After the Wedding
By: Jessica Goddard In the delightful tradition of remaking films and gender swapping the leads – which no one is getting tired of at all – After the Wedding struggles to be convincing in its premise.
By: Jessica Goddard In the delightful tradition of remaking films and gender swapping the leads – which no one is getting tired of at all – After the Wedding struggles to be convincing in its premise.
By: Trevor Chartrand Danish filmmaker/journalist Mads Brügger hits an incredible home run with his latest intense and heartbreaking documentary, Cold Case Hammarskjöld. The film sets out to explore a fifty-year-old unsolved mystery, which is intriguing enough, only to end up unravelling a much larger, gut-churningly appalling conspiracy.
Just as a thoughtful retirement video or an in memoriam can do, Avi Belkin’s well produced outside-the-box doc Mike Wallace Is Here encapsulates its subject’s career and tells a personal story through archival footage.
By: Jolie Featherstone Maiden opens in the middle of a cold and unforgiving ocean. Waves as tall as houses tumble and crash. A preternaturally calm voice is heard over the roar: “the ocean is always trying to kill you.” The roar continues. A storm brews in the increasingly agitated sky. “It doesn’t take a break.”
Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am is an efficient documentary, even if it’s as standard as biopic docs get.
By: Trevor Chartrand In Dogman, a mild-mannered dog groomer named Marcello (Marcello Fonte) struggles to make ends meet in his Italian slum. He gets by in his community, which is populated by a variety of small-time crooks, by dealing cocaine to support his ex-wife and their daughter. After standing up to a notorious citizen however, the former boxer and town bully Simoncino (Edoardo Pesce), Marcello loses the respect of his neighbors and is forced to…
Pavarotti is a celebration of Luciano Pavarotti’s career and his achievements as a legendary opera singer and performer. Ron Howard’s documentary is jovial, just as Pavarotti was known to be. As someone who had limited knowledge of the timeless tenor, I walked away from Howard’s enlightening documentary with a new appreciation for music.
If you prefer science fiction to be grim, perhaps Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja’s Aniara will be your “thing”. Although I can’t comment on the film’s faithfulness to its source material (Harry Martinson’s Nobel prize winning poem of the same name), Aniara is very good in terms of riveting near-future sci-fi, but it’s definitely for a specific crowd.
The White Crow, written by Oscar nominee David Hare (The Reader) and directed by Harry Potter actor Ralph Fiennes, goes against the usual conventions of a biopic.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have predicted to watch an upbeat documentary about satanists. But, here we are: I have watched such a movie and, here I am, suggesting you do the same.