It’s only May, but already five legitimate, albeit “commercial”, contenders have surfaced that should be in contention for the Best Documentary Feature prize at the end of the year:
“I Am Big Bird”, opening in select cities this week, centers on the career of “Sesame Street” actor Caroll Spinney, who has played the iconic character for more than 45 years. Fellow “Street” performer Kevin Clash was spotlighted in “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey” (2011). Early reviews of “Bird” call the doc a “soaring” achievement.
“Batkid Begins: The Wish Heard Around the World” looks at 5-year-old leukemia patient Miles Scott, who was granted the incredible wish of being Batman for a day in San Francisco. Warner Bros., the studio behind the Batman movies, will release the film on June 26.
Jason Bateman narrates “A LEGO Brickumentary”, the ultimate inside look at the LEGO phenomenon. TWC-Radius (who won the Documentary Feature Oscar for 2013’s “20 Feet from Stardom”) has scheduled a July 31 release.
“Live from New York!” celebrates 40 years of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”. The all-star, clip-heavy doc premiered last month at the Tribeca Film Festival and received mixed-to-positive reviews. On the heels of the recent TV special marking the milestone it’ll be interesting to see how many people are interested in a film that covers much of the same ground. A summer release date is planned.
And perfectly positioned for Awards Season attention is Fox Searchlight’s “He Named Me Malala”. Oscar-winning director Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) showcases the life of 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who survived a Taliban attack in 2012 and has received the Nobel Peace Prize for her human rights activism.
Lights Camera Jackson (a.k.a. Jackson Murphy) began his career as a film critic in 2006 at the age of 7. To date, Jackson has written nearly 1,000 reviews of new releases and, in total, has seen more than 1,500 films. In 2010, Jackson became the youngest person to win a NY Emmy Award, for his on-air movie reviews on Time Warner TV station, Capital News 9. And in 2011, Jackson was inducted into the Broadcast Film Critics Association as their youngest member. The BFCA’s annual Critics Choice Awards is one of the industry’s most recognized and prestigious awards shows. Jackson is also a member of SAG-AFTRA and votes annually for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.