Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon‘s Best of Enemies (Magnolia), one of the year’s finest docs and one of my hands-down faves during last January’s Sundance Film Festival, will open on 7.15. On one level a spry, highly intelligent history of the ABC TV debates between William F. Buckley, Jr. and Gore Vidal during the Democratic and Republic national conventions of ’68. On another level a capturing of a time and a pre-Fox News political climate that no longer exists — even with the police riot on the Chicago streets and the acrimony that eventually engulfed Buckley when he lost his temper and called Vidal a “queer”, the summer of ’68 was nonetheless a time of relative civility when it came to right-left disputes. And yet the debates were also a harbinger of the culture wars that began…when, during the Nixon administration? I’m hoping to see this again and sit down with Neville (director of the Oscar-winning 20 Feet From Stardom) before it opens.