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During his time in New York City in the 1980s, he immersed himself in the city's revival cinemas and leveraged his film knowledge to serve as Executive Producer of MGM's classic documentary, "That's Entertainment! III." He later directed acclaimed archival film documentaries for VHS, such as "Midnight Cowboy Revisited" and "West Side Stories."
Fitzgerald's expertise in cinema-related documentaries continued as he joined Turner Classic Movies, where he created popular features like "Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star", "Destination Hitchcock: The Making-of North By Northwest" and "The Age of Believing: The Disney Live Action Classics." His work garnered critical acclaim and led him to Warner Bros., where he produced dozens of cinema-related documentary special features for home video.
In addition to his filmmaking career, Fitzgerald has shared his knowledge as an educator, teaching documentary production at the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. He has been dedicated to creating documentary projects focused on the LGBTQ+ experience, with his films earning recognition and accolades at international film festivals.
Fitzgerald's recent works include "Beyond Mr. Smith," a documentary about gay Beyond Baroque founder George Drury Smith, which won Best Documentary Short Subject at the Amsterdam International Film Festival. His most recent film, "Butch Please," explores gay masculinity at the 2019 International Mr. Leather convention and received acclaim, including winning Best Documentary Short at the Cinekink Film Festival in 2022.
Ratings
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Reviews
The Movies That Made Us (2019)
Good Title, Bad Execution
This four part documentary series falls far short of any standard for the genre. Why Netflix chose to have a stand up comedy director helm the project is a real head scratcher. The result is a syrupy, obvious ratings grab on crowdpleasers that don't stand the test of time. Missing are some of the big stars to boot.
The Mortified Guide (2018)
Worst episode: "Growing Up Gay"
WTF are the show runners thinking using the straight guy, 'Pete' talking about his father having AIDS when this had nothing to do with growing up gay? Opportunity Lost Netflix! Homophobia nears its ugly head again.
Score: A Film Music Documentary (2016)
Fine, if you're only interested in film scores from 1960 to the present.
This well made documentary focuses on only half of the story, and the eras it celebrates are so hyper-reverential toward John Williams and a few others that it becomes one of those "Hollywood scratches its own back" movies. There's a staggering overabundance of minutiae on current methods and the middling films the composers are working on at the time of their interviews - and it gets boring.
Filmmaker Matt Schrader skips from silent films over the most important film composers and arrangers of the 1930's, 40's and 50's - the same composers that the current crop stand on the shoulders of often without knowing it.
Schrader's greatest sin is that he barely touches on Alfred Newman and Max Frickin' Steiner, only brushes on Bernard Herrmann and then TOTALLY forgets to illustrate the genius of the MGM sound (Johnny Green, Saul Chaplin, Miklos Rosa, Alexander Courage to name only a few.) Also, MGM nee Sony's Stage One recording stage - still one of the greatest ever.
Then there's Paramount, RKO, all of the Warner Bros. composers that go unmentioned and uncelebrated. This HUGE gap in the story of the film composers is evidence that Schrader was pandering to his heroes and showing his limited knowledge of the subject matter in the long view.
Without the inclusion of the heart of the story, this movie gets a 5.
Schrader - DO YOUR HOMEWORK!