At the point in which Yoshiki, musical ombudsman, drummer, keyboardist/pianist and main songwriter of the Xtremely popular X Japan (simply X in Japan, though not in Japanese, for this is no ideogram, but only an alphabetic, apathetic X), Xtremely so in their Pacific archipelago, mythical prophets in their own land . . . at the…
There’s been a renewed interest in the Church of Scientology and that’s probably because of the commercial success of HBO’s “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and A&E’s “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath” television series (there are a few other documentaries on the topic, but they mostly regurgitate the same talking points)….
When I first watched Gleason, at the London Film Festival back in October, there was barely anyone there. “Fair enough,” I thought. It was after all, a mid-week, lunchtime showing, and a documentary about an American football player, who few Brits will have ever heard of. By the end of the film though, the dearth…
“Uncertain’s a good place to hide,” states a Texan police officer during the first moments of Ewan McNichol and Amanda Sandilands’ debut documentary Uncertain. A very uncanny name for a town stuck on the border of Louisiana and Texas, Uncertain welcomes a mere population of 94 residents and is home of prime fishing location, Caddo…
In his powerful and beautifully realized documentary, Tower, Keith Maitland (“A Song For You: The Austin City Limits Story”) movingly recreates the shock and heartbreak of the random shooting of 49 people at the University of Texas in the summer of 1966. The attack was the first mass shooting at any school in the U.S.,…
“A word — you know: a corpse. Come let us wash it, come let us comb it, come let us turn its eye heavenward.” — Paul Célan, “Nocturnally Pursed” In 1951, a little more than six years after the Nazis were defeated and the last camp debarred, the German philosopher and critical theorist Theodor Adorno…
Some beautiful aerial photography of Napa Valley is the strongest asset of Decanted, a leisurely paced, reverent look at a handful of winemakers in that famous region of California. If you’re interested in how, or why, a person would start a winery in this competitive industry, then you may find something more to like in…
