// Category Archive for: Documentaries

DVD Review: The Sheik

By Jeffery X Martin

Normally, when you hear about someone who started with nothing, made it big, then lost it all to drugs and general bad behavior, it’s some Hollywood starlet or Tom Sizemore. This is not the case with The Sheik, a documentary about one of the most famous professional wrestlers of all time, The Iron Sheik.

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Movie Review: Girls’ Night Out

By Richelle Charkot

Nearly 14 million women in America binge drink 3 times per month. Photo Credit: White Pine Pictures

It is perhaps a little too appropriate that I’m writing this review of Girls’ Night Out with an upset stomach because I’m growing more concerned that I might be allergic to beer, in spite of the fact that I for some reason keep going out and drinking beer.

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Blu-Ray Review: I Am Thor

By Tim Murr

There is no good reason Thor weren’t bigger than KISS. Oh, sure, there were reasons, but not good ones. Starting out in the body building world before moving on to rock and roll, Jon Mikl Thor made a name for himself with feats of strength and great stage presence. His first serious foray into rock as Thor was a glam classic (Keep The Dogs Away, 1977). It should have been huge. It was not.

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DVD Review: I Need A Dodge! Joe Strummer On The Run

By Tim Murr

Everything I’ve watched or read about The Clash either ends with Mick Jones getting fired or just briefly mentions The Clash 2.0, where Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon pressed on with three new members and recorded the poorly received Cut The Crap. No cuts from the album were released on any boxset/collection. No overview was written about it in the big The Clash coffee table book from 2008. Strummer basically disowned it, as did most Clash fans. And deservedly so, it’s a bad album.

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Movie Review: Scorpions, Forever And A Day

By Jeffery X Martin

Somewhere around the halfway point of this rockumentary, I came to an odd realization. Here I am, a man who lived through the Eighties, watched the rise and fall of Hair Metal, and yet I have taken the band, Scorpions, completely for granted. After all, has there ever been a world where “Rock You Like a Hurricane” hasn’t existed?

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DVD Review: Glen Campbell… I’ll Be Me

By Melissa Bratcher

Though it is incredibly wrenching, the documentary I’ll Be Me is such an important film. By allowing filmmaker James Keach unbridled access to himself and his family, Glen Campbell’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease is starkly delineated, from diagnosis to decline. It’s intimate and human and so hard to watch.

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DVD and Music Review: Jobriath A.D.

By Hanna

Jobriath A.D. tells the story of singer and would-be glam rock star Jobriath’s career and personal life. It focuses on the period when he was professionally active between 1968 and his death in 1983. His story is told nearly entirely from interviews with people who were involved in his life and career at the time or people who were influenced professionally by his work. There is some narration (by Henry Rollins, no less) to tie parts of the interviews together, and a series of animations provide visual interest and make up for the fact that there exists very little actual footage of Jobriath.

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SXSW Movie Review: Raiders!

By Brad Henderson

Since childhood, I’ve wanted to make movies. Last night I got to watch a documentary about a group of kids who were determined to make a shot for shot remake of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Raiders! tells the story of this incredible attempt and the resulting admirable success.

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SXSW Movie Review: Welcome To Leith

By Brad Henderson

If you’re an actual human being with dignity, you already know racism is a terrible thing. Well, if you’re racist against racists then I guess that’s OK. . . or stupid people. Hell, I’m a racist then.

We all know it exists but I think the world is unfamiliar with how bad it is sometimes. The news doesn’t broadcast a lot of these kinds of things. One person I think people are definitely unfamiliar with is Craig Cobb. I’d heard of Cobb before seeing Welcome To Leith, but this film showed me who Cobb really is. A lot of words come to mind trying to describe Cobb, but to put it simply: he’s a fucking racist. A big one.

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SXSW Movie Review: Breaking A Monster

By Brad Henderson

A couple of years ago while perusing YouTube, I came across an amatuer video of three young black kids playing metal music near a subway station in New York City. Months after that I saw a couple more videos pop up here and there and then they showed up on national TV with even more exposure. They are called Unlocking The Truth and they are fucking amazing.

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