Nathan Crooker Movies
Filmmaker and activist Stephen Marshall, creator of the video news magazine Channel Zero and founder of Guerilla News Network, blends fiction with reality in this feature, shot in part during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Jake (Nathan Crooker) is a television news cameraman who has returned to the United States after a long assignment covering the war in Iraq. Jake is looking for work, but he doesn't always play ball with upper-level network heads, much to the annoyance of his girlfriend, Chloe (Amy Redford), a producer for a major cable news outlet. Adding to his mixed feelings about his job, Jake learns through experience that violent footage is what sells best, and that network higher-ups have turned over tape he shot of war protests to the Department of Homeland Security, violating his trust with activists attached to an anarchist collective. While in New York City to cover the Republican convention, Jake befriends a young boy (Brendan Sexton III), and in time meets his mother, Amy (Rosario Dawson), a pretty young widow whose husband died while serving in Iraq. Inspired by Haskell Wexler's classic Medium Cool, This Revolution made headlines during its production when Rosario Dawson was arrested while attending a protest being filmed for the movie. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nathan Crooker, Rosario Dawson, (more)
Arnold and Elaine Friedman were a seemingly typical couple living in Great Neck, NY, in the 1980s. Arnold was an outgoing and well-liked schoolteacher with an interest in electronics who also ran a private computer school out of their home. Elaine, a reserved but caring woman, helped look after the couple's three sons, Jesse, Seth, and David. All appeared to be happy in their lives until November 1987, when police raided the Friedman home after Arnold and Jesse were accused of multiple counts of child molestation. A search revealed that Arnold owned a sizable collection of child pornography, and he confessed to some of the charges placed against him; Jesse, however, firmly insisted he was innocent. As the investigation against the Friedmans went on, public opinion regarding the case became more and more heated, but not all of the testimony against Arnold and Jesse matched up, and some began to wonder just how many of the charges filed against the family had merit. Remarkably enough, in the midst of these crises which threatened to destroy the family from within, the Friedmans continued to take part in one of their favorite pastimes -- shooting home videos of their day-to-day lives, offering a fly-on-the-wall look at a family struggling (and often failing) to hold themselves together in the wake of unthinkable accusations. Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki not only documented the legal and emotional struggles of the Friedman family with his own cameras, but was given access to the family's archive of home videos, and the result was Capturing the Friedmans, a documentary which keeps its primary focus on the Friedman family while also investigating the merits or faults in the charges levied against them. Capturing the Friedmans received an enthusiastic reception in its screening at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
