I judge art documentaries by one of two standards. Does the film tell me something I don’t know about the subject? Is it entertaining or engaging in its own right,… Continue reading "Gustav Stickley: American Craftsman (Stratford, 2020)"
I don’t think you need to know Sophocles’s twenty-four hundred-year-old play to understand Sophie Desraspe’s very loose adaptation of it. You certainly don’t need to know it in order to… Continue reading "Antigone (Desraspe, 2019)"
People speak of love, don’t know what they’re thinking ofReach out to each other through the push and shoveSpeak in terms of a life and the learningTry to think of… Continue reading "2020 Top Ten"
The beginning and ending of Another Round are very strong. Thomas Vinterberg’s portrait of an alcoholic culture is quite effective at varying its tone — demonstrating the highs as well… Continue reading "Another Round (Vinterberg, 2020)"
James Erskine’s Billie is a little gem of a documentary, more oral history than biography. That is arrives streaming this week with little fanfare is mildly surprising but entirely shocking.… Continue reading "Billie (Erskine, 2020)"
The Croods: A New Age unfolds like an American football game where a perennial 5-11 team (I’m looking at you, Washington) grabs a first quarter lead. For a short while,… Continue reading "The Croods: A New Age (Crawford, 2020)"
Alex Gibney is the rare documentarian who usually ends up convincing me regardless of whether or not I start on the same side of his arguments. Taxi to the Dark… Continue reading "Crazy, Not Insane (Gibney, 2020)"
Like its protagonists, Han Van Meegeren and Joseph Piller, The Last Vermeer is unassuming. Its subject — the looting of European art by the Nazis — was covered more dramatically… Continue reading "The Last Vermeer (Friedkin, 2020)"
Joan of Arc is titled Jeanne in its French release, and for the first thirty seconds or so, I thought I had popped in a screener for Dumont’s 2017 (I-don’t-know-what-else-to-call-it-except-maybe-a-cult-classic)… Continue reading "Joan of Arc (Dumont, 2019)"
Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist is an engaging and interesting film even if you are not a horror aficionado. I’m not a horror fan, but The Exorcist… Continue reading "Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist (Phillipe, 2019)"
