Documentary Archives - Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer

The War on Drugs Doles Out Harsh Punishments that Harm Children the Most • The Sentence

dorriolds — Sat, 20 Oct 2018 19:34:05 +0000

War on Drugs

In the searing new documentary The Sentence, we discover that the casualties of the “War on Drugs” extend beyond the millions of Americans harshly punished with prison time—their families suffer the brunt.

About the Filmmaker

Director Rudy Valdez, an American of Mexican descent, began filming his three nieces for his sister Cindy Shank. Why? Because she’d been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. Her loving brother, the youngest sibling, wanted Cindy to be able to see the girls grow up. The even greater tragedy is her family’s suffering the pain of living without her. The worst crime is Cindy’s children doing time, also—they grew up without their Mom.
As Valdez began fighting to reduce his sister’s draconian sentence, he discovered that the problem of over-sentencing was much larger than his family’s painful tale. Due to the failed “War on Drugs,” nonviolent first-time offenders, like Cindy, received ghastly punishments because the judge had to adhere to the mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

The Girlfriend Problem

Cops and lawyers have a nickname for Cindy’s all-too-common scenario: The Girlfriend Problem. Cindy’s crime was falling in love with the wrong man.

Although it is not shown in the film, we learn that Cindy lived with Alex Humphrey until 2002, when he was murdered by gunshot right outside their home in Lansing, Michigan. When police searched their home for clues to the murder—which is still unsolved—they found more than 40 pounds of cocaine.
Cindy had attempted to leave Humphrey, but he had threatened her. After his death she was free to move on and straighten out her life. She fell in love with a good man, married him and the couple had three children.

The Arrest

Without giving too much away, the police knocked on the door six years later and arrested Cindy. She was charged as a conspirator because she had known about Humphrey’s drug dealing.
At SVA Theatre this past Wednesday, after a pre-screening of the documentary, filmmaker Valdez said, “We can no longer sit around and be okay with people profiting off the backs of the disenfranchised.”
“It’s the rhetoric we hear: hard on crime or you’re soft on crime…. we need to get rid of that crap. You’re either smart on crime or you’re not,” Valdez said. “This film is apolitical on purpose; it doesn’t go into the history, the right or the left, or who started this, or who’s perpetuating this. It’s a hearts and minds film that transcends voting…. There’s a cultural shift that needs to happen in this country.”

Sundance Film Festival to HBO

The film won the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. HBO purchased the film and will air it Monday, October 15. I suggest putting a box of tissues nearby.

Director Rudy Valdez

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THE SENTENCE premieres on HBO Monday, October 15, 2018 at 8PM EST. Click here for additional screening times.

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Jane Fonda Lifetime Achievement Award presented by Michael Moore

dorriolds — Thu, 21 Jun 2018 15:00:58 +0000

Jane Fonda, 2-time Oscar-winning actress (and 7-time Oscar nominee), 4-time Golden Globe winner, 2-time BAFTA winner, and Emmy Award winner, will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Oscar-winner Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine). The award will be presented to Fonda during the festival’s 14th annual edition, running July 31 to August 5 along the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan in Traverse City, Michigan.

“I can think of no other artist who has given more to her country,” said Moore. “What an honor for our festival audience to welcome and to be inspired by the work of this American Icon. Her voice is as needed today as much as ever.”

Moore will personally host the legendary actress, author, and activist at the Traverse City Film Festival, one of the most popular cultural events in the Midwest. The 2018 program is expected to bring in 100,000 attendees with this year’s roster of nearly 100 movies.
Fonda’s massive body of work includes Coming Home (Academy Award, Best Actress, 1978), Klute (Academy Award, Best Actress, 1971), They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Julia, The China Syndrome, On Golden Pond, and The Morning After (films for which she received five additional Oscar nominations). Fonda’s filmography includes more than 40 other films.
Fonda is also the subject of the revealing new HBO documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts directed by Susan Lacy, which will screen at the festival. Fonda and Lacy will be watching the doc, too. Since 2015, Fonda has starred in Netflix sitcom Grace and Frankie. I chatted with the two mega-stars on the red carpet in New York City during the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.
See Also: Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda added joy to the red carpet at Tribeca Film Festival

Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda at the Tribeca Film Festival 2016 ©DorriOlds

Fonda is also the subject of the revealing new HBO documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts directed by Susan Lacy, which will screen at the festival, with Fonda and Lacy in attendance.
The festival will also present a 40th anniversary screening of “Coming Home,” a screening of “Julia”, and a free nighttime screening of “Nine to Five” projected on a 65-foot screen at the festival’s open space on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Fonda’s lifetime commitment to social change has also inspired a generation of artists and activists. She chairs the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, sits on the boards of Women’s Day Media Center, which she helped found, and V-Day: Until the Violence Stops. She established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health at the Emory School of Medicine and has long been a leading advocate for environmental issues, human rights, and the empowerment of women and girls.

Ex-Cop Details Cocaine-Fueled Corruption in the NYPD

dorriolds — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 12:55:57 +0000

This is an excerpt from the article I wrote for The Fix. Disgraced ex-cop Ken Eurell, who was memorialized in the 2015 documentary, The Seven Five, just published a memoir about his nefarious years as a police officer in one of the most corrupt police departments in the United States. The book, Betrayal in Blue: The Shocking Memoir of the Scandal that Rocked the NYPD, was co-written by Edgar Award winning author Burl Barer and journalist Frank C. Girardot Jr.

The Story

“It was like the heyday of crack,” said DEA special agent Mike Troster in the documentary. East New York in Brooklyn was a war zone, and according to Troster, “It was a hotbed for crime in New York City.”
In the late 1980s, the 75th precinct of the NYPD was the deadliest in the country. It handled the most homicides, including the most police shootings. “It was the highest murder rate in the country,” said Kenny Eurell, who worked there from 1982 to 1990. It was a time of 3,500 homicides per year in the city.
Eurell’s crimes escalated from drinking on the job to robberies, extortion, and selling cocaine after he’d retired on a cop’s pension. His book tells the story of being sucked into a world of crime and free money through his dirty cop partner, Michael Dowd.
While the doc focused mostly on Dowd, Eurell’s book reveals everything that was left out when much of the movie “ended up on the cutting room floor.”
The Fix landed an exclusive interview with the infamous criminal.

The Interview

Eurell told us he wanted to set the record straight on his years of working with coked-out Dowd. Yes, they robbed unsuspecting citizens, moved on to selling cocaine and finally went into free-fall after ripping off drug dealers. “It was greed,” said Eurell, “pure and simple. The money was so easy to make. It was impossible to turn away.”
“I became a cop at age 20 and was on the job for seven years before being partnered with Mike [Dowd]. It never occurred to me to go on a burglary call and grab the stuff that the burglar missed. It was not in my mindset until I was partnered with Mike. I don’t want to say I was brainwashed, but let’s just say, I was introduced to a different way to do police work.”
I asked him why he’d used the word “brainwashed.” He said, “I say ‘brainwashed’ because when we got in the [squad] car together, Mike talked about making money about 98% of the time. The other 2% of the time he talked about women. Once I was shown what to do—making all this easy money with no repercussion from it, greed took over.”

Regrets

Does Eurell have regrets about what he did? “I absolutely have regrets,” he said. “I wish I’d never took that first bit of money that Mike threw at me. I wish I had the courage to say to myself, ‘This is wrong. Don’t take the money.’ Even though that would’ve cut my own throat and ruined my career.”
He explained, “You can’t turn somebody in while you’re on the job because the word ‘rat’ will follow you around and destroy your career. There were guys when I was working—cops just suspected them of being a rat or a snitch—and every day, all the tires on their personal car would be cut. They go into work and their lockers would be in the shower, turned upside down, the locks broken open, all their stuff dumped out. Dead rats from the neighborhood were thrown onto the hood of their car. It makes a working situation absolutely impossible.”
“It sounds like the Mafia,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Eurell. “It’s that mentality.”
He added, “I wish I never went that corrupt cop route. There’s so many guys I was on the job with that retired as captains and hero detectives. Here I am, I’m an outcast as one of the most corrupt cops in the NYPD. It’s not something to hang my hat on.”

History of Alcohol, Cocaine and Corruption

Eurell launched into his history with alcohol, cocaine and corruption.
“When I was a cop, I was definitely an alcoholic, a functional one. I drank every day but was able to do my job. My last drink was in 1992, the year I got arrested. But after I quit cold turkey and stayed dry for 15 years, I was at my son’s engagement party and thought, ‘Oh yeah, my son’s getting engaged,’ so I had one beer, which was fine. Now, I have maybe two beers a month. If I go out I’ll have a beer, but we rarely go anywhere. We’re homebodies, my wife Dori and I. The biggest thing we do now is go out on a weekend on the motorcycle and I don’t drink when I’m on the bike.”

Ken Eurell, ex-NYPD cop

In his book, Eurell commented that alcohol opened up new doors for him but “It also opened up a new world of tension and problems.”
He said that the first time he drank on the job was because a boss told him to. And, despite the time he spent dealing cocaine, he never liked the drug. “I tried cocaine once,” he said. “I had a buddy who was going into the Marines. We were at a going away party and we gave him some cocaine. I did a bump with him but it really had no effect on me. And that was it. I never did it again.”
But his partner, Dowd, was a coke addict and “that was a major problem. We were working the patrol car. His personality is already high strung, you know, very hyperactive. On cocaine it was times a hundred. He was a talker.”
Back then, Eurell said, “everybody did cocaine. It was a very sociable drug. It wasn’t no heavy-addiction drug. All my customers were adults that had jobs and went to work every day and, you know, they would buy some cocaine for the weekend. We weren’t out on the street dealing to little kids at a school or nothing.”
Read more on The Fix.

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Review of Eat That Question – Frank Zappa Documentary

dorriolds — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 17:30:55 +0000

Guest Post by Bob Zappa, author of Frankie and Bobby: Growing Up Zappa

On Monday night when my wife, Diane, and I met up with her daughter, Anna, at the Landmark Theater we went to the ticket booth to ask for Gary Springer, the man in charge of PR for the movie.

Moon Zappa with Bob Zappa

The young woman in the booth did not know Gary so I explained that we were there to see the preview of the SONY movie and she said, you mean the one about Frank Kafka? And therein lies the mystery that is Frank Zappa.

It’s not that people can’t pronounce our last name, it’s that too many people still don’t know how brilliant, talented and outspoken Frank was. But for the many, many fans who still revere his memory and who are finding that his musical legacy lives on through his talented son, Dweezil Zappa, this amazing bio picture, Eat That Question, will help correct that.

Frank’s son Dweezil Zappa with Frank’s bro Bob Zappa

The first thing you need to know about the movie is that it is extremely well organized. It revolves around a series of comments and events that give viewers an intimate look into Frank’s passion for artistic integrity, free speech and his utter disdain of religious intolerance, political and social oppression and any bias against free thought.

The next thing you will find is that the film accurately depicts how Frank had the verbal agility and intellectual depth to back up his convictions. He was self-taught in so many areas, so well read and so technically sophisticated that it was a challenge for Thorsten Schutte, the film’s director, to convey those elements in a 90-minute documentary. But he did so, and brilliantly. Finally, my niece, Moon Zappa, who has been helping promote the film, asked if I was ready to see it. She wanted to know if in some way I might be saddened by parts of the film (when you see it you’ll know which ones I mean…) and I told her that I wouldn’t miss it, and besides, I planned to bring a box of Kleenex with me just in case.

Happily, I didn’t need too many tissues and I was very glad we saw it. Over the years Frank has become the inspiration for the hopes, expectations, and source of courage for so many who were, or are now, the hungry freaks he so ably championed.

Thorsten Schutte and Bob Zappa

I am, of course, biased in favor of the film, but when you see it I think you’ll share my feelings. I hope that Frank’s many fans, and friends of those fans, including their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, priests, rabbis and anyone else looking for an experience that will live long after the popcorn is gone, get the chance to see this wonderful movie.
Bob Zappa, New York

Video excerpts from my interviews with Bob Zappa:

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Exclusive Interview: Errol Morris Asks Donald Rumsfeld What We All Want To Know

dorriolds — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 15:04:22 +0000

Yesterday, I hopped a subway down to SoHo for a one-on-one interview with Academy-Award-winning documentarian Errol Morris. I have interviewed gobs of A-list celebrities, but this was a career highlight and an honor.
Morris is promoting his movie, “The Unknown Known.” It is his latest documentary and is being released on Friday, April 4. It shines the light on former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Based on 33 hours of filming, Morris put together a gripping portrayal. He asked the big question: where was the evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that drove our country into war in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Morris has been making films since 1978. “The Thin Blue Line” (1988) was about a man wrongly convicted for murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas, Texas. The innocent man was freed directly because of Morris’s involvement in the case.
Morris is the inventor of a dramatic film technique using a machine called the Interrotron. Named by his wife, it combines the words terror and interview. He places two cameras, one on himself and one on the interviewee, and uses live video as a sort of teleprompter with positioning that creates the appearance that the subject is speaking directly to the audience.
The film that won his Academy Award was “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara” (2003). It is a portrait of the former U.S. Secretary of Defense who was responsible for getting us into the Vietnam War.
I could see Morris’s brain ticking and whirring as he thoughtfully answered each question. His speech cadence is slow, but he goes from serious furrowed brows to laughing quickly. He has that Jewish inflection and sarcasm that I grew up with, along the lines of the old cliché, “What am I, chopped liver?” He was warm and clearly brilliant. Do not miss this movie.
Dorri Olds: Which parts of the 33 hours of filming were hard to cut?
Errol Morris: It was all difficult to cut. There’s cutting that preserves the content, but then there’s cutting that tries to capture something more elusive, more ephemeral, that gives you some understanding of the character of the man. Whether it’s gestures or a smile. He’s a very well-defended man.
Do you mean he defends himself?
Yes, so the task is how do you find out something unexpected, something you might not have known before. I believe this movie does do that.
I do too. I went in there expecting to hate Rumsfeld, but after watching your film I called my husband and said, “I’m upset. I ended up liking Donald Rumsfeld.” He comforted me by saying, “He’s a politician. They know how to make you like them.”
Your husband is right. But liking him and approving of his policies are two different things. I could come away liking him, even being charmed by him, but I also came away appalled by him. Appalled by the junk philosophy, the manipulation, the ruthlessness, the self-deception, the delusion.
That was my next question. Do you think he was deluded?
Yes.
And manipulative?
Yes.
Evil?
Evil is one of those tricky words. I don’t really believe in evil people; I believe in evil acts.
What about Osama bin Laden? Or Saddam Hussein?
Across the board. I believe there are evil things that people do. These people did despicable things. I don’t know Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, but my experience is that some of the worst decisions have been made on the basis of ordinary human calculations based on fears, jealousies, confusions.
Pride?
Yes, pride.
Is Rumsfeld just good at being phony? It seemed in the movie that he believed in what he did and showed no remorse at all.
I think he does believe in it. I think he’s also phony, but has no idea how phony he is. He believes certain things were true and says that as though it is some final justification, as if that makes everything he did OK.
He didn’t seem to take any responsibility at all.
Right, none. Only a fake responsibility, “I wasn’t responsible for Abu Ghraib, but I’ll resign anyway because someone should take responsibility and I was at the head of things.”
Do you think he knew about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal?
I don’t know for sure. I used to think he had to have. But, as a result of spending all of this time with him, I don’t know. I did a whole movie about Abu Ghraib [“Standard Operating Procedure”]. It’s amazing to me that Rumsfeld expressed horror at the photographs as if to say, “Good grief, how could such a thing like that happen?” It happened because you ordered it. He professes ignorance about things he should’ve known about.
Do you really think that he didn’t know?
It’s possible, yes. “I didn’t read the torture memos and anyway they’re not torture memos and anyway they were approved by the Attorney General and anyway they didn’t come from the Department of Defense.” And blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m not sure here. These policies created one of the biggest stains in American history. I am ashamed of our tolerance of torture. Rumsfeld isn’t.

Go see this movie: there is so much to stare at in this jaw-dropping exposé. “The Unknown Known” opens in theaters and On Demand April 4, 2014.
Watch the trailer below:

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Young, Gay and Murdered: The Senseless Killing of Larry King

dorriolds — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 19:30:21 +0000

Written for TheBlot
“Valentine Road” is a documentary telling the story of 15-year-old Larry King, who was shot twice in the back of the head by classmate Brandon McInerney in Oxnard, CA, in 2008. It aired on HBO on Oct. 7. Filmmaker Marta Cunningham did a thorough job of depicting the details of the tragedy in a reporting mode rather than editorializing. The audience is left to come to their own conclusions.
The sad truth is that both boys came from abusive childhoods. Larry and his brother were adopted. When bruises were discovered on Larry’s body, he was put in a shelter.
Brandon’s childhood was equally troubled; his mother was addicted to methamphetamine while she was pregnant; his half-brothers were riddled with drug and alcohol issues, and when his drug-addicted mom went to rehab Brandon moved in with his violent and verbally abusive father. Brandon was forced to go with his dad on crystal meth drug runs, and his father regularly beat up Brandon and even broke his nose. Brandon’s brother said, “He was just a little kid pushed to the brink.” Brandon’s grandfather displayed his guns with pride, so Brandon was just one more rageful kid with easy access to firearms.
Larry got his first taste of friendship and kindness in the shelter and began to feel accepted. Five-foot-one Larry liked to look pretty. He wore earrings, makeup, high heels and dresses. His mannerisms became more and more feminine.
Meanwhile, Brandon, a six-foot jock, was being exposed to white supremacy and Nazi ideology. His notebooks were filled with drawings of Third Reich symbols; inside his backpack police found Hitler’s manifesto. Since Larry was half black and transgendered, one could say it was a hate crime. The defense argued that Brandon was only doing research for a school report about Hitler. However, white supremacist materials were also found in Larry’s home.
The film shows how Larry’s school failed him. No one on the staff was knowledgeable enough to help guide and support Larry with his gender issues. The more Larry came out, the happier he seemed, and the more flamboyant he became. Many townspeople told the filmmaker that the murder was Larry’s fault because of his flamboyancy. They saw Brandon as a victim of sexual harassment.
Larry was bullied constantly. He was jeered at, ostracized and beaten, but he also had friends — all girls — and one day during a Valentine’s Day game, Larry acted on a dare. He interrupted Brandon’s basketball game to tell Brandon he had a crush on him. Larry asked Brandon to be his Valentine.
Brandon felt humiliated in front of his buddies. Two days later, Brandon shot Larry in their computer lab class, at point-blank range. The shooting was made up of so many embroiled issues: bullying, intolerance for the LGBT community, racism, hatred, white supremacy, violent childhoods, our judicial system and America’s appalling lack of gun control.
The trial was covered in the movie. Brandon was tried as an adult even though he was only 14 at the time of the shooting, and many felt that he should have been tried as a juvenile. The main questions at stake were if this was a hate crime and premeditated murder, or if Brandon was pushed to his limits and snapped. The defense argued that it was a crime of passion.
The first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury couldn’t agree on a verdict. During the second trial, the prosecution dropped the hate crime charge and Brandon pleaded guilty to avoid a possible life sentence. He received 21 years and won’t get out until he is 39.
It’s disturbing to listen to locals who felt that it was all so unfair and that Brandon didn’t deserve the punishment he got — oblivious to the fact that Brandon murdered Larry.
Touching moments come whenever Larry’s teacher Dawn Boldrin is speaking. Dawn presents Larry as smart, kind and compassionate. Dawn was fond of Larry and witnessed how much he enjoyed dressing up. She described him as a “sweetheart.” One day Dawn brought Larry a costume dress that her daughter had worn. Larry was thrilled.
That incidence of kindness cost Dawn her teaching job. The intolerance of the LGBT world by the staff and so many of the townspeople is blatant and chilling. Locals wear “Free Brandon” buttons, while Larry’s grieving friends movingly describe the hate and ignorance in the town where he grew up — and was shot down.
This documentary goes beyond the issue of gun control to help us understand all of the aspects in this crime that converged and brought about a senseless killing.
October is National Bullying Prevention month. Click the link if you’d like to add your name to the petition, “The End of Bullying Begins With Me”.

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Part II: Q&A with CIA analyst Nada Bakos who participated in the 2013 Sundance Film ‘Manhunt’

dorriolds — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:15:21 +0000

This is the second part of this week’s interview with Nada Bakos regarding her career and the documentary “Manhunt” which focuses on the search and capture of Osama bin Laden.
Dorri Olds: What questions do you hear most often about working in the CIA?
Nada Bakos: People are so surprised by the woman angle, that women were involved in the initial hunt for Al Qaeda. I’m not sure why they’re surprised but they are.
Are you hoping for Hillary Clinton to run for president and win?
I am hoping in my lifetime there will be a woman president. There had better be.
Do you think that if more women were in government we would have fewer wars?

‘Manhunt’

No, not necessarily. Throughout history we have seen many women who were just as benevolent as men. I do know that it is common sense to have both genders running the government. Women are fifty percent of the population and we have different concerns than men.
How long was the filming for “Manhunt”?
For my part it was a couple of days.
Did you enjoy the process?
I didn’t know how it all worked and I found it really interesting and the editor Joe Bini is amazing.
How was it seeing yourself on film?
The first time I saw “Manhunt” was when it premiered at Sundance in front of a crowd of 400 people. It was very emotional for me to see it and to be there with the audience.
Did you have any concerns about it?
I wanted to make sure I represented reality well. I think I did.
Do acts of torture as in “Zero Dark Thirty” really happen?
Let’s put it this way, nothing the agency does is okayed without lots of legal decisions. There’s the moral side and the legal side. All of the administration is always involved.
What if someone gets fed up and goes rogue, to handle things their way?
Then they get in trouble.
Do you have any answers for how we can battle terrorism?
Terrorism is a tactic and if the root causes of those acts remain unknown, we won’t have a full counterterrorism strategy. We cannot deal with the root causes of terrorism until we do that. Even inside the U.S. we need to understand more about why things happen before they do. What happened in Boston is a perfect example.
Did you deal directly with terrorists that were tortured?
I was not part of any interrogations directly and I thought that was completely overplayed in the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.” People have to understand that information comes from many different sources.
Do you mean information comes from people willing to rat out others for immunity?
Yes, that, and other foreign intelligence agencies that are supplying us with information. I get what they tried to do with “Zero Dark Thirty” and I think they did a good job. You can’t have a million people running around in a movie. It would be too hard to keep track of all of them. Katherine Bigelow did an amazing job and I’m surprised she didn’t get nominated for the Academy Award.
What do you see ahead of you for the next five years?
I’ve asked myself how I can best use my skills and apply them. I’m working on a book and developing an idea for a TV series based on my experiences.
Is the book a memoir?
I’m not sure yet. It will be about what it’s like inside the CIA.
Thanks so much. You’ve been great.

Suggested by the author:

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