One would be hard-pressed to identify a more fascinating subject for a documentary than attorney William Kunstler (1919-1995), the love-him-or-hate-him, longhaired civil rights crusader at the center of the nonfiction film William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. As written, shot, edited, and directed by two of the subject’s daughters, 33-year-old Sarah and 31-year-old Emily Kunstler, this opus wisely undertakes a straightforward, linear approach to the litigator’s complicated life. It begins with his childhood and chronicles his most publicized legal battles (for the trial of the Chicago 7, the Attica prison rioters, the Native Americans at Wounded Knee, and others) before moving, during its final third, into the phase of Kunstler’s career that alienated just about everyone, including his family — the years that found him defending accused terrorists, rapists, murderers, and anyone else generally cast out of mainstream America and buckling beneath the weight of social ignominy.
Until the release of Collapse, Roland Emmerich has reigned as the king of the contemporary end-of-the-world film with offerings such as 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, and Independence Day. But with this nonfiction film, director Chris Smith of American Movie fame has created an apocalyptic movie that is far more realistic in its predictions than any Hollywood production in memory. Collapse is the type of doom-and-gloom documentary that should have audiences running, but it’s so masterfully made and riveting that it’s impossible to look away.
It’s been more than a decade since the King of Pop — who fell out of favor with the media and many fans due to scandal, controversy, and his eccentricities — toured, and when he announced in March 2009 that he was launching his final concert series, there was speculation that he would be too weak to perform. So while the idea of a frail, drugged, aging performer onscreen rehearsing seems daunting, even macabre, this concert film provides a look at Michael Jackson the performer, free from the tragedy surrounding his life and death. With This Is It, director Kenny Ortega (High School Musical 2 and 3) gives the audience a rare behind-the-scenes look at rehearsals for Jackson’s concert that would have kicked off this summer at London’s O2 arena. The moment you see Michael Jackson on-stage, you relax into the idea that you’re watching a performer who never lost his energy, drive, or talent. All of the ugliness fades away, and what you’re left with is a journey through the Michael Jackson music catalog, soaring past his days with the Jackson 5, cascading down through the hits that span several decades, and settling into a musical adventure.
The French documentary Food Beware is a bit like days-old whole wheat bread: it’s bland and dry, but it’s still good for you. That is, if you can bear to eat it. Originally titled Nos Enfants Nous Accuseront (’Our Children Will Accuse Us’), this film begins by stating statistics of the shockingly high, ever-growing cancer rates in Europe, a large number of which are attributed to the environment, food, and pollution. The mayor of a picturesque French village thinks he has found a solution: change the school cafeteria from the standard canned and frozen fare to organic food. The normal lunchroom offerings hide unwanted additives such as nitrites, pesticides, and lead, and the mayor and his citizens hope that the change will have a positive effect on the children’s health and future.
Peter Greenaway’sRembrandt’s J’Accuse is a more expansive treatment of the subject he raised in his 2007 film Nightwatching: the notion, which he supports with a detailed analysis of the 34 figures represented in the painting, that Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” is a not-so-veiled allegorical reference to murder and a surrounding conspiracy — and that it was this aspect of the work that resulted in the downturn of the artist’s fortunes from that point forward in his career.
More so than almost any other type of film, a documentary can either sink or swim on the strength of the story at its core; no amount of stylistic flourish or keen editing can cover up for lack of content, and when the filmmakers attempt to compensate it can be painfully obvious. As someone who generally detests watching sports and has nary a competitive bone in his body, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d approach a documentary like More Than a Game. Eventually, I surmised that given my unabashed prejudice against all things “-ball,” I’d be the ideal subject to gauge whether the film had a genuine story to tell, or existed solely as another shovelful of coal in the engine of the LeBron James hype train. Thankfully for documentary and sports fans alike, More Than a Game is a film with genuine heart and soul — an inspiring celebration of dreams and friendship with the power to move even a guy who would never willingly step into any kind of stadium, and owns not a single jersey.
New York City-based author Colin Beavan could adopt the opening lines of the Elvis Presley hit “A Little Less Conversation” as his personal mantra. Rather than just speaking his liberal opinions on environmentalism, Beavan decides to take a radical course of action: for one year, he, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter will strive to leave as little of a mark on the environment as possible. They won’t take the subway (to say nothing of cars), they don’t use toilet paper, and they turn off their electricity. As seen in this documentary, the project not only serves as a political statement and a one-family crusade for the earth, but it is also the basis for Beavan’s next book and his blog.
Crude constitutes Joe Berlinger’s account of Texaco’s alleged pollution in Ecuador - massive oil spills that reportedly contributed to tens of thousands of cases of illness and an untold number of deaths, and nearly extinguished the population of an entire village. The film devastates the audience almost by default. Without falling into excess, Berlinger repeatedly turns his camera on images that shake us to our core
Just like its magazine subject, The September Issue begins and ends with Anna Wintour. R.J. Cutler’s documentary appropriately opens with a close-up on the Vogue editor in chief, who dictates seemingly every aspect of the magazine’s production as well as fashion itself. In the film, she lends her insight to designers including Karl Lagerfeld, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and rising star Thakoon Panichgul, while one observer calls her the most powerful woman in the world. Vogue is fashion’s bible, Wintour its god, and The September Issue captures divine inspiration as she and her staff craft the magazine’s biggest issue yet: the September 2007 edition, which weighed almost five pounds and boasted 840 pages. “Less is more,” declares Wintour in the months of preparation for the massive issue, but it’s hard to see where this mandate fits in with the magazine’s fashion or editorial philosophy.
To triumph at their craft, advertising executives must exercise some of the greatest unsung wizardry in contemporary Western life. Many others from countless fields can claim varying levels of creative activity and invention, but novelists, filmmakers, sculptors, painters, playwrights, and musicians have the gifts of time and space to work out their visions. In the ad industry, however, one’s entire reputation may rest on a 30- or 40-second pitch, or — even more overwhelmingly — a four- or five-word slogan. Get it right, the client will feel satisfied and the public will buy. Fail to pull it off, and careers will be destroyed and reputations soiled, perhaps irrevocably so.
That excruciating challenge justifies some of the unchecked adulation inherent in Doug Pray’s varnished paean to the lords of the ad world, the documentary Art & Copy. Pray assembled a cadre of subjects that includes some of the most revered figures in the industry, such as Hal Riney, David Kennedy, Lee Clow, and the inimitable George Lois, and lets them expostulate on the highs and lows of their careers and the meaning of the craft per se, while interpolating frequent cutaways to their most successful ads, many of which now court legendary reputations.
As athletics evolve, the nature of the games and the attitudes of the players are transformed as well. What makes X Games 3D such a unique moviegoing experience is the fact that it gives us not only an eye-popping perspective of the events that constitute the extreme-action sports event, but also fascinating insight into the new breed of sportsmanship. It’s positively breathtaking to stand atop the towering vert ramp with skateboarders Danny Way, Bob Burnquist, and Jake Brown as they compete, and genuinely inspiring to see the incredible support they provide one another as they each strive to win the gold. Their goal is not to beat their competitors and gloat in the victory, but to simply live up to their full potential and encourage everyone else to do the same.
Within the scope of ecopolitical history, Earth Days represents a fantastic achievement. Whereas other documentaries on the subject of the biosphere continue to build awareness about current ecological crises (often to significant and commendable emotional impact), Days directs its focus elsewhere: it ambitiously and uniquely offers a sweeping survey of the modern environmental movement as it blossomed over the second half of the 20th century, and pays homage to the men and women who stood at the vanguard.
It’s hard to believe it’s taken 35 years for images this vibrant, this joyous, and this era-defining to reach the big screen. Yet that’s the gestation period for Soul Power, the concert film that finally brings to life the three-day music festival known as Zaire ‘74, which was intended to accompany the “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman (before a busted lip prompted Foreman to postpone by six weeks). The reason for the film’s delay is clear, however — its very existence was a direct response to how much footage wasn’t considered germane to When We Were Kings, Leon Gast’s 1996 documentary about the fight, which itself was delayed by legal disputes involving the project’s original Liberian financiers. Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, an editor on that Oscar-winning film, was inspired to rescue the hours of unused concert footage from the vaults, and the end result is Soul Power. Fans of both movies and music should be thankful he did.
A word to the squeamish is in order before we proceed with this review: those who are disturbed by scenes of animals being slaughtered (and there aren’t many, nor are they emphasized, but there are a few in this movie) might want to be prepared before they see Robert Kenner’sFood, Inc. That said, this is an illuminating and, at times, heartbreaking account of what’s wrong with the food industry in the United States — and for anyone who thinks this isn’t a problem of some urgency, the participants make the point that the current debate over the nation’s healthcare system would likely be a lot less urgent than it is if the food we were eating were healthier for us. Kenner uses his camera and an ironic sense of humor, coupled with a lot of healthy outrage, to portray precisely how the quest to make food manufacturing in the United States more efficient has damaged many of us in the most personal way possible, inside of our own bodies. His principal villains are corporate giants — who now control over three quarters of the food that we eat — and their quest to bring fast-food restaurant methods to the actual making of their products (on the farm as well as in the factory); their main tool seems to be corn, along with various growth hormones and antibiotics added to cattle and chicken feed. And the main victims are… us.
The producers of Planet Earth bring the award-winning nature series to the big screen with Earth, a visually spectacular, occasionally heart-wrenching nature documentary tracing the migrations of three animal families over the course of one year. And though the perilous journeys taken by these persevering creatures forms the crux of Earth’s storyline, the film’s secondary message may be its most crucial: in order to ensure that the delicate balance of nature remains, humankind must take serious measures to reduce our ecological footprint before the damage done to our environment becomes irreversible. It should come as no surprise that Earth arrives in theaters courtesy of Disney, the same studio that brought us Nature’s Half Acre approximately 50 years prior, because both films employ innovative filming techniques to explore our natural surroundings even if the stories here are told on a much grander scale, and the end product will appeal just as much to wide-eyed youngsters as it will to environmentally conscious adults.
One thing is for sure: fans of the Jonas Brothers will certainly get their money’s worth from Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. Right from the opening scene (an obvious homage to A Hard Day’s Night), director Bruce Hendricks makes sure to give Joe, Kevin, and Nick tons of worshipful close-ups, mixed in with shot after shot of hysterically screaming female admirers. The trio seems comfortable with their devotees on-stage, but in behind-the-scenes moments, at places like a record release party, they seem equally intimidated and thrilled by the massive outpouring of public adoration that they inspire. None of this will win over the unconverted (or even the disinterested), but fans will soak it up — and they should.
A word to the wise: if you have the chance to see Under the Sea 3D in an IMAX theater, take it. 3-D technology has come a long way since Creature from the Black Lagoon drifted eerily into theaters back in 1954, and from the stunning opening shot to the breathtaking final frame, Under the Sea 3D has enough awe-inspiring moments to silence even the most ardent skeptic. And it’s no wonder, since Under the Sea 3D director Howard Hall has plenty of experience making underwater documentaries. Hall’s fourth dip into the deep is likely the closest most viewers will ever come to floating across the ocean floor and encountering creatures that seem so alien it’s sometimes difficult to accept that we share the same planet. Touted as “The Rolls Royce of 3-D,” the technology used to bring Under the Sea 3D to life on the big screen is nothing less than stunning, making even the admittedly effective RealD 3D system used for such films as Beowulf, Monster House, and My Bloody Valentine (2009) look like red and blue anaglyph.
If anyone still harbors doubts as to whether animation can be used to tell a serious-minded story and not simply to entertain children on a Saturday morning, that questioning soul need look no further than Waltz With Bashir to witness just how effective the medium can be at dealing with mature issues with sincerity and reverence. Even if a soldier manages to avoid getting physically wounded in war, no one returns form the battlefield unscathed, and when filmmaker Ari Folman attempts to help a fellow veteran of the Lebanon War discover the hidden meaning of a recurring nightmare, he begins questioning the fact that the war seems to have had no discernible effect on him psychologically. But it has, and as his quest to help a friend find meaning in the abstract commences, Folman discovers that some memories can be so dark that it takes the light of reflection to illuminate them.
Few films, documentary or fiction, possess the power to pick the viewer apart piece by piece emotionally, and then put them back together again. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father accomplishes that rare feat with incredible skill and candor — not once, but twice, during its fleeting 95-minute run-time.
Any filmgoer who’s been fortunate enough to have seen director Werner Herzog’s best works knows well the poetic power and remarkable mastery of his imagery, pacing, and overall tone. This not only applies to Herzog’s narrative features, but – somewhat uniquely – to his documentary films as well. In his 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, Herzog crafted an absorbing portrait of a true outsider whose unbound passion for nature ultimately brought upon his untimely death. With Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog continues this long trend of profiling people on the fringes of society, this time focusing on the small community of “professional dreamers” who live and work at the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic headquarters. The result is a film that is at once mesmerizing and captivating, due both to the surroundings he explores and to the fascinating people he meets.
The thought of a documentary about a choir of 80 year-olds performing songs by The Clash and Sonic Youth might be enough to send the average person running for an insulin injection, but for the most part Young@Heart director Stephen Walker keeps the sappiness to a minimum. Occasionally Walker can’t help playing up the inherent cuteness of the conceit, but those moments are more than tempered, however, by film’s two most fascinating people – Bob Cilman and Fred Knittle. Cilman, the dedicated middle-aged director of the choir, treats his senior singers not like helpless retirees, but like the members of a working ensemble he expects them to be. He is a taskmaster who wants things done right, sometimes showing a lack of patience that humanizes both him and his performers. If Cilman had been behind the camera instead of Walker, the movie might have avoided its occasional flights of greeting card sentimentality. Fred Knittle, an 81 year-old who performs a mesmerizing version of Coldplay’s“Fix You” during the film’s climactic concert, towers over the film. He is a strong and engaging personality whose remarkable life spirit stands in stark contrast to his obviously declining physical state. As death comes to some of the group members, and we see how those still living react to those events, the movie audience understands that the majority of these people have long since accepted mortality is close at hand. Knittle faces these cold hard truths with his modesty, his talent, and his appreciation for what he has in the here and now. He and his companions rage against the dying of the light by singing, and what could be more punk than that?
The Rolling Stones are no strangers to celluloid. Their celebrated, occasionally infamous career has been saved for posterity every step of the way by some of the most formidable filmmakers of all time. Jean-Luc Godard, Hal Ashby, and the Maysals all offered up their take on the danger, the swagger, the damage, and the glory of the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band. While each of those filmmakers did something unique and memorable, it took Martin Scorsese to figure out how to make a film about the aspect of band that matters most – that they are men who love to play music. By filling the oversized IMAX screen with the weathered, leathered faces of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Ron Wood, Scorsese never lets his audience forget that these men have lived the kind of lives that give these powerful songs their visceral kick. They have earned the right to play these songs not because they wrote them, but because they feel them as strongly as ever. An old chestnut like As Tears Go By means so much more coming from a sixty-something Jagger than from the twenty something who wrote it, primarily because he seems to care about the song now even more than he did then.
Film buffs curious to catch a long-lost part of cinema history can finally do so thanks to the arduous efforts of film preservationist Eric Spiegelman, whom after learning of a never-before-seen propaganda film executive produced by the late John Ford personally rescued the reels of the Rio Grande director’s “Vietnam! Vietnam!” from the National Archives. Spiegelman’s story regarding the efforts that he and his cousin made in restoring the film are pretty fascinating, and while the “Vietnam! Vietnam!” was apparently deemed “obsolete and embarrassing” the moment it was finished it’s still interesting to have this unique record of a crucial point in history.
Check out the embedded video for the full-length film, and hear the story of it’s restoration in Spiegelman’s own words here.
Daddy Day Camp: If you squint, the leads in this look a lot like Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garland. And if you squint harder and plug your ears, watching it might not make you want to jump out a window.
The Comebacks: If you’re one of the people who propelled Meet the Spartans to the top of the box-office over the weekend… well, you probably aren’t able to read this, are you?
Ricco the Mean Machine: The English translation of the original Italian title for this 70s exploitation flick is Some Guy with a Strange Face is Looking for You to Kill You. And yes, the movie pays off on the promise of that title.
King of Kong - Fistful of Quarters: See the film critics have called one of the fifteen greatest documentaries about Donkey Kong released in the second-half of this decade so far.
As the release of Diary of the Dead draws near and zombie fanatics across the globe shiver in anticipation, what better way to celebrate the cinema of a true living legend than to reflect back on his remarkable life and career? Independent filmmaker Rusty Nails has been working on a documentary about horror visionary George A. Romero for some years now, and recently, a trailer for his film Dead On: The Life and Cinema of George A. Romero debuted online.
Take a look at the trailer below, and when you’re done why not head on over to the official website for the film to find out more. Judging by the looks of things, Nails has really outdone himself in crafting a comprehensive retrospective on the man who frightened generations of horror fans into seeing the world from a unique, and truly thought-provoking vantage point.
Last week I received an unexpected telephone call from Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker Kevin P. Miller. Apparently, the health-conscious filmmaker and President/CEO of Well TV had stumbled across the All Movie Guide pages for his previous films, and was seeking to get the word out about his latest project – a passionate and informative look at the questionable methods often used to diagnose and treat children deemed to be afflicted by the behavioral disorder du jour. The call couldn’t have come at a more serendipitous time: Just two nights prior, my parents-in-law and I had engaged in an extended conversation about this exact topic, and having witnessed firsthand the shattering effects that Prozac had on a close family friend, the subject was still very much fresh in my mind when the telephone rang. Kevin seemed like a very sincere guy, and much to my surprise, he asked if I would be willing to take a look at his latest documentary, Generation Rx.
One would be hard-pressed to identify a more fascinating subject for a documentary than attorney William Kunstler (1919-1995), the love-him-or-hate-him, longhaired civil rights crusader at the center of the nonfiction film William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe. As written, shot, edited, and directed by two of the subject’s daughters, 33-year-old Sarah and 31-year-old Emily Kunstler, this opus wisely undertakes a straightforward, linear approach to the litigator’s complicated life. It begins with his childhood and chronicles his most publicized legal battles (for the trial of the Chicago 7, the Attica prison rioters, the Native Americans at Wounded Knee, and others) before moving, during its final third, into the phase of Kunstler’s career that alienated just about everyone, including his family — the years that found him defending accused terrorists, rapists, murderers, and anyone else generally cast out of mainstream America and buckling beneath the weight of social ignominy.
Until the release of Collapse, 
It’s been more than a decade since the King of Pop — who fell out of favor with the media and many fans due to scandal, controversy, and his eccentricities — toured, and when he announced in March 2009 that he was launching his final concert series, there was speculation that he would be too weak to perform. So while the idea of a frail, drugged, aging performer onscreen rehearsing seems daunting, even macabre, this concert film provides a look at 
The French documentary 
More so than almost any other type of film, a documentary can either sink or swim on the strength of the story at its core; no amount of stylistic flourish or keen editing can cover up for lack of content, and when the filmmakers attempt to compensate it can be painfully obvious. As someone who generally detests watching sports and has nary a competitive bone in his body, I wasn’t quite sure how I’d approach a documentary like 
New York City-based author 
Just like its magazine subject, 
To triumph at their craft, advertising executives must exercise some of the greatest unsung wizardry in contemporary Western life. Many others from countless fields can claim varying levels of creative activity and invention, but novelists, filmmakers, sculptors, painters, playwrights, and musicians have the gifts of time and space to work out their visions. In the ad industry, however, one’s entire reputation may rest on a 30- or 40-second pitch, or — even more overwhelmingly — a four- or five-word slogan. Get it right, the client will feel satisfied and the public will buy. Fail to pull it off, and careers will be destroyed and reputations soiled, perhaps irrevocably so.
As athletics evolve, the nature of the games and the attitudes of the players are transformed as well. What makes 
Within the scope of ecopolitical history, 
It’s hard to believe it’s taken 35 years for images this vibrant, this joyous, and this era-defining to reach the big screen. Yet that’s the gestation period for 
A word to the squeamish is in order before we proceed with this review: those who are disturbed by scenes of animals being slaughtered (and there aren’t many, nor are they emphasized, but there are a few in this movie) might want to be prepared before they see 
The producers of 
One thing is for sure: fans of the 
A word to the wise: if you have the chance to see 
If anyone still harbors doubts as to whether animation can be used to tell a serious-minded story and not simply to entertain children on a Saturday morning, that questioning soul need look no further than 
Few films, documentary or fiction, possess the power to pick the viewer apart piece by piece emotionally, and then put them back together again. 
The thought of a documentary about a choir of 80 year-olds performing songs by 
