Friday, April 12 2013
‘This Ain’t California’: Skateboarding, Filmmaking, and Finding Freedom
In Alexanderplatz, the skate punks find the perfect place to stretch out and fly, to resist and have fun, they find "corners, edges, and smooth surfaces everywhere: it was fantastic."
Friday, November 4 2011
The Quest to Understand Tribe
This is supposed to be a documentary, not a fan letter. So how about some balance? It's big picture time when it comes to telling the story of hip-hop.
Thursday, November 3 2011
‘Maxwell Street Blues’ Is a Toe-Tapping Time Capsule
Viewing Maxwell Street Blues paradoxically stirs simultaneous emotions of melancholy and elation. Much like what happens when singing the blues.
Wednesday, August 24 2011
The Museum of Modern Art Highlights ‘Images of War (At a Distance)’
Visual artist Harun Farocki's MoMA installation fuses images of war and violence with the documentary mode to create a bold, confrontational hybrid.
Thursday, June 16 2011
‘Vanishing of the Bees’ Could Do with More Honey, Less Vinegar
Vanishing of the Bees flits about from topic to topic -- and loses its way.
Friday, May 6 2011
‘Jews and Baseball’: Setting the Record Straight
Jewish sportsmen may be the butt of jokes, from the "Famous Jewish Athletes" leaflet in Airplane! to Jon Stewart's quips, but the quintessential American sport has been home to many Jewish players since its earliest days.
Monday, April 25 2011
What Really Happens When You Get ‘Lucky’?
Director Jeffrey Blitz (Spellbound) explores the lives of lottery winners (odds: 1 in 200 million) while looking at Americans' fascination with playing the lottery.
Tuesday, April 12 2011
‘Plastic Planet’: We Are Plastic, It’s Not Fantastic
Filmmaker Werner Boote wonders, "Am I the only one who cares about plastic?" and embarks on a worldwide mission to expose the dangers of the one element that defines our lives.
Thursday, April 7 2011
The Terrible Beauty of ‘The Cove’
The Cove attacks the slaughtering of dolphins in Japan while reminding us just how impressive these creatures can be.
Tuesday, March 29 2011
‘Inside Job’ Is a Call to Arms
Treated almost like a crime story, Inside Job unveils a sordid world of the prosperous elite who take an almost unseemly pleasure in living lives of unscrupulous lavishness, with no regard to whom they harm.
