Category
DVD Reviews
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12.02.09Gimme Shelter Blu Ray ReviewIt was some time ago that Criterion first announced their plans to jump into the HD world with their blu ray editions of select films from their past and upcoming catalog. I remember being particularly excited about the inclusion of Gimme Shelter on that original list. Now, more than a year later, the film has finally hit stores and like all of Criterion's previous blu ray releases, it does not disappoint. Directed by Albert and David Maysles and editor Charlotte Zwerin, Gimme Shelter is certainly a classic film that has been written about for years, both in a positive and negative ...
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10.27.09Crude Independence DVD ReviewThank goodness Noah Hutton's 'Crude Independence' was about people and not oil. Sure oil might be a timely catalyst for the economic and social upheaval experienced by a small town after the discovery of 200 BILLION gallons of oil under their land, but the hot button issue certainly doesn't bog down the human drama with facts and figures. As the picturesque landscape of Stanley, North Dakota slowly succumbs to the numerous oil wells, a community is forced to deal with some newfound riches -- for those lucky enough to own their property's mineral rights -- and hordes of outsider oil drillers ...
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09.28.09The Complete Monterey Pop Festival Blu Ray ReviewI'll just come clean right off the top here and admit that this was my first time watching D.A. Pennebaker's Monterey Pop and although it's definitely a great film, it's probably my least favourite of the three big music festival documentaries to come out of the late sixties/early seventies. There's something about the grandiose cluster-fuck nature of Woodstock that appealed to me -- along with the split screens of course -- and Gimme Shelter's cynicism was the perfect end to the short lived era of 'Peace and Love'. I think the thing that drops Monterey Pop down a notch or ...
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09.16.09Waterlife DVD ReviewThere are a lot of environmentally themed documentaries floating around out there, but rarely do they present themselves on such a cinematically engaging level as Kevin McMahon’s Waterlife. While similar films might end up buried under their own information, McMahon manages to balance the facts with engaging filmmaking, never forgetting the most important ingredient: storytelling. I really love how documentary filmmakers have recently began to embrace the idea of genre filmmaking. If Man on Wire is the non-fiction equivalent of a heist film and The Cove an espionage-spy-thriller, Kevin McMahon's Waterlife is an environmental road trip movie. The film focuses on ...
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08.27.09Rip! A Remix Manifesto DVD ReviewRip! A Remix Manifesto has me torn. There's no questioning the fact that I was completely drawn in to its vibrant cut and paste aesthetics and infectious pacing, but ultimately I couldn't help but feel like there was a bit of a missed opportunity that could've turned this 'great' film into something 'extraordinary'. Director Brett Gaylor looks at the idea of 'intellectual property' and how the ownership of ideas has hindered the creativity of artists like Girl Talk, a cut and paste 'mash up' artist whose liberal use of popular samples would set him back 4 million dollars if ...