No I wasn’t being literal. Although I’m entirely positive that a little dose of Mr. Berlin might be just the ticket to brightening up the holidays in a way that even the most decked out tree can’t even touch! But seriously folks, just doin’ my part to remind you that this holiday season, a visit to our Documentary Channel online store might be exactly the source for all those hard to buy for folks on your list this year. In addition to DOC audience faves like “Johnny Berlin,” you’ll find the virtual shelves of our store stocked with everything from the titles you may know and love from our airwaves to the best and brightest new docs to hit DVD and indie docs you can’t get a hold of anywhere else. So go forth and navigate the gauntlet of holiday chaos, but should you find a couple of names left over on your list that leave you scratching your head as to the perfect gift, remember that this Christmas, the Doc Store is your secret weapon.

With a little holiday time gluttony in our near future, your old friends at DOC got to thinking about all the things there are that we’re thankful for. And though we won’t get too sentimental on you folks out there, we will say to all of those who have supported us and all the filmmakers who have allowed us to call our airwaves home for their films, we owe you the biggest of thanks. If there was no you, it would be pretty difficult for there to be an us. That seemed to us to be a fact worth noting and even raising a ceremonial turkey drumstick to (unless you’re vegetarians, in which case, we can make some kind of Tofurkey thing happen). At any rate, we just wanted to take a moment and tell you that if you’ve liked what we’ve had to show you thus far, then 2008 will surely bring all sorts of great new surprises to make you believe in us all the more. We wish you and yours the happiest of Thanksgiving holidays and remind you that a post-turkey nap is advised before attempting to operate any sort of heavy machinery. Safety first this holiday season folks. DOC has your back.

The director who brought you “Koko, A Talking Gorilla” and “The Charles Bukowski Tapes” is back. Barbet Schroeder’s latest documentary looks at the origins of modern terror through the life of a successful attorney. “Terror’s Advocate,” a documentary just released by Magnolia Pictures, studies the life of French-speaking attorney Jacques Verges. Verges, born in Thailand to a Vietnamese mother and a Reunion Island (a French colony off the east coast of Africa) father, first gained attention in the 1950s defending Algerians who terrorized their own country in protest of its French colonial government. The rebels, in this case a group of young women, exploded bombs in public places, but eventually were caught and proudly pleaded guilty to the crimes. They were sentenced to death by guillotine until Verges stepped in, stirred attention in the case around the world through the press and with wild courtroom antics, and succeeded in having their sentences commuted to prison terms. In one of the most powerful scenes in the film, Schroeder’s camera follows Verges and the group of women whose lives he saved into their old cell on death row. Verges, a man who in his long career has defended Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic and Klaus Barbie (a Nazi torturer), talks himself to the verge of tears as he speaks about the harsh treatment of the women. Sad and sensitive in one frame, confident and smoking an expensive cigar in the next, the key to Verges is his conviction to stay close to the action and fight for humane treatment of men and women who have not treated people the same way. Verges chooses not to see the contradiction, but instead focuses on the bigger lies and crimes committed by goverments who put these men and women on trial. “I can’t stand a man being humiliated, even an enemy,” says Verges in the film. “For a lone man to be insulted by a lynch mob … I was asked ‘Would I defend Hitler?’ I said ‘I would even defend Bush,’ as long as he agrees to plead guilty.”

Ok, ok, it was a cheesy pun but I couldn’t resist, as this week on our home page, one of our own finally had a chance to see the new doc about whack-job filmmaker extraordinaire David Lynch. It’s been a long time since we first caught wind of this doc, and if you’re like me and still having creepy visions of bunny-headed people after watching Lynch’s most recent effort, “Inland Empire,” I’m sure the film (simply entitled Lynch) will hold some serious curiosity value. Much of it was shot on the set as Lynch finished that film. I’ve long been a defender of Lynch’s work, so I for one am particularly curious to see the new doc. I’ve often wondered what it must be like on one of Lynch’s sets (my guess is just as much bunny-headed strangeness—just add in a craft services table). So anywho, check out the article on our homepage and should you be a Lynch fan living in a city where the film is playing, certainly you’ll probably wanna have a look even if it does give you nightmares.

Filmmaker Doug Pray is credited with editing the Hughes brother’s “American Pimp,” one of my all-time favorite documentaries, but more recently he directed a doc about truckers called “Big Rig.” “Big Rig” screened last spring at SWSX and is showing this week at the American Film Institute Fest in Hollywood.
Getting truckers to talk on camera and share their unconventional lifestyle as they haul products from coast to coast is a movie idea that crossed my mind as I’m sure it crossed the minds of many other aspiring documentary fillmakers in the country. But the cool thing about Doug Pray is that he seems to come up with great project ideas and then goes and gets them done.
His other documentary directing credits include: “Hype!” (1996) about the music scene in the Northwest in the early 1990s, “Scratch” (2001) about Hip-Hop DJs, and “Infamy” (2005) about grafitti artists.
Next up for Pray is “Surfwise,” which tells the story of Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz: an 85-year-old surfer, health expert and sex king who is married and has nine children all of whom were homeschooled and grew up on a bus traveling the country in search of tasty waves. Sounds like a another good one.