The recent U.S. involvement in Iraq has become one of the biggest subjects for documentaries in the past few years, and it's hard not to feel weary of watching the variety of movies on this topic, no matter how varied and original they might be. Phil Donahue has contributed to the genre with Body of War, a documentary he co-directed with Austin filmmaker Ellen Spiro (Troop 1500). The movie focuses on the effect that the U.S. conflict in Iraq has had on a single soldier.

Body of War combines two threads of narrative. The first thread follows Tomas Young, who enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 13, 2001 as a reaction to the events of Sept. 11. He ends up being deployed to Iraq, and after only a few days in combat is injured -- a spinal injury. He's paralyzed below the chest and is confined to a wheelchair. Tomas, his bride-to-be and his mom all have to get used to dealing with his range of physical problems as a result of this injury: not only can't he walk, but he's on an ever-changing variety of medications, he can't control his body temperature, he vomits frequently, and experiences sexual difficulties. Meanwhile, his experiences have made him passionately anti-war, and he visits Cindy Sheehan's compound in Crawford, Texas, travels to the offices of several politicians, and speaks out frequently in public.

Documentary filmmakers deserve much more love and attention than they receive. One way to get more attention is to make the list of 15 documentaries short-listed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Variety has this year's list and cites three Iraq War-themed films as being "center stage": Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro's Body of War, Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight (which Cinematical's Kim Voynar gave high marks when it played at Sundance) and Richard Robbins' Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience.

Kim is a self-styled "documentary dork" -- her words, not mine -- and wrote a column two months ago about films she thought "have (or ought to have) a shot at Oscar gold." She included No End in Sight, as well as the following docs that all made the short list: Sean Fine and Andrea Nix-Fine's War/Dance, Michael Moore's Sicko, Daniel Karslake's For the Bible Tells Me So, and Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's Nanking. Kim was pulling for Logan Smalley's Darius Goes West, which sadly did not make the list. Other notable exclusions included David Singleton's In the Shadow of the Moon and Seth Gordon's The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.

Here are the remaining eight that did make the list. First, the ones we've covered so far: Tony Kaye's Lake of Fire, Richard Berge and Bonni Cohen's The Rape of Europa, Weijun Chen's Please Vote for Me and Peter Raymont's A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman. Next, the ones we haven't seen yet: Steven Okazaki's White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which has played on HBO), Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side (due for release in January), Bill Haney's The Price of Sugar and Tricia Regan's Autism: The Musical.

Now the Academy's Documentary Branch will review the 15 films and narrow the list still further to the final five nominees, which will be announced on January 22.

Hey, did you know that Cinematical's indie film content is on its own site now? If you're looking for news, reviews and interviews related to independent film, Cinematical Indie is where you'll find it. We're adding some new features to the Cinematical Indie, including a regular Indie Film Calendar with news of what's going on with indie film in your area. If you have news about screenings of indie films, indie films being shot in your town, inside scoops on casting, or anything else indie-related, send all your tips to kim(at)cinematical(dot)com and we'll get you covered!

Meantime, here's what's been going on over at Cinematical Indie lately:

• Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang passed away at the age of 59. Film journalists from all over wrote tributes to this filmmaker, who's work was vastly under-appreciated by American audiences. This weekend, why not rent Yang's most well-known film, Yi-yi, which won the director Best Director at Cannes in 2000. Yang never completed another feature; he was diagnosed with colon cancer shortly after winning at Cannes. Maybe now his work will finally be more well-known here in America.
• If you're looking for more DVDs to fill up your weekend movie-watching, Peter Martin (who, as you may have noticed, recently joined the team here at Cinematical Indie) has a solid roundup of the latest indie flicks coming out on DVD.
• Fans of the Matt Dillon-starrer Factotum, based on the book by Charles Bukowski, will be glad to know that director Bent Hamer has a new film in the works in his native Norway. The film, called O'Horten, is about a train engine driver named Odd Horten (played by Bård Owe), and it's likely to hit the fest circuit next year.
• Actor/environmentalist/friend-of-Al-Gore Leonardo DiCaprio has been busy promoting the film The Eleventh Hour, which he produced and also narrates. Leo showed up doing the intro for the film's trailer, which is up on the official MySpace page for the film.
• If you've wondered lately what former talk-show host Phil Donahue's been up to (and hey, who hasn't?) you'll be thrilled to your toes to know that he's directing a documentary about Iraq (there just haven't been enough of those lately, have there?) This one, titled Body of War, does take a different angle -- Donahue criticizes not just the Republicans on the war issue, but goes after the Dems, too.
• Also: New details about Young Victoria, Michael Moore takes on Wolf Blitzer and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Once Upon a Time in Seoul promises some action, and the Edinburgh Film Fest announces its lineup.

Last November, when I brought news about Phil Donahue's directorial debut as a documentary filmmaker, there wasn't much known. We learned that it was focused on a paralyzed Iraq War vet named Tomas Young, that Donahue was financing it himself and that any profits would go to charity and to Young, and that he still had a lot to do before the film would be finished. It seems to be done, though, now. The former talk show host has been screening the doc, which he co-directed with Ellen Spiro (Troop 1500), in his Manhattan apartment, for a number of acquisitions execs from various distributors.

The film now has a title: Body of War (which sounds to me a little too close to Lord of War). It also has newly confirmed controversial subject matter: it criticizes many Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton, for their support of the Iraq War. Reportedly only one Democrat, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, is okay in Donahue's book. Body of War will feature a soundtrack of new music from Eddie Vedder that he wrote specifically for the film. Contrary to what I had predicted, it does not feature Donahue on camera in Michael Moore fashion. Donahue is hoping for a wide theatrical release, though the execs seem to be more interested in a smaller scale. Already the film has been accepted to one of this fall's prestigious film festivals, though it isn't known which -- possibly either Toronto or Venice -- so we'll probably see how it is received publicly before we hear about any concrete distribution plans.

There is no single superior format when it comes to documenting an issue. Non-fiction films have the advantage over fiction films in that they can give either a general overview, often with a sense of omniscience, or they can give a specific, personal study. Occasionally they can even provide a combined method. On a subject like Iraq War vets, both formats are necessary and effective. I will say, however, that I often prefer the broader documentaries, because with the narrower single-subject take I'm left wondering about the many other individuals. With technological accessibility what it is today, perhaps every Iraq War vet could get their own documentary -- but would this be at all sensible?

One vet is getting his own film thanks to garnering the attention of former talk-show host Phil Donahue. Tomas Young, a 24-year-old from Kansas City returned from the Iraq War paralyzed from the nipples down after being shot on his fourth day in country. Donahue, who believes his MSNBC show was canceled in 2003 because of his opposition to the war, met Young in 2004 while visiting Walter Reed Hospital with his friend Ralph Nader. Seeing as how he was then unemployed, he decided to shoot a documentary about the soldier. It is easy to imagine, too, that Donahue is making it for his own reasons, seeing it as his only outlet to speak out against the war and the media's mishandled coverage of it. However, he won't make any money off the film; he plans to donate any profits from the self-funded documentary to his wife's charity, St. Jude Hospital, and to Young.