Archive for the ‘documentary’ Category
Author: Otilia
Just adorable
Bébé(s) (Babies) (2010) is a lot more than an anthropological documentary on babies around the world. It is a delight.
French director Thomas Balmès – Waiting for Jesus (2000) – chooses four different locations around the globe and introduces us to the first year in four babies’ lives.
Author: James
Digging up Franco’s Spain
Honour thy father and mother. José-Luis Peñafuerte does this in the most effective way possible in his documentary Los caminos de la memoria (2009). The son of Spanish exiles, this Brussels-born film maker has been on-topic since his very first TV documentary, Niños (2001), about the orphans of the Spanish Civil War, writes Gerald Loftus.
Author: James
The brotherhood of man
Picturenose welcomes New Europe correspondent Andy Carling to the fold, with his take on one of the funniest and most affecting music biopics for years. Let’s rock! 
The world of film hasn’t been kind to Heavy Metal, but this has changed with a remarkable documentary that will appeal to even those with no interest in the music.
Author: James
Killing the car industry’s best hope…
Gerald Loftus returns with a look at a documentary that’s sure to get you revved up.
Who Killed the Electric Car? wrote Manohla Dargis in the New York Times when the film was released in 2006, is ‘a murder mystery, a call to arms and an effective inducement to rage’. If that was true four years ago, it is even more rage-inducing now that the killers – primary among them, General Motors, creator and destroyer of the little EV1 – are themselves fighting for their lives. The Obama team and the current and future members of Congress should check out Chris Paine’s excellent documentary, posthaste.
Author: James
Survivors speak
Gerald Loftus returns with his thoughts on a provoking documentary.
Documentary filmmaker and historian Leila Kilani has given us a unique look into contemporary Morocco, through her award-winning film on the country’s Equity and Reconciliation Commission, better known as l’Instance équité et réconciliation or IER, set up to help heal the wounds of almost four decades of impunity. Impunity to disappear, to torture, to execute anyone who was deemed an opponent.
Author: James
‘Big man’
Gerald Loftus looks at corruption in the Congo…
To lead the mineral-rich Congolese province of Katanga, you don’t have to be named Moïse. But Moïse Katumbi, the current governor and “star” of Katanga Business, and Moïse Tshombe, the leader who tried to break away from newly-independent Congo in 1960, have the French version of the name “Moses” in common. And this – the ground they rule(d) is the source of international competition, a contemporary scramble for Africa over precious cobalt, coltan, tungsten, and plain old copper.
Author: James
The right notes
The year 1973, when Lou Reed was at the peak of his popularity, if not yet his powers, saw the artist release Berlin, an ambitious album chronicling a couple’s drug and violence-spattered descent.
A critical and commercial disaster at the time, the album subsequently gained cult status over the years, eventually coming into the remit of director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat (1996) and, more recently, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)) in 2006, who filmed the concert (and just the concert) over five different evenings in St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, New York, for posterity.
Author: Colin
It’s the world, stupid
The release of any low-budget film to a limited viewership, especially if it’s based on a polarizing and emotive subject, is bound to attract debate and certain degree of conflict. The Age of Stupid (2009) is no exception.
Straight off the bat, I can tell you that this is a film that could be seen as largely preaching to the converted. It was born of a different project, one to spread the message about the evils of the oil industry, and became a warning of the dangers facing the environment in the not-too-distant future. The oil theme still runs very strongly in the overall narrative, and I can only assume that the Shell corporation was the target of the original film, as they feature – in a very poor light, it has to be said – throughout.
Author: James
It’s a hard life in the European Parliament, Brussels, enjoying the very reasonably priced bar and canteen, free access to internet/printer/phone/fax and, most important, the chance to watch the three contenders for the European Parliament LUX Cinema Prize 2008 in an auditorium specially constructed for that very purpose. Our man thinks he’s found the winner…
Author: James
Road to hell
It would appear that the mud really does stick. Returning from the 2006 Berlinale Film Festival, at which The Road to Guantánamo won the Silver Bear award, two of the actors (Rizwan Ahmed and Farhad Harun) and two of the ex-detainees were temporarily detained and interrogated by UK police. According to BBC News, a Brit bobby asked Ahmed if he intended to make any more political films. The Thought Police are closing in…
- Colin: Mike: the Matrix was utter toss. Don’t go there. Anyhow, I’m right with you on Aliens –...
- Colin: James: Why not do ten more and see if you can avoid putting the god-awful travesty that is Independence Day in...
- CD: The Day the Earth Stood Still (it’s about an alien who is Jesus…but better than ET) Soylent Green...
- James: Hello Chris, and welcome to Picturenose! Many thanks for your comment – I thought, in fact, that...
- James: Colin, good points, both on Westworld (which should really have been included, I know, I know) and otters.