INVISIBLE BEAUTY – Documentary Review
Invisible Beauty is a thoroughly engaging autobiography documentary by and about Bethann Hardison, the Black fashion model, modeling agency owner and activist who challenged racist attitudes and practices in the fashion industry and changed ‘the look’ of runway shows, magazine spreads and other platforms for fashion marketing.
Read MoreJOYCE CAROL OATES: A BODY IN SERVICE OF MIND – Documentary Review
Filmmaker Stig Bjorkman. a longstanding friend of Joyce Carol Oates. gives us a respectful and intimate documentary that spends its hour and a half on current interviews with Oates, as well as clips from her past interviews with Dick Cavitt and other broadcast presenters and select readings from her writings that are voiced by Laura […]
Read MoreBELLA! – Documentary Review
Bella! And, yes, be sure to include the exclamation point in the film’s title because the subject of Jeff L. Leiberman’s well researched and beautifully crafted documentary deserves emphatic punctuation. Bella Abzug (1920-1998) was a champion of civil rights for women in every aspect of our lives. She was the feminist activist politician who fought fiercely to enact laws to establish and protect equity in the workplace, in government representation, in family matters — all of the women’s civil rights that we are now at such high risk of losing in our nation’s current regressive climate.
Read MoreSUSIE SEARCHES – Movie Review
Susie Searches is an enjoyably affable coming of age thriller about a teenage girl who is known for her uncanny ability to solve seemingly unsolvable crimes, and who shares the details of her her super sleuth searches and suspicions on her popular podcast. She’s also determined to further investigations by the local sheriff’s office where she is an intern. But, up close and personal, Susie is actually rather shy and, wrapped up in the coming of age issues of self esteem and teenage sexual curiosity, she hides her vulnerability behind a smile that shines through aqua-colored braces.
Read MoreWAR PONY – Movie Review
War Pony is an exquisite narrative feature from first time directors Gina Gammell and Riley Keough. Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the film centers on two young Oglala Lakota men — Bill (Jojo Bapteise Whiting), who is in his early twenties and is struggling to provide for his two babies, each from a different mother, and Matho (LaDainian Crazy Thunder), a charismatic twelve-year-old who has been expelled from school, has no place to life and whose meth addicted dad abuses him. Both Bill and Matho are using all of their innate smarts to find opportunities to overcome the overwhelming hardships they face — poverty, abandonment, cultural disenfranchisement. The beautifully crafted film has an authenticity that is absolutely captivating.
Read MoreLAKOTA NATION Vs UNITED STATES – Documentary Review
Lakota Nation Vs. United States is a compelling advocacy documentary that chronicles the United States’ government’s ongoing land grab of Lakota territory in Northeastern Wyoming in violation of the Black Hills Treaty of 1868. At this moment in US history, when the Constitution — our government’s essential treaty with our nation’s citizens — is being challenged and our civil rights are being eroded, Lakota Nation Vs. United States is an effective cry for justice. It is an essential watch.
Read MoreBIOSPHERE – Movie Review
Director Mel Eslyn’s Biosphere is a wonderful addition to the cannon of Mark Duplass-produced quirky and profoundly satirical films. Duplass and Sterling K. Brown deliver brilliant emotionally rich performances that embrace the sheer absurdity of the narrative as though it is absolutely real. They’ll turn you into a believer of the preposterous. And you’ll alternatingly laugh and tear up all the way.
Read MoreREVOIR PARIS – Movie Review
Alice Winocour’s beautifully rendered Revoir Paris is a compelling drama centering on Mia (Virginie Efira), a woman who is trying to process a calamity and recover from the trauma of having witnessed and survived a terrorist attack in a popular — hence crowded– Paris bistro. The film is a fascinating study of grief that focuses on how to recover from trauma and move on. Director Alice Winocour, who co-wrote the script, and the wonderful Virginie Efire, who plays Mia, do a brilliant job of engaging viewers in timely contemplation about the shattering consequences of terrorism — on those who survive.
Read MoreGIRL MODEL (2012) – Documentary Review
The commonplace perception about modeling is that it is a glamorous career that pays extremely well and offers fabulous opportunities for travel to exotic destinations where you get to hang out with the world’s most beautiful people in the world’s best hotels, dining at the best restaurants and wearing fabulous clothing and accessories. With all that in the offering, the job has allure, to say the least. And, that’s especially true for girls who’ve grown up under difficult circumstances and are looking for a way to work their way towards a better life.
Read MoreUSERS – Documentary Review
Mexican-American filmmaker Natalia Almada’s documentary, Users, is a poetic and profoundly provocative delve into the complex intersection of nature and technology in human civilization, present and future. The film presents itself as 81-minute meditation on the ways in which our increasing dependence on technology will impact our future generations, and those who are being birthed […]
Read MoreWelcome to Cinema Citizen, an AWFJ Network Blog authored by Jennifer Merin
