Spike Lee's 'BlacKkKlansman' Is a Provocative, Entertaining Mess
The new Spike Lee Joint is irreverent and challenging, but it fails to rival contemporary social powerhouses like Sorry to Bother You and Blindspotting.
08 Aug 2018
Recent
'Betty Davis' Documentary 'Betty: They Say I'm Different' Tries a Different Approach
In this interview with documentary maker Phil Cox and producer Giovanna Stoppani, we learn how they made a film about an artist in absolute solitude, funk and soul singer Betty Davis.
07 Aug 2018
This Tale of Patsy Cline and Jim McCoy's 'Homeplace' Is Good for the Soul
John Lingan's immersive experience feels exponentially more revelatory than any nonfiction you're likely to have read since the dawn of Twitter.
30 Jul 2018
The Limits of Hospitality in Fred Rogers Documentary, 'Won’t You Be My Neighbor?'
Our work on this Earth, Rogers insists, is Tikkun Olam (repairing the world). So why does Morgan Neville shut down the possibility of queerness in his documentary?
30 Jul 2018
Dave Eggers' 'The Monk of Mokha' Is a Little Too Carefully Brewed
Wherein understanding is synonymous with compassion, then surely the effort Eggers has extended through most of his publishing career should be applauded.
18 Jul 2018
David Lynch and Kristine McKenna's 'Room to Dream' Never Awakens
The legendary director behind Twin Peaks, Eraserhead, and Mulholland Drive joins co-author Kristine McKenna for a unique blend of autobiography and biography that does little to solve the mysteries of his life and work.
11 Jul 2018
Phil Ochs: 'There But for Fortune'
The re-issue of Michael Schumacher's biography There But For Fortune is the tale of an insatiable obsessive stumbling down a legendary path but not coming out okay at the other end.
28 Jun 2018
Truth or Fiction? 'Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous'
In these times of so-called "fake news", Bonanos' biography of Weegee begs the question: If the truth of human nature is best demonstrated in a prearranged circumstance, does that make it any less true?
20 Jun 2018
Time Out of Minds: Interview with Author Ryan Walsh on Van Morrison's 'Astral Weeks'
Ryan Walsh chronicles the making of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and the chaotic Boston scene that gave birth to it and tells us all about it in this expansive interview.
19 Jun 2018
'The Art of Vanishing' and the Problem with Hybrids
The Art of Vanishing is strongest when it covers the life of an independent girl, Barbara Follett, a prodigy molded almost to death by demanding parents.
18 Jun 2018
The Paradoxical Performance of Authenticity: Sophie Tucker's Immigrant Dream
Sophie Tucker's delivery is both blatant emotion revealed to be pretense and pretension discovered to be deadly serious. Unfortunately, Red Hot Mama provides no real examination of Tucker's artistry.
06 Jun 2018
Alea iacta est!: Plutarch and the Event of the Self
For Plutarch, life and the course of history insist that we face up to who we are and this is as harrowing as it is liberating; it is the source of our destruction as much as it is the springboard for our accomplishments.
25 May 2018
'Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty' Memoir Rejects Hagiography
In Kate Hennessy, a cautious voice emerges over the pious chatter about her famous grandmother, activist Dorothy Day.
18 May 2018
Suffering the Inscrutable: The Ethics of the Face in Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc'
The film is imbued with a painterly quality wherein the not-quite static framing of the human visage is its main concern, its aesthetic gambit, and the source of its affective impact.
16 May 2018
"Break Your Own Dreams": Ebersole & Hughes on 'Mansfield 66/67'
P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes delight in the slippery nature of truth in their documentary filmmaking. Like Jayne Mansfield herself, the moment you think you can pin them down, they've already danced away to another possibility.
11 May 2018
Populism as High Art: Getting to the Heart of Ishiro Honda
A new biography of the groundbreaking -- yet unassuming -- film director explores his multifaceted life and work.
26 Apr 2018
Pop Ten
Mixed Media
PM Picks
© 1999-2018 Popmatters.com. All rights reserved.
Popmatters is wholly independently owned and operated.