The behind-the-scenes documentary I Am Thor is about a heavy metal singer who dresses up as, yes, the Nordic god Thor, bends steel bars, vanquishes foes onstage, and smashes bricks with sledgehammers. So, essentially, he’s the band GWAR before GWAR. He almost made it in the halcyon 1980s when He-Man (who he uncannily resembles) and […]

Those who have protested against how Sicario portrayed Mexico as overrun with brutally violent drug cartels, corrupt law enforcement, and distrusted politicians may not be any happier with Kingdom of Shadows. Bernardo Ruiz’s documentary includes all those familiar elements through news montages and sound bites, as well as coverage of the missing and presumed murdered. […]

Haiti, after gaining independence from France in 1804 after a slave revolt–turned–revolution, became known as the first black republic. What has followed in two centuries since are the violent ups and downs characteristic of many post-colonial states. But Haiti, especially after the disastrous 2010 earthquake, has often seemed specially marked for suffering. So when any […]

Three Asian films at the DOC NYC festival reveal spaces we rarely see and people we are unlikely to meet, even in a globalized, connected world. These outwardly calm works contain unpredictable emotions, immense risks, and power games sometimes unseen, sometimes thrust into the open. “We had to destroy the village in order to save […]

In 1970, Steve McQueen was on top of the world as a box-office star, coming off of films like The Thomas Crown Affair and Bullitt. He was called the “King of Cool” (one of several nicknames you can see on his IMDb profile). So he decided to go for his longtime passion, auto racing, in […]

There is a fascinating story within the documentary Rock in the Red Zone, about musicians and artists under constant rocket attacks in a small town in Israel, but it gets a bit lost. American director Laura Bialis travels to the border town of Sderot, the target for homemade rockets called Quassams lobbed over from Gaza […]

Her father died on the Titanic. She bought art directly from Picasso, Giacometti, Brancusi, and de Kooning, and drank with them, too. Her failed sexual encounter with Jackson Pollock ended when he “threw his drawers out the window.” And she lived out her last years in a magnificent palazzo in Venice, leaving behind a socko […]

Described as “the father of African cinema,” Ousmane Sembène receives a mostly conventional biodocumentary in Sembene!, but it is enlivened by biographer Samba Gadjigo’s personal perspectives and an impressive array of contextual footage, personal photographs, rare archival footage, interviews with intimates, and clips of Sembène’s films that are only now being preserved. Sembène had much […]

Local public radio station WNYC frequently intones a quote attributed to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia: “This is New York, a city of opportunity where nearly eight million people live in peace and harmony and enjoy the benefits of democracy.” Frederick Wiseman’s 40th feature documentary, In Jackson Heights, visually demonstrates this theme through the microcosm of […]