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...

Search for streaming:

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...

Search for streaming:

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...

Search for streaming:

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018)

To accompany Netflix's release of Orson Welles' completed The Other Side of the Wind, Morgan Neville directed the documentary They'll Love Me When I'm Dead to explain the complex behind-the-scenes of this monumental film, and the final years of Welles' life. Neville was faced with the problem of how to make a film that might compliment Welles' visual genius, and he comes up with several solutions that work. He interviews his key players from strange angles, in black-and-white, and cuts together their sound bites in ways that are fascinatingly conflicting. Alan Cumming is here as host and narrator, and he also appears in black-and-white, at editing bays and in other arty shots full of reflections and other playful concepts. The documentary itself is full of information, such as the casting and cutting of Rich Little in the Brooks Otterlake role that Peter Bogdanovich eventually took over, or the fact that Welles himself served as a stand-in for the Jake Hannaford role until John Huston was hired to embody it. Thankfully, Neville is ultimately not concerned with celebrating Welles' genius, but in trying to understand the human being behind it. He winds up with a surprisingly touching film, and one that makes you want to go back and look at The Other Side of the Wind some more. read more...

Search for streaming:

Leave No Trace (2018)

Filmmaker Debra Granik launched actress Vera Farmiga onto the movie scene with her remarkable Down to the Bone (2004) and did the same for Jennifer Lawrence with the equally remarkable Winter's Bone (2010). Now she's set to make a star of young Thomasin McKenzie in Leave No Trace, Granik's outstanding new film, her first feature since Winter's Bone. read more...

Search for streaming: