Arriving on the 50th anniversary of its events, Freedom Riders is an account of those first months of the American Civil Rights movement, specifically Birmingham in 1961. Fresh off of 2 separate Supreme Court desegregation decisions that had been ignored by large swaths of the South, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized peaceful protests, [...]
Read More Bruce, documentary, DVD, Freedom RidersMarwencol is among the more fascinating documentaries I’ve seen in some time, and probably my favorite of still-young 2011. Its focus is Mark Hogancamp, who in 2000 was beaten to within an inch of his life by five young men outside of a bar in Kingston, NY. He awoke from a coma nine days later, [...]
Read More blu-ray, documentary, Jeff Malmberg, Marwencol, willEveryone has already told you to see Waiting for Superman. I’m not going to be any different. It was a heartfelt and moving foray into the crumbling American education system. Just because I say see it, don’t think I’m endorsing it as a “good” documentary.
Read More blu-ray, documentary, DVD, Noah, PG-, Waiting for SupermanExit Through the Gift Shop is a new documentary that is not about graffiti. Well, not really anyways. Exit Through the Gift Shop follows obsessive Frenchman, Thierry Guetta, starting the moment he picked up a camera for the first time, till now, where he is transformed from failed documentary filmmaker into failed street artist with [...]
Read More Banksy, comedy, documentary, DVD, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Jeremy, R, Thierry Guetta“How are you going to go back to the civilian world?” “I have no idea.” A documentary is not the gospel, yet they’re treated most times as absolute truth. Sadly, most historical dramatizations committed to film are treated this way. Witness Oliver Stone’s JFK. We feel that “fact” is presented before us on the screen, [...]
Read More blu-ray, documentary, DVD, R, Restrepo, warI wish I had the time to watch again The Doors (biopic) and read again No One Here Gets Out Alive (biography of The Doors). I could add to this review a comparison of these other treatments of the lives of Jim Morrison and the other Doors. But here’s my stand-alone review of When You’re [...]
Read More documentary, DVD, Jim Morrison, Johnny Depp, joyce, music, R, Robbie Krieger, The Doors, Tom DiCillo, When You're StrangeThe business of fashion, like the business of art or the music industry, is a shuck and jive. But this isn’t news and our reactions to these institutions are always the same. Where anything creative is involved, we’re jealous because we can’t do that and aren’t privy to the glamorous life that goes with it, [...]
Read More Anna Wintour, documentary, DVD, Grace Coddington, PG-13, The September Issue, VogueIn 2005 Werner Herzog made Grizzly Man about Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived among Alaskan grizzly bears and was ultimately killed by one. The kindest thing to say about Treadwell was that he was a lost soul who’d finally found his calling, but in the film he came across as needy and delusional, not [...]
Read More Colin Beavan, documentary, DVD, Erasmus Varnish, Michelle Conlin, No Impact Man, Not RatedLet’s say the electric guitar had never been invented. Pop music wouldn’t be the same. Would all the artists on the Billboard charts ‘lo these many decades have even existed? What colors would be missing from music if you take away how an electric guitar acts/responds through different amplifiers and effects? One answer is the [...]
Read More blu-ray, Bogglejester, David Guggenheim, documentary, DVD, It Might Get Loud, Jack White, Jimmy Page, music, PG-, The EdgeIt’s interesting that the word ‘rational’ is defined as “sensible, sane” or “endowed with reason,” but to put together a line of reasoning, to ‘rationalize’, means to offer an explanation that’s “plausible but wrong”. Shouldn’t taking action on something be an extension of its true meaning? The problem lies in that a “rationale” is a [...]
Read More documentary, DVD, Louis Psihoyos, PG-13, Ric O'Barry, The Cove, western boy