“2019 Oscars Preview: Who Will Win And Who Should Win”

Oh hey, another opportunity for Andy to go to bat for “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” one of 2018’s best films and without a doubt its best documentary. Continue reading →

“The Best Documentaries of 2018 (So Far)”

Oh, hey, shocker, I happily wrote capsule blurbs for Hale County This Morning, This Evening and Crime + Punishment for Paste Magazine‘s “best docs of ’18 to date” list, man, bet you’re all real fucking surprised about that.  I don’t know what else you want me to say. They’re great movies. Hale County This Morning, This Evening in particular … Continue reading →

Review: Crime + Punishment, 2018, dir. Stephen Maing

My remote Sundance rampage continues! (Sundancepage?) From soul-crushing Greek arts farts to a documentary about police corruption in America, specifically police corruption in the NYPD, the largest police in the country. Crime + Punishment is tangentially about brutality, because how could it not be, but it’s primarily about quotas: How arrest quotas are still in play among … Continue reading →

Interview: Raoul Peck, “I Am Not Your Negro”

I have been known to describe interviews I’ve done in the past as “the best interview I’ve ever done.” I say this because I mean it, but I’m also saying it from a place where objectivity doesn’t exist. The truth is that every interview I do, in general, is better than the one I’ve done before … Continue reading →

The Playlist’s 22 Best Documentaries Of 2016

…hey, how about that, another year end list, whaddya know. 2016 is a big documentary year, as in “there are a lot of great documentaries that came out this year.” I wrote about Ava DuVernay’s 13th, and Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson, two fundamentally unalike films that remain among the year’s best documentary offerings, for The Playlist.  

Truer Story: Sicario, Cartel Land, & Narco Cultura

“Mexico has had a problem with drug cartels for decades, but the country’s drug war didn’t officially start until Felipe Calderón ordered a battalion of troops to Michoacán for the dispensal of indiscriminate justice in 2006. You can trace the fallout of Calderón martial intervention either through good old fashioned journalism or U.S. pop culture: … Continue reading →

Review: Do I Sound Gay?, 2015, dir. David Thorpe

If you’ve been paying attention to the press, you’d think that just under two weeks ago the Supreme Court didn’t rule in favor of equality by guaranteeing marriage rights to gay couples across the U.S. of A. Homophobia, gay panic, and general bad feeling toward LGBT folks isn’t exactly at an all-time high or anything, … Continue reading →

Review: Iris, 2015, dir. Albert Maysles

“About a half hour into Albert Maysles’ Iris, the late, great filmmaker takes his viewers on an open house through the gloriously untidy apartment of his subject, fashion maven Iris Apfel. She glides from place to place before sidling up to an unwieldy statue made in the image of a turkey. A Kermit the Frog … Continue reading →

Review: Ballet 422, 2015, dir. Jody Lee Lipes

“In Ballet 422, director Jody Lee Lipes does something remarkable: He cuts himself out of the equation entirely. He’s barely a fly on the wall in his own documentary, which chronicles New York City Ballet soloist and choreographer Justin Peck’s attempt to architect the company’s 422nd production. Lipes’ approach to capturing his subjects is about … Continue reading →

Review: The Great Invisible, 2014, dir. Margaret Brown

“If you heard this quote out of context, you might assume it can be sourced back to a Vietnam vet or 9/11 responder. But you would be wrong, and more than that, you would be shocked; this is the testimony of Doug Brown, chief engineer on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and one of the … Continue reading →

Review: Fight Church, 2014, dir. Daniel Junge & Bryan Storkel

“Love thy neighbor. Turn the other cheek. Keep thine hands up, then clobber thy opponent with a vicious cross before choking him out. That’s the Bible according to the subjects of Daniel Junge’s and Bryan Storkel’s new documentary, Fight Church, although that summary does little justice to the film’s depth of study. This isn’t simply … Continue reading →

The Cinematic Decade: My Top 25 of the 2000s (pt. 3)

Third verse, same as the first, Jackie is a punk, Judy is a runt. Entries 15-11, let’s go: 15. Up: The aughts have been pretty good years for Pixar– the studio has put out seven films in ten years, and of those films only one has displayed a poverty of creativity and wit (Cars), while … Continue reading →