlets, including Prime Video, Amazon Freevee, Pluto TV, Tubi, and Plex. Also celebrating her birthday, on March 26, is producer Charlotte Cook, who received an Oscar nomination for Do Not Split, a Field of Vision short streaming for free on YouTube or Vimeo.
For more to watch, we have our Pick of the Week followed by a handful of highlights below — note that the highlights are not always full-on recommendations so much as documentaries of note for the coming week. Then, for paid subscribers only, is our day-by-day breakdown of everything we’re aware of coming to theaters and streaming through Thursday, March 28. Drop a comment and let us know what you’ve watched or plan to watch.
Nonfics Pick Of The Week: The ‘Up’ Documentaries
Thanks to the latest Monday Memo newsletter from DOC NYC (which cited the Guardian), we learned that the Up documentaries were voted the most influential TV program in the UK of the last 50 years. The honor was decided by prominent TV writers from the country’s Broadcast Press Guild. The series of films, which began with Seven Up! in 1964 under the direction of Paul Almond for Grenada, follows about a dozen British participants from age 7 through 63. Michael Apted famously picked up the Up films after the first installment, and since he and two of the participants have died, it’s likely that the series is now finished.
No matter how old you are when you start watching the Up documentaries, you’re going to get something from them, though it’s most interesting if you begin young and revisit the series every seven or so years yourself. I still think 21 Up and 28 Up are the most revelatory, but there are surprises from at least a couple of characters in each sequel. The last time I watched them as a whole was around the time of 56 Up’s release, when I was 35, so at that time 35 Up was significant. Each installment had enough recap, though, that you didn’t always have to re-binge the series ahead of the latest release. With 63 Up being the presumed conclusion, the feeling of revisiting these documentaries every seven years is going to lose its power, of course.
In the past, I’ve recommended the Up series on a list of the best documentaries for kids and highlighted one of the participants on a list of the best documentary characters of all time. It’s an institution that everyone should watch for whatever reason at least once in their life, and while I’m surprised that it was honored with such distinction by British TV writers, I’m also not surprised. It makes sense. Although places like JustWatch indicate most of the series is unavailable, all nine installments are available to stream with a subscription to BritBox, which can also be accessed as an add-on through Apple TV+ or Prime Video. You can also check out the special 7 Up & Me featuring such famous fans as Michael Sheen and Richard E. Grant.
Other Documentary Highlights
Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
While this Oscar-nominated documentary feature by Wim Wenders is regularly available on Max and The Criterion Channel, the film is available to cable subscribers via Turner Classic Movies this weekend. Buena Vista Social Club is a classic music doc about a group of aging Cuban musicians brought together by Ry Cooder (a regular Wenders collaborator). In Landon Palmer’s 2017 essay for Nonfics celebrating the film, he writes:
“By framing members of the group as individuals first and foremost, Wenders trades in historical context for a profile of the musicians’ present relationship to their craft as both consummate performers and as people carrying a decades-long relationship to their country and its culture…the director, like Cooder, certainly presents an idea of Cuba with these stylized vignettes, but he speaks only with his camera, while his subjects speak, sing and play for themselves.”
Since that essay was written, Buena Vista Social Club has been added to the National Film Registry and gotten a sequel. This Saturday, the film is showing on TCM in the middle of the day. Hopefully, it will be added to the TCM app to watch anytime afterward.
Carol Doda Topless at the Condor (2024)
In terms of its form and some of its historical claims, Carol Doda Topless at the Condor is not a particularly great work of documentary, but it does have its charms. The film, which goes for a very basic style of talking heads and archival material, chronicles the career of the titular dancer who famously — but not recognized enough, hence the need for the doc — led a wave of topless and full-nude burlesque shows in San Francisco in the 1960s. It works thanks to its editing, its music licensing, and especially the clips of Doda in performance and on talk shows. Plus, there are some superfluous yet intriguing anecdotes about the industry and the city. Carol Doda Topless at the Condor opens theatrically on Friday, March 22.
The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (1984) & Tunisian Victory (1944)
Two classic war documentaries celebrate major anniversaries this week. The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War turns 40 years old on Thursday, March 28, while March 23 marks 80 years since the release of the propaganda piece Tunisian Victory. The former, which can be rented on Amazon or Kino Now, is fairly simple in its style as it presents the history of the titular brigade of mostly North American volunteers fighting for the Spanish Republic against Franco’s Nationalists, including recollections from aging survivors of the conflict. Tunisian Victory is a World War II film made by Frank Capra, John Huston, and others for the U.S. Army Signal Corps that celebrates the Allied liberation of Tunis. You can stream it on Prime Video, MGM+, Tubi, GuideDoc, and other platforms.
Into the Cold: A Journey of the Soul (2010)
With Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire arriving in theaters this weekend as the big ticket for mainstream movie fans, I thought of recommending some paranormal investigation series as a doc option, but I’m not familiar enough with the lot of them to choose a favorite. Instead, I’m focusing on the lethal freeze that takes over New York City in the fantasy comedy sequel and recommending Sebastian Copeland’s Into the Cold: A Journey of the Soul as an example of a film embracing the world’s lowest temperatures. Copeland documents his trip with adventurer Keith Heiger, capturing the beauty of the Arctic before it’s gone. From my 2010 review for Cinematical:
“Copeland's goal, other than to achieve something few humans would dare, was to take more photos of icy expanses so that you and I might fall in love with the Arctic region. Because, as he says at the beginning of the film, ‘we will not save what we do not love’…I like to think of Copeland's film and photographs as merely a witnessing of the glory and the magnificence so that both we and the universe may be conscious of and appreciate it, while either we or it still remains.”
You can watch Into the Cold: A Journey of the Soul for free via Amazon Freevee, Pluto TV, Tubi, or Vudu.
You Can Call Me Bill (2023)
I was ready to dismiss You Can Call Me Bill (aka William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill) as just another documentary celebrating William Shatner and Star Trek, but then I saw that it’s directed by Alexandre O. Phillipe (78/52, Lynch/Oz). That means you can expect some deeper substance than you would with any old hagiography for the fans. The film only interviews Shatner, who intimately and profoundly contemplates his roles, his fame, and his legacy. Even those who aren’t in the community who see him as a god of geekdom will come away appreciating him as an icon. You Can Call Me Bill opens theatrically on Friday, March 22.
Documentary Release Calendar 3/22/24 - 3/28/24
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Nonfics to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.