documentary review
Laura Poitras is just so damn good at this. Cover-Up, co-directed with Mark Obenhaus, is probably her most conventional film to day—a biography of famed American journalist Seymour ‘Sy’ Hersh. But conventions need not be a hindrance to good storytelling and documentaries needn’t be flashy or
docu-fiction review
Two films about the Israel government’s war against Palestine take two vastly different yet curiously connected storytelling approaches. One is a more traditional narrative feature that could be labelled docu-fiction because of its use of real audio within a dramatic structure. The other is a documentary that doesn’
documentary review
A successful all-archival documentary is actually really hard to achieve. Many don’t even try it because foregoing narration, talking heads, and any other sort of directorial embellishment is not easy and breaks something of an unspoken link between the film and the audience. You have to be really
documentary review
Towards the final stretch of Selena y Los Dinos, director Isabel Castro’s documentary changes ever so slightly. And it does so into something that is genuinely intriguing for one of these celebrity biographies, something that I wasn’t expecting and hit me in the face like one of Selena
documentary review
Sadie Frost’s second feature as director sees her once again peering into the archives of British fashion, this time with the life of iconic Dame Lesley Lawson aka Twiggy. Following on from Quant in 2021, Twiggy travels its viewers back to the 1960s and the invention of the mod
documentary review
I admit, I just really like Charlie Shackleton as a filmmaker. Like Marge Simpson and her potatoes, I just think his work is neat. Playful, but not obtuse. Shackleton’s films are “arty” in the sense that a casual documentary lover might choose to be turned off by, but they
documentary review
“You can’t retire from your life”, says Diane Warren and boy howdy is she not doing that. Even if Warren’s particular branch of music hasn’t quite continued to command the cultural and commercial pull of the first two decades of the career, lord knows she keeps plugging
documentary review
Citizen Sleuth is director Chris Kasick’s behind-the-scenes look at a true crime podcast in real time. That might sound like—and I thought it several times in its front half, too—it’s little more than a commercial for the Mile Marker 181 show hosted by Emily
documentary review
This is not a review of The Yogurt Shop Murders, the four-part documentary series about an infamous Texas murder where people were sent to prison based on false confessions. It’s not a review of that, no, but I found it kind of curious that both it and Deborah
documentary review
The words “Cutting Through Rocks” is such an evocative title for a documentary. It conjures up so many potential ideas as to what it is going to be about. That co-directors Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni choose to open their debut feature with the actual cutting of actual rocks
documentary review
I co-host and co-produce a radio show here in Melbourne called Strictly Soundtracks. As you may gather by the name, we discuss the music from film and television. It’s on Joy 94.9 if you care to listen, which you obviously should! On a recent Halloween episode,
documentary review
How does somebody come back from grief when it is their job to be funny? Even somebody like Marc Maron who’s professional (and personal) persona is that of what was maybe once known as a curmudgeon. A grouch with a sense of humour. A bit of a cynic about