After a winding route through film festivals and theaters
around the globe, Horns and Halos will air
on Cinemax on Feb 18th at 7 pm.
"A near
perfect manifestation of radical, DIY media intervention,
the
video
doc 'Horns and Halos' could not be more timely—just
as we
hunker
down for untold years of wartime sacrifice and imperialist
self-rationalization,
here is a David fable told by the barbarians at
the Bush
dynasty gate." -MICHAEL ATKINSON, Village Voice
Please
spread the word and share your cable if you have Cinemax.
__________________________
"Here
is a rich tale of our times, very well told with an
appropriate
minimum
of means." - DAVE KEHR New York Times
Synopsis
In October
1999, a short article appeared in the New York Times:
St. Martin's Press recalled Fortunate Son, the first
published biography of George W. Bush. At the time
of its recall, the book was #8 on Amazon.com’s
best-seller list ? no doubt due to the book's widely
publicized allegations that Bush had been arrested
for cocaine possession in 1972. However, Bush wasn’t
the only one with a hidden past. Citing distrust of
the author, J. H. Hatfield, the publisher pulled the
book from stores after learning that he was a convicted
felon. Several weeks later, small underground imprint
Soft Skull Press, the self-styled "punk of publishing,"
announced that it would re-publish the book. But getting
Fortunate Son back on the shelves wouldn't prove so
easy. Operating out of a tenement basement on New
York City's Lower East Side, 29-year-old founder Sander
Hicks struggled without significant success for over
a year to get the book back into stores and into the
national consciousness. After months of lawsuits,
bad press, and disagreements with the distributor,
Soft Skull made one final desperate attempt to make
a splash at the 2001 Book Expo of America. Against
the author's wishes, Hicks revealed the sources for
the book's cocaine allegations, which leads to electrifying
consequences.
"dark
surprises...emotionally complex"
David
Ansen, Newsweek
"What
a story" Brian De Palma
"funny,
maddening and ultimately shocking.."
- Ben
Kaplan, New York Magazine
"Hatfield
himself is a character worthy of Arthur Miller."
- Jessica
Winter, The Village Voice
"reaches
out to anyone interested in politics, publishing,
or the uneasy marriage between big money and mass
communication."
- David
Sterritt, The Christian Science Monitor
"Tragic"
Roger
Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"this
documentary is a rolling masterclass on the disturbing
complicty
of media, money and mendacity."
- Matthew
Tempest, The Guardian
"the
filmmakers uncover how the tough journalistic and
business
decisions
of people under stress -- at times influenced by ego,
greed and the genuine passion to expose the "truth"
-- can have a very human,tragic toll."
Tim LaTorre,
Indiewire
DVD
is out now in Canada! >>
Documentary's Official Site >>
the
filmmakers: Suki Hawley, Fiona Galinsky, and Michael
Galinsky.
