This quirky documentary, created by film maker Tim Delmastro and You Tuber Chris Broad, an Englishman who has lived in Japan for over five years, follows the Japanese fascination with the domestic felines. From a station master’s cat (below, in jaunty hat) to a temple festooned with Neko beckoning lucky cats, to a slightly OTTContinue reading “Film Review: Cat Nation”
Tag Archives: Documentary
TV Review: The Lost Surrealist- Leonora Carrington
Leonora Carrington never got her dues. While Salvador Dali, Andre Breton and others are widely recognised as the Surrealist masters, the women are often sidelined, reduced to mere muses. This 2017 documentary from BBC 4 directed and narrated by Teresa Griffiths, focuses on this oversight, with a haunting and insightful study of the artist andContinue reading “TV Review: The Lost Surrealist- Leonora Carrington”
Film Review: It’s A Rockabilly World
… Except it’s not,not really. This Brent Huff documentary from 2016 looks great on paper, purporting to look at the rockabilly subculture in all its sassy glory. Instead, it focuses on the Viva Las Vegas convention, with lots of hipster types with sleeve tattoos, blue hair and brothel creepers. It’s colourful enough, and everyone looksContinue reading “Film Review: It’s A Rockabilly World”
Put Blood In The Music: Sonic Youth and John Zorn
This film, directed by Charles Atlas for The South Bank Show in 1989, was what made me fall in love with SY, and admire Zorn. Using a fanzine type approach to his montage – talking heads floating in front of New York street scenes, it’s a typically playful approach from Atlas (more of whom, later).Continue reading “Put Blood In The Music: Sonic Youth and John Zorn”
Worth Revisiting: Wild Man Blues
‘Grumpy Old Man B!ues’, more like. What a miserable old git Woody Allen is. That’s the takeaway from Barbara Kopple’s 1997 documentary on the legendary but controversial film director. Holding forth on his favourite subjects: New York; himself, jazz, himself, Paris, himself, travel, himself, and, mostly, himself, the camera follows him, alongside his very youngContinue reading “Worth Revisiting: Wild Man Blues”
Film Review: #Unfit
Directed by Dan Partland, #Unfit :The Psychology of Donald Trump is a compelling, thoroughly absorbing and sobering documentary from 2020, which posits that the Orange Menace may in fact be, as many have long suspected, a malignant narcissist, who is not merely unfit for office, but a global threat. It does allude to The GoldwaterContinue reading “Film Review: #Unfit”
Film Review: Hail, Satan?
There is a HELL of a lot to unpack in Penny Lane’s brilliant documentary Hail, Satan? as it seems quite jocular at first, even rather silly. As it develops though, it seems that tone is a trick to wrong -foot any audience expectations, and a more thoughtful film emerges.Essentially, it’s all a battle of willsContinue reading “Film Review: Hail, Satan?”
Film Review: Boom For Real
Anyone who’s ever seen Julian Schnabel’s good but flawed film Basquiat knows where this documentary gets its name from: a news report that artist Jean – Michel Basquiat sampled this anguished line from, and turned into an artwork. Sara Driver’s documentary, from 2018, subtitled The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat , takes a muchContinue reading “Film Review: Boom For Real”
Worst. Music. Documentary. Ever.
What a howler music documentary Madonna: The Name Of The Game, from 1993, is. Presented by Troy McClure alike (albeit with Ned Flanders’ stylist) Mark Bego, it’s got all the insight of a tabloid article, and the production values of an Alan Partridge corporate video. And nothing says Madonna like an ABBA hit for aContinue reading “Worst. Music. Documentary. Ever.”
Film Review: An Honest Liar (2014)
Who said you can’t kid a kidder? Justin Weinstein and Tyler Measom’s fantastic documentary charts the fascinating life and history of James Randi, born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge in 1928, Toronto, who became “The Amazing Randi”, magician, escapologist and latterly, debunker of psychics, fake mystics and charlatans everywhere. This lovingly crafted film traces the riseContinue reading “Film Review: An Honest Liar (2014)”
Hit The North 