NYAD – Movie Review
Anyone age five or older in 2023 most likely knows of the exploits of Diana Nyad, the legendary long distance swimmer who at long last conquered her long-standing goal of swimming the 110 miles of open sea from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida. She was age 64 when she dove into her fifth attempt to swim the distance and, despite daunting odds, reached Key West after some 53 hours in the water. Tis is the dramatization of her story.
Read MoreINVISIBLE 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 MoreCHILE ’76 – Movie Review
Chile ’76 is a powerful political thriller. This first feature by actor-turned-director Manuela Martelli, who also co-wrote the script with Alejandra Moffat, is set in the atmosphere of dread that swept over Chile during the 1970s as the repressive measures of the Pinochet dictatorship became harsher and harsher day by day. The compelling story centers […]
Read MoreHITLER’S HOLLYWOOD (2017) – Documentary Retroview
Filmmaker Rudiger Suchsland’s Hitler’s Hollywood is a compilation documentary that uses clips from films produced during the Nazi regime to show how the movies were used to indoctrinate the masses and influence their behavior. Subtitled German Cinema in the Age of Propaganda: 1933-45, the film is more analysis than homage, presenting a fascinating profile of […]
Read MoreHILMA – Movie Review
Hilma is a sumptuous truth-based period drama that chronicles the life and work of Swedish artist Hilma aft Klint (1862 – 1944). Hilma was a brilliant and innovative artist whose abstract paintings preceded those of the better-known Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944), who has, until recently, been credited by art historians with the invention of abstract art.
Read MoreShakespeare High (2011) – Documentary Retroview
In Southern California, a mixed demographic of high school drama student teams from several schools scattered across the areas diverse neighborhoods, prepare to compete in the Drama Teachers Association of Southern California Shakespeare Festival, held each April. Over the years since its inception, the annual Shakespeare competition has become just as popular as local and national sports events, and members of the participating schools’ drama groups are campus stars.
Read MoreGUGA HUNTERS OF NESS (2011) – Documentary Retroview
In his first documentary feature, Scottish filmmaker Mike Day chronicles an age-old tradition that’s observed in August of each year by the hale and hearty men of Ness. Known as Niseach men, they live in a small, remote town on the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis, one of the Outer Hebrides chain off […]
Read MoreSweetgrass (2010) – Documentary Retroview
Filmmakers Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor follow Montana sheep herders as they drive 3,000 sheep through the Beartooth Mountains of Montana during the summer of 2003. This challenging and dangerous journey was the final annual sheep drive along a trail that has been followed since the early 1900s. The documentary is cinema verite in its purest form. There is no use of voice over narration to tell the story, no graphics are used during the film to establish location or explain images. Sweetgrass is an exquisite example of what the directors call ‘visual antropology.’
Read MoreSTORIES WE TELL (2012) – Documentary Retroview
Acclaimed Canadian actress and director Sarah Polley documents her own search to find out the truth about her parentage, trying to track down the truth about whether the man she’s known as dad for her entire life is or is not her biological father.
Read MoreWaste Land (2010) – Documentary Review
Acclaimed Brooklyn, NY-based artist Vik Muniz returns to his native country of Brazil, where he embarks upon a remarkable creative journey with a group of men and women who toil as catadores (garbage pickers) at Jardim Gramacho, a Rio de Janiero landfill.
Read MoreMARWENCOL – Movie Review – 2010
In April 2000, Mark Hogancamp lost his life, and got it back. He was literally beaten to death in a drunken brawl in a Kingston, NY bar. When paramedics resuscitated him, he had no recollection of anything about his identity or personal past.
Gradually, as a form of therapy, he began to construct a model town in his back yard. It was called Marwencol, and it was the replica of an imaginary French community during World War II.
Read MoreDesert of Forbidden Art (2011) – Documentary Review
In remote Uzbekistan, documentary filmmakers Amanda Pope and Tchavdar Georgiev find an unknown museum in which a single collector, Igor Savitsky, managed to save 44,000 world class art works from sure destruction by the repressive Soviet regime that deemed them anti-Soviet and had banned them.
Read MoreANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL (2009) – Documentary Retroview
Anvil Still Rocks! UTOPIA is releasing a newly restored version of Anvil! The Story of Anvil, filmmaker Sacha Gervasi’s 2009 documentary. The film is a real heavy metal rush!
Read MoreALI & AVA – Movie Review
While focusing on the very relatable human needs of Ali and Ava, the ever-masterful Barnard expresses and explores gripping socially relevant issues revolving around loneliness and grief, aging and personal transformation, ethnic prejudices, fidelity and the unfulfilled needs of the working class. It all adds up to a thoroughly engaging and rewarding watch.
Read MoreMovie Review: SKIES OF LEBANON
Skies of Lebanon opens the mind to deep consideration of the invasive impact that war and social strife have on families who work hard to contribute to society and, in return, just want to live in peace. Thanks to its genre-defying style, it is a lot of fun while it’s being quite serious in touching on themes that are currently relevant around the world, as well as right here, at home. The film is a must see.
Read MoreMovie Reviews: THE MARTHA MITCHELL EFFECT and GASLIT
Gaslit and The Martha Mitchell Effect are bound to rekindle the Martha Mitchell controversy, the whistleblower wife of former US Attorney General John Mitchell who was jailed for his role in the Watergate case. Was Martha righteous and genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of nation or did she loudly and disruptively stir things up because she craved public attention?
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