Embarrassingly, the first Tab Hunter film I ever saw was Grease 2 (1982). He played the hunky biology teacher opposite his longtime costar Connie Stevens. It wasn’t until many years later when I saw him in John Waters’s Polyester (1981), and even then I didn’t really understand his pop cultural significance. The documentary Tab Hunter […]
Saeed Torres is no James Bond. A middle-aged man working as a school chef, he fits no stereotype of a spy. But in the fall of 2011, he revealed to David Sutcliffe and Lyric Cabral that he was a “civilian operative” working for the F.B.I. The filmmakers initially present him in a way that makes […]
World premiering at the New York Film Festival, Don’t Blink – Robert Frank, the documentary of the life and work of artist Robert Frank, starts off with a wallop of energy. You are transported to the heyday of New York City subversive culture as edgy but upbeat punk rock fills your ears while images of […]
“This is not about polar bears,” so says Naomi Klein in this gripping documentary overview, based on her 2014 best seller. It’s to her credit that she faces head-on the notion that viewers may suffer from climate fatigue and that the film refreshingly eschews alarmism. Neither does the film scold; Klein is uninterested in debating […]
Finders Keepers tells a rather bizarre story: how Shannon Whisnant found a genuine human leg in a broiler and what happened next. A legal battle ensues between Whisnant, the finder, and John Wood, the original owner of the leg. To Whisnant, the discovery represents fame and fortune; to Wood, it has more personal meaning. The […]
Directed by Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker Produced by Nichols, Walker, Jenner Furst, Joey Carey and Woltermann Released by First Run Features USA. 86 min. Not rated The “you are there” Direct Cinema genre aims to make the viewer feel like an unobtrusive observer. The documentary Welcome to Leith falls partially in that […]
Written and Directed by Alex Gibney Produced by Viva Van Loock and Gibney Released by Magnolia Pictures USA. 127 min. Rated R Alex Gibney models his critical analysis of the veneration of Steve Jobs on Citizen Kane by opening his documentary with the innovator’s death at the age of 56 in 2011. Over TV news […]
Written and Directed by Arne Birkenstock Produced by Birkenstock, Helmut G. Weber, Thomas Springer & Edward MacLiam Released by KimStim German with English subtitles Germany. 93 min. Not rated Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery is more straightforward than earlier explorations of skullduggery in the art market, from Harry Moses’s Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? […]
It was only the third day of the Cannes Film Festival when Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips rightfully predicted that the first feature film by Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes would win a top jury award. He wasn’t exactly sticking his neck out. Even if the official competition’s lineup were strong this year, and it wasn’t […]