A very odd movie, with a montage of world war 2 footage in chronological order with a soundtrack of Beatles covers (minus the really, really inhuman pieces of footage).
Some of it works quite well and is poignant, but others seem trite and insulting, but overall I quite liked it. I’d even buy the soundtrack.
Compelling but fun documentary about a guy who writes great, grand dialogue, and was a peer of Spielberg, Lucas and all. Really fun to see what he added to the 70s and 80s moviescape. The world is a better place because of this guy, for sheer entertainment alone.
A Q and A with Kevin Smith of distinctly two halves. The first half (or more like, first hour) is pretty great, where he talks about his interaction with the Westboro Baptist Church, and the making of Red State. The last half hour is more to do with how he feels about art, his reasons for approaching movie making how he does now, and so on, and is nowhere near as entertaining. It is, however, from the heart.
Definitely worth seeing for that first hour, especially if you like Red State and/or other Kevin Smith Q and A’s.
Pretty solid documentary, where the incomparable David Attenborough lets you about the life histories of various exhibits that belongs to the National History Museum, London (a truly beautiful building, by the way).
They realise this by using CGI to animate the exhibits (as bones, or with fur/skin/feathers). It’s a good watch, and very, very kid-friendly.
Documentary about Star Trek fans which contains some great parts (the stars of Star Trek telling their stories about the fans…highpoints being Nichelle Nichols and Jimmy Doohan; the trekkies telling how Star Trek inspired them to go into various careers), and some rather sour parts – showing the extremes of the fanbase. I used to be amused by this kind of freakshow, but freakshow aspects of modern reality TV just feels vulgar these days, so that part felt tiresome.
So, definitely a documentary of polar parts – some really great, some really bad, and some that mixed it up so you had to pick what you got out of it.
Overall, definitely worth seeing.
Ridiculously long, but rather glorious documentary about all the movies of the Nightmare on Elm Street series (except the very recent remake). You get actors’ insights, special effects guys, producers, where the seed ideas for each movie came from, you get everything you could possibly want. And it doesn’t flag until maybe the last 10 minutes, where it turns into a love-in about New Line – but even this is redeemed by the closing titles, where various actors from the series deliver the best lines.
This documentary made me realise two things: The Freddy series is clearly the best horror franchise of the 80s; Robert Englund is fantastic.
Got 4 hours free? Watch this.
A fascinating documentary giving us in the 21st century an insight into the ‘midnight movie’ phenomenon of the 70s, .starting with El Topo and finishing with Eraserhead. Some fine talking heads, insights and period footage made it engaging and funny.