154 Best Releases From the Genre Documentary (Page 3)

Ryan White’s Good Night Oppy is a documentary about one of the technological marvels of our time, but it's less interested in science than its subject matter would suggest. It throws several elements into its mix—archival footage, contemporary talking-head interviews, voiceover narration from a big star (Angela Bassett in this case), and long sections of CGI recreations of moments not caught on camera. But instead of using them to edify viewers about the genuinely amazing accomplishments being achieved (the kind that might encourage younger viewers to get interested in science), White seems more inclined to deploy them in a manner meant to suggest a (mostly) live-action version of a Pixar film.  Continue Reading →

Patricio Guzman directs the rare political documentary that leaves viewers with a bit of optimism. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival) From his landmark three-part work The Battle of Chile to the recent The Cordillera of Dreams, documentarian Patricio Guzman has made the subject of political unrest in South America, primarily regarding the 1973 coup d’etat in his home country of Chile, the central focus of his work. His latest film, My Imaginary Country, is yet another project along those lines, but viewers expecting more of the same may be as surprised as Guzman clearly was to discover that while the images of chaos captured here may appear to be more of the same, there is something different in the air that suggests something new and hopeful is unfolding as well. Continue Reading →

In the unforgettable Looney Tunes cartoon Duck Amuck, director Chuck Jones posits a question to the viewer. What is Daffy Duck? Are his qualities recognizable even if he was in a different body? Entirely invisible? The various visual manifestations of this fowl, complete with a consistent personality emanating from the character’s voicework and body language, make it clear that Daffy Duck is more than just one physical vessel. He transcends form. Continue Reading →

Sébastien Lifshitz directs a tender but incomplete documentary about a New York State sanctuary for trans people seeking safety & understanding. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival) Nestled in the arbors of the Catskills sits an ordinary house. Next to it is a brown box barn.  Dilapidated cabins dot the rest of the land. Driving by, you’d never know that over 60 years ago, this mundane property was a sanctuary for ‘trans-’ folks. Continue Reading →

No one mistakes HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Los Angeles Lakers for a 30 For 30 documentary. So why does that series feel more authentic to the Golden Era of professional basketball, and the team that helped elevate the NBA into an American pastime, than a ten-hour documentary about the Lakers? Continue Reading →

Ladies, sometimes life deals you a rough hand. Sometimes, in the blink of an eye, you can lose someone or something infinitely precious to you. Grief is so easy to slip into, it’s hard to pull yourself out of that darkness, but you know what will help? Spelunking. Or maybe ocean kayaking. Or, in the case of director Scott Mann’s Fall, climbing a 2000+ foot tv tower in the hopes that doing so will help to push through the horrifying memory of your husband’s death in a climbing accident.   Continue Reading →

What would you do if you discovered your spouse was sexually abusing your child? Most people would divorce their partner and take them to court so they can answer for their crimes. If you have evidence, it seems like a clear-cut choice from the judge to give you full custody of your child and ensure that the abusive parent is no longer in their life. Continue Reading →

It's fitting, really, that this year's Sundance Film Festival -- one originally planned as a hybrid festival only to go fully online due to rising COVID numbers -- was the venue by which Joe Hunting's documentary We Met in Virtual Reality premiered. After all, it's a slice-of-life doc created (and filmed) entirely online, capturing the lives, joys, and heartaches of an inviting cross-section of people who live much of their social lives on the virtual reality platform VRChat. Continue Reading →

If you were ever the same kind of pretentious twerp as I was, you likely went through a phrase sometime in your teens or early 20s when you daydreamed about visiting New York City’s Hotel Chelsea, a bohemian Emerald City that housed everyone from Dylan Thomas to members of the Beat Generation to Andy Warhol to Joni Mitchell to Leonard Cohen. It wasn’t just that many of the most fascinating, iconic artists of the 20th century stayed at the Chelsea, but that they did some of their best work there, as if there was some sort of inspirational magic in the walls. Continue Reading →

In 2015, documentarian Todd Schramke began following a group of anarchists led by Jeff Berwick, who soon became an online personality pushing non-traditional, to say the least, ideas. Berwick, an entrepreneur-turned-libertarian-turned-cryptoinvestor, fell in love with this idea of anarchy, the decentralization of banking, the unschooling movement, and most essentially, with Acapulco, Mexico. Schramke followed Berwick and his growing crowd of supporters for the following six years, and HBO’s The Anarchists resulted from that half-decade of time spent. With endless footage and dozens of big personalities, Schramke armed himself to weave a great story, only to end up telling one that feels oddly--and awfully--ordinary.   Continue Reading →

v Katia Conrad and Maurice Krafft grew up in Alsace, France and fell in love at nearly the exact same time, twice over. First, they fell in love with volcanoes, and then they fell in love with each other. Sara Dosa’s new documentary about the power couple volcanologists, Fire of Love uses Dosa’s exquisite prose, the Kraffts' own footage, and Miranda July’s narration to bring their love to life on screen.  Continue Reading →

Jed Rothstein's mostly-conventional musical doc tries to lampoon the disgraced Trump lackey, but can't do either particularly well. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.) Face it: If one were to set out to look at the rise and fall of Rudy Giuliani through the prism of a particular theatrical form, they might logically look towards Shakespearian drama or even Greek tragedy as a way to properly encapsulate his journey from fearless Mafia prosecutor to America’s Mayor to his current position as an addled laughingstock who has seemingly forsaken everything that he once claimed to represent in his unceasing desire for power.  Continue Reading →

Alexandre O. Phillippe's latest essay film shows the links between the Hollywood classic and Hollywood's greatest weirdo. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.) When David Lynch’s twisted road movie Wild at Heart was released in 1990, many observers commented on the number of references to The Wizard of Oz that he worked throughout the picture, right down to a last-minute appearance by none other than Glinda the Good Witch herself. At the time, this was written off by many as just one more peculiarity in a film filled with them. Continue Reading →

Nausheen Dadabhoy explores a wide array of Muslim-American experiences in this overstuffed, but impactful documentary. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.) The documentary An Act of Worship opens with a group of Muslim women gathered in a small room. The space may be cramped, but this environment still seems freeing, since it’s being used for a meeting where everywhere can be open about their lives. Here, they can speak freely on the ways in which Islamophobia impacts their lives. Instructions come for the women to write down one specific way intolerance has adversely impacted their lives in America. Continue Reading →

This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Continue Reading →

This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Continue Reading →

The newly restored Jigsaw & Dementia are equally stylish, but the superior Dementia places its victim at the forefront KinoKultur is a thematic exploration of the queer, camp, weird, and radical releases Kino Lorber has to offer. Recently restored by Cohen Media Group and Kino Lorber, two mid-century British “noirs” attempt to hold a magnifying glass to the precarious position of women in society. Yet, whereas Jigsaw (1960) is a fairly standard detective drama that rarely succeeds in giving justice to its central victim, Dementia (1955) is an experimental psychodrama that offers a more evocative experience. Continue Reading →

This review is also a story about my father. Please indulge me for a moment. Continue Reading →

If you’re not a skateboarding fan, you’ll likely only be aware that Tony Hawk exists, rather than anything specific about his life or accomplishments. Maybe you’ll know there’s a bunch of video games named for him, or that he appeared in a Police Academy movie. But the fact that you’ve heard of him, even if you wouldn’t know a quad deck from a cheese sandwich, speaks volumes about both his impact, and his role in bringing mainstream respect to a sport once dismissed as a pastime for bored kids and delinquents. Continue Reading →

Andrea Arnold has always been a tactile filmmaker. Since her 2003 Oscar-winning short film, Wasp, Arnold can make us taste, smell and hear everything through her protagonists, typically women trapped in socio-economic situations they can’t escape.  Continue Reading →

The @OnePerfectShot Twitter account, bought in 2016 by Film School Rejects, has over 680,000 followers. It has become synonymous with Film Twitter, a subset of the app’s users that are dedicated, for better and worse, to the cinema of past and present, along with all of the awards and critical consensus in-between. I’m one of those 680,000 followers, and a big fan of the account for its dedication to spotlighting both obscure and blockbuster films, known and unknown directors, while highlighting unhonored cinematographers, editors, and production designers.  Continue Reading →