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Burn | Review

Burn | Review

Jordan M. Smith March 18, 2013 0

Putnam and Sanchez Help Fight Detroit’s Inferno It’s no secret that the Motor City is in a state of concentrated shock. The decline of domestic industry has left Detroit but a shell of it’s

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Waiting For Lightning | Blu-ray Review

Waiting For Lightning | Blu-ray Review

Jordan M. Smith March 5, 2013 0

There have been plenty of quality biographical extreme sports docs released in the last couple years, with Jeff Tremaine’s profile of BMX godfather Matt Hoffman, The Birth of Big Air, Stacy Peralta’s loving skate

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A Place at the Table | Review

A Place at the Table | Review

Jordan M. Smith March 4, 2013 0

Filling The Void: Jacobson and Silverbush Eye Hunger While the United States continuously extends its charitable hands to famished communities the world over, we often turn a blind eye to those in our own

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The Last Gladiators | Review

The Last Gladiators | Review

Jordan M. Smith February 26, 2013 0

Fight Club: Gibney Finds Tragedy In ‘Knuckles’ Nilan The assiduous docu director Alex Gibney wrapped three films back in 2011, all of which seem minor works in his ever growing oeuvre, and the proof

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Gideon’s Army | Sundance 2013 Review

Gideon’s Army | Sundance 2013 Review

Jordan M. Smith February 25, 2013 0

Porter Profiles Public Defense With Appreciative Probing Before dipping her toes into the film world as an executive producer on films like Serious Moonlight and Showtime’s The Green, debuting director Dawn Porter worked as

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Love, Marilyn | Review

Love, Marilyn | Review

Jordan M. Smith November 30, 2012 0

Intimate Side of an Iconic Life: Garbus Digs Through Monroe’s Personal Writings Liz Garbus is well aware that the life and times of Marilyn Monroe have been thoroughly researched and exhaustively commented on from

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The Central Park Five | Review

The Central Park Five | Review

Jordan M. Smith November 21, 2012 0

Burns Dissects Why Pride & Prejudice Put Innocent Youths Behind Bars After years of acclaimed documentary mini-series, Ken Burns returns to the feature film with his daughter Sarah Burns and fellow colleague David McMahon,

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Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God | Review

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God | Review

Jordan M. Smith November 15, 2012 0

Gibney Exposes Suppression Of Truth Behind Ministerial Molestation After taking a breather from feature hardline journalism with a series of lighter docs in Catching Hell, Magic Trip and The Last Gladiator, the prolific documentarian

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Tears of Gaza | Review

Tears of Gaza | Review

Nicholas Bell September 19, 2012 0

Suffer the Children: Causalities of War on Display in Norwegian Doc Norwegian actress and director Vibeke Løkkeberg’s latest film, Tears of Gaza, is a visceral documentary depicting footage of the Israeli army bombing Gaza

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Secret Disco Revolution | TIFF 2012 Review

Secret Disco Revolution | TIFF 2012 Review

Eric Lavallee September 13, 2012 0

The Liberation Army: Disco Still Sucks with this Commentary Track Proposed as more than just a dance and lifestyle craze, but as a coming out party for minorities, Secret Disco Revolution dates disco before

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Leviathan | TIFF 2012 Review

Leviathan | TIFF 2012 Review

Eric Lavallee September 12, 2012 0

Crustaceans & Coruscations: Castaing-Taylor and Paravel Pairing Offer Hyper-Stimulated Sound and Mounted Moving Camera Experience The antithesis of a Jacques Cluzaud nature doc, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s sublime, non-commentary type of documentary with

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Camp 14: Total Control Zone | TIFF 2012 Review

Camp 14: Total Control Zone | TIFF 2012 Review

Jordan M. Smith September 11, 2012 0

Daring Us To Complain: Wiese Shows Us North Korea From The Inside Behind the heavily barricaded borders of North Korea lay a slew of labor camps that are home to those deemed as criminals

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Detropia | Review

Detropia | Review

Jordan M. Smith September 5, 2012 0

Blood Runs Thicker Than Oil In The Motor City With a resume that includes the Oscar nominated Jesus Camp, and their Emmy nominated debut, The Boys of Baraka, one could rightfully expect Heidi Ewing

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Ornette: Made in America | Review

Ornette: Made in America | Review

Ryan Brown September 4, 2012 0

A high point for U.S. manufacturing: Jazz genius Ornette Coleman Shirley Clarke’s 1984 documentary ‘Ornette: Made in America’ is a portrait of music visionary and harmolodic high priest Ornette Coleman, a “free jazz” saxophonist

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Girl Model | Review

Girl Model | Review

Jordan M. Smith September 3, 2012 1

If You’re Having Girl Problems, I Feel Bad For You Son… In Siberia, many families ignorantly push their daughters to become models in hopes of pulling themselves from poverty, not knowing that scouting agencies

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True Wolf | Review

True Wolf | Review

Jordan M. Smith August 29, 2012 0

Poorly Domesticating The Wild For Koani, a wolf picked from birth to be domestically raised for the purpose of a film (not this one), living unnaturally among humans was her poorly-thought-out fate. Bruce Weide

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Samsara | Review

Samsara | Review

Nicholas Bell August 22, 2012 1

Fever Dreams of a Tangential Wheel: Fricke’s Latest a Visual Feat, Contextual Blunder A veritable poem of moving pictures, Ron Fricke’s latest visual analysis of omniscient transcendence, Samsara, is exactly the kind of stunning

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Side By Side | Review

Side By Side | Review

Ryan Brown August 17, 2012 0

Film vs. digital doc obscures message with overt Hollywood deference From the opening Oscar broadcast-style montage of iconic movie clips (apparently it is only Hollywood, and not international cinema, that was able to “inspire

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Once In A Lullaby: The PS22 Story | Review

Once In A Lullaby: The PS22 Story | Review

Jordan M. Smith August 6, 2012 2

It’s A Celebration: Making Internet Celebrities Out Of School Children On the festival circuit earlier this year we were given the wonderful opportunity to see Brooklyn Castle, a prevailing doc about the power of

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Senna | Blu-ray Review

Senna | Blu-ray Review

Jordan M. Smith July 31, 2012 2

Fans of motorsports generally get a bad rap, but not all racing is epitomized by the generic dim-witted redneck NASCAR fan, blasting country music and pounding cases of Bud Light. Formula One (F1), the

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Jiro Dreams of Sushi | Blu-ray Review

Jiro Dreams of Sushi | Blu-ray Review

Jordan M. Smith July 24, 2012 1

Anyone who is a fan of The Food Network will attest to their curious attraction to watching the preparation of food. It is part of human nature. Knowing we will not be able to

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Ballplayer: Pelotero | Review

Ballplayer: Pelotero | Review

Nicholas Bell July 12, 2012 2

Searching For Sugar: New Baseball Doc Fails as Expose There’s definitely nothing revolutionary about Ballplayer: Pelotero, the new documentary concerning the baseball industry in the Dominican Republic, detailing two stories that are meant to

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China Heavyweight | Review

China Heavyweight | Review

Jordan M. Smith July 5, 2012 0

Pulling No Punches, Boxing Gives Hope For Poor Rural Youth Modern China is a place that revels in tradition, honor, and hard work – ethics that pervade the nationally sponsored youth boxing programs that

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The Patron Saints | Review

The Patron Saints | Review

Nicholas Bell September 14, 2011 0

Because I Could Not Stop For Death… A common description of Woody Allen’s Interiors (1978) is that it’s a Woody Allen film drained of all comedy. One could make a similar statement about Brian

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