Anticipating the centennial of the Tulsa race riots and massacre in 1921, Dawn Porter wanted to do more that remember that criminally ignored chapter in American history. The resulting documentary, RISE AGAIN: TULSA AND THE RED SUMMER, recounts a part of our history that had, similarly, been ignored by all but the survivors, and their… Read More »
BREWMANCE
There could have been no better way for Christo Brock to start BREWMANCE, his documentary love letter to craft beer, than with Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Company. It’s not just that he pioneered craft beer as a commercial venture, and that he was so passionate about it that he personally canvassed bars, sometimes… Read More »
FRANCESCO
Click here to listen to the flashback interview with Evgeny Afineevsky for CRIES FROM SYRIA. FRANCESCO can be classified as a hagiography of Pope Frances. Certainly, what Evgeny Afineevsky shows us of His Holiness is a man of great faith and great, notably ecumenical, compassion. Even when Frances makes a blunder about the sexual abuse… Read More »
A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX
By the end of Rodney Ascher’s A GLITCH IN THE MATIX, you may well be questioning the definition of reality. That, of course, is part of his point. Bur far from a light-hearted romp about the fringe-ish theories that posit our living in a computer simulation, Ascher is interested in more than the Mandela Effect,… Read More »
ALABAMA SNAKE
Filmmaker Theo Love wisely begins ALABAMA SNAKE with the only part of this lurid tale of religion, sex, and booze that is not in dispute. That would be when two paramedics drive down a dark country road, on October 4, 1991, sirens and flashing lights off, only to find Darlene Summerford stumbling towards them, clutching… Read More »
BELUSHI
Click here for the flashback interview with RJ Cutler for THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE. Early on in R.J. Cutler’s documentary, BELUSHI, Harold Ramis talks about John Belushi’s enormous appetites for everything. It would be his downfall, the appetite for drugs, that is, but Cutler smartly focuses on the other appetites, the enormous ambition, and also the… Read More »
TRUTH IS THE ONLY CLIENT: THE OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION OF THE MURDER OF JOHN F. KENNEDY
Full disclosure. I spend every November 22nd watching Oliver Stone’s JFK. Partly because it is so visually arresting, partly for the compelling story, and partly for the nostalgia I have for my childhood home of New Orleans. It doesn’t matter that I knew even before first seeing it that Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner in full… Read More »
J.R. ‘BOB’ DOBBS AND THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS
Though J.R. ‘BOB’ DOBBS AND THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS throws in that now infamous quote from L. Ron Hubbard, the one about how the real money is in starting a religion not writing science fiction, this (mostly) playful, always thoughtful documentary is an unusual cautionary tale, but not for the usual reasons. Yes, it’s… Read More »
THE GLORIAS
Click here for the flashback interview with Julianne Moore for FREEHELD. Julie Taymor, a visionary director if there ever was one, has done more than merely work around the inherent artificiality of the cinematic biopic. Rather, she has used it to excellent advantage in THE GLORIAS, a consideration of the life, and political education, of… Read More »
THE WAY I SEE IT
The canny undercurrent of Dawn Porter’s documentary THE WAY I SEE IT, about White House photographer Pete Souza, is a consideration of the free press in an era when “fake news” has become a catch phrase for those who see journalists as the enemy of the people. It’s equally canny in the way it contrasts… Read More »
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