By Kate Hearst. At the New York premiere of Desert One at the DOC/NYC film festival, Barbara Kopple recounted how the History Channel provided her with a list of topics to choose for their “History 100” project. That Kopple decided to make a documentary about the unsuccessful 1980 rescue operation […]
Richard Jewell and the Damn Yankees
Christopher Sharrett
December 16, 2019
By Christopher Sharrett. I have had sympathetic interest in the work of Clint Eastwood over the years, but such interest has been hard to sustain with antics like his talking to an empty chair – as a mock of Obama – during the 2012 Republican National Convention. In retrospect, it […]
This is the End: 63 Up
Michael Sandlin
December 13, 2019
By Michael Sandlin. “Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man,” is the bit of ancient philosophy that serves as the abiding impetus behind Michael Apted’s five-decades-long documentary series. The participants in this ongoing sociological experiment are both male and female, privileged and […]
Much to Remember: Chris Wade on Memories of Lindsay Anderson
Tony Williams
December 10, 2019
By Tony Williams. Leeds-born Chris Wade is one those unique talents thankfully outside the existing psychologically dysfunctional terrain of higher education. A highly creative and prolific artist, filmmaker and musician, he has distinguished himself in so many areas. His name came to my attention when reading one of my favorite […]
Real-Life Libertarian Nightmare: Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family
Michael Sandlin
December 7, 2019
By Michael Sandlin. From a strictly academic point of view, 26-year-old boy wonder documentarian Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family affecting ticks all the boxes of a classic “observational” mode of nonfiction film. No soundtrack, no incidental music, no voiceover — just simple unobtrusive camera work and a sharp eye for detail. It’s […]
John Waters’ Polyester: The Suburbs Arrive (Criterion Collection)
Christopher Sharrett
December 3, 2019
By Christopher Sharrett. Anyone viewing Polyester for the first time might be a little confused: hasn’t all this been done before? Satires or eviscerations of the suburbs have been standard fare for at least forty years. But if the viewer is watching this splendid new Criterion Blu-ray, s/he might turn […]
The Irishman: Requiem for Very Little
Christopher Sharrett
November 20, 2019
By Christopher Sharrett. It has been some time since Martin Scorsese has interested me, his achievements in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull still notable, but faded a bit with time. His work in the last twenty-five years has occasionally had virtues (The Age of Innocence), but there have been too […]
A Time of Transition: Yasujirô Ozu’s Tokyo Twilight
Jeremy Carr
November 7, 2019
By Jeremy Carr. There are, in Tokyo Twilight (Tokyo Boshoku), many of the familiar refrains common to Yasujirô Ozu’s conspicuously singular filmmaking. There are the generational disparities, the struggles pertaining to familial strife, the social and sexual stigmas and their related expectations, and the ever-present suggestion of life slowly slipping […]
1984, Revisited in 1984 (The Criterion Collection)
Tony Williams
November 6, 2019
By Tony Williams. Although envisaged before the rise of Trump and his campaign hate clarion calls of “Send her back!” etc., on the part of his devoted base who love him as much as Orwell’s Party wants its victims to love Big Brother, 1984 contains resonances far beyond its initial […]
Working Toward Recovery: Fassbinder’s ‘BRD Trilogy’
Jeremy Carr
October 25, 2019
By Jeremy Carr. Over the span of five years, from 1979 to 1982, Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed three films dealing with the tumultuous, complex, and contentious early period of the Federal Republic of Germany (in that time, he also made three other features and a 14-part mini-series). Known as the […]