Category Archives: Documentaries

If You Have the Time to Read This, You’re Not Earning Your Pay: Classic Film Images Photo Quiz, Sept. 2020 Special Labor Day Edition, Vol. 40/5

If You Have Time to Read This, You’re Not Earning Your Pay: Classic Film Images Photo Quiz, Sept. 202 Special Labor Day Edition, Vol. 40/5     In celebration of the American holiday acknowledging the working class, all of the effort … Continue reading

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Look What They Done to My War, Ma: “F.T.A.” (1972)

        “F.T.A.”  (1972)      In Michael Wadleigh’s celebrated 1970 documentary “Woodstock”, the myth of the purity of Sixties radicalism takes a sharp stick in the eye when the cumulative evidence reveals that rather than the three … Continue reading

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Performance Anxiety: “A Labor of Love” (1976)

        “A Labor of Love”  (1976)      In the early 1970s, with the emergence of Porno Chic as a passport for the average moviegoer to casually experience that which heretofore had been the patron territory of the … Continue reading

Posted in Documentaries, erotica, Film, movie reviews, Movies, photography, Porno Chic, Reviews, sex, Sex in Cinema, writing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Good Clean Fun: “Girls, Girls, Girls!” (1961)

       “Girls, Girls, Girls!”  (1961)     “Girls, Girls, Girls!” (not to be confused with the next year’s Elvis Presley feature with the same title) announces itself with a sexy and stylish Pop Art title sequence suggestive of … Continue reading

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Ups and Downs: “The Man Who Skied Down Everest” (1975)

     “The Man Who Skied Down Everest”  (1975)     When George Mallory famously responded to the question as to why he wanted to climb Mount Everest with the seemingly flippant remark- “Because it’s there” -his brief answer would … Continue reading

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Revisit: Wait Training: “Day of the Fight” (1951)

          “DAY OF THE FIGHT”    (1951) (Originally posted on Feb. 14, 2014)     Stanley Kubrick’s first attempt at motion picture movie making is this short film inspired by his own photo essay on middleweight boxer Walter Cartier published … Continue reading

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Revisit: Scenes From the Scrapbook: “That’s Entertainment” (1974)

        “That’s Entertainment”      (1974) (Originally posted on May 18, 2014)         “That’s Entertainment” is a compilation of some of the best (many not) musical numbers extracted from the great musicals (many not) … Continue reading

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Revisit: Beatles in a Bell Jar: “Let It Be” (1970)

“Let It Be” (1970) (Originally posted on Nov. 5, 2013)     Sitting through Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s “Let It Be” is not dissimilar to sitting behind someone in a theater and staring at the back of their head, mentally trying to … Continue reading

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The Descent of Dissent: “Punishment Park” (1971)

               “Punishment Park”  (1971)     Acts of provocation are certainly the prerogative of the artist- it is one of the essential nutrients fueling that elusive but ever evolving abstractive absolute known as Art  … Continue reading

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Inconvenient Truth: “Elle s’appelle Sabine” (2007)

         “Elle s’appelle Sabine”  (2007)          Ideally the documentary form should present an objective point of view. How then to judge a film which by the very nature of the film maker’s intimate relationship … Continue reading

Posted in biography, Documentaries, French cinema, medicine, movie reviews, Movies, psychiatry, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Future Shock: “The Hellstrom Chronicle” (1971)

        “The Hellstrom Chronicle”  (1971)      One of the most recognizable characteristics of the 1950’s science fiction film is that peculiar concession to the presentation of an academic nature profile in the midst of an atomic … Continue reading

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Mug Shots: “Take the Money and Run” (1969)

      “Take the Money and Run”  (1969)    “Take the Money and Run”, Woody Allen’s directorial debut, is a parody of the crime profile documentary, and as such is not a particularly challenging nor original vehicle for a fledgling … Continue reading

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Lens Wide Shut: “Aroused” (2013)

          “Aroused”     (2013)    The collision of artistically celebrated photographic sensibilities and the illusion of the pornographic fantasy image is intended to be explored in what is meant to be a sympathetic exposure of … Continue reading

Posted in Documentaries, erotica, Film Reviews, movie reviews, Movies, photography, pornography, Reviews, Sex in Cinema, women | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Te Deum With a Beat : “Let the Good Times Roll” (1973)

      Whatever the initial intentions of the makers of “Let the Good Times Roll”, the resulting movie takes a lesser bite out of its subject than the opening few minutes might promise, as the film’s creeping inconsistency of … Continue reading

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See No Evil: “This Film is Not Yet Rated” (2006)

       Lighthearted documentary with a serious subject: the secretive and abusive authority held by the shadowy MPAA and it’s anonymous ratings board over the most important developing art form of the past 100 years and how this untrained, uninformed … Continue reading

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Darkest Heart: “Africa, Addio!” (1966)

   “Africa, Addio!” is a follow up offering by the “documentarians” Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco E. Prospere who produced the popular “Mondo Cane”.  The film is filled with gorgeous imagery; the kind of cinematography that normally enraptures the senses and … Continue reading

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Hardly A Pretty Picture: “Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography” (1981)

       One of the most immediately promising aspects of Bonnie Sherr Klein’s anti-pornography documentary “Not A Love Story: A Motion Picture About Pornography” is the fact it is a product of Canada, and as such will not be immediately weighed down … Continue reading

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Wait Training: “Day of the Fight” (1951)

       Stanley Kubrick’s first attempt at motion picture movie making is this short film inspired by his own photo essay on middleweight boxer Walter Cartier published when he was a young staff photographer at Look magazine. It may be unfair to … Continue reading

Posted in Documentaries, Film, Film Reviews, movie reviews, Movies, Reviews, short films, sports, Stanley Kurbick | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Hard to Swallow: “Inside Deep Throat” (2005)

    Regarding sexuality in popular culture, if there’s anything more annoying (and dishonest) than priggish cultural puritanism, it’s sanctimonious moral liberalism masquerading as open-mindedness when, in fact, the canonical emphasis diverges into a campaign of ulterior agendas. With this … Continue reading

Posted in Documentaries, Film, Film Criticism, Film Reviews, History, Linda Lovelace, movie reviews, Movies, sex | Tagged | 1 Comment

Beatles in a Bell Jar: “Let It Be” (1970)

      Sitting through Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s “Let It Be” is not dissimilar to sitting behind someone in a theater and staring at the back of their head, mentally trying to make them turn around: it’s pointless, it doesn’t really work … Continue reading

Posted in 1970's movies, Culture, Documentaries, Entertainment, Film, Film Reviews, movie reviews, Movies, music, Reviews, The Beatles | Tagged , | Leave a comment