Filmmaker Brett Morgen (Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck) presents a kaleidoscopic retelling of the career of David Bowie with Moonage Daydream. With unfettered access to Bowie’s archives, Morgan uses rare interviews and performances to create an unconventional journal through his 1970s glam rock heyday to his commercial success in the 1980s and his more experimental…
Alan Cumming stands in for a legendary student of Glasgow’s Bearsden Academy in My Old School. In 1993, a new student named Brandon Lee enrolled in Bearsden Academy, a posh high school in the rich end of Glasgow. Claiming to be a Canadian, who moved in with his grandmother after the death of his opera…
The turbulent first five years of the career of Sinéad O’Connor are reframed through a feminist lens in Nothing Compares. Growing up in Ireland with an incredibly abusive mother, Sinéad O’Connor entered the world of music as a form of therapy. Despite shaving her head to rebel against being a musical commodity, Sinéad would end…
The life and career of heavy metal pioneer Ronnie James Dio are revisited in Dio: Dreamers Never Die. Born Ronald James Padavona the career of Ronnie James Dio spans the entire history of rock music, beginning with the 1960s band Ronnie Dio and the Red Caps later renamed the Prophets. After fronting the hard rock…
A group of home-schooled brothers learn about the outside world through movies in The Wolfpack. The Angulos are a family of six brothers (and one sister), who live together with their parents in a New York housing project. Because of their father’s distrust of society, the brothers never leave home and they entertain themselves by re-enacting…
Previously unreleased recordings of Marlon Brando narrate the story of his career in Listen to Me Marlon. Throughout his lifetime, Marlon Brando kept an archive of over 200 hours of personal audio recordings. These recordings are used to get inside the notoriously reclusive actor’s head, as he provides a reflection on his career, as well…
Comedian Tig Notaro had the worst few months of her life in 2012 when she was experienced a life-threatening infection, the death of her mother, and a break-up, all before being diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. Notaro decided to turn her situation into material for a stand-up set on August 3, 2012, at the Largo…
In Indonesia during the 1960s there was a large genocide, in which the paramilitary group in charge of the country decided to kill off anyone they accused to be a communist. The Act of Killing follows a group of people who committed these murders. They are working with the director to reenact their killings in the style of…
I’m sorry to say that I never had the chance to prepare a classic thoughts review for today. However, I saw this documentary today, so that will be a fitting substitute. There are many different types of documentaries, however I find that “talking head” variety to be the most informative and interesting. This film features…
