Life Itself Review
RATING: (4 STARS) “A film like Hoop Dreams is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and make us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.” —Roger Ebert, 1994 There’s a really clever reflexiveness at play with the last two […]
Into the Abyss
Into the Abyss, the second and better of two 2011 documentaries (after Cave of Forgotten Dreams) directed by Werner Herzog, is a modern-day version of In Cold Blood. It’s a very thoroughly researched true-crime story, but it’s a little dry and tends to drift off point. Is this a detailed retelling of a horrific triple […]
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
In Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog—a master documentarian by all accounts—chronicles the discovery and study of the paintings inside the Chauvet Caves of Southern France. They are the oldest known paintings in human history, and seeing them illuminated is simply astonishing. This films pleasures end there, unfortunately, and once the novelty of these images […]
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Review
RATING: (3 STARS) I’m not at all familiar with Abel Ferrera’s 1992 cult classic “Bad Lieutenant,†other than the fact that Werner Herzog re-imagined it into 2009’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.†The former film starred Harvey Keitel as a dirty cop capable who didn’t give a damn about law and order. The […]
