Sweetgrass (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 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?
Read MoreL’Amour Fou (2011) – Documentary Retroview
Yves Saint-Laurent was a talented and troubled man, and nobody knew him better than his longtime business partner and lover, Pierre Berge. Interviewed after Saint-Laurent’s death for L’Amour Fou, Berge tells all — about the brilliant and beloved designer’s reaction to fame and to failure, about his shyness and deep depressions, about his psychotic episodes and seeking seclusion
Read MoreTO WHICH WE BELONG – Documentary Review
To Which We Belong is an informative and encouraging advocacy documentary from filmmakers Pamela Tanner Boll and Lindsay Richardson. The subject is climate change, and the fundamental message is that we humans can actually manage the use of our land to protect our planet from its demise and, ultimately, our own. As illustrated in the film, what is most immediately needed is restoration of healthy soil. which is not all that difficult to accomplish.
Read MoreMEAT LOAF: IN SEARCH OF PARADISE (2007) – Documentary Retroview
At age 59, legendary rocker Meat Loaf launched a worldwide tour to promote his new album, Bat Out Of Hell III, with new stagings of some of his most popular songs. This is the first time the iconic star had given a film crew access to his grueling artistic process.
Read MoreTHE CONDUCTOR – Documentary Review
The Conductor is documentary filmmaker Bernadette Wegenstein’s joyful biodoc about Maestra Marin Alsop, the first female conductor to direct a major American symphony orchestra. Marin Alsop is currently the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, as well as chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Filmmaker Bernadette Wegenstein hails from Vienna, but now […]
Read MoreLADY BUDS – Documentary Review
Chris J. Russo’s engaging and informative first feature documentary, Lady Buds, is an enlightening and exasperating tell all about the troubles currently impacting the lives and careers of women who are working in the weed trade in Northern California. The film chronicles the struggles of six independent female cannabis growers and distributors who were once […]
Read MoreDocumentary Retroview: Taxi To The Dark Side (2007)
Alex Gibney’s new film, Taxi To The Dark Side, released on January 18, 2008, is a shocking expose about the American military’s use of torture to get confessions–not always truthful ones–from prisoners suspected of terrorism. Meet the prisoners and the perps.
Read MoreMovie Review: LANGUAGE LESSONS
Language Lessons is a pandemic inspired two-character, two-location, two-screen, zoom-tech, dramedy born of the pandemic and imposed isolation, and produced during the lockdown. It is a film that reflects many of the personal issues brought on by the pandemic, but it is not about the pandemic per se — and that makes it a very special and utterly engaging entertainment.
Read MoreDocumentary Retroview: SHADOW OF AFGHANISTAN 1959-2012 – (2006, 2012)bauman
There seems to be no end to the strife and anguish experienced by the people of Afghanistan during recent history. Except for a brief period of peace and democracy, the nation has been subjected to continuous foreign influence and invasions, civil war and discord that have maimed the Afghan people and threatened their culture
Read MoreDocumentary Retroview: LIMELIGHT (2011)
The Rise and Demise of Peter Gatien Filmmaker Billy Corben’s glitzy documentary, Limelight, follows the rise and demise of New York club lord, Peter Gatien, who ruled the city’s nightlife during the 1980s, until his trend-setting establishments, including the eponymous Limelight, were shut down by officials who accused Gatien and his crew of employees of […]
Read MoreBRING YOUR OWN BRIGADE – Documentary Review
Bring Your Own Brigade is filmmaker Lucy Walker’s courageous and compelling documentary about an extremely hot topic: the ongoing inferno of wildfires in Southern California and elsewhere on the West Coast and, by extension, across the nation. Walker’s eye witness camera captures close up images of the uncontrolled fires cutting through affluent communities in wide paths of devastating destruction. She follows local residents who are fleeing their homes on car-congested bands of blacktop cutting through raging flames and she records up close and personal accounts of survivors whose property was miraculously spared and others who lost all of their worldly goods to the to the rampaging blaze.
Read MoreMovie Review: BLACKFISH (2013)
The blackfish referenced in this documentary’s title is named Tilikum. He was arguably the world’s best known killer whale, or orca, and he resided at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, where he’d been captive and on display at the theme park for more than two decades, and was regularly featured in SeaWorld’s animal shows at Shamu Stadium.
Read MoreCROPSEY (2009) – Documentary Retroview
Cropsey is an urban legend that haunted Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman while they were growing up in Staten Island, NY. In this documentary, the filmmakers return to their childhood environs to investigate the myth about the elusive boogeyman, wacko and supposed satanist who allegedly lived in the abandoned ruins of the notorious Willowbrook Mental Institution, which he used as a base for abducting and killing local children. Ultimately, the discovery of the body of a missing girl proved the legend to be true.
Read MoreREBEL HEARTS – Documentary Review
Rebel Hearts is a compelling from-the-heart documentary that follows The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a sisterhood of devoted nuns who bravely stood up to the demeaning and oppressive patriarchy of the Catholic Church to fight for the right to be treated as equals, especially with regard to education and the expression of their credo through art, particularly the controversial graphics of Sister Mary Corita Kent.
Read MoreLIVING IN EMERGENCY (2010)- Documentary Retroview
Stories of Doctors Without Borders Filmmaker Mark Hopkins pays tribute to the dedicated doctors, nurses and support personnel who work for Medicines Sans Frontieres, the international NGO that provides health care in third world countries where medical treatment would be otherwise unavailable. Subtitled ‘Stories of Doctors Without Borders,’ the film follows several doctors as they […]
Read MoreBODY OF WAR (2007) – Documentary Retroview
Body of War tells the heart wrenching story of how 22-year-old Tomas Young enlisted to serve his country and became a victim of the Iraq War. Two days after the 9-11 attacks on the World Trace Center, 22-year-old Tomas Young responded to George Bush’s call for men to defend and avenge America by enlisting in […]
Read MoreWHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM (2011) – Documentary Retroview
Where Soldiers Come From begins and ends in a rural Michigan town, but it could be about any American community where youngsters who’re graduating from high school and preparing themselves for adulthood must make decisions about what their next steps should be. Many who aren’t on the academic path join the National Guard because it […]
Read MoreDARK HORSE (2015)- Documentary Retroview
Dark Horse, filmmaker Louise Osmond’s inspiring documentary is all about triumph and its transience, and the will to pick up the pieces and carry on. Set in a small town in Wales that fell into deep depression and near poverty status when its coal mines tanked, Dark Horse is the cinematic telling of the true tale of Janet Vokes, a local barmaid who decided she’d like to raise and race a thoroughbred. Just like that.
Read More