All posts by Jordan M. Smith »
Mistaken For Strangers | NXNE Review
Bound By Blood, Not Band: Berninger Tails Brother The life of touring musicians has long been a favorite subject of documentarians the world over, but none previously have ventured so far from the rock
Read More »
Call Me Kuchu | Review
Wedging The Closet Door Open In Uganda In the United States, the last few decades have been tarnished with the debate over whether or not homosexual couples should have the same legal rights as
Read More »
Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story | Review
Not Just For Children: Berstein Elegantly Draws An Illustration Legend Documentaries on the eccentric or tortured artist are a dime a dozen, but it seems each year a few view worthy films pop up,
Read More »
Frances Ha | Review
Baumbach Stops Wallowing In Cynicism To Lens His Best Yet Noah Baumbach has built an oeuvre on characters frozen in time, refusing to let go of the past while evading emotional maturity at every
Read More »
Mining From Sunrise to Sulfurous Sunset: Where Heaven Meets Hell
It’s quite unfortunate that the breathtaking clouds that fume from the depths of Kawah Ijenof, an active volcano just west of Banyuwangi, Indonesia, are in fact literally choking toxic sulfur dioxide gases. Within the
Read More »
Jodorowsky’s Dune | Cannes Review
Resurrecting Sci-fi Legend: Pavich Taps Alejandro Frank Herbert’s epic novel Dune has been a sci-fi benchmark since it’s original release back in 1965, and since, there have been several attempts at a worthy film
Read More »
The East | Review
Activism Unchained: Batmanglij Thrills With Eco-Terror Seemingly a perfect union, the writing duo of director Zal Batmanglij and his hypnotic on screen muse, Brit Marling, return to the big screen with their second collaboration,
Read More »
Shadow Dancer | Review
Perpetually Intense, Somewhat Monotonous IRA Thrills Hot off the heals of his masterful documentary Project Nim, James Marsh presents a simmering thriller of political revenge with Shadow Dancer, a story of one family’s decent
Read More »
Interview: Alex Gibney (We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks)
Just a month before Bradley Manning finally appeared before a military judge to confess that he did indeed leak thousands of sensitive military documents, Alex Gibney’s latest docu investigation which chronicles Manning’s involvement with
Read More »
We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks | Review
Gibney Ciphers Assange’s Brain Child Back up a few years and you probably never had heard the name Julian Assange or his tiny little whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks, but by 2010 both the name and
Read More »
The Fruit Hunters | Review
Finding The Forbidden: Chang Indulges In Produce It seems that for some, the appetite for rare and exotic fruits extends far beyond mere curious fascination and well on into the realm of impassioned obsession.
Read More »
Only The Young / Tchoupitoulas | DVD Review
When it was announced that Only The Young and Tchoupitoulas would be released together in a single package, I was a little taken back by the seemingly strange pairing. A coming-of-age story of teenage
Read More »
Expedition to the End of the World | Hot Docs 2013 Review
Dencik Sails For Science and Existentialism At first glance, Danish director Daniel Dencik’s Expedition to the End of the World seems a blatant ripoff of Werner Herzog’s graceful examination of modern Antarctica in Encounters
Read More »
Blood Brother | Hot Docs 2013 Review
India, AIDS & Amity: Hoover Follows Friend’s Heart It’s really no wonder that often when westerners find themselves drifting, looking for more from life, they drop everything and journey off into the unknown, and
Read More »
Elena | Hot Docs 2013 Review
Float On: Costa Laments Sister In Intimate Portrait Petra Costa has been trying to process the suicide of her older sister for over two decades now. The young docu director’s first feature, Elena, is
Read More »
Bending Steel | Hot Docs 2013 Review
Carroll’s Debut A Wonder-ful Metamorphosis It turns out that being an old time strongman has less to do with bulging muscles, leopard skin leotards and handle bar mustaches than it does with carrying on
Read More »
12 O’Clock Boys | Hot Docs 2013 Review
Battles In Baltimore: Nathan Rides With The Boys First time director Lotfy Nathan has spent the last few years documenting war in the streets of Baltimore, though not against drugs or the classic gang-bangers
Read More »
Fuck For Forest | Hot Docs 2013 Review
Exploits For Earth: Marczak Gazes Into The Gutter After the breakout success of his docu debut At the Edge of Russia, Polish director Michal Marczak found himself following the sexual and political exploits of
Read More »
15 Reasons To Live | Hot Docs 2013 Review
Zweig Somberly Celebrates Human Resilience Occasionally, moments of epiphany can boil down the colossal essence of mortality into simple, elegant terms. For Alan Zweig, director of the LP obsessed docu Vinyl, one of those
Read More »
Alias | Hot Docs 2013 Review
Latimer Drops Beat On Toronto’s Rap Scene Taking it’s name from one of the four Toronto street rappers it peeks into the lives of, Michelle Latimer’s Alias examines the cyclic struggles of urban hip-hoppers
Read More »
The Manor | Hot Docs 2013 Review
Polemic Crisis: Cohen Turns Camera On His Fam Having flown the coop over a decade ago to work in the film industry as a digital effects artist, first time feature director Shawney Cohen decided
Read More »
The Central Park Five | Blu-ray Review
After years of acclaimed documentary mini-series, Ken Burns returns to the feature film with his daughter Sarah Burns and fellow colleague David McMahon, who produced a number of Burns’ past projects, joining him as
Read More »
Interview: Shane Carruth (Upstream Color)
After an eight year period of silence following his time travelling Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning debut Primer, Shane Carruth returns to his position not only at the helm with his latest masterpiece, Upstream
Read More »
Criterion Collection: Monsieur Verdoux | Blu-ray Review
People tend to forget that Charlie Chaplin was more than The Tramp, his iconic mute character of physical peculiarity. Seven years after his baffoonic incarnation of Hitler in The Great Dictator, Chaplin bought the
Read More »
Criterion Collection: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | Blu-ray Review
Before the legendary British filmmaking duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger lensed the classics The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus or A Matter of Life & Death, they raised quite a stir with their
Read More »
