Last week the programmers for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival introduced the main course of this year’s festival lineup, fifty-three films from all over the world, big and small, about any number of subjects. The list was so impressive I ran out and booked a hotel room. So, now that I’m financially locked in to heading up to the city of David Cronenberg and that rapper who called himself SNOW, I’ll be following future announcements by the festival pretty closely. Today brought a big one. Adding to their initial lineup of films, TIFF has added a bunch of documentary works by fairly large documentary filmmakers and a bunch of genre works from fairly deranged genre filmmakers. First let’s take a look at some of the docs. Thom Powers is the lead programmer for documentaries, and about this year’s lineup he said, “I’m thrilled at the large number of veteran filmmakers who have brought us new works this year. The line-up contains a wide range of memorable characters – crusaders, convicts, artists, athletes, nude dancers, comic book fans, dog lovers and more. Not to mention the epic 15-hour Story of Film. These documentaries will have audiences discussing and debating for months to come.” I don’t think I’ll have time for that fifteen hour one, I’ve only got five days in the city, but the one about nude dancers is definitely on my docket.

IndiePix is the latest site to get into the game of streaming movies with IndiePix Unlimited, but their site fills a much, much needed void. While Netflix’s indie section seems filled to the brim with sex dramedies, explorations of filmmakers’ sexuality, and narrative commentary on sex and sexual relationships – IndiePix goes far beyond that by directly celebrating the best of the best in the independent film world. Its success stems from the large selection and ease of use, but there are still flaws, and the site will need to grow (even beyond its 4,000+ available films) in order to truly become a household name. Let’s take a quick test drive:

In this season of meta (Rubber, Scream 4), Morgan Spurlock trumps all. Leave it to the Super Size Me documentarian, who has made a career out of sacrificing his mind and body for his projects, to humorously sell out his dignity to corporations for the most painstakingly self-reflexive movie of any sort since Adaptation. His POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is, yes, exactly what that above-title sponsorship suggests it to be. Rightfully disturbed by the ubiquity of product placement in modern entertainment, Spurlock sets out to spoof that synchronous blend of corporate schilling and art by crafting a documentary about his attempts to accrue corporate sponsors for a documentary about his attempts to accrue corporate sponsors for a documentary. And on and on we go.

Balcony Releasing has unveiled a trailer for the Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel directed doc Louder Than a Bomb, hands down one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in a long while. This exhilarating true life story was the winner of a Jury Award at the 2010 Austin Film Festival, as voted upon by a jury upon which yours truly served. The vote was unanimous, if I remember correctly. It tells the story of kids from schools around the Chicago area who compete for school pride in slam poetry competitions. Their words, their passion, their unbridled energy light up the screen as their stories touch upon the simultaneous tragedy and beauty that makes up the human experience. If you do any one thing today, I’d recommend breathing (it seems necessary). But if you’d like to move on to a second thing, I’d recommend checking out this trailer. But beware that it might put a stop to that first thing you were doing.

Every week, Landon Palmer and Cole Abaius log on to their favorite chat client of 1996 as THEFANFROMLONDON and DinoDNA007 in order to discuss some topical topic of interest. This week, the two tackle the fact that no documentary has ever been nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Why all the hate, AMPAS? Sure, it has its own category, but that doesn’t deny it entry into the big game. Is there an internal bias against non-fiction? Should Jackass 3 been facing off against The Social Network? Will we see a documentary nominated for Best Picture in our lifetime?

With the release of Pixar’s Up, last year saw a great deal of conversation surrounding the ghettoization of animated movies at major awards shows. This debate resulted in something of a minor, qualified victory for animated cinema of 2009, as Up was the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture since Beauty and the Beast, but then again it sat amongst a crowded bevy of nine fellow nominations, and animated films remain unthreatening to their live action competitors because of the separate-but-unequal Best Animated Feature Category. I’d like to take this space to advocate for the big-category acceptance of yet another marginalized and underappreciated category around awards time: non-fiction films.

The answer won’t surprise you. Especially if you’re a regular reader of this site.

James Franco takes his cameras behind the scenes of the most iconic comedy program in the country.

This Is It is a stunning look at something that’s both epic and personal. Beautiful. Thrilling. Revealing. This film is a great documentary that delivers a larger-than-life figure in his natural environment as both a mega-celebrity and just a man standing alone on a stage.

Remember how you came to the site today to check out the latest in geopolitical news? Well, what are you thinking? We’re a movie site.

Within 24 hours, a little-known project became a hot commodity. It’s not pretty, but it’s the magic of Hollywood.

One of my favorite films from last year’s SXSW film festival, the MMORPG addiction documentary Second Skin, is now online and free for all to see.

If you’re like me, you’ve been glued to Discovery Channel all week checking out all the fantastic shark action. If you need a break though, yet demand more sharks, here are a few films that should keep you from heading to the ocean (or to the deep end of the pool) for a while.

When Michael Moore describes his new Untitled Bailout Movie as a “vampire” film, I can only assume that he’s written and shot his own Stephanie Meyer fan-fic. Go Team Goldman Sachs!

What do you get when you put three rock icons in the same room together with a few amps and guitars? I guess we’ll find out.

It’s a story about hope that all goes back to a life philosophy shared by the band members and director Sacha Gervasi: “The only way you can fail is if you give up.”

We risk losing our doctored press badges and sneak behind enemy lines to get an early look at a film
playing at SXSW – Anvil! The Story of Anvil.

So far as SXSW we’ve got to watch some incredible films, a few crappy ones, and we’ve gotten to speak with some talented filmmakers about the process behind their projects. This would certainly be one of the incredible ones.

We dragged some hotel chairs together, flipped on a camera, and tricked the director and producer of MINE into thinking we were legitimate journalists in order to bring you a fantastic discussion of ethical and legal gray areas in the wake of a natural disaster.

I’m going to force the interwebs to take a momentary break from continuing to go nuts over Watchmen this weekend and take a look at a couple of documentaries below the radar…