Darfur Now (and related bits).

"Darfur Now, Theodore Braun's infectiously optimistic, if perfunctorily realized, documentary about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan arrives in theaters at a crucial moment," writes Jeff Reichert at indieWIRE. "While the civil war in that wartorn region rages unabated, demanding more international visibility, the wave that brought documentary film (and a host of media-silenced issues) to commercial prominence here in the US seems to have crested.... The fact remains that if documentary is going to remain politically relevant, it must maintain commercial viability.... [I]deologically Darfur Now is unimpeachable. Aesthetically, not so much."

Jesse Ashlock talks with directors Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern about The Devil Came on Horseback, out on DVD today. Also at Tribeca's site, a list of "Social Justice Documentaries" on DVD.

Updated through 11/5.

"I'll wager that President Bush hasn't done anything about Darfur not because he has acquired humility about the projection of American power, and not because his sissy White House aides won't give him a plan with cojones, and not because the Darfur portfolio keeps passing from one desk to another, and not because the Pentagon and the State Department are dragging their feet," writes Timothy Noah in Slate. "Rather, I would guess that Bush hasn't done anything about Darfur because the vice president won't let him."

The New York Observer's Gillian Reagan has news of the lineup for MySpace's November 10 Rock for Darfur concert.

Updates: "If you evaluate Darfur Now against the goals it sets for itself—as a stirring call to action—it must be considered lacking," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice.

"Despite the picture's noble intentions and blessedly non-aggressive approach to a very strong subject, there's very little here you couldn't learn from a casual glance at Time magazine now and then, and its 99 minutes could have easily been about 65 if you removed all of the celebrity do-gooder filler," writes Jason Clark in Slant.

Updates, 10/31: "Darfur Now's most noteworthy accomplishment is taking a subject like the genocide in Darfur - to which the most natural human responses are empathy, horror, and anger - and, for an hour and a half, making it almost impossible to care," writes Neal Solon at cinemaattraction.

Howard Feinstein interviews Braun and Don Cheadle.

Updates, 11/2: "The United Nations has estimated that by 2007, 200,000 people had been killed and 2.5 million displaced from their rural villages in Darfur," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "What Darfur Now offers is a collective vision of actions, small and large, taken on many fronts, to end the crisis. The movie is a quiet, methodical call to action."

"The best material is the result of the rare opportunity to shoot inside those refugee camps: hearing firsthand testimony from victims about the catastrophic horrors inflicted on their villages is forceful and persuasive," writes Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. "Though they are completely committed and are doing difficult, meaningful work, the Americans in the film just do not hold the screen with the same force and power."

"The film is undeniably on the side of the angels, but any of its subjects' stories might have worked better if told in greater depth," writes Keith Phipps at the AV Club.

"Each of the six stories is surprisingly optimistic, and if there's one flaw with the film, it's that it almost conclusively portrays the Darfur problem as no longer a problem," writes Christopher Campbell at Cinematical. "But even if so, Darfur Now is not really a film about the Darfur problem, anyway. It is solely about the power and the conviction of these people, which extends to other featured activists, celebrities ([George] Clooney), Darfurians and, most essentially, the Sudanese representative to the United Nations, His Excellency Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, who serves as the antithetical force of the documentary, offering that one bit of negativity in an otherwise positive forum."

Update, 11/5: "[T]he depressing subtext is that even with detailed proof of ongoing genocide, it takes movie stars to get to the movers and shakers, and to get worthy movies like this one into theaters," writes David Edelstein in New York.

Posted by dwhudson at October 30, 2007 10:40 AM