The Queen of Versailles
The Queen of Versailles depicts a train wreck. Not an actual train wreck, mind you; It’s actually about a family struggling through the 2008 financial crisis. But it’s as horrifying as the most...
View ArticleEscape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare
Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare has the power to enlighten and frighten. It’s a compelling call to action for a nation that’s wasting its potential. It’s arguments are based on...
View ArticleHow to Survive a Plague
How to Survive a Plague gets its title from the film’s standout moment, near its midpoint, when AIDS activist and writer Larry Kramer shouts down two quarreling activists with one word: “PLAGUE!” “40...
View ArticleSearching for Sugar Man
Searching for Sugar Man definitely contains elements of mystery, and it represents the concert documentary well, but more than anything, this incredible film shows the power of the human interest...
View ArticleDetropia
If the 1920s were the best of times for the city of Detroit, Michigan, the late 2000s were absolutely the worst of times. Detropia, a marvelous documentary by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, isn’t...
View ArticleRoom 237
It’d be hard for a cinephile to not find at least something enjoyable in Rodney Ascher’s new documentary Room 237. The film is a deep dive into Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining—arguably the strangest...
View ArticleOxyana Review
Drug addiction, particularly to prescription pain medication like OxyContin, has become so commonplace in Oceana, West Virginia that its residents simply refer to it as “Oxyana.” This also serves as...
View ArticleState 194 Review
An almost impossibly hopeful film, Dan Setton’s State 194 dissects the current state of the Israel-Palestine conflict with thoroughness and care. And while those versed in the intricacies of this...
View ArticleEvocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie Review
“Is this a passing fancy or is this in front of the wave?” Former Today Show host Bryant Gumbel asked this of rabble-rouser extraordinaire Morton Downey Jr. sometime during his meteoric rise to the top...
View ArticleWe Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks Review
Like most of prolific director Alex Gibney‘s documentaries, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks is serious-minded, but breezy and easily digested—it deserves much more than simply being called...
View ArticleCall Me Kuchu Review
RATING: ***½ (3.5/4) (3.5 STARS) There’s courage, and then there’s what the men and women at the center of Call Me Kuchu display. This exceptional documentary, from directors Katherine Fairfax Wright...
View ArticleDirty Wars Review
RATING: **** (4/4) (4 STARS) Dirty Wars is a devastating experience. It’s a film that chews up your hopeful, idealistic illusions regarding American leadership, spits them out, and leaves a...
View ArticleBlackfish Review
RATING: ***½ (3.5/4) (3.5 STARS) Blackfish does everything a good documentary should. It’s enlightening and thorough. It engages your emotions. And it follows the most important rule of...
View ArticleRunning From Crazy Review
RATING: ***~ (3/4) (3 STARS) Early on in Barbara Kopple‘s latest documentary, Running From Crazy, actress Mariel Hemingway takes the podium to speak at an event promoting suicide prevention. She...
View ArticleAfter Tiller Review
RATING: ***½ (3.5/4) (3.5 STARS) There are few topics—hell, there are few words—out there that engender as much debate and blind passion as abortion. But if we can’t have a reasoned, level-headed...
View ArticleMuscle Shoals Review
RATING: **** (4/4) (4 STARS) “It’s like the songs come out of the mud.” That’s Bono, trying to explain how a small Alabama town of 8,000—the titular town of Greg ‘Freddy’ Camalier’s documentary—could...
View ArticleMan with a Movie Camera
I’ve begun writing a column for Sound on Sight called “Essential Docs.” It’s exactly what you think it is—a discussion of non-fiction movies, specifically the films that have endured as cultural and...
View ArticleHearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse
In my latest Essential Docs piece for Sound on Sight, I took a look at the making-of-Apocalypse-Now documentary Hearts of Darkness and the trouble with chasing absolute truth through one’s art. It’s a...
View ArticleMitt Review
RATING: ***~ (3/4) (3 STARS) Though it’s chronicling years of recent Republican political history, Mitt is a mostly apolitical film, and certainly, the lessons one takes away from the film (which is...
View ArticleKids for Cash Review
RATING: ***~ (3/4) (3 STARS) For the uninitiated, the “Kids for Cash” judicial scandal took place over a period of about ten years, from the late 1990s to the late 2000s. In Luzerne County,...
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