documentaries
Movie Reviews: 2025 Oscar-Nominated Short Films
LIVE ACTION The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Croatia) 4 stars out of 5 It’s 1993 in Eastern Europe and military personnel have stopped and boarded a passenger train, demanding to see everyone’s papers. Tension builds as the officers get closer and closer to the compartment we’ve become familiar with, including a family and […]
Movie Review: Born Innocent — The Redd Kross Story
4 stars out of 5 This rock doc checks all the boxes: sex, drugs, sibling rivalry, breaking up, getting the band back together. There’s one tiny problem: It’s quite possible you have no idea who they are. Yes, lovers of glammy power pop absolutely worship Redd Kross, and record store ghouls have certainly come across […]
Movie Review: Will & Harper
4.5 stars out of 5When I first read the description of this documentary — Will Ferrell and a longtime friend who has recently transitioned take a cross-country road trip — I immediately wanted to see it. I figured Ferrell would be a gentle guide into questions about transgender life that many of us have. And […]
Movie Review: Dory Previn — On My Way to Where
4.5 stars out of 5 I wasn’t familiar with Dory Previn. Even the 2006 song “Dory Previn” by one of my favorite groups, Camera Obscura, didn’t inspire me to look up Dory Previn, and the name slipped out of my head. I must’ve seen her name multiple times, yet it never stuck. Until February, that […]
Movie Review: Flipside
3.5 stars out of 5The name Christopher Wilcha looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Ah, but years ago, someone tipped me off to his directorial debut, the 1999 first-person documentary The Target Shoots First, about working at the Columbia Record Club during the “alternative rock” era. (I watched it on Vimeo.) And in 2007, […]
Movie Review: Kim’s Video
3 stars out of 5 In the mid 90s I had an East Village girlfriend, so we spent a decent amount of time at Kim’s Video on St. Mark’s Place looking for something to rent. (It could be a frustrating search, as the movies were snobbily filed by director instead of title.) Post-relationship, Kim’s reamined […]
Movie Review: It Ain’t Over
3 stars out of 5I didn’t want to see it. But I had 8 hours to kill between checking out of the Berkeley Hotel and doors opening at the House of Independents for the rock and roll hootenanny. Eating only lasts so long. But movies, movies are good. You go in at one time, and […]
Movie Review: 2022 Oscar Nominated Documentary Short Films
Audible (USA)4.5 stars out of 5 No, this isn’t a documentary about the audio book company. If you’re a fan of Friday Night Lights, fire up your Netflix and watch this 38-minute doc. (The similarities are no coincidence: Lights’ Peter Berg is a producer here.) Audible focuses on the high school football team at the […]
Jack Silbert, curator