By: Trevor Chartrand It Started as a Joke is an emotionally charged documentary that will sort-of sneak up on you. It’s so sneaky in fact, that the film will try to convince you that you’re watching ‘just another Netflix-style comedy special’ – until you’re suddenly not. You’ll let your guard down, laughing with the featured comedians, chuckling at their on and off stage antics. It’s funny, it’s goofy, and it’s a great time… and then…
The Internet of Everything is a rundown of the productivity in our current digital age. The documentary won’t bowl you over, but you’ll be happy that filmmaker Brett Gaylor has brought you up to speed.
Afterward is a personal documentary for Ofra Bloch. With a career in psychoanalysis and a desire to make a movie, she sets out to talk with people of various backgrounds about how they’ve been effected by their culture’s history, followed by discussions examining guilt. And with so much cultural animosity taking place in the modern world, Bloch digs deeper to see is if these claims are proven to be contradictive of current discrimination, and then pushes further…
Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound has been directed by seasoned sound editor Midge Costin, which explains a lot.
When I hear the names “Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker” attached to a project, I drop everything I’m doing. These two filmmakers are showcasing outstanding work in the documentary genre. Their doc Welcome to Leith, about white supremacists targeting and flipping a small town into their own personal basecamp, was a terrifying look at the escalation of evil. At first glance, their latest film Wrinkles the Clown looks to be as scary. Their…
My recommendation of Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts comes with a bit of a bias.
By: Jessica Goddard Margaret Atwood is fairly low-hanging fruit as far as documentary subjects go. At the moment, it’s almost certain she’s Canada’s most recognized, beloved author, and her latest novel, The Testaments, came out in September and is a sequel to her best-known work, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Patricia Marcoccia’s documentary The Rise of Jordan Peterson chronicles just *that*: the increased interest around the University of Toronto psychology professor, leading to his worldwide notoriety and success of his best-seller 12 Rules For Life. But while the movie does a good job bringing uninformed viewers up to speed on the popularity and controversy of Peterson, it doesn’t add much else to the conversation. The movie is just, kind of, “there”.
In his documentary Coppers, Alan Zweig (15 Reasons To Live) interviews Canadian ex-police officers. Occasionally, viewers are given the a ride-along perspective as the subjects drive around their formally patrolled turf and share some unforgettable stories. Most of these interviewees can recall aged confrontations as if it happened hours before Zweig’s camera turned on. For some, these cases have led to current wellness complications. Along with riding shotgun, Zweig has also emulated the atmosphere of…
This Changes Everything comes from a good place. But, the points expressed in this documentary about gender inequality are sometimes muddled by the doc’s filmmaking.