Category
The DocBlog Recommends
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06.28.10The DocBlog Recommends: The Human ProjectThere are four great things about Bert McKinley and Erin Sproule's web series 'The Human Project': the quality is high, the content is great, it's Canadian and it's free! Fans of Showtime's TV version of This American Life will definitely want to check out this collection of short stories that finds average folks talking about such topics as unconditional love, scars and the unexpected discovery of a dead body (let's face it, we've all been there). I've embedded one of the trailers for the series above and you can check out one of the episodes after the jump. If you ...
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12.09.09The Most Dangerous Man in America ReviewThe Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers Directed by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith 2009 When I first read that the story of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers had been made into a documentary it went straight onto the list of films to keep an eye out for. I love films about warfare in general, and especially those that look into its politics and psychology. Due to last year being the 40th anniversary of the events 1968 there was a spate of exhibitions and documentaries looking back at the events surrounding the Vietnam War, the student protests ...
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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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07.30.09The Documentary Blog Recommends: Jenny Abel’s ‘Abel Raises Cain’It was a recent Twitter add by documentary filmmaker Jenny Abel that reminded me what a total douche bag I am; I never published an official review of her hilarious film 'Abel Raises Cain'. We receive a good number of films here at The Documentary Blog, and although we unfortunately can't get to all of them, I DID watch Abel Raises Cain and I DID enjoy it a great deal. So why isn't there a review for it on the site? Good f*ck'n question. So, I figured this would be a good opportunity to start a regular feature here on ...
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03.24.0945365 Review45365 continues the tradition of a new wave of documentaries that focus on seemingly mundane subjects that when successfully explored, result in engaging and challenging filmmaking. Directors Turner Ross and Bill Ross have created a film that's equally conceptual as it is narrative, providing some great characters and striking imagery. Watching this film is like living in Sidney for an hour and half. The abundance of characters and how their stories manage to naturally coalesce is a perfect representation of the intimate nature of life in a small town. The concept is extremely simple. The filmmakers spent nine months in their ...
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07.14.08Titicut Follies ReviewTiticut Follies (1967) Directed by Frederick Wiseman A few months ago I assembled a list of my personal top 25 documentaries of all time. The response was overwhelming, and although there were many readers that were satisfied by my choices, a great number pointed out a glaring omission, Frederick Wiseman’s ‘Titicut Follies’. At the time, I had yet to see the film. In fact, I hadn’t seen ANY Wiseman films, mainly due to a lack of access. Thankfully, Wiseman’s decision to release his films on DVD has given me the chance to check out this non-fiction classic. You were all right, it ...