With the start of the Democratic National Convention today, it seems a great time revisit a story NPR did back in February about Brett Morgan’s Chicago 10 - a film that uses a archival footage, animation and music to tell the story of the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the protesters who were arrested and tried during it.

Up on NPR is an interview where, “Morgen plays court audio recordings from the 1968 trial, rarely heard since the trial. And he explains his film’s title, which echoes an observation from lawyer Jerry Rubin, who recalls that attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass received contempt sentences in connection with the case.”

Also up is a piece from Fresh Air where they recollect the 1968 convention and play some old awesome audio from the time. Listening to the beginning of the piece, it’s hard to imagine something like this being able to happen today - even with the similarities between the times.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night at the Director’s Guild of America Theater in New York City, I got to see a sneak preview of Brett Morgen’s powerful new documentary, Chicago 10. Morgen, best known for his 2002 documentary on Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture, decided he wanted to make a more political film after the invasion of Afghanistan about 5 years ago. The events of today brought him back to the year he was born, 1968, and he decided to tell the tale of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, David Dellinger and the other 4 men that were put on trial after they encouraged people to non-violently protest the war in Vietnam at the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Read the rest of this entry »

The ongoing WGA strike looks to be taking a new direction - that is studio officials now want to move with their talks with the Director’s Guild of America, talks that were originally slated for after the writer’s strike was resolved and before the pay agreement they currently have expires in June.The studios hope that if they reach a deal with the directors, the deal with the WGA will eventually fall into place and they foresee it being much easier to reach a deal with the directors. With cable executives having to air reruns and reality TV and movie studios dealing with lackluster performance at the box office, they must be feeling a little anxious (although not willing to budge) - hopefully this will work in the writers and directors favor. For now, I just keep checking in the the WGA’s Speechless channel on YouTube (if they keep making content, they may be able to strike their own deal with YouTube for internet money!) And speaking of the relationship between writers and directors, my two favorite in their Speechless series are below :