Film Odyssey Recognition
Cinema’s Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood
“TCM has stolen some of PBS’ thunder as a sober chronicler of movie history but when it comes to exhibiting an appreciation for film history, the more the merrier. As such, “Cinema’s Exiles” is a first-class way to ring in the new year.”
–Variety, December 31, 2008
FESTIVALS: Atlanta Jewish Film Festival; Toronto Jewish Film Festival
Isaac Stern: Life’s Virtuoso
“You’d expect a documentary on violinist Isaac Stern to be full of great playing and ringing testimonials from his music colleagues. “Isaac Stern: Life’s Virtuoso” … is all that. But it’s so much more…..
–LA Times, April 2000
“It can’t be an easy task to fit this great musician and humanitarian’s nearly 80 years of life into a one-hour documentary. But with “Isaac Stern: Life’s Virtuoso,” producer-director-writer Karen Kinzer Thomas has done more than scratch her subject’s surface. She’s captured all the joy he finds … in music as well as life.”
–Boston Herald, April 2000
In “Isaac Stern: Life’s Virtuoso”, much more is conveyed than just Stern’s career. His passion for music, justice and understanding come through as clearly as a soloist above the orchestra.”
–Arizona Republic, April 2000.
“A fascinating documentary that says as much about the maestro’s creative process as it does about his history.”
–The Christian Science Monitor, 2000.
Robert Rauschenberg: Inventive Genius
“Unlike many documentaries that seem to be largely collections of talking heads, this one includes much footage on the making of art.”
–Patricia Brennan, The Washington Post, 1999
AWARDS: US International Film and Video Festival, Dallas Video Festival, Flagstaff International Film Festival
The GI Bill: The Law That Changed America
“The G.I. Bill: the Law That Changed America” … [is] the most useful and fascinating kind of history lesson, told with imagination and quiet flair.
–Ken Ringle, The Washington Post, 1997
“The G.I. Bill: the Law that Changed America” tells that heartening story mainly through the experiences of its beneficiaries, young Americans who grew up in the Depression, with no prospects beyond dead-end jobs, much less dreams of college diplomas, and suddenly found a world of opportunity opened to them.
–Walter Goodman, The New York Times, 1999
Edgar Allen Poe: Terror of the Soul
“Filmmakers have attempted to capture [Edgar Allen Poe’s] spellbinding works in their medium, but surprisingly, comprehensive filmed versions of the tragic life of Edgar Allan Poe have been a rarity. Edgar Allen Poe: Terror of the Soul is arguably the most ambitious film biography of this master of mystery and the macabre to date — a subject whose personal history was every bit as gothic as some of his best-loved stories.
–Metro Herald, March 1995.
Washington National Cathedral
“ Washington National Cathedral is — at its best — stirring, enlightening and uplifting. You can’t ask television to do much more.”
–The News & Observer, June 30, 1993
“There’s no substitute for seeing a place with your own eyes, but the one-hour documentary “Washington National Cathedral”… goes some places where you can’t and reveals much in doing so….Producer Karen Thomas’ film elegantly interweaves the history of the making of a church with the stories of the people who helped make it — in the physical and spiritual senses.
–The Washington Times, June 1993
“The documentary is eloquent in the power of its images.
–The Washington Times, June 1993
The Dinosaurs!
AWARDS: The Parents Award, 1992
Search and Seizure: The Supreme Court and the Police
“Narrated by Roger Mudd, Search and Seizure: The Supreme Court and the Police … takes a thoughtful and balanced look at the history of the Fourth Amendment and explores how changing interpretations of it have affected police work through the years. “
–LA Times, October 1992
“The… viewers should be able to agree that the producers of Search and Seizure have seized the opportunity to do a searching report on an issue that touches all Americans.”
–Walter Goodman, The New York Times, 1992
The Supreme Court’s Holy Battles
… an exceptionally lucid television account of the tug-of-war between church and state, the most abidingly contentious issue before the court for many years.
–The Washington Post, September 1989
“Skillfully using 18th century art, music and settings, Mr. Mudd takes viewers back to the Revolutionary period, where the seeds of this conflict were sown.
–The Washington Times, September 1989.
Herman Melville, Damned in Paradise
“It is a program that seriously, and with considerable care for the most attractive television technique, educates those of us whose knowledge is fragmentary of dim about the great American author of “Moby Dick” and other works. We learn of his life and writing through beautiful [photography and the comments of the finest scholars. If education is the gaining of understanding, this is educational television at its best.
–The New York Times, May 1985
“What’s that? It’s good for me? So is liver, but that doesn’t mean I have to swallow it. Excuse me? It’s entertaining? It’s fascinating? It’s fun to watch? … Yes, it’s true. Damned in Paradise is a wonderful documentary about that most elusive of subjects, the written word. It’s wonderful… “
–David Bianculli, The Philadelphia Inquirer, May, 1985
Power and Prejudice in America
“Much of the one-hour special narrated by “MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour” correspondent Judy Woodruff, takes place in Quitman County, Miss., a poor Delta area where blacks make up 56 percent of the population. … In Quitman County, we see how prejudice operates, and it is a show that shouldn’t be missed.”
–Ronald. D White, The Washington Post, June 1984.
