Documentary

The enthralling documentary Crazy Love is about how a high-flying lawyer's obsession with a young beauty blinded her, metaphorically and literally. As Dan Klores did with his great boxing documentary Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, this writer-director goes deep with a tale that dominated New York tabloids a half-century ago. The material is much trickier and more prone to sensationalism than the Griffith story. Griffith beat Benny "the Kid" Paret to death in a title bout after Paret hurled a homophobic Spanish epithet at him but emerged in Klores' rendering as a vulnerable man of violence with an aching conscience.

The Maryland Film Festival in Baltimore winds up today. Here are a few highlights from the program: 11 a.m.: Nosferatu (1922), Charles Theatre 1, 1711 N. Charles St. German master F.W. Murnau's superbly creepy, silent vampire movie set the ghoul standard. The Alloy Orchestra will augment it with its seductive, clangorous score. 11:30 a.m.: A Sense of Loss, MICA Brown Center, 1301 W. Mount Royal Ave. Marcel Ophuls' engulfing 1972 documentary about Northern Ireland rarely plays on the big screen.

The 2007 Towson University Student Media Arts Festival, a showcase for student-created films, begins Monday with screenings of documentaries and experimental films, plus those centering on dance, in the auditorium of Van Bokkelen Hall on the TU campus, 8000 York Road. On Thursday, the emphasis will be on TV shows, news, public service announcements and commercials, plus corporate and music videos. More screenings are set for April 27 and April 30, with a reprise showing of the best works set for May 5. All film programs begin at 7 p.m. Admission is free.

Cinema Sundays at the Charles opens its 40th series this weekend with The Rape of Europa, a documentary from Richard Berge, Nicole Newnham and Bonni Cohen that chronicles how the Nazis plundered art treasures during World War II, and how art historians have struggled to ensure pieces are returned to their original owners. Showtime is 10:30 a.m. Sunday at the Charles, 1711 N. Charles St. Tickets are $15; 10-film memberships are $110. Information: 410-727-FILM or cinemasundays.com. Series comes to close The Charles Theatre's film noir revival series concludes this weekend with Otto Preminger's Angel Face (1952)

America Ferrera, the Emmy-winning star of Ugly Betty, is now the Hispanic Woman of the Year, the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard announced yesterday. The publications will honor Ferrera and the 25 most powerful Hispanic women in film, television and music at their inaugural Hispanic Women in Entertainment breakfast at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Tuesday. Ferrera has won Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild awards for her portrayal of Betty Suarez on the ABC show. Top documentaries Hoop Dreams, Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Frederick Marx's 1994 film about two black teenagers pursuing basketball stardom, has been voted the best documentary in movie history by the International Documentary Association.

Rick Ray's 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama, a documentary that uses as its centerpiece a one-hour interview with the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, will be shown at 7 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 p.m. Monday at Your Prescription for Health Learning Center, 10210 S. Dolfield Road in Owings Mills. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door, if available, or by calling 410-356-2169. Information: spiritualpath@mindspring.com or 410-581-9022. A film for the `Cure' Adventures for the Cure, narrated by three-time Tour de France winner Greg Lemond, documents a 6,500-mile cross-country bicycle trip that raises money for the American Diabetes Association and Kupenda for the Children, which benefits African children with disabilities.

Barry Levinson will present "Diner Guys," his documentary about the real-life men who inspired his 1982 film "Diner," as the opening-night film at the Maryland Film Festival, organizers announced yesterday.The festival screening will not only be a world premiere of the film, but it may be the only time the documentary can be seen by audiences. "What I'm going to do with it I don't really know," Levinson said yesterday. "I've had this ongoing documentary that's not finished, and I thought maybe people could see the process."

"Jackie: Behind the Myth" is one of the more misleading titles of the television season. Not only does the two-hour documentary on Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis not take us behind the myth, it so celebrates Jackie that you are certain the final scene is going to be played out on Mount Olympus.And yet, as maddening as it is in the unpleasant facts it ignores, the documentary is ultimately quite moving. In fact, it left me feeling more kindly disposed and impressed with her than I would have believed possible after all the Jackie hagiography I have endured these past 40 years or so.But let's start with some of the more outrageous punches it pulls, given the title.

Where were you when you saw the video?For the first time, the public can own (or rent) a copy of Abraham Zapruder's 26-second home movie of the assassination of President Kennedy. Packaged as a documentary, the digitally enhanced, rephotographed video, "Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film," went on sale this week for $16.99 at video outlets.Besides a lengthy behind-the-scenes look at the restoration, the documentary ends with a flurry of new versions of the famous sequence -- including slow-motion and zoom versions, where technology keeps President Kennedy front and center in each frame.

One of the biggest mistakes we make on the television beat is that we seldom look back.About as far back as we'll go is one week, and then it is only to check on the Nielsen ratings to see if a show did as well or poorly as we expected. Part of the reason for that is television itself, the very essence of which is to keep driving us relentlessly forward to and through the next break or commercial by teasing us with "still to come" or "just ahead." And, in case that doesn't work, there are the outright commands from big-voiced announcers saying: "Stay tuned" and "Don't change that dial."

One of the great joys of TV journalism is seeing first-rate correspondents matched up with subject matter that they are passionate about. Think of the late Ed Bradley sitting down to interview a pop culture pioneer whom he admired like Lena Horne, or NBC's Richard Engel in the line of fire covering a war.

In "The September Issue," Anna Wintour, the high priestess of high fashion and longtime editor of Vogue magazine, never lets her colleagues see her perspire - and never reveals a spontaneous thought or emotion, or a fascinating one, either. Wintour granted director R.J. Cutler unprecedented access to her editorial processes for this documentary chronicle of her drive to break advertising records with her September 2007 issue. Unfortunately, the teapot tempests Cutler comes away with are neither gripping nor revelatory.

Documentaries are not supposed to be able to attract huge, mainstream audiences. Just ask all the TV networks that don't make them any more, claiming attention spans are too short for such long-form programming. But CNN turned that notion on its head a year ago with Black in America, a documentary reported by Soledad O'Brien that was seen by 16 million people in the middle of the summer and helped ignite one of the most intense and widespread discussions of any TV production of the year.

A documentary that doesn't bother to explain anything; a concert film with interpretive dance; MTV for world-music fans: Director Carlos Saura's Fados is all those things, but above all it's a tribute to fado, the traditional Portuguese ballad form that allows singers to pour their hearts out to the accompaniment of rich, warm guitar. The movie, set entirely on a beautifully lit soundstage filled with musicians, dancers, mirrors and projection screens, presents some of Portugal's most acclaimed fadoistas, singing tributes to the art form and some of its greatest legends.

He has been called "Ken Burns' cinematographer," and that's pretty high praise in its own right. But the career of Allen Moore, a 57-year-old documentary filmmaker from Baltimore, extends beyond serving as principal photographer on such Burns epics as The Civil War and Baseball. The most fascinating part of that career today is the way Moore, a faculty member at Maryland Institute College of Art and owner of the Allen Moore Films Inc. production company, is changing with the new media times - even as he remains at the pinnacle of nonfiction documentary cinematography.

Finally, the cavalry has arrived - or started to, anyway. I am talking about the arrival of serious, in-depth TV journalism that seeks to explain how it is that the U.S. economy went so far off the rails last fall that virtually all the economists are using the phony metaphor of a "perfect storm" to explain the collapse - while trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility for all the subsequent suffering. Last Thursday, CNBC premiered House of Cards, a solid two-hour documentary reported by correspondent David Faber.

The day after Donte Greene presumably is selected in the first round of the NBA draft, he will hit the screen in a movie. Greene is featured in the documentary Gunnin' For That #1 Spot, which opens tomorrow night in select cities, including Baltimore. The 90-minute movie (rated PG-13) will be shown at AMC Theatres in Owings Mills. Two years ago, he was selected as one of 24 high school players to take part in the inaugural Boost Mobile Elite 24 Hoops Classic, played at legendary Rucker Park in New York's Harlem.

JOSEPH S. MIKO, 87 Filmed footage of Hungarian Revolution Joseph S. Miko, a former cameraman whose extensive footage of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was smuggled out of Budapest and is considered a significant piece of the documentary record of the historic uprising against Soviet oppression, has died. He was 87. Mr. Miko died of blood cancer April 28 at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, said his son, Joe. A retired owner of camera and electronic stores in the L.A. area, Mr. Miko was forced to flee Hungary with his family after capturing the short-lived revolution on film.

The 2008 Towson University Student Media Arts Festival, showcasing the work of students in the school's media arts program, kicks off Monday with entries in the categories of Dance for the Camera, Documentary and Experimental. Other screenings are set for May 1 (TV Shows, News, PSA/Commercials/Trailers/Shorts, Corporate Video, Music Video and Digi-Post), May 2 (Narrative) and May 5 (Directing, Social Issues and Audio Documentary). Entries are judged each night, and the winners will be shown during a best-of screening set for May 10. Screenings begin at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of Van Bokkelen Hall on the school's Towson campus, 8000 York Road.

OH, I LOVE film. D.W. Griffith, Hitchcock, William Wellman. I know my movies. I mean, should I go on?" That is the weather-beaten cineaste, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, talking to Entertainment Weekly. Who'd a thunk it? Well, here's another unusual celebrity guest for Turner Classic Movies guy Robert Osborne to persuade to sit down with him. Wouldn't you love to see the vintage guitarist and the urbane Mr. O. chatting about -- say, Kim Novak in Vertigo? Some days, I think there's nothing left to anticipate in show business, but then I hear something like the above; I can go on. Scholarly competition Microsoft titan Bill Gates gave England's Cambridge University $210 million to set up a scholarship that will rival Oxford's trusty old Rhodes, except Gates wants to identify and nurture networking-friendly global citizens who want to save the world.