Tone plays a crucial role in Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden's documentary on "Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer." Their technique and story-telling style is  as matter-of-fact and no-holds-barred as the life they are chronicling, a chronologically organized story of a woman who was one of the most talented singers of the 20th century.
Her medium was jazz, her story was an opera. Rape, drugs, imprisonment, divorce, financial ruin - those things all preceded the bad health care that did in her voice. I was fortunate enough to have met her and hear her sing on several occasions. And what I saw was probably pretty common from the 1960s onward: When O'Day took the stage, she was the best musician on the  bandstand. In the documentary we see her chiding the musicians for not following her direction and musicians talking about taking direction from her; the filmmakers did not capture her tearing into someone for their flubs or musical ignorance.
"Life of a Jazz Singer," unlike so many docs that make it  onto PBS, is unconcerned with the redemption or moments of poignancy. There's no pity for her time spent in a trailer in the Southern California desert or her drug busts. Nearly everything is a side story except the facts about her ability to sing. And that's why this movie deserves to be seen.
Positive reviews from the New York Times,   LA Times and Variety

Documentarians David Leaf and Morgan Neville will chronicle the history of country music in a series executive produced by Shout! Factory and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
The individual segments will be thematically divided. On the slate are “The Roots of Country and Bluegrass,” “The Honky Tonk Tradition,” “Outlaw Country,” “The Nashville Sound,” “The Politics of Country,” “Country Songs and Songwriters,” “California Country” and “No Depression,” a look at the alternative country music movement. (I am guessing Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs will be included; that's why their picture is in this item).
“Each self-contained original film will examine a crucial aspect of the heritage and the history of country in a way that presents this American music in a contextual framework that shows how what was once called ‘hillbilly music’ remains a dominant form of expression in American popular music,” Neville and Leaf said in a joint statement.
Modern country stars will be participating in the films, providing their personal connections to the past. Pics will feature archival performances and contemporary ones as well.
Leaf and Neville will be working with a team of filmmakers not yet determined. In structure, the project sounds similar to one undertaken by Martin Scorsese that yielded five films on the blues and its history. Those films aired on PBS in 2003 and were released on DVD by Sony.

A documentary on the Gits will receive theatrical release on July 7, the 15th anniversary of murder of lead singer Mia Zapata.
"The Guts" has playdates in 21 cities and more may be added. New York, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Seattle and L.A. will have parties with band members and other people from various punk scenes.
Liberation Entertainment is releasing the film, which premiered at the SXSW Film festival in 2007, and DVD on July 8.
Her murder was unsolved when Kerry O’Kane began shooting her debut feature. In the interim, however, fans, friends and celebrities such as Joan Jett and Nirvana helped raise money to reopen the cold case. Mia’s death had reverberated throughout the music community, and Mia’s killer was brought to justice as the cameras rolled as the first case in Seattle solved by DNA samples.
"The Gits" - trailer is below - will be screened in the following cities:

Austin, TX. – 7/7/08 @ Alamo Draft House
Boston, MA. – 7/7/08 @ Newbury Comics
Columbia, MO. – 6/7/08 @ Ragtag Theater (Sneak Preview)
Denver, CO. – 7/4 – 10/08 @ Starz Film Center
Edmonton, AB, Canada – 7/27 – 7/31 @ Metro Cinema
Indianapolis, IN – 7/7/08 @ Greenbriar Cinema Grill
Los Angeles, CA. – 7/7/08 @ Echoplex
Louisville, KY – 6/5/08 @ Rudyard Kipling (Last Call Film Festival)
Louisville, KY – 7/7/08 @ Ear X-tacy
New York, NY – 7/4 – 7/10 @ Pioneer Theater
New York, NY – 7/7/08 @ The Delancy (After party – live performance)
Oakland, CA. – 7/5/08 @ Uptown Nightclub
Orlando, FL. – 7/7/08 @ Slingapours
Philadelhia, PA – 7/7/08 @ 941 Theater
Portland, OR – 7/4 – 7/10 @ Clinton Street Theater
Providence, RI – 7/7/08 @ As220
Sacramento, CA – 7/4 – 7/8 @ Movies on the Big Screen (600 4th St)
San Francisco, CA – 7/7/08 @ The Embarcadero
San Jose, CA – 7/5/08 @ The Blank Club
Seattle, WA – 7/4 – 7/10 @ Northwest Film Forum
Seattle WA – 7/7 @ Metro Cinema
Winnipeg, MB, Canada – 7/3 @ Big Smash

Jonathan Demme is taking over from Martin Scorsese as the director of an authorized Bob Marley documentary.
Docu is produced by the Marley family’s Tuff Gong Pictures and Steve Bing’s Shangri-La Entertainment and has a target release date of Feb. 6, 2010, the 65th anniversary of Marley's birth. Fortissimo Films is handling international sales.
Scorsese, who announced in February that the untitled pic would be the follow-up to his Rolling Stones concert pic “Shine a Light,” dropped out for scheduling reasons.
Demme has long history of music-related pics, chronicling the Talking Heads in “Stop Making Sense,” Robyn Hitchcock in “Storefront Hitchcock” and Neil Young in “Heart of Gold.” He is currently editing a new concert film, “Neil Young Trunk Show.”
“I am thrilled and humbled by this extraordinary opportunity to participate in fashioning a motion picture that can serve as a worthy vessel for the spiritual and musical brilliance of Bob Marley, who, most everybody agrees, is one of the greatest human beings of modern times,” Demme said in a statement.
Ziggy Marley, one of the film's executive producers, said: “His empathy with my father's body of work and his unique understanding of the musical documentary form makes me confident that this film will be the ultimate celebration of my fathers' life."
Jonathan Demme recently completed post-production on his upcoming Sony Pictures Classics release “Rachel Getting Married.”

First coal miners, then the Dixie Chicks and now, what else, teen-age Texas thesps.
Barbara Kopple, with two Oscars for her docs, follows a student/teacher theater company called H20  in Fort Worth, Texas, in  "High School Musical:  The Music in You," which will air as  12 interstitials premiering every Saturday, beginning this week on Disney Channel.
It culminates Jan. 20 in a half-hour documusical featuring opening night of the H2O production of Disney's "High School Musical," on Disney Channel. "The Music in You" is presented in association with the NAMM Foundation.
Program is result of Disney's High School Musical School Grant Program, an initiative that allows for middle and high schools across the U.S. to apply for a grant to cover all licensing costs associated with producing their own in-school stage show.