Recently, for this sporadic, nebulously defined column, I wrote (not entirely favorably) about Penny Marshall’s Jumpin’ Jack Flash. It got me thinking about a movie from a couple years earlier, one whose success was no doubt a partial inspiration for...
We sometimes seem to forget that cinema ought to be just as much a part of documentaries as fiction films, overly praising docs for their righteous messages or agreeable subject matter. That said, there are instances in which a documentarian...
My Psychedelic Love Story is an Errol Morris movie and you only need to take a quick scan of the subject matter to surmise which kind. The overstuffed montage and quirkily pulsing score (by Paul Leonard-Morgan, Morris’ collaborator for most...
If you’re watching Jeanette Nordahl’s Wildland and you can’t quite put your finger on what’s so familiar about it–and you also haven’t read a single other review of it, as they’ve all pointed out this comparison without fail–it’s because the...
Jessica Earnshaw’s Jacinta doesn’t come with the Kartemquin imprimatur but it produces great rewards by adhering to the Steve James methodology of years-long dedication. Starting with its namesake subject nearing the end of a ten month prison term and following...
After the Golden Bear win and the nominations at the Oscars, Césars and the David di Donatello awards, Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire at Sea, his fifth feature length film, finally secured him a place on the list of today’s most vital...
Hopper/Welles is the perfect film, the one the modern era has been crying out for, and if such a thing is possible at all, it is one of the year’s few truly necessary films. It is not necessary because it...
In the early scenes, with its cast of teenagers (actual ones) getting dressed up in suits and gowns, painting their fingernails and hopping into cars with friends, Tyler Taormina’s Ham on Rye might lead you to believe it’s some kind...
