Selected Film Reviews: Documentary
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For a complete chronology of film reviews, visit the Publications page.

“Death and Texas” (review of Peter Gilbert and Steve James’ AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR and Werner Herzog’s INTO THE ABYSS), Chicago Reader, November 17, 2011. “Both movies ponder the moral abyss of capital punishment and the metaphysical abyss of death itself. Both are preoccupied with families—of the murder victims, of the condemned men, of the state officials who put them to death. … [Yet Into the Abyss] focuses on a condemned man who was clearly guilty, whereas At the Death House Door … focuses on one who was probably innocent. Without a doubt, this is one of the more grueling double features you could ever watch, but in concert the two movies might force you to think, rethink, and rethink again your position on the death penalty.”

“Batkid Begins Gives All for One and None for All,” (review of Dana Nachman’s BATKID BEGINS), Chicago Reader, July 14, 2015. First Place, Best Arts Criticism, Association of Alternative Newsmedia, 2016. “People respond most strongly to the suffering of a single person, which is why the Muscular Dystrophy Association began using the “poster child” as a fund-raising tool in the 1950s. The phenomenon also explains why thousands of people came together in November 2013 to help five-year-old Miles Scott, who had spent two years battling leukemia, live out his fantasy of being Batman as part of a daylong event staged in San Francisco by the Make-A-Wish Foundation.”

“The Battle of Chile—As Seen and Remembered” (review of Patricio Guzman’s THE BATTLE OF CHILE and NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT), Chicago Reader, July 7, 2011. “People often refer to journalism as the first draft of history, but for some it’s the only draft. The Battle of Chile, Patricio Guzman’s acclaimed documentary trilogy about the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende, contains a terrifying shot of Chilean soldiers opening fire on the cameraman. … The image spirals slightly and then [the cameraman] goes down, his lens dropping to the pavement and the screen whiting out. He died that night.”

“To Hell and Back” (review of Liang Zhao’s BEHEMOTH), Chicago Reader, March 9, 2017. “[Chinese director-cinematographer Zhao Liang] invokes Dante’s Inferno as a metaphor for the human and ecological ravages of coal mining and other industries in Inner Mongolia. Straddling the line between art film and documentary, Behemoth takes as its ostensible subject the pollution of the planet—but it also explores the pollution of the soul.”

“One Hundred Percent Fresh” (review of Alexandra Dean’s BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY and Brett Morgen’s JANE), Chicago Reader, January 18, 2018. “[Inventor Hedy Lamarr and primatologist Jane Goodall] share striking similarities. … Both women were boldly ambitious and utterly committed to their dreams, forging new lives for themselves quite outside the bounds of their class and gender. And, most important for their intellectual pursuits, each came to her field of study with little or no formal academic training, which allowed each to approach her subject more creatively.”

“The Thin Blue Lie” (review of Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon’s THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE), Chicago Reader, December 6, 2012. “One can sense [Ken Burns’] hand in the movie’s cultural sweep, as talking-head commentary and fleet montages of TV news footage bring back the crack-fueled crime epidemic of the late 80s, the white hysteria stoked by the [1989 rape of an investment banker jogging in Central Park], and the tabloid press’s portrayal of the accused teens as subhuman predators. In a sense, though, the filmmakers’ explanations for why the [teens were railroaded] may not be as illuminating as their investigation of how it occurred—how the police managed to convince themselves that the five kids were guilty and then grind confessions out of them.”

“A City Under Siege” (review of Matt Tyrnauer’s CITIZEN JANE: BATTLE FOR THE CITY), Chicago Reader, May 11, 2017. “Citizen Jane [unpacks] the various ideas [that author and activist Jane] Jacobs introduced into the public debate over civic renewal. During a period when modernist-inspired city planners were green-lighting monolithic development complexes, she argued for a more organic approach springing from the needs and desires of people who actually used the city. … Citizen Jane, to its credit, leaves you wondering less about [her] era than about our own, and how history will judge the decisions we make about our cities today.”

“Revisiting the Love Guv” (review of Alex Gibney’s CLIENT 9: THE RISE AND FALL OF ELLIOT SPITZER), Chicago Reader, January 13, 2011. “Gibney … recounts [New York Governor Elliot] Spitzer’s fierce crusade against the excesses of Wall Street as attorney general [of New York City] and speculates that the FBI probe uncovering his sexual escapades may have been engineered by some of the financial titans he targeted. Gibney also closely questions Spitzer himself … about his epic temper tantrums against his legal prey and political enemies, and his involvement with the Emperors Club VIP. In these scenes Spitzer seems less a man than a maze of political idealism, professional ruthlessness, and spiritual crisis.”

“BP: It’s Just the Beginning” (review of Joe Berlinger’s CRUDE), Chicago Reader, June 3, 2010. “Early in the movie there’s a shot of someone lifting a dead, oil-coated bird out of the water, a familiar sight these days. But the suffering of the people in the Ecuadoran rain forest is far more horrific than anything we’ve seen so far around the gulf: when environmentalists call this part of the world the ‘Amazon Chernobyl,’ they’re not exaggerating.”

“No Child of Mine” (review of Rick Barnes, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, and Jon Nguyen’s DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE), Chicago Reader, May 4, 2017. “For all the dark and chaotic imagery in Lynch’s canvases, the most intimidating figure in The Art Life may be his father, Donald Lynch, whom he recalls with great affection and even greater dread. By every objective measure Don was a kind, supportive father, but for young Dave, struggling to find his artistic voice and gain a professional foothold, every word of disappointment or discouragement fell like a lash.”

“Who Owns the Bones?” (review of Todd Douglas MIller’s DINOSAUR 13), Chicago Reader, August 21, 2014. “As the fog cleared, [paleontologist Sue Hendrickson] came upon some bones embedded in a cliff wall, and over the next 17 days she and the others labored in the blazing heat to dig out the fossilized skeleton, which was about 80 percent complete and thus, by far, the most extensive T. rex ever found. The skull and most of its teeth were intact and perfectly articulated. Without question the skeleton was one of the most important geological discoveries in history.”

“Roger Ailes Lived by the Sword—and Died by It,” (review of Alexis Bloom’s DIVIDE AND CONQUER), Medium.com, January 2, 2019. “Bloom delivers a haunting portrait of [Fox News founder Roger] Ailes, whose own fear and rage helped define the news channel he created, and the movie provides enough insight into his Machiavellian media genius to expose the grotesque irony of his life: the [sexual harassment] accusations against him were just the sort of killer television he and his channel would have leaped on had the focus been one of his liberal enemies.”

“Every Day Is Dog Day” (review of Alison Berg and Frank Keraudren’s THE DOG), Chicago Reader, October 2, 2014. “The Dog tells the story of a seemingly average guy who spent his early adult years wrestling with his sexual identity, eventually becoming a pioneering advocate of gay rights and same-sex marriage in the U.S. But after escaping from one social straitjacket, [John] Wojtowicz stumbled right into another when his [armed robbery of a Brooklyn bank] became an international news story and an Oscar-nominated film. For the rest of his life, he would be defined as the protagonist of Dog Day Afternoon.”

“Rebel Without a Script” (review of Susan Ray’s DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCH and Nicholas Ray’s We Can’t Go Home Again), Chicago Reader, January 19, 2012. “The documentary’s most engrossing element is the interviews Susan Ray has collected from [Ray’s students at State University of New York-Binghamton], now as old as Nick Ray was when they worked together. … There was an element of mutual exploitation: to him the students were a pool of unskilled but free labor that could keep his new project moving, and to them he was their ticket to the big time, a Hollywood veteran whose address book was jammed with movie stars’ phone numbers (most of them out of date).”

“Dying Is Easy, Comedy Is Hard” (review of Lloyd Stanton and Paul Toogood’s DYING LAUGHING), Chicago Reader, February 23, 2017. “Even more than the mental process, Dying Laughing dwells on the emotional demands of performing stand-up, most powerfully in the 20 solid minutes devoted to bombing onstage. Because a stand-up offers the audience nothing but his own thoughts, the rejection can be excruciating. … [Comedian] Bobby Lee says he can never remember bombing because the humiliation causes his mind to shut off, as if he were being raped in prison.”

“What Never Made It Onscreen” (review of Serge Bromberg and Ruzandra Medrea’s HENRI- GEORGES CLOUZOT’S INFERNO and Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go), Chicago Reader, September 23, 2010. “Clouzot had assembled three entirely different camera crews, but their staggered schedules collapsed as Clouzot refused to leave one setup to begin another. … At times the quick and decisive filmmaker of the 1950s now stood silent behind the camera for minutes at a time, unable to articulate what was missing from a scene. When Clouzot finally collapsed on the set, he may only have been acknowledging what countless other directors have realized in perhaps less dramatic epiphanies: the distance between the story and the screen can stretch into infinity.”

“Who Did You Gas in the War, Daddy?” (review of Chanoch Ze’evi’s HITLER’S CHILDREN and Cate Shortland’s Lore), Chicago Reader, February 14, 2013. “In Bettina Goering, one senses the weariness of someone who wants to forget about her family’s place in history and live her own life. She bears a striking resemblance to her famous great-uncle, [Herman Goering,] who committed suicide in his cell the night before he was to hang in Nuremberg for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

“It’s Not What You Know, It’s What You Pay for It” (review of Brian Knappenberger’s THE INTERNET’S OWN BOY and Andrew Rossi’s IVORY TOWER), Chicago Reader, June 26, 2014. “For someone who cleared a million bucks on his own creative work before he was old enough to vote, [Reddit founder Aaron] Swartz was pretty cavalier about offering up other people’s creative work for free. But … for director Brian Knappenberger and everyone he interviews, Swartz was a martyr pure and simple, the victim of an overzealous U.S. attorney … who took advantage of an outmoded piece of legislation (the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) to construct a crime where none had occurred.”

“Young Americans” (review of Hedi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s JESUS CAMP and David Leaf and John Scheinfeld’s THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON), Chicago Reader, September 29, 2006. First place, Best Arts Criticism, Association of Alternative Newsmedia, 2007. “One might argue that parents have a responsibility to give their children some sort of spiritual upbringing, and teaching morality can be a lot easier inside the framework of organized religion. Yet any mind young enough to be shaped can be misshaped as well: Mark David Chapman, who shot John Lennon to death in 1980, is routinely identified as a ‘deranged fan,’ but ‘deranged fundamentalist’ would be more accurate.”

“The Real Deal” (review of films by PARE LORENTZ), Chicago Reader, April 10, 2008. “[In 1939, President Franklin] Roosevelt named [filmmaker Pare] Lorentz director of the new U.S. Film Service, which would coordinate all filmmaking activities of the federal government. Lorentz had big ideas for the service: he wanted to produce features that could compete on their merits in the commercial marketplace. But his ambitions spooked the Hollywood moguls, who resented competition from the government, and angered congressional conservatives, who called Lorentz the president’s propagandist.”

“Father, Husband, Soldier, Spy” (review of Carl Colby’s THE MAN NOBODY KNEW), Chicago Reader, October 20, 2011. “A professional spy for nearly 30 years, [CIA director William] Colby preferred reality to romance, hard intelligence to hopeful illusion. He also knew how to keep a secret; the bitter irony of his life is that, in the end, his most closely guarded secret turned out to be himself.”

“When Beckett Met Buster” (review of Ross Lipman’s NOTFILM), Chicago Reader, May 5, 2016. First Place, Best Film Criticism, circulation 45,000 and over, Association of Alternative Newsmedia, 2017. “The meeting of minds between Buster Keaton and Samuel Beckett might have been one of the greatest in performing-arts history if their minds had actually met.”

“Bringing the Nazis to Justice” (review of Stuart Schulberg’s NUREMBERG: ITS LESSON FOR TODAY), Chicago Reader, May 5, 2011. “Nuremberg may be appreciated best not as a documentary but as an artifact of the prosecution itself, structured in four parts to reflect the four indictments, though even in this respect it has something to teach us. Imperfect as they were, the Nuremberg trials were a landmark in international relations, a truly heroic effort, mere months after the bloodiest conflict the world has ever known, to establish justice rather than revenge as the norm in dealing with aggressor nations.”

“The War From Both Sides” (review of Laura Poitras’ THE OATH and Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger’s RESTREPO), Chicago Reader, July 15, 2010. “Why are we in Afghanistan? … The answer is so complicated and unpleasant that merely posing the question is enough to infuriate some politicians, as [Republican National Committee Chairman Michael] Steele learned when his Republican colleagues turned on him for challenging the war’s wisdom. But it deserves to be asked again and again, every time an American soldier comes home in a box.”

“One Drink Over the Line” (review of Lionel Rogosin’s ON THE BOWERY), Chicago Reader, February 16, 2012. “As the [making-of] video reveals, some of the filmmakers were pretty heavy drinkers themselves; they bonded with their subjects by getting blasted with them, and eventually Rogosin had to fight the drunken chaos that was his subjects’ daily lot. Just as the movie dissolved the line between fact and fiction, the process of making it began to dissolve the line between the artist and his subject.”

“Flipping the Script” (review of Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith’s OVERNIGHT), Chicago Reader, November 19, 2004. “Overnight portrays [writer-director Sean] Duffy as a sort of indie-film Caliban, ranting about the treachery of the movie business and raving about the vastness of his talent. … When things start to go wrong he foams at the mouth, vowing revenge on the powers that be and dressing down his scruffy pals as they cower in silence. Ironically, he succeeds as an object of sick fascination where he failed as a filmmaker and musician; he’s the whole show, and Smith and Montana were simply in the right place at the right time.”

“Lucas and Allen: Daydream Believers” (review of Alexandre O. Philippe’s THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris), Chicago Reader, May 26, 2011. First Place, Best Arts Criticism, Association of Alternative Newsmedia, 2012. “I’m not sure why there are so many [documentaries about fantasy fans], but it must have something to do with the fact that fanboys (and -girls) can be counted on to both generate and consume their own hyperbole, rhapsodizing about their obsessions on camera and then drumming up an audience for the finished movie online. … The fanboy docs I’ve seen all travel the same rhetorical trajectory, treating their subjects with amusement, then skepticism, and finally respect; there’s always some concluding homily about the importance of wonder.”

“Fishes and Loaves in a Barrel” (review of Larry Charles’ RELIGULOUS), Chicago Reader, October 2, 2008. “As [comedian Bill Maher] concludes at the end of the movie, “Faith means making a virtue of not thinking.” But as Maher and director Larry Charles tour the world, surveying the influence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, they bypass serious religious scholars and historians—the sort of thinkers who might have moved the discussion into uncharted territory—in favor of fundamentalist goofballs who can be ridiculed with ease.”

“Secrets of The Shining” (review of Rodney Ascher’s ROOM 237), Chicago Reader, April 4, 2013. “Design was integral to [director Stanley] Kubrick’s work—not just production design, which he labored over for months or even years, but visual design and, more broadly, the way systems operate and then break down (the latter can be traced all the way back to the intricate heist of his first great film, The Killing). Kubrick’s rigid perfectionism and endless shoots are the stuff of legend, so much so that a cult has grown up around his powers of deliberation.”

“Who Killed Sandra Bland? After All, It Was You and Me” (review of Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s SAY HER NAME: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SANDRA BLAND), Medium.com, December 3, 2018. “Davis and Heilbroner present the puzzle pieces not as they occurred chronologically but in the order they became public; this allows them to indulge a viewer’s suspicions about Bland’s hanging, then follow along as the murder narrative breaks down into a more complex story of institutional failure.”

“How to Kidnap a Cute Mormon, Fail to Win His Heart, but Become a Tabloid Sensation” (review of Errol Morris’ TABLOID), Chicago Reader, July 14, 2011. “Morris’s trademark device of superimposing giant type over his talking heads—Willing! Manacled Mormon!—often made me wonder if Morris [was] exposing the world of tabloid journalism or participating in it. But his bizarre love story confirms a fundamental truth about the scandal-rag business—what sells papers isn’t only the tawdriness of the story but the human emotion involved.”

Review of Tim Wardle’s THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS, Chicago Reader, July 5, 2018. “Wardle tells the incredible true story of three 19-year-old men in New York, all adopted as children and complete strangers to each other, who discovered that they were triplets and had been separated at birth by a prominent Jewish adoption agency. … Divided by class and upbringing, yet remarkably similar in their tastes and proclivities, the brothers were like a case study in heredity versus environment.”

“Bringing It All Back Home” (review of Keith Maitland’s TOWER and Craig Atkinson’s DO NOT RESIST), Chicago Reader, November 3, 2016. “Tower … combines talking-head interviews, archival footage, and rotoscope animation to re-create the August 1966 sniper massacre in which Charles Whitman, a former marine, killed 14 people and wounded 32 others from the observation deck of the Main Building that towers 307 feet above the University of Texas campus in Austin. The incident stunned and terrified Americans, though the movie might make you nostalgic for an era when there was more of a peace to be preserved.”

“Viral Video and Its Victims” (review of Ben Steinbauer’s WINNEBAGO MAN), Chicago Reader, June 10, 2010 (published online October 14, 2010). “Rebney’s video outbursts have won him the sobriquet of Angriest Man in the World, but what makes the bloopers so arresting is his evident misery. If you’ve ever done any kind of recording, you know that the mental pressure increases with each error, until you feel as if there’s a house sitting on you.”