HBO’s summer documentary series continues tonight with Love, Marilyn, from Academy Award nominated director Liz Garbus, previously of Bobby Fischer Against the World and There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane. Her latest explores the myth of Marilyn Monroe, the obsession of every hairdresser and junior college art major.

One of the most enduring icons of 20th-century America, Marilyn Monroe invented an endlessly fascinating public persona, but also concealed a private side known only to her closest confidants. A half-century after her death, her creation still blazes brightly in the cultural imagination, while its creator remains in the shadows. LOVE MARILYN draws on recently discovered personal papers, diaries and letters, brought to life by an all-star cast that includes F. Murray Abraham, Elizabeth Banks, Adrien Brody, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Hope Davis, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Ben Foster, Paul Giamatti, Jack Huston, Stephen Lang, Lindsay Lohan, Janet McTeer, Jeremy Piven, Oliver Platt, David Strathairn, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood.
LOVE MARILYN features remarkable footage, audiotapes and rarely-seen photographs, as well as a recently-discovered trove of Monroe’s own handwritten letters, diaries, notes, poems, journals and notebooks, which document her private life against the backdrop of her very public life and loves.
LOVE MARILYN premieres MONDAY, JUNE 17 (9:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.

I’m curious about this one, because I’m honestly a bit baffled by the whole Marilyn Monroe mystique. To me it’s always struck me as a bit like those Cosmo covers where Bar Rafaeli or whoever dishes on her beauty secrets. I mean, people liked Marilyn Monroe because she was pretty and nice, right? We always think pretty, charismatic people are going to give us some insight on how to be more attractive and charming ourselves, but let’s be honest, most of us are just turd-filled gym socks and we’re happy if we can keep poop from leaking out in front of company.

I’m a big fan of documentaries and an even bigger fan of sitting on my fat ass and not leaving the house, so HBO’s summer documentary series is relevant to many of my interests. It kicks off tonight with Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, which has me all discomboobulated because it has both “pussy” and “prayer” in the title.

On Feb. 21, 2012, members of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot, donning their colorful trademark balaclavas (ski masks), participated in a 40-second “punk prayer protest” on the altar of Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral before being detained. Arrested and tried for trespassing, wearing “inappropriate” sleeveless dresses and disrupting social order, Nadia, Masha and Katia were accused of religious hatred in a trial that reverberated around the world and transformed the face of Russian society.

An official selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Punk Spirit, PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER tells the Pussy Riot story offering exclusive interviews and unprecedented access to courtroom footage when it kicks off the HBO Documentary Films summer series MONDAY, JUNE 10 (9:00-10:30 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.

Two years in prison seems like a pretty stiff sentence to those of us who believe in free speech. CONVERSELY, if you’re Iowa Republican Steve King, who spent the last week hanging out with Steven Seagal and the FSB, the Russian successor agency to the KGB,  “It’s hard to find sympathy for people who would do that to people’s faith.” Yep, he really said that. Like, in public and everything. I’m not sure if you could get away with saying this in Russia, but since I’m in the US I should point out that idiots like Steve King should be in dunking booths, not congress.

In any case, Pussy Riot seems like the perfect documentary subject, because I’ve heard about the story a lot, and I feel like I still don’t know that much about it. KNOWLEDGE ME, HBO. KNOWLEDGE ME RAW. Cram it right in my think hole.

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While a lot of today’s popular music stars like Justin Bieber and Katy Perry are pumping out “concert documentaries” to make a few extra million dollars and promote themselves in positive, edited new lights, credit is due to Metallica for taking that idea and punching it in the balls. James Hetfield and Co. wanted to make a massive concert film for their fans, but they wanted to make something new, so they combined live music footage with an actual story. Who says aging millionaire rock stars can’t still deliver sort-of-creative ideas?

In Metallica: Through the Never, Dane DeHaan (The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Chronicle) plays a Metallica roadie sent out to get green M&Ms or something, when his van is struck by another vehicle and he finds himself in the middle of a massive riot between anarchists and the police. All the while, Lars Ulrich is twirling his drumsticks and making duck faces while Hetfield screams, “YEEEEEAAAAAAH!!!”

With the new trailer for Through the Never out this week, Ulrich has been in Cannes doing promo for the film’s IMAX debut on September 27, while also probably complaining about stuff.

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At first I thought this trailer for Donkey Love, which is about Colombians having sex with donkeys, might be fake – you know, something the Venezuelans or Mexicans made to make fun of Colombians, the way Australians and New Zealanders are always accusing each other of having sex with sheep. But oh no, it’s very real. Just this week, Donkey Love was left scrambling after Landmark theaters in Kelowna, British Columbia refused to play the film, even though it was part of a film festival there. In fact, they cancelled the whole damn festival.

The Okanagan Film Festival [OFF] International was set to open this week at Landmark’s Paramount Theatre in Kelowna, B.C., but when word spread last week that it would be showing the bestiality documentary, angry citizens spoke out, organizing online petitions against the screening.
Soon after, the theatre opted to cancel the festival.
The 75-minute documentary, Donkey Love, has been screened in Australia and won Best Documentary at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival. [TorontoSun]

No theater to play it in?! I think I speak for everyone when I say that these donkey f*ckers deserve better. Seriously, I would watch this. Hard. Check out the trailer below:

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ESPN hasn’t sent out any trailers or even put an embeddable one online because I guess they hate money (best I could find was this 30-second TV spot), but consider this your reminder that the first installment of their 30 for 30 series of sports documentaries airs tonight. It’s called Broke, and it follows the lives of athletes who went from riches to rags as a result of all the making it rain and the magnums of Krystal and the bitch money cars and other things I’ve read about in New Yorker reviews of rap songs. Needless to say, this type of programming is a great improvement over five assh*les trying to scream over each other about whether or not the Bucs offense is “for real.”

More money, more problems. Broke digs into the psychology of men whose competitive nature carried them to victory on the field yet seemed to ruin them off the field. Airing: Tonight at 8 p.m. ET/5 PT on ESPN

It was directed by Billy Corben, who previously directed The U and Cocaine Cowboys, and as Danger Guerrero writes, ” I plan on watching this so hard my TV may become frightened and try to sneak out of the room during commercials.”

Yes, please. Additionally, all the previous 30 for 30s are currently streaming on Netflix Instant. Sunshine is for suckers.

Subtle imagery.

[A couple longer clips at ESPN]