Review: Bibliophiles Will Get Lost In the Nostalgia, Promise of The Booksellers
As author Fran Lebowitz reminds us in the terrific new documentary The Booksellers, there was a time not so long ago when, if you had an hour to kill in […]
Review: Slay the Dragon Channels the Political Drama, Intrigue Around Gerrymandering
Quite often, documentaries built around political themes have a long list of grievances but not a lot when it comes to solutions to the multitude problems being presented. The compelling […]
Review: Oscar Nominated Short Documentaries Chronicle Life’s Hardest, Most Meaningful Moments
If you plan to see the Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts Program, now playing at the Music Box Theatre, keep in mind that all five films are presented as a single […]
Review: We Believe in Dinosaurs Details the Fight Over Creationist “Ark Park” in Kentucky
We Believe in Dinosaurs is the title of the handsomely made documentary feature directed by Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross, but it’s also a statement repeated by several of […]
Review: Citizen K Traces One Man’s Rise and Fall in Putin’s Russia
Perhaps one of his more complicated and layered profile documentaries, the latest from filmmaker Alex Gibney (an Oscar winner for Tales to the Dark Side), Citizen K explores the bizarre […]
Review: Renegade Emergency Medical Service Drives Midnight Family
Although it didn’t make the cut as an Academy Award nominee earlier this week, the documentary feature Midnight Family did make the 15-title Oscar shortlist, and for very good reason. […]
Review: On One Critic’s Life, Words and Influence on Film in What She Said
It seems odd to be reviewing a documentary about a film critic whose influence is still a big part of the critical landscape, in the same way it was surreal […]
Review: Dance, Film and History Intertwine Beautifully in Cunningham
Merce Cunningham died in 2009 at the age of 90, and in his decades-long career as a dancer and choreographer, he redefined American modern dance as we know it. Fond […]
2019 in Review: Best Documentary Films of the Year
The reason I separate out documentaries into their own Best of the Year list is not because I feel they should be judged differently than feature films, but because I […]
Review: With 63 Up, a Documentary Film Series Looks Back on Life
In 1964, filmmaker Michael Apted was in his early 20s and working as a researcher on a project called Seven Up!, a sort of experiment in documentary filmmaking that interviewed […]
Review: American Dharma Doesn’t Offer Any New Insight into Steve Bannon’s Dangerous Political Influence
It’s true for all of us, to one degree or another, that we exist in a sort of information bubble when it comes to news, politics, current events and more. […]
Review: The Planet Enters a New, Uncertain Era in Anthropocene: The Human Epoch
As difficult as it is to imagine, the Earth’s condition—both in terms of climate and physical characteristics—is not more a result of human shaping and interference than forces of nature. […]