Film-Forward

Documentary

Born to Fly

Directed by Catherine Gund Produced by Gund and Tanya Salvaratnam USA. 82 min. Not rated This look at the life and work of choreographer Elizabeth Streb features some genuinely jaw-dropping moments. They are compiled from a career spent pushing the limits of motion in search of a kind of human flight. Of course, the first […]

Last Days in Vietnam

Produced and Directed by Rory Kennedy Written by Mark Bailey and Keven McAlester Released by American Experience Films USA. 98 min. Not rated The first-person accounts in Last Days in Vietnam put the audience into a gripping you-are-there Saigon in April 1975, when the United States ingloriously exited from 20 years of involvement while the […]

Web Junkie

Directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia Produced by Medalia, Shlam and Neta Zwebner-Zaibert Released by Kino Lorber Films Mandarin with English subtitles USA/Israel. 79 min. Not rated On its own, the Internet can be a scary place. Compounded with addiction, there’s no telling how deeply the rabbit hole might take us. The documentary Web Junkie […]

Rich Hill

Produced and Directed by Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo Released by the Orchard USA. 91 min. Not rated While watching this film, I thought back to the times that I discussed the topic of poverty in America with my students in government class. It never ceased to amaze me that many of these […]

Fifi Howls From Happiness

Directed by Mitra Farahani Produced by Marjaneh Moghimi Released by Music Box Films Farsi with English subtitles USA/Iran/France. 97 min. Not rated Some people make living an art form. This portrait of the artist as an old man follows Bahman Mohassess, an exiled Iranian painter and sculptor, as he attempts to live (and die) according […]

Deepsea Challenge 3D

Directed by John Bruno, Andrew Wight, and Ray Quint Produced by Wight and Brett Popplewell Released by National Geographic Entertainment USA. 90 min. Rated PG People often grow up fantasizing about  outer space and/or the Earth’s oceans, the two great canvasses available for boundless possibility and discovery. James Cameron is at the far end of the […]

The Dog

Produced and Directed by Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren Directed by Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren Released by Drafthouse Films USA. 110 min. Not rated In August 1972, John Wojtowicz robbed a bank in Brooklyn, taking hostages and enduring a 13-hour standoff with the police. The unsuccessful heist granted Wojtowicz 15 minutes of fame, which […]

Tribeca Top Documentaries 2014

This year, the Tribeca Film Festival gave awards to pointed portraits of political engagement. These documentaries raise thoughtful and tangled issues about how the very personal becomes political. Point and Shoot A shy OCD-beset young guy, Matt VanDyke, left his mother’s Baltimore basement and his girlfriend for a North African-to-Middle Eastern odyssey, and plunged into […]

Finding Fela

Directed by Alex Gibney Produced by Gibney and Jack Gulick Released by Kino Lorber US/UK/Nigeria/France. 119 min. Not Rated Finding Fela started out as the making-of the Tony-winning Broadway show Fela!, before journeying with the American production’s tour to superstar Fela Kuti’s home base in Lagos, Nigeria. With the discovery of rare performance outtakes and […]