Cutie and the Boxer (2013)
Whenever I hear that a couple has been married for a long time, say 40 or 50 or even 60 years, my mind tries to consider how such a thing is possible. What keeps people together? How do they manage a...
View ArticleToo Sane for This World (2014)
I am sort of ashamed to admit that my mental image of autism runs immediately to Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. I have, for many years, assumed that most or all autistic people talk and act like Raymond...
View ArticleLosing LeBron (2013)
The most quietly telling image in the documentary “Losing LeBron” is a Nike ad featuring LeBron James with his arms outstretched and his eyes cast upwards to Heaven. Over his head is written the...
View ArticleLife Itself (2014)
For those of us who write about film – spurred for this critic by a passion for the medium that oozes from my very pores – Roger Ebert was our great mentor, a poetic grandfatherly figure who seemed to...
View ArticleAmerica: Imagine the World Without Her (2014)
Dinesh D’Souza’s new documentary America: Imagine the World Without Her asks an extraordinary question: What would the world be like if America never existed? The opening scenes of the movie feature an...
View ArticleTo be Takei (2014)
George Takei probably has more of a presence social media than anyone else his age. At 77, he has become a ubiquitous fixture of both Facebook and Twitter so much so that he is probably more prolific...
View ArticleAmy (2015)
I have, for a long while, been critical of modern music which to these 40+ ears often sounds like the same song with the same message sung to a different tune. The subject matter treads the safe waters...
View ArticleThe Hunting Ground (2015)
It is clear that filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering want to make you made, get you riled up, and call you to action. They seem to know and understand the importance of Howard Beale’s famous...
View ArticleRaiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2016)
Not long ago, I gave myself the singular mission of sitting down to watch every Spielberg-directed film in chronological order from 1971’s Duel right up through the 2015 Cold War thriller Bridge of...
View ArticleHillary’s America: The Secret History of The Democratic Party (2016)
What kind of candy-coated daffodil Disneyland has Disnesh D’Souza mistaken for reality? What universe is this man living in? His new film Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party...
View ArticleTower (2016)
The times are sadly appropriate for a documentary like Tower. At a moment in our history when rampant shootings in Orlando Florida, Aurora Colorado and the bombing in Boston are reminding us that...
View ArticleThe 2017 Sidewalk Film Festival Reviews: Step (2017)
Over the weekend of August 25 through 27, I had the pleasure of attending The 19th Annual Sidewalk Film Festival in my home of Birmingham, Alabama. Over the next two weeks I’ll be taking an intimate...
View ArticleThe 2017 Sidewalk Film Festival reviews: The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait...
Over the weekend of August 25 through 27, I had the pleasure of attending The 19th Annual Sidewalk Film Festival in my home of Birmingham, Alabama. Over the next two weeks I’ll be taking an intimate...
View ArticleThe 2017 Sidewalk Film Festival Reviews: Alabama Bound (2017)
“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.“ – Martin Luther King, Jr., August 16, 1967 It has now been more than three generations since the Montgomery bus...
View ArticleScience Fair (2018)
As a veteran underachiever, I could only imagine in vivid dreams what the kids featured in the Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster’s documentary Science Fair must be going through. The idea of being...
View ArticleAmerican Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story (2017)
Oh, that word. That strange, naughty, tantalizing word. If you were a kid growing up in the 70s or 80s – or basically any time between the end of World War II and the birth of the internet, “Playboy”...
View ArticleHow to Survive a Pandemic (2022)
As a frequent visitor to the trough of the documentary format, I knew instinctively as the pandemic was ringing alarm bells early in 2020, that this would be the landscape of the genre for the next...
View ArticleBabi Yar. Context (2022)
The approach is sort of striking at first, if not a touch off-putting. Babi Yar. Context sets itself apart from your standard documentary by simply giving us images, video, faces, snatches of...
View ArticleTony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (2022)
Needless to say, every sport has a hero who rises beyond the competitive arena and becomes a household name even to those who don’t follow it. Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Venus and Serena, Shaun...
View ArticleReturn to Space (2022)
Netflix’s SpaceX documentary Return to Space is a work of love and hope and wonder – at least when it’s not stroking the fevering dreams of Elon Musk. Here is a documentary for and about one of the...
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