CSA: The Confederate States of America

(Kevin Willmott, 2004)

Fake documentary based on the premise that the confederates won the civil war, the emancipation proclamation was overturned, and slavery continued to exist until the present day. The alternative history is quite cleverly done. The whole thing is presented as though you're watching a US TV channel (except of course it's not the USA, it's the CSA) airing the documentary, which was made in the UK and previously banned in the CSA. The only problem is that it's just not quite funny enough. If they couldn't think of any more decent gags, then they should have bitten the bullet and made it a completely dead serious, dark and disturbing satire, rather than aiming for more of a "lighthearted chuckles" satire. The most interesting things are the commerical breaks throughout the feature, which include adverts for all manner of products with racist / slavery-based brandnames and logos. Some text comes up at the end of the film explaining that all of these products really existed at some point in US history ("Coon Chicken", as featured in Ghost World, is one of them).

Colour Me Kubrick

(Brian W. Cook, 2005)

Based on the story of Alan Conway, who blagged loads of money and free lunches in early-nineties London by pretending to be Stanley Kubrick. The story itself is fascinating, which means that the slightly sluggish pacing of the film does no real harm. Likewise, the effort put in by Malkovich (as Conway) is more than enough to counterbalance the occasionally awkward script and lack of co-acting talent (for unknown reasons, Jim ‘The Laughing Fascist’ Davidson features in a minor role). The film is peppered with Kubrick references (both visual, and in the soundtrack) which also add nice touches (I love references, but I’m not sure why; maybe it’s the satisfaction to be derived from ‘getting’ them).

Colour Me Kubrick @ IMDb