Watch Now: ‘National Lampoon,’ ‘(T)ERROR,’ ‘How to Dance in Ohio’

    Eager to see a doc you missed at the festival? Excited to revisit your Full Frame favorites? We’re here with regular updates on which Full Frame films are coming to theaters, DVD/VOD, and the small screen.

    Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon
    Opened September 25

    The National Lampoon, founded in 1969 by Harvard graduates and Harvard Lampoon writers Doug Kenney and Henry Beard, was a monthly humor magazine that trafficked in bawdy irreverence — challenging authority and taste, pushing buttons and boundaries, all the while redefining satire and the American comic landscape. In lively interviews and captivating archival footage, director Douglas Tirola captures the history of the magazine’s heyday and demise with apt indulgence and wit, revealing the antiheroes of the antiestablishment. The film, which screened at Full Frame this year, rolls out theatrically this month. Check its website for details about its release, or watch it on demand, on Amazon Video, or on iTunes. A note of caution: Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, as befits its raunchy source material, contains more than a sprinkle of profanity (and breasts); this is a doc for grown-ups only.

    (T)ERROR
    Opening October 7 

    Filmmakers Lyric R. Cabral (recipient of Full Frame’s Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant in 2013) and David Felix Sutcliffe give us unprecedented access to a counterterrorism sting in (T)ERROR, going on the ground with longtime FBI informant Saeed “Shariff” Torres as he attempts to befriend, and seek evidence against, a Muslim target. Here, guided by phone calls and text messages from his FBI handler, a pressing presence always felt yet never seen, Torres’s questionable and potentially coercive tactics are on full display. Halfway through the film, however, Cabral and Sutcliffe radically shift focus, a twist that transforms (T)ERROR into a thrilling game of cat and mouse that speaks to the ethical murkiness of America’s war on terror. This urgent, powerful film premiered at Sundance in January, where it won a Special Jury Prize for Break out First Feature; it then went on to win Full Frame’s Grand Jury Award when it screened at the festival in April.

    How to Dance in Ohio
    Airing on HBO on October 26

    Talking to a crush, making new friends, navigating the turbulent transition to adulthood — these are challenges for any teenager. But for Marideth, Caroline, and Jessica, three young women on the autism spectrum, these social rites of passage are all the more daunting. In his heartrending and heartwarming coming-of-age film, director Alexandra Shiva follows the girls as they prepare for their first formal dance, hosted by their counseling center at a local club. Winner of the Audience Award at Full Frame 2015, How to Dance in Ohio sheds light on the challenges of human connection and the struggles and joys of being different. Catch this sweet, funny, touching film when it airs on HBO at the end of the month.