In recent months, the film press has been publishing gloomy articles about the state of distribution. The reasoning behind those pieces has been challenged by AJ Schnack on his blog All These Wonderful Things. (TIFF goers will recall AJ's great doc Kurt Cobain  About a Son from 2006, pictured above). But the fact remains that docs can use some fresh ideas in their marketing. Today, Indiewire is reporting on an interesting partnership between Nike and the film Beautiful Losers which premiered at SXSW. Over the next month, Doc Blog will be reporting about other documentaries that are taking unusual paths to distribution.