documentary

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Review: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012: Documentary

Powerful images
The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.
By PETER KEOUGH | February 10, 2012

Review: Crazy Horse

Wiseman behind the scenes at a revered dance institution
In La Danse — The Paris Opera Ballet , Frederick Wiseman looked behind the scenes at a revered dance institution. In his new documentary he examines a dance institution of a different sort, the cabaret bar of the title, a Parisian pop-cultural icon and tourist mecca dedicated to artistically ambitious "nude chic" dancing.
By PETER KEOUGH | January 24, 2012

Review: The Devil Inside

William Brent Bell's limp mockumentary
William Brent Bell's film opens with a disclaimer that "the Vatican does not endorse this movie." No kidding — the Catholic Church isn't exactly known for its sense of humor.
By ALEXANDRA CAVALLO | January 10, 2012

Review: Hell and Back Again

The real-life story of a young marine
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Hell and Back Again offers a potent documentary correlative to the narrative of The Hurt Locker .
By GERALD PEARY | January 05, 2012

Review: Dragonslayer

The perils and virtues of slackerdom shape the arresting Dragonslayer
Josh "Skreech" Sandoval is a slacker. A onetime professional skateboarder both admired for and limited by the "random chaos" of his technique, Sandoval abandoned sponsorships and relative fame in search of greater freedom.
By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | January 04, 2012

Review: From the Back of the Room

Amy Oden's documentary about sexism in the punk rock community
Chronicling the past 30 years of women in DIY punk, Amy Oden's documentary deconstructs the myth that punk is an ideal world free of gender prejudices.
By LIZ PELLY | December 06, 2011

Review: The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby

Carl Colby documents his father's life
"My father lived in shadows," says filmmaker Carl Colby in voiceover. "He liked being invisible." His documentary is a valiant but ultimately futile attempt to understand William Colby, the ex-CIA head who died in 1996.
By GERALD PEARY | November 15, 2011

Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone

Fishbone's quarter-century journey
Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler's documentary details Fishbone's quarter-century journey from musically-diverse South Central middle school classmates to becoming one of the most influential Los Angeles bands of the '80s.
By SCOTT FAYNER | November 15, 2011

Review: Inside Hana's Suitcase

Larry Weinstein's stirring documentary
When Fumiko Ishioka, the director of the Holocaust Education Centre in Tokyo, is given charge of a child's suitcase found in the rubble of Auschwitz — a rarity, as most such belongings were lost — it piques her interest. She and her students decide to find out who Hana Brady — the name painted on the suitcase — was.
By ALEXANDRA CAVALLO | November 08, 2011

Review: The Other F Word

The original devil-may-care rebels enforce bedtime
Filmmaker Andrea Blaugrund Nevins spent intimate time on the road and at home with some prominent male punk rockers.
By GERALD PEARY | November 08, 2011

Black Sabbath are back — in print and on film

Masters of reality
The literature on Black Sabbath — already extensive — will continue to grow, as we try, try, try again to wrap our poor noggins around the irreducibly cosmic fact of this band.
By JAMES PARKER | November 14, 2011

Review: Question One

Documentary goes behind the scenes in Maine's 2009 gay-marriage fight
When Joe Fox and James Nubile began work on their documentary, Question One , which covers 2009's gay-marriage battle from inside both camps, they had no idea that Marc Mutty would be such a compelling interviewee.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | October 26, 2011

Bad news, Corrections

Letters to the Boston Phoenix editor, October 7, 2011
As a senior citizen, a long-time reader of the Boston Phoenix , and an African-American, I found the title of your September 16 Back Talk, " Hood Dreams ," to be inappropriate, in bad taste, and misleading.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | October 05, 2011

Paging Chicken Little

City motivated to panic; Making things better; close encounter of the weird kind
Behaving with all the coolheaded aplomb of Prissy — the young maid in Gone With the Wind — Providence school honchos and the city's emergency management agency managed to make a king-size balls-up of the arrival of the "Get Motivated" speakers seminar at the Dunkin' Donuts Center.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | October 05, 2011

Documentary films get some love at a great Maine festival

Hello, Camden!
We've all had that irritating waitress who, asked what she'd suggest on the menu, answers cheerily, "Everything is great!" Thanks for the help — and what credibility!
By GERALD PEARY | October 07, 2011

Review: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

A collage of privileged documentary moments
In the era when the Black Panther Party was its most powerful and off-the-pig-threatening and separatist, there was little interest in even conversing with whitey, unless whitey was from somewhere other than the ultra-racist USA.
By GERALD PEARY | September 27, 2011

Review: Manhattan Short Film Festival

Running the gamut
This selection of 10 short films from around the world runs the gamut of genres, from a brisk actioner to a political documentary to playful horror.
By MICHAEL C. WALSH | September 20, 2011

Review: Farmageddon

The good guys are still knee deep in cow shit, so to speak
Ah, yes, another fine documentary about how low the US government will go to protect corporate monsters at the expense of your health.
By CHRIS FARAONE | September 13, 2011

Review: The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan

Rich in mysteries
An investigative doc brimming with cultural resonance and historical savvy, Henry Corra's film has ahold of a pungent story — that of the titular black Texan fella who vanished in Vietnam 40 years ago.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON | August 30, 2011

Review: Magic Trip

Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters
Looking for the real Easy Rider ? Swap the Harleys for a multi-colored bus and we have the legend of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, whose road trip would change the course of the counterculture.
By MONICA CASTILLO | August 30, 2011

Review: Chasing Madoff

Jeff Prosserman's documentary
Few will dispute the evil avarice behind the $50 billion Ponzi scheme Bernie Madoff masterminded.
By TOM MEEK | August 23, 2011

Review: How to Live Forever

Wexler mocks the "anti-aging marketplace"
Take the most depressing movie imaginable, add The Golden Girls , multiply by Cocoon , and that's How To Live Forever .
By CHRIS FARAONE | August 16, 2011

Review: Love, etc.

Jill Andresevic documents a collection of real relationships
Jill Andresevic's simply photographed documentary springs from an equally simple premise: shoot a varied bunch of New Yorkers, young to aging, who are thinking hard about love or are involved in relationships, and see what happens to them over a few months.
By GERALD PEARY | July 26, 2011

Errol Morris's magnificent obsessions

Mr. Natural
The tops of the side tables in Errol Morris's office are entirely obscured by books, among them Remembering Satan: A Tragic Case of Recovered Memory ; The Education of T.C. Mits: What Modern Mathematics Means to You ; French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's Écrits , and an anthology of Weekly World News stories.
By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | July 13, 2011

Review: Project Nim

Absurd and sad
Once regarded as cuddly, chimpanzees seem downright demonic following the incident in Connecticut in which a pet ape destroyed somebody's face.
By PETER KEOUGH | July 12, 2011

Review: Page One

Get me rewrite
Watching Carr work those stories reveals little about the media revolution, and nothing about its effects on the Times.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | June 29, 2011

Review: The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls

Feel-good variety
Leanne Pooley's portrait gives us performance footage of twins Lynda and Jools Topp that ranges from the '80s, when they were mulleted farm girls busking in the city; to their '90s sketch-comedy TV show; to a recent return to the stage after one twin faced a health challenge.
By BETSY SHERMAN | June 29, 2011

Review: SPACE's looping video installation

Being, perceived
As SPACE Gallery takes the summer to prepare its Annex — the adjunct gallery in the nearby former frame shop fit for smaller local exhibits and performances — its main room plays host to some very big ideas.
By NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | June 22, 2011

review of movie Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

Review: Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

There's something destabilizing about seeing Conan O'Brien — whose image has been familiarized in the collective consciousness wearing a neatly tailored suit in front of a Manhattan backdrop — suddenly laid bare by a jittery handheld camera in the comfort of his kitchen.
By CARSON LUND | June 24, 2011

Review: Pianomania

You don't need to be knowledgeable about classical music to savor Pianomania any more than you need to know about Donkey Kong to enjoy The King of Kong. The Vienna-set documentary burrows into the professional life of Steinway & Sons' chief technician and master tuner Stephan Knüpfer.
By BETSY SHERMAN | June 23, 2011