Directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi Produced by Vasarhelyi, Chin and Shannon Ethridge Released by Music Box Films USA. 90 min. Rated R One of the greatest adventures ever told on film, Meru centers on a trio of professional mountain climbers, or alpinists, to use the industry term, as they try and try […]
Produced and Directed by Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht Released by Kino Lorber USA. 65 min. Not Rated With Happy Mother’s Day (1963), directed by Richard Leacock and Joyce Chopra (26 min.) In a bit more than an hour, How to Smell a Rose: A Visit with Ricky Leacock in Normandy provides a leisurely, insightful […]
Produced and Directed by David T. Friendly and Mick Partridge Released by Submarine Deluxe/Gravitas Ventures/Complex USA. 70 min. Not rated They risked it all for a pair of Dunks. At the start of Sneakerheadz, a crowd of young men are arrested by the police. Why? A new sneaker release turned into a riot after a […]
Directed by John Pirozzi Produced by Mr. Pirozzi and Andrew Pope DVD released by Virgil Films English, Cambodian and French with English subtitles USA/Cambodia/France. 105 min. Not rated Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll lives up to its title. It provides a primer of Cambodian rock ’n’ roll from the 1950s to […]
Directed by Brent Hodge and Derik Murray Produced by Derik Murray Written by Steve Burgess Released by Virgil Films USA. 95 min. Not rated With Lorne Michaels, Bob Odenkirk, David Spade, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Christina Applegate, Dan Aykroyd, Tom Arnold, Bo Derek, Brian Stack, Bob Saget, and Jay Mohr Chris Farley was a bright […]
Produced and Directed by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon Released by Magnolia Pictures USA. 87 min. Rated R The interminable presidential campaign cycle is here again, prompting us all to bemoan the degradation of our national political discourse and wonder just how and why it got so dumb. With this election shaping up to be […]
Edited, Written, and Directed by Stevan Riley Produced by John Battsek, R.J. Cutler, and George Chignell Released by Showtime Films UK. 100 min. Not rated “Inferiority. I’ve been close to it all my life.” The voice is unmistakable: sussurant, slurred, sensual, and exhausted. Its meandering cadences emerge from the once beautiful and now bloated Marlon […]
Written and Directed by Sophie Deraspe Produced by Isabelle Couture and Nathalie Cloutier Released by SundanceNow Doc Club English, French, and Arabic with English subtitle Canada. 84 min. Not rated Abduction can be a tool of terror, employed by political regimes to silence opposing viewpoints and conceal the truth. It is ironic that in the […]
Directed by William Gazecki Produced and Written by Susan and Lloyd Ecker Released by Menemsha Films USA. 96 min. Not rated The Outrageous Sophie Tucker takes a breezy, mostly chronological tour through the on- and off-stage life of the singular entertainer, whose singing career extended from the birth of vaudeville to the rise of television. […]