Miss Juneteenth (2020)

A very timely film, and a fine film for this #BlackLivesMatter moment, Miss Juneteenth opens on the actual Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the freeing of the last slaves in Texas in 1865. read more...

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Served Like a Girl (2017)

Despite a lack of polish, Lysa Heslov's documentary fully celebrates the courage of its chosen women, focusing more off the battlefield than on, and the result is a strong, teary, heartfelt group hug. read more...

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Listen to Me Marlon (2015)

Directed by Stevan Riley, the documentary Listen to Me Marlon brings Marlon Brando back to life, at least for a little while. During his lifetime, Brando recorded a large collection of tapes, ranging from spoken diaries to self-hypnosis to tapes that were meant to be heard by family members. The movie digs deeply into this collection and finds an order to it, and so, in a sense, Brando now narrates his own story. The title is a reference to the self-hypnosis tapes, wherein Brando talked to himself, offering himself a voice he could trust. Riley also makes use of some ghostly 3D digital scans that Brando, a technology nut, had taken of himself, but these are less prevalent, and less effective than his familiar voice. The movie tracks the biographical details of Brando's life, from his incredible success with the play and movie of A Streetcar Named Desire and other works, to his troubled private life, its tragedies, and its tales of women, obesity, and eccentric behavior. When it's finished, it leaves a strong impression, not of the tabloid version of Brando, but of the actual human being that many considered the greatest screen actor of all time. (Viewed at the 58th San Francisco International Film Festival.) read more...

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Shirkers (2018)

Sandi Tan's bittersweet Shirkers is a most extraordinary movie-story, telling the story of three friends in Singapore, Sandi, Jasmine, and Sophie, who decide to make a movie when they're barely out of their teens. They receive "help," from a film teacher called Georges, and the film is completed, but then Georges disappears with all the film and materials, leaving the three young women to contend with their strange loss. Tan's writing and directing is wonderfully assured — she worked as a film critic and published a novel in the years since — and the footage from the unfinished "Shirkers" is boldly colorful and frequently striking. She manages to dig a little under the surface of friendships here, exposing flaws as well as virtues. This is a totally captivating, and surprisingly moving film. read more...

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The Painter and the Thief (2020)

The Painter and the Thief is one of those documentaries that makes a viewer ask, "how could they possibly get that shot?" and "How did they even know to get that shot?" read more...

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