Edited and Directed by Frederick Wiseman Produced by Wiseman and Pierre-Olivier Bardet Released by Zipporah Films France/USA/UK. 173 min. Not rated Award-winning filmmaker Frederick Wiseman establishes a very clear premise for National Gallery within the first few minutes. Reminiscent of the slide presentations used in art history classes, he opens with a silent parade of […]
Filmed, Edited, Produced and Directed by Judy Irving Released by Shadow Distribution USA. 80 min. Rated G A California brown pelican blocks traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. Bystanders watch as bridge security capture it and place it in the back of a waiting police car. Someone jokingly comments, “Awww, he got arrested.” Not quite, […]
Directed by Carlos Agulló and Mandy Jacobson Produced by Jacobson Written by Stephen W. Smith Released by Trinity South Africa. 82 min. Not rated It’s easy to forget what an embarrassment on the global stage South Africa’s apartheid regime was, not least because of how far into the modern era it extended, officially ending only […]
Directed by Laura Poitras Produced by Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy and Dirk Wilutzky Released by Radius Germany/USA. 114 min. Rated R The central, absorbing act of Citizenfour is viewing Edward Snowden like never before. He’s a human being in cinema verité close-up during the days when the computer contractor hands over United States government documents on […]
Written & Directed by Jesse Moss Produced by Moss and Amanda McBaine Released by Drafthouse Films USA. 101 min. Rated PG-13 Fracking has come to North Dakota in recent years, and with it came a job boom that has given the state the lowest unemployment rate in the country. Many filmmakers have focused on fracking’s […]
In Iris, world premiering at the New York Film Festival, director Albert Maysles warmly reveals that Iris Apfel is a lot more than her trademark large owlish glasses. The Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute touted her fashion collection and idiosyncratic style sense in a 2005 traveling exhibit, “Rara Avis,” when she was 84. Previously, she appeared […]
Directed by Darius Clark Monroe USA. 83 min. Not rated We all make assumptions about what a movie based on the title. In this case, I assumed this documentary would be about how a person becomes a criminal after starting out as innocent. And while the film touches a bit on that, it also suggests […]
Directed by Teodora Ana Mihai Released by CAVU Pictures Romanian with English subtitles Belgium/Romania. 88 min. Not rated As the documentary opens, it’s winter in Romania. In an apartment in a social housing complex in Bacau, Georgiana chops up chicken and potatoes while her younger siblings take turns talking on the phone with their mother. […]
Directed by Nicholas Mross Released by Gravitas Ventures USA. 96 min. Not rated Even after watching this documentary, I’m not sure I completely understand how this product works. As one interviewee states, you need to use Bitcoin before you can understand it completely. In what I’m sure is a poor and incomplete description, it is […]