My Old School is a peculiar documentary that intrigues audiences with an unconventional narrative gimmick, and further attracts viewers with its strange, entertaining, and deliberately confusing yarn. The movie is, simply, unforgettable.
Becoming a Queen is a very straightforward documentary that zeroes in on one person, their career, and their primary achievement. The film follows this standard structure well enough, issuing the occasional bit of history along the way, but I wish director Chris Strikes followed a less conventional format to this vibrant subject matter.
“Do I like this movie, or do I just like the footage?” I frequently asked myself this during Fire of Love, a documentary about the relationship between volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft and their explosive expeditions.
The Long Rider is a welcomed return to documentary filmmaking for director Sean Cisterna (Moon Point, Kiss and Cry, From the Vine).
In rural Michigan, dozens of individuals have reported sightings of a terrifying bipedal creature stalking forests and country roads at night. Standing six-to-seven feet tall, with fearsome glowing eyes and a head resembling a canine, the Michigan werewolf (or “dogman”) is a well-documented urban legend. Startlingly similar is the so-called “Beast of Bray Road” sighted in the neighbouring state of Wisconsin. Like the Michigan dogman, the beast stands upright on two legs and has the…
Written and directed by health reporter Alex Liu, A Sexplanation is both a personal portrait of Liu’s own relationship with sex and an examination of the current debate surrounding sex ed in the United States.
There’s no denying how uncompromising Into the Weeds: Dewayne “Lee” Johnson vs. Monsanto Company is with its recap of the ongoing legal battle against agriculture company Monsanto (now owned by Bayer). The struggle for justice after Monsanto’s glyphosate was discovered to be extremely hazardous was an exhausting process for the plaintiffs, and documentarian Jennifer Baichwal does not want to skip over any details. But, does this integrity affect the documentary? For me, it did.
Every so often, I like to fall down a movie’s rabbit hole. We all like when a movie can take us to an escape, but I’m talking about being taken completely out of my element to be enlightened about a subject I’m absolutely clueless about. I’ve taken this trip with faith-based movies before (notably War Room): I wasn’t moved by the movie but I appreciated the experience. I was hoping Stronger By Stress was going…
By: Trevor Chartrand Documentary filmmaker Ilinca Calugareanu takes on a recent New York controversy in A Cops and Robbers Story; which focuses on former NYPD chief Corey Pegues. A vocal advocate against police brutality and racism, Pegues was the centre of a media swarm following a recent confession of his darker past.
Few documentaries have moved me like Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America has. It’s an unflinching breakdown of American history and an empathetic reach to those who have suffered through it. Lawyer Jeffery Robinson (who last appeared in 2020’s brilliant doc The Fight) guides us every step of the way.