Directors · Documentaries · Interviews
Catching It All in Stride: An Interview with Ariel and Nev Schulman on Catfish
“We just followed the leads.”
Category: Documentaries
Catfish: A New Medium for a Motif
Note: this review discusses major plot points but doesn’t reveal the surprising turn. Much of what is discussed below can be found in the promotional material. Catfish opens in Philadelphia[…]
Documentaries · Experimental & Underground · Reviews
Hitchcock’s Shadow: On Johan Grimonprez’s Double Take
“The doubled Hitchcock mirrors the Hitchcock double, who in turn reflects Hitchcock pretending to play himself.”
Documentaries · Music & Musicals
Out of His Head: Vikram Jayanti’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector
“I’m dealing in rock ‘n’ roll. I’m, like, I’m not a bona fide human being.” — Phil Spector
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
Warsaw Doc Festival
The Miscreants of Taliwood, dir. George Gittoes Nénette, dir. Nicolas Philibert I recently spent a week at the Warsaw Documentary Film Festival. The two films that made the deepest impression[…]
Two in the Wave: Fathers of a Revolution
If any movement made cinema history into a reactionary narrative, it would be the French New Wave. A batch of cinephiles, most working as critics for Cahiers du Cinema (established[…]
Babies: A Nature Doc Starring Humans
From the outset, it seems to be a bold-faced cash-in culled from little investment. In Babies, a French-produced doc which got a surprisingly wide release this past weekend, we have[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Essays
Corn-Fed Culture: Living Large and “Eating Shit” in King Corn and Fast Food Nation
“The films analyzed here explore the (crude) question: what are the individual and social consequences of eating shit?”
Documentaries · Essays · Experimental & Underground
Los Angeles in Theory and Practice: Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself
“In a powerful and precise encomium, Andersen extols the virtues of what he deems to be a kind of homegrown neo-realism.”
Documentaries · Reviews · Writers & Critics
“Riveting”* — Not! Gerald Peary’s For the Love of Movies — The Story of American Film Criticism
Talking heads, talking of talking heads
Activist & Political · Documentaries
Troubled Waters: Crashing into The Cove
“To twist Gayatri Spivak’s famous phrase, it’s a case of (mostly) ‘white men saving cute dolphins from yellow men.'”
An Exit Through the Boundaries of Documentary
“Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism.” – Peter Steele (1962-2010) From here comes a rich smell drawn from a load of bullshit. And in no way am I demeaning the practice of street art by[…]
Counterculture · Directors · Documentaries · Interviews
Drawing from Life: Talking with Director George Hickenlooper
On Art, Identity, Families, Fragmentation, Medication . . . and Fulfillment
Documentaries · Music & Musicals
When Thelonious Met Pannonica: Hannah Rothschild’s The Jazz Baroness
“The Jazz Baroness goes beyond the barrel of stereotypes the screeching monkeys of society use against the intricate gusts of life swirling about us.” Really!
Documentaries · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Alan Turing, 1912-1954, 2009
Since we’re commemorating dire events today, here’s one from queer history worth noting. From today’s Guardian website: Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology last night on behalf of the government[…]
Actors & Personalities · Documentaries
“Just Another Man”: On James Toback’s Tyson
“Toback, to his credit, and despite the empathy he feels toward his subject, doesn’t pull his punches.”
Activist & Political · Documentaries
What Is Cheaper Than Nothing at All? Czech Dream, Culture Jamming, and Consumerism
“I jam because I am without ID.”
Liverpool Lullaby: On Terence Davies’ Of Time and the City
“Through cinema the past is regained.”
Actors & Personalities · Documentaries · Music & Musicals
It Ain’t Me Babe: On Dylan and Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There
I’m not the one you want babe / I’ll only let you down.”
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