documentary
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life review - a complex portrait of a complex manMonday, 27 September 2021![]() It’s well worth tracking down one of the September 29 special cinema screenings of Ric Burns' lovingly made documentary portrait of the writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks, or seeking it out online. Famous for his vivid, insightful descriptions of... Read more... |
Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy, Sky Arts review – too much and not enoughWednesday, 22 September 2021![]() Born in 1840, Thomas Hardy lived a life of in-betweens. Modern yet traditional, the son of a builder who went on to become a famous novelist, he belonged both to Dorset and London. When he died, his ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey, but his... Read more... |
Misha and the Wolves review - tricksy documentary about a child survivorSunday, 05 September 2021![]() It has become so hard to find funding for non-fiction films that many documentary makers now feel compelled to sell their stories as racy detective yarns, larded with dramatic scores and sneakily obfuscating narratives. There’s a piece of deception... Read more... |
El Father Plays Himself review – a roller coaster ride of mixed emotionsSaturday, 07 August 2021![]() A young film director writes a script based on his father’s life story and invites his dad to play the part. It’s an interesting gambit, given that the son, Jorge Thielen Armand left Venezuela with his mother at the age of 15 and has not returned... Read more... |
Reclaiming Amy, BBC Two review - Winehouse family and friends rememberSaturday, 24 July 2021![]() “My worst fear? What am I scared of?” Amy Winehouse ponders. She pauses thoughtfully: “Myself.”Ten years to the day since she died, Reclaiming Amy, Marina Parker’s documentary, remembers and celebrates the singer, revealing the truth as her parents... Read more... |
Carlos Ghosn: The Last Flight - Storyville, BBC Four review - the tycoon who fell to earthThursday, 15 July 2021![]() The extraordinary story of motor industry executive Carlos Ghosn is a heady combination of power, money, corruption and international politics, with a Mission: Impossible-style ending that carries it over the finishing tape in dramatic style. It... Read more... |
Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein's Shadow, Sky Documentaries review - the iniquitous fall of the tycoon's daughterFriday, 02 July 2021![]() Last year, Netflix released Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, a four-part documentary about the notorious financier and convicted sex offender. Now, here’s a Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein’s Shadow (Sky Documentaries), a three-parter about the woman accused... Read more... |
The Reason I Jump review - compelling and controversialFriday, 18 June 2021![]() Back in 2017, a non-speaking autistic teen, Naoki Higashida wrote and published The Reason I Jump. He hoped it would offer some insight into the minds of people with autism. The book was subsequently translated by Keiko Yoshida and her husband,... Read more... |
Some Kind of Heaven review - a Florida retirement community yields its secretsThursday, 13 May 2021![]() In the UK, we usually get a peek inside The Villages in Florida every four years, when intrepid reporters take to their golf carts in the retirement community to test the water in presidential elections among its 132,000 residents. Their views... Read more... |
Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation review - genius dogged by disappointmentSaturday, 01 May 2021![]() Kindred literary spirits who overlapped in any number of ways make for riveting stuff in Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation. Filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland folds archival footage of the legendary writers together with... Read more... |
Sisters With Transistors review - the forgotten frontierThursday, 22 April 2021![]() From deep within the bowels of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop came the sounds of the future. Strange howls and beeps, unnatural yet recognisably human-made. And while this was the dawning of a new epoch for music, it was also the frontier of a larger... Read more... |
This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist, Netflix - the last word (for now)Thursday, 08 April 2021![]() It’s no surprise that 30 years on, the individuals most closely connected to the world’s biggest art heist are showing their age. Anne Hawley was a young woman just months into her directorship of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston when... Read more... |
