Directed by Debra Granik Produced by Anne Rosellini Released by Still Rolling Productions English and Spanish with English subtitles USA. 98 min. Not rated Stray Dog is a surprisingly touching road trip through the heart of America on a Harley-Davidson, where people in double-wides help each other as they struggle to get through posttraumatic stress […]
Among the nearly three dozen films I saw at Cannes, the one that had the strongest emotional hook was, without question, Asif Kapadia’s in-depth biodoc of the late singer Amy Winehouse. Granted, the tender and trenchant Amy has an added resonance for fans and also for the melancholic question (one of many) that lingers afterward: […]
Directed by Shawn Rech and Brandon Kimber Produced by Rech and Andrew Hale Released by Sundance Selects USA. 93 min. Not rated A death row prisoner walks free from jail in a surprise exoneration nearly 48 hours before his scheduled execution. New evidence proving his innocence has come to light thanks to a university journalism […]
Directed by Sacha Jenkins Produced by Peter Rittenbender, Nasir Jones, and Marcus A. Clarke Released by Samuel Goldwyn Films USA. 82 Not rated For a documentary about fashion, Fresh Dressed has more to do with words than might be expected. Language was instrumental in the fortunes and failures of the major figures in the evolution […]
Directed by Marc Silver Produced by Minette Nelson and Carolyn Hepburn Released by Participant Media USA. 98 min. Not rated On the Friday after Thanksgiving in 2012, four African-American teens pulled into a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida, for gum and cigarettes. Michael Dunn, a middle-aged white man, and his fiancée pulled into the space […]
Directed by Crystal Moselle Produced by Izabella Tzenkova, Hunter Gray, and Alex Orlovsky Released by Magnolia Pictures USA. 84 min. Not rated In a city of eight million people—and eight million stories—filmmaker Crystal Moselle certainly stumbled across one of the most intriguing. Walking around the Lower East Side one day, she noticed a group of […]
Directed by Drew Taylor and Larry Weinstein Canada. 85 min. Not rated This 2013 documentary retells the real-life story of the six U.S. Embassy workers who sought refuge from the Canadian ambassador while their co-workers were taken hostage in Iran in 1979. This saga was depicted in Oscar-winning fashion by director/star Ben Affleck in his […]
Directed by Lucia Small and Ed Pincus Produced by Mary Kerr Released by First Run Features USA. 105 min. Not rated In Japanese swordsmanship, the expression “one cut, one life” refers to the importance of making every movement count. For Ed Pincus, it is also a philosophy for how to live life, one that has […]
Produced and Directed by Dena Seidel Released by First Run Features USA. 72 min. Not rated The realities of climate change are painful; the reality of studying it is painstaking. That work, chronicled in Antarctic Edge: 70° South, focuses on a group of scientists making an annual trip to what has been called “the land […]