Category Archives: Documentary

One eats goat meat only when one is killed accidentally.

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Movie Review

“Lo,” the first message ever sent across the internet. “Lo” as in “Log” without the g, as the computer sending the message crashed before the message could be completed. This is the beautiful irony of the internet that director Werner Herzog tries to capture in his new documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. The inception of the world wide web was at one point a “revolution” that was about to irrevocably change the course of the modern world, and it is at another point an inception that is as archaic-sounding as a recovered fossil.

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Video games that map molecules, cars that drive themselves, online class rosters that academically blow Stanford students out of the water. The internet is a mesmerizing world of possibilities that we all take for granted every day. The problem with this premise is that Continue reading Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Movie Review

Weiner (2016) Movie Review

Former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner was a fiery Democrat in the house, pushing back against Republican legislation with gusto. Of course, this is likely not what you remember him for. Instead, he is often remembered for certain lewd photographs that caused a media frenzy and his resignation. Weiner follows the former politician during his 2013 run for mayor of New York City, a bid marked by his fervent and exhausting attempt to shed the demons of his past.

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The novelty of Weiner is its Continue reading Weiner (2016) Movie Review

The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur (2016) Movie Review

You won’t find many credits for John Alarimo Jr. on IMDb. But the man was entrenched in the Hollywood system for years. He ate lunch with Gore Vidal, sat on set with Frank Sinatra and Vincent Price, acted alongside Mae West, danced with Stella Adler. Most notably, he acted as a (uncredited) second assistant director on the iconic epic Ben-Hur.

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In The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur, Alarimo’s cousin Joe Forte, now a filmmaker himself, interviews Alarimo about his time in Hollywood. Surprisingly, this interview does not begin with stories of California, but with stories of Continue reading The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur (2016) Movie Review

Holy Hell (2016) Movie Review

A film studies student such as myself often views for analysis only those documentary films that are radical, experimental, or genre defining. This neglects the more commonplace documentary of speculation, event dissection, or character study.

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Holy Hell, in film studies rhetoric, could be considered a “synthetic documentary” not in that it is fabricated, but in that it, from scene one, incorporates Continue reading Holy Hell (2016) Movie Review

Taxi (2015) Movie Review

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi begins on an extended POV take of a taxi picking up passengers in Tehran. These passengers engage in a long debate over the ethics of execution as a deterrent of crime. It is a strangely humorous meditation in the poetic form of bickering.

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Taxi is a series of vignettes told exclusively from Continue reading Taxi (2015) Movie Review

Listen to Me Marlon (2015) Movie Review

 

Listen to Me Marlon opens on a digital rendering of Marlon Brando’s face as he laments that the process may signal the end of great acting as we know it. We cut back to this face intermittently throughout the film, it serving as a motif for the disparity between Brando and, really, the world.

 

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The film is a series of recorded audio tapes that Brando recorded himself. Tapes that have not been heard by the public until now. We also get Continue reading Listen to Me Marlon (2015) Movie Review

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine (2015) Movie Review

 

Alex Gibney’s Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine opens on a young, uncharacteristically nervous Steve Jobs being prepped for a television interview. There is an inherent humanism to his uneasy laughter as he explains that he might be sick.

 

We are then transported to a different world. A more familiar world. Swarms of people are mourning, weeping for Jobs, holding up iPads with candles on their screens. This is the setup for Continue reading Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine (2015) Movie Review

[Quickie] See This Movie: The Wolfpack (2015) Movie Review

 

Fascinating. A case study of isolation. And a case study of cinephilia that is utterly unparalleled. The power of cinema as a means of connection to the outside world and as a former of identity has never been exemplified on film in such a way as The Wolfpack presents it.

 

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With essentially nothing else to place the Angulo siblings into society and an alcoholic, domineering man as a father, the boys are Continue reading [Quickie] See This Movie: The Wolfpack (2015) Movie Review

2015 Academy Award Predictions — Best Documentary

 

The Nominees:

  • Citizenfour — Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefor, Dirk Wilutzky
  • Finding Vivian Maier — John Maloof, Charlie Siskel
  • Last Days in Vietnam — Rory Kennedy, Keven McAlester
  • The Salt of the Earth — Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, David Rosier
  • Virunga — Orlando von Einsiedel, Joanna Natasegara

Continue reading 2015 Academy Award Predictions — Best Documentary

2015 Academy Award Predictions — Best Documentary Short Subject

 

The Nominees:

  • Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 — Ellen Goosenberg Kent, Dana Perry
  • Joanna — Aneta Kopacz
  • Our Curse — Tomasz Sliwinski, Maciej Slesicki
  • The Reaper — Gabriel Serra
  • White Earth — Christian Jensen

Continue reading 2015 Academy Award Predictions — Best Documentary Short Subject