Documentary

Review: The Imposter

Last time I saw a documentary that had some scenes dramatised by actors, I think it was 'Women Who Kill: The Rose West Story' or maybe 'Inside Hitler's Bunker' on the Biography Channel. It's never been a very credible device, especially nowadays, when the fashion in documentary is 'stripped back, no narrator'. So The Imposter deserves no end of praise, not only for bucking this trend with its acted-out scenes, but for taking what could've been a weeknight Channel 5 true story and telling it like a truly gripping drama.

Review: Catfish

If you want to get the best out of Catfish, stop reading this review immediately and just go see it - it's in cinemas and available to watch online now. The movie's marketing team know an enigmatic approach is key, as its ads suggest you "don't let anyone tell you what it is" a la Psycho - the first hint you're in for a surprise that's nasty and nice in equal measure.

Review: Religulous

There's a new kind of film on the block. And Religulous is it. To call it a documentary is a palpable nonsense: it's a documentary in the same way that a film without any CGI is a documentary - a record of staged events engineered to create and further an opinion. In effect, Religulous is a filmed thesis; a visual presentation o...

Review: Man On Wire

On August 7th 1974, one man crossed the void between the two towers of the World Trade Center, 1,350 feet above the streets of New York - on a wire. No harness, no safety nets, no TV crew filming him. The only thing stopping him plummeting hundreds of feet was his own skill and determination; one quiver and he'd had it. The m...

Review: Joy Division

"After those two records, those two works of art, everything else is merchandising the memory." - Peter Saville The lens of time perverts memory. Now, right now, this very second, we are living in historic times. Across the world, right now, events are happening that will be chronicled in history. But us, we're too busy livin...

Review: Shine A Light

Martin Scorsese's long-running love affair with music - first cemented with The Last Waltz, confirmed with Bowie's best ever role in After Hours and the Dylan documentaries - becomes flesh with Shine A Light. Ostensibly a recording of a Rolling Stones concert in New York, Shine A Light is actually an unwitting comedy classic. ...

Review: Sicko

Michael Moore makes horror films. The truths uncovered by the tubby liberal are often far more terrifying than the half-baked shocks of the tired old slasher genre and the manner in which his greedy subjects use regular people as commodities makes me sick to my stomach, more so than any torture porn. His latest polemic sees him ...

Review: An Inconvenient Truth

Man, is this ever a hard sell: a former Presidential candidate waxes lyrical on the perils of global warming while his Powerpoint presentation plays in the background, complete with stats, graphs and - gasp - pie charts. Given a choice between this and Clerks 2 et al, the majority of moviegoers will no doubt give it a wide bert...

Review: Once In A Lifetime

It's no surprise why 'soccer' never really took off in the States; sitting through an hour and half of near-uninterrupted action is like Chinese water torture for a nation raised on sports peppered with time-outs, game-breaks and 'a short word from our sponsors.' They'd much rather get their kicks from their own brand of footba...