Talking Points Memo caught up with Alex Gibney at Netroots Nation where Alex gave a sneak peak of his new film, Casino Jack and the United States of Money

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A man who was almost undefinable - Hunter S. Thompson is the focus of Alex Gibney’s latest documentary:

While we mostly think of crazy and drugs when we think of Thompson today - his political mark can’t be denied

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. This week we celebrated some of our own favorite top 10 bloggers who work night and day to provide us up-to-date info on films, literature, and feminist news. Don’t miss these exciting and informative blogs, as well as some of our most popular stories of the week.

Katie:

“La Misma Luna Under the Same Moon,” Not the Same Old Movie

Top 5 Eco-Friendly Gadgets for Under $50

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Nicole:

Top 10 Literary and Book Blogs

NBC11 First Wind Powered TV Station

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Giulia:

Top 10 Feminist Blogs

Horton: The New Mascot for Pro-Life

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Gina:

Top 10 Film Blogs

Top 10 Films I Would See If I Was At SXSW

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Kerry:

Our Pharmaceutically Fouled Water Supply

Top 7 New Sins Against God’s Green Earth

Alas, I am not in Austin but in New York City - but if I was there at SXSW, these are 10 films I would be seeing. They’re all TakePart friendly (advocate social change and action) in their own particular way - even if it isn’t obvious right up front.

Check out the entire SXSW line-up HERE and to keep up to date on festival action.

1. Mister Lonely
Director: Harmony Korine. Writers: Avi Korine & Harmony Korine. Starring: Werner Herzog, Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant.
A Michael Jackson impersonator lives alone in Paris and performs on the streets to make ends meet. At a performance in a retirement home, Michael falls for a beautiful Marilyn Monroe look-alike who suggests he move to a commune of impersonators in the Scottish Highlands. (U.S. Premiere)

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“Taxi to the Dark Side“ won the Oscar for Best Documentary last weekend, and is a brutal and methodical investigation of torture and interrogation policies in America’s “war on terror.” Over 100 prisoners have died in US custody, with the military itself reporting 37 of those deaths as homicides. Additionally, only seven percent of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been apprehended by US military personnel. The rest have been turned in by bounty hunters, warlords, and others with agendas completely unrelated to the US war on terror.

Filmmaker Alex Gibney parallels a disturbing investigation into the abuses at Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo with an in-depth look at the apprehension and eventual murder of an innocent taxi driver, Dilawar, who was accused of a crime by the very man who committed it. The film contains uncensored footage of the Bagram base and shows interviews with interrogators, guards, and other military personnel, while examining the roles of key figures in the Bush administration in refuting the Geneva Conventions and the embracing of torture as the weapon of choice in the war against terrorism.

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Part of the fun of watching the Oscars every year is listening to the speeches and hoping for words of wisdom, inspiration and of course words that make us laugh from some of most talented folks in the industry.

Below are my Top 5 Oscar Speeches from last night that made the 3+ hour show worth it.

1. Daniel Day-Lewis winning Best Actor for There Will Be Blood : It should be said that I have long been a fan of Daniel Day-Lewis, but that aside, his acceptable speech last night had all the elements - he started off with a simple joke, inspired us with his carefully crafted tribute to the great Paul Thomas Anderson, and then touched our hearts with the thanks he gave his co-stars and his family - all the while keeping calm and not rambling.

And that’s the closest I’ll ever come to getting a knighthood, so thank you.

My deepest thanks to the members of the Academy for whacking me with the handsomest bludgeon in town. I’m looking at this gorgeous thing you’ve given me and I’m thinking back to the first devilish whisper of an idea that came to him and everything since and it seems to me that this sprang like a golden sapling out of the mad, beautiful head of Paul Thomas Anderson.

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Errol Morris premiered his new film, Standard Operating Procedure, at The Berlin Film Festival on Tuesday night. The documentary follows in the footsteps of films like Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side and takes on the issue of war and how digital imagery can change our perspective on it. While other films have dealt with the actual acts caught on tape, Morris takes a deeper look into context of the actual photographs.

Morris has always dealt with his subject matter in unique ways, right down to filming his interviews in a machine called the interrotron . In Standard Operating Procedure he uses re-created scenes and fictional footage, storytelling methods he has used in the past. At the press conference following the film, some journalists gave him a hard time about this and asked about such use:

“With due respect I think this is nonsense talk,” he told the reporter at the press conference, “There’s this idea that truth is guaranteed by somehow the style of presentation, that if I run around with a handheld camera and I shoot with available light that is somehow more truthful.” Continuing, Morris noted, “Truth is a quest…something that I have never lost sight of and never will.” [Indiewire]

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The Oscar nominations are out, and one film that I have been wanting to see for awhile is a nominee for Best Documentary, Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side. The film takes a personal look at American interrogation tactics as seen through the story of a taxi cab driver that was picked up as a suspect in a rocket attack and was found dead 5 days later with brutal injuries.

Gibney, probably best known for his examination of Enron in the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), has experience taking on big subjects and uses it in telling this story.

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