Having never been to Barcelona, I have missed seeing the great bulk of world renowned architect Antoni Gaudí’s work. Ubiquitous as it is in books and photos, it can’t be the same as ever being right in front of it. This clearly extends to La Sagrada Familia, Gaudí’s unfinished cathedral masterpiece, its three façades the telling of the story of Jesus Christ – one depicts the birth, the next the passion, the last the story of his ascendance. Started 132 years, La Sagrada Familia is still undergoing construction and Stefan Haupt gives us not only a historical tour of La Sagrada Familia but a metaphysical one as well.
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Category Archives: Documentary
Melissa Says: ‘We Are The Giant’ is eye-opening & inspiring
We Are The Giant. As in, the government is David and the people are Goliath. What I loved most about this documentary was that it never pushed any political agenda, that was just a backdrop to a story about people who are fighting for the right to protest the government. As an American, this is so troubling to me. However, the people are completely inspiring. Showing in New York at Cinema Village. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Igal Hecht’s ‘The Sheik’ About Wrestler The Iron Sheik Puts Jabronis in The Camel Clutch
I will admit to being one of the more nostalgic people that I know. Perhaps it is a flaw, but I think it serves a great purpose. While I’m happy to live in the moment, the things that I’m nostalgic for, and reflection upon them, help keep that past as close as possible, which can’t be all bad, right? Especially when we are talking about people like The Iron Sheik, the former WWF bad guy who helped usher in the era of Hulkamania and the golden age of wrestling as entertainment. While many people today only know The Sheik from his exceedingly humorous Twitter feed, his backstory, which Hecht draws out in this film, has remained largely uncovered. The Sheik gives us the whole gamut of the wrestler’s life, up to and including his foray into becoming a social media star. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Robert May’s ‘Kids for Cash’ is Heartbreaking, Infuriating and Incredibly Important
I’m going to put this bluntly – this film pissed me off, made me incredibly angry. I don’t know how it couldn’t. This isn’t a reaction to the technical merits of the film, which are quite well presented, nor is it the narrative focus itself. This is a story that needed to be told. The fact that what happened in this movie happened at all is what angers me. The abuse of power that is so prevalent in the world today – taking advantage of others so that a select group of already well-off people can get more – turns my stomach. Robert May‘s Kids for Cash details one of these scenarios and it is heartbreaking. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Anthony Powell’s ‘Antarctica: A Year on Ice’ Gives Us a First Person View at Life During Winter on the Loneliest Continent
I have always found Antarctica to be a profoundly interesting place. From the fact that it (or the Atacama Desert in Perru, depending on the source) has the driest place on earth (the Dry Valleys), that it’s the home of five breeding species of penguins or that it has just two season, winter and summer in which winter has 24 hours of dark for 6 straight months and summer has 24 hours of daylight for the other six months. Couple that with the harshest landscape and weather on earth, one might ask why in the hell does anyone ever go there. That’s precisely what Anthony Powell does in his fantastic documentary Antarctica: A Year on Ice. Read More →
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Melissa’s Movie of the Day: ‘The Thin Blue Line’ on Netflix Instant
I started watching The Thin Blue Line a few days ago but only got through the first 15 minutes before having to turn it off. There was no particular reason, I just wanted to finally watch it, as I’ve heard of it for years. I knew it was an Errol Morris documentary. That’s it. This morning I went back to continue and decided to just start from the beginning. As I watched the men describe the events, a date flashed on the screen in which the tragedy took place: November 29, 1976. Thirty-eight years ago to the day. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: ‘Touch the Wall’ Is an Awe-Inspiring Profile of Swimmers Kara Lynn Joyce and Missy Franklin Run at the 2012 Olympics + Interview with Kara Lynn Joyce & Directors Grant Barbeito and Christo Brock
Passing the torch. Rise and fall. Student bests teacher. All of these are oft repeated themes in films, especially in sports films from He Got Game to Hoop Dreams to Bull Durham. Sometimes these themes bring out the best in people, other times they bring out the worst. In a cutthroat world like sports, where ego, money and self-promotion usually trump all, it’s rare to see a film of any kind run counter to these notions. But in Grant Barbeito & Christo Brock‘s documentary Touch the Wall, we see the best of the relationship between two athletes, Olympic swimmers Kara Lynn Joyce and Missy Franklin, who are at opposite ends of their career spectrum – one a champion trying to hold on and the other a phenom up and comer trying to make her mark. What unfolds over the multiple year filming is heartfelt, emotional and really a triumphant journey of these two women who, in and out of the pool, exemplify how best to deal with adversity, fame, victory and defeat. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Frederick Wiseman’s ‘National Gallery’ a Brilliant Follow-Up to ‘At Berkeley’
If you’ve never seen one of Frederick Wiseman‘s many documentaries (I think the total rests somewhere near 40 now), watching National Gallery, his latest opus, might throw you off. He has been called a filmmaker who works in observational cinema or cinema verité, although he detests the term, but it’s easy to see why some people may call it so. Unlike most documentaries these days, Wiseman never veers into Errol Morris territory, meaning that he doesn’t interview the subjects present in his films. He captures them as they are in real time doing what they do. There are no interviews, no “talking heads” and no clever witticisms spoken directly into the camera and this takes getting used to. But it works, this technique. It allows us as the viewer to participate, something that many documentaries can’t do as they are too busy addressing us with a certain (biased?) viewpoint. We get none of that here. We, like the patrons and staff of the National Gallery in London, are free to move around in the space and address what it is that we want while taking in what Wiseman has shot. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Aoife Kelleher’s ‘One Million Dubliners’ an Absolutely Touching Portrait of Ireland’s Glasnevin Cemetery
In the opening sequence of Aoife Kelleher‘s One Million Dubliners a funeral is being set and there is an incredibly pertinent quote from James Joyce‘s Ulysses: “In the midst of death, we are in life,” which is a careful reminder to us that even though we are inching closer to death with each day, there is still life to be lived. While pertinent, it may not make much sense to us in the beginning of the film as we allow ourselves to be taken on the journey that Kelleher takes us on in chronicling the history, the energy, the pulse of Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, Ireland. Read More →
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Liz’s Review: The Blu-Ray and DVD release of ‘Alive Inside’- Proof that music is a magic medicine
Music is life’s breath. When you attend a concert, there a thousands of people from different backgrounds, races, religions, ages, what have you. Everyone has one thing in common; they are all connecting to the music. In the emotionally charged and viscerally compelling documentary ALIVE INSIDE, is finally coming to Blu-Ray and DVD. Minutes into this film you will realize why I say what I do. Just for an example, check out the clip from the movie that got the world talking. Rest of the world; May I introduce Henry and ALIVE INSIDE. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Doug Pray’s Documentary ‘Levitated Mass’ About Artist Michael Heizer’s Installation/Sculpture Is Astonishing
A rock. A very large rock. That is ostensibly what Doug Pray‘s Levitated Mass is about. While that may not seem like a subject of interest, it’s the context in which the rock is taken that makes this film, and the rock, so interesting. A little background to clarify – since the 1960s, artist/sculptor Michael Heizer has been working in large-scale earth art (like Andy Goldsworthy who may be more a household name than Heizer) that is too big to be contained within the traditional confines of an art gallery or museum. Since 1969 he had planned a piece, the titular Levitated Mass – a gigantic rock suspended on concrete rails that allows viewers to walk in a trench under the massive stone, the work, according the the LACMA website where the project now sits, “speaks to the expanse of art history, from ancient traditions of creating artworks from megalithic stone, to modern forms of abstract geometries and cutting-edge feats of engineering.” After a failed attempt, Heizer put the project on hold until a suitable stone could once again be found. Read More →
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DOC NYC: November 13-20 – ‘Citizen FOUR’ – ‘Banksy Does New York’ – ‘Do I Sound Gay?’ – ‘Finding Vivian Maier’ – Newly Restored ‘Hoop Dreams’
Tickets:
Tickets for all screenings are on sale now. Advance tickets for all DOC NYC films and events are available online at docnyc.net or in-person at the IFC Center box office, 323 Sixth Ave. (at West 3rd St.). Day-of tickets are available at the respective screening venues.
Ticket prices: Opening night screening of Do I Sound Gay? – $30. Closing Night screening of The Yes Men Are Revolting – $25. Regular screenings – $17 adults, $15 seniors/children, $14 IFC Center members. Doc-A-Thon Panels and Masterclasses – $12 adults, $10 seniors, $9 IFC Center members and students. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Ian McDonald’s ‘Algorithms’ Falls Victim to the Budapest Gambit
What is the Budapest Gambit, you ask? Well, it’s a chess opening that apparently was able to draw top players into making mistakes only to lose the game. I think it’s an apt appraisal of Ian McDonald‘s Algorithms, a film about chess following three young players from India, which just so happens to be the birthplace of chess, as they vie for prominence in their home country and for a world championship. The catch with these young men is that they are all blind or are partially sighted. Picture that if you can. Chess, a game where there are 318,979,564,000 possible plays in the first four moves, being played by blind players. While these players can certainly be aided by technology that blind players in the past did not have access to, the undertaking is immense. Much is the task that McDonald undertakes in the documentation about three junior players. Read More →
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Heartland Film Festival 2014 Jeremy’s Review: ‘Off the Floor’ Is a Well-Constructed and Incredibly Engaging Documentary About Contemporary Pole Dancing
When the film opens, we see Jessica Anderson-Gwin, founder of Jagged, a contemporary pole dance company that’s the first of its kind, frustrated as she tries to find a venue that will allow her company to use its space for an upcoming performance. The frustration is palpable as so many of the people she talks to confuse what they do with stripping and refuse to host them. This is what Jessica is up against in Matt & Katie Celia‘s spectacular documentary Off the Floor. Read More →
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NYFF52- Liz’s Review: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ is a Fact-Checking Fangirl’s Dream
Director Robby Kenner (Food, Inc.) brings us an eye opening documentary on the sleight of hand of the rich and on the right in terms of media manipulation. Often, we wonder why folks vote against their best interest and don’t even know it. Some of the “why” has to do with highly paid “con artists”; lobbyists and spin doctors hired by people like the Koch Brothers, big tobacco, and climate change deniers. Despite actual scientific evidence, much of America is somehow under the impression that human beings are not the cause of climate change. While baffling to half of the country, these people are being spoon-fed talking points that are created by some very talented characters. Read More →
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NYFF52 Liz’s Review: ‘Seymour: An Introduction’ is a master class on life
It should come as no surprise to anyone that I went to a performing arts conservatory for my college experience. Not to burst readers’ bubbles, but I am pretty sure I have never been described as shy or ambiguous in my opinions. However, it wasn’t until a 2nd semester Voice Production and Speech class in which I got up in front of my ridiculously talented classmates and admitted that I have an oftentimes crippling case of stage fright. No one knew. I guess I hide it well. That being said, it has been the bane of my existence as performer for as long as I can remember. Seeing one of this year’s NYFF 52 Spotlight on Documentary selections hit very close to home. I present my thoughts on ‘Seymour: An Introduction.”
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NYFF 52- Review: ‘The Look of Silence’ is loud in its message.
In the 2013 New Directors/New Films fest, we were privileged enough to see Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing. The film chronicled the leaders of a government led military killing brigade whose goal was to irradiate “communists” (mostly farmers, artists, and freethinkers) in Indonesia in 1965-66. We met the men who slaughtered hundreds of people under the regime of pure ignorance and evil. At this year’s NYFF 52, we are introduced to Oppenheimer’s follow up doc, The Look of Silence. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Documentary ‘Born to Fly’ About Dancer/Choreographer Elizabeth Streb Reaches Great Heights
I will admit that I am largely ignorant of dance and its history. Sure I can name George Balanchine, Bob Fosse and Bill T. Jones, but that’s because of the trivia buff in me. So going into Catherine Gund‘s Born to Fly, I had no idea who Elizabeth Streb is or anything about her aesthetic. Needless to say, this incredibly engaging documentary changed all of that. Read More →
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Liz’s Review: ‘I AM ELEVEN’ is universally charming.
When I was 11, I was dancing 5 days a week, going to girl scouts and slumber parties. Life was pretty incredible. I had not a worry in the world then. I did what I wanted, wore what I wanted, (when not in school uniform), loved The New Kids on The Block, and scrunchies. Everyday I came home from school and ate two pieces of American cheese folded into fourths. I was kind of peculiar, graceful yet awkward, bright and precocious, but I had a ton of friends and loved every day I was alive. Australian documentarian, Genevieve Bailey, recalls being just as happy at age 11. As an adult, she wondered if that was the case for kids today. Taking time off to travel, she decided that along here journey she would interview kids that were 11 and find out if they were as happy as we remembered being then. I AM ELEVEN proves to be a beautiful phenomenon and on the heels of the release of Richard Linklater’s BOYHOOD, the timing could not be more perfect. Read More →
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Jeremy’s Review: Doc ‘The Hornet’s Nest’ Is an Incredibly Intimate Look at the Toll of Combat
I’m not a fan of war. I think I’m in the vast majority when I say that. Despite the best of intentions, war is ugly and far too often, innocent people die because of it. On top of that, we lose many of our best and brightest. Fighting in the military is a calling to which few answer and it affects those who do for the rest of their lives, some profoundly, others quite the opposite. So when we are allowed a look into this world as people who are so far removed from what is happening on the battlefield (if it’s really even called that any more), it is jarring, harrowing and overwhelming. There have been a glut of films released about US involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since our incursions in both places dating back to 2001 and 2003 respectively. Some have been pro-military action, others not so much and some have taken no stance but simply told us of the human element involved in the operations. Poignant and incredibly respectful, The Hornet’s Nest is the latter.
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