// Category Archive for: Documentaries

DVD Review: Birth Of The Living Dead

By Brad Henderson

When I was little, one of the first films that I can remember seeing and buying on VHS was Night Of The Living Dead on the Blockbuster Exclusive label. You know the one; the one with the big red label on the side. . . Night Of The Living Dead is one of the most important and influential films that exists. It has impacted not only the film industry but also the world, inspiring many people along the way. First Run Features recently released a documentary based on the events leading up to the making of this important film. Birth Of The Living Dead sheds a lot of light on the making of Night Of The Living Dead including stories of its successes and mishaps.

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DVD Review: Rewind This!

By Brad Henderson

VHS is slowly coming back. It won’t be readily available in stores again but there’s still a huge market for it under the table. I’ve been collecting VHS for many years and have quite the collection. I adore VHS for many reasons and I know others have the same feelings about this dead format.

Rewind This! is a documentary that focuses on the VHS boom and the effects it had on the film industry. VHS changed many people’s lives and altered the industry forever. Laserdisc, DVDs, Blu-Ray, and other formats didn’t even come close to doing what VHS did.

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Blu-Ray Review: The Act Of Killing

By Brad Henderson

I really wouldn’t even consider this a review; I consider this a plea for people to watch a recently released documentary called The Act Of Killing. It’s been on many Top 10 lists this year and when I first heard the buzz about it, I was expecting to see something else. I’m not sure what that was, but in my mind I was expecting something not so gut-wrenching.

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DVD Review: Bob And The Monster: The Story Of Bob Forrest

By Melissa Bratcher

How does a man go from being self-described as one of the “biggest assholes ever to live” to being credited with saving numerous lives as a drug counselor? How did he go from leading L.A.’s premier “drunk rock” band to being the subject of a moving, thoughtful documentary in which music’s luminaries eulogize him warmly without him even being dead?

First, Bob Forrest did a lot of drugs. Then, he hit rock bottom. Then, he did some more drugs and had to hit rock bottom again. Eventually, he rebuilt himself into a sometimes respected, sometimes controversial addiction specialist.

Director Keirda Bahruth spent six years making Bob And The Monster, a documentary of Bob Forrest’s journey of addiction and redemption. Told with archival footage, claymation, and animation, as well as new music from Bob Forrest, it’s a touching, sometimes infuriating, and illuminating movie.

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Movie Review: A Band Called Death

By Less Lee Moore

In an article on Film School Rejects, Scott Beggs points out the similarities between A Band Called Death and other recent music documentaries.

He notes that the trajectory of this film is similar to that of Searching For Sugar Man and Anvil! The Story of Anvil. Watching A Band Called Death, I was reminded of both Bad Brains: A Band In DC and also Nothing Can Hurt Me, the film about Big Star. The trajectory—unknown band, their individual and collective obstacles to fame, and their posthumous rediscovery and appreciation—is one that’s repeated in all of these films.

This is not to say that any of these films are formulaic or that music documentaries are repetitive. As Beggs argues, it just means that our preconceived notions of music history might be skewed.

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DVD Review: My Amityville Horror

By Brad Henderson

Some look at The Amityville Horror as just a movie. It has been dismissed many times by many people, but no one can deny that something happened in that house; whatever it may be, something happened. Recently, IFC Films released a documentary that focuses on Daniel Lutz, the oldest of the children in the Lutz family, and his story and confessions on what happened during those 28 terrifying days spent at 112 Ocean Avenue.

I’m one of those that believe that some of the events that were “recorded” actually happened in that house. I do believe that George Lutz was full of shit and that they fabricated a lot to sell their story. However, I also believe that certain events occurred, and then the family just went with it.

In My Amityville Horror, Daniel Lutz tells his side of the story, and he sells it. Yeah, he could be bullshitting, but the way he speaks is very convincing. If he is lying, he is the best liar in the world.

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Movie Review: Computer Chess

By Less Lee Moore

I’m ignorant when it comes to both chess and computer programming, but it doesn’t make Computer Chess any less brilliant (though I probably missed a few good jokes). It’s one of the most clever mockumentaries I’ve ever seen because it doesn’t present itself like a documentary but instead a mere document of a long weekend with a bunch of computer programmers and chess fanatics. It’s like an extremely dry yet avant garde Christopher Guest film. This is a wonderful thing.

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Movie Review: Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me

By Less Lee Moore

When I first heard Big Star, I wondered “Why weren’t these guys huge?” like all their other fans have been wondering for the last 40-plus years. Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me answers the why, but their lack of mainstream success still boggles the mind. When Brian Wilson sang “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times,” he could have easily been singing about Big Star.

The story of Big Star is full of both good things—talent, camaraderie, ambition—and terrible ones—bad luck, personal demons, and death. This mixture of the bitter and the sweet is a good metaphor for Big Star’s music, which fuses the two in an unforgettable aural and emotional experience. This is what drew fans and critics to the band and what continues to characterize their legacy.

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Music Review: Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me Soundtrack

By Cait Brennan

There’s a part of you that gets wistful sometimes when you see some secret treasure you love finally get its day in the sun. You think back to the day, seven worlds ago, when a friend of a friend handed you a cassette tape of some band you never heard of called Big Star, on an obviously fake record label called PVC Records. The friend gives you a knowing look and you don’t know; you don’t know you have a universe in your hand, that this grubby little tape is going to change your life, it’s going to detonate some ecstatic explosion inside you, and you will never be that person ever again. And a thousand miles later you chance across another copy in the cutout bin of some strip-mall record shop and you buy it for 49 cents and you put it in the hands of someone you love who’s never heard it, and you look at their uncomprehending expression and think “that was me, once upon a time.” And if you’ve chosen wisely and the quantum entanglement is aligned just so, the chain reaction goes on.

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Movie Review: Nightmare Factory

By Less Lee Moore

There’s a fantastic quote from the mother of special effects wizard Greg Nicotero in Nightmare Factory, a new documentary from filmmaker Donna Davies. When she was pregnant with her son, Mrs. Nicotero says, she read a lot of “blood-curdling” novels, all the ones she could find. “It was fun and exciting to be scared,” she adds. This is why horror junkies are horror junkies. The obsession with the craft of special effects is what’s explored in Nightmare Factory, but it’s clear that the fear factor is the spark that ignites the flame.

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