Documentary

News, Reviews & Features

Author: The JT LeRoy Story

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 8th July 2016

Watching this fascinating documentary about a celebrity/literary scandal that unraveled in the media in 2005, it struck me that this is really something I should already know about. It's astonishing that the high-profile hoax at the centre of this film, which connected - and fooled - so many famous names across film and music, managed to happen at all, but the real miscarriage of justice here is that apparently I have been completely unaware of it until now. Was I more ignorant of the literary world and of pop culture in general than I thought? It seems unlikely. Regardless though, it's probably fair to say that going into this film entirely 'blind' makes for a more incredulous (and therefore more rewarding) experience.

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Louis Theroux's LA Stories: Edge of Life

TV Review | Ed Williamson | 30th March 2014

Having shed the freak-show tenor of his early work, Louis Theroux has become a documentarian you trust implicitly - even when the film ends on an implausible high note.

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The Armstrong Lie

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 28th January 2014

If documentary film was once considered the presentation of truth, the best examples of its contemporary boom seem now more concerned with examining the nature of truth itself. As if the genre had begun to no longer trust its own motives, we now see deliberate use of unreliable narrators, and are invited to consider the anatomy of a lie. Lance Armstrong is as unreliable a subject as you're likely to find, and by the end of Alex Gibney's latest film, you're still not sure whether he's telling the whole truth.

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We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 10th July 2013

Right, let's stop mucking about with the gifs and the cock jokes. This is a serious documentary about war and lies and cover-ups and stuff. But have no fear: both I and this website are more than capable of sober critical discourse, and will address the subject with no small amount of intellectual rigour. Also, that Julian Assange has funny-looking hair, right guys?

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The Imposter

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 24th August 2012

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.

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Catfish

Movie Review | Ali | 19th December 2010

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.

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Religulous

Movie Review | Mark | 18th April 2009

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...

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Man On Wire

Movie Review | Anna | 4th August 2008

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...

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Joy Division

Movie Review | Mark | 8th May 2008

"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...

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Shine A Light

Movie Review | Mark | 17th April 2008

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. ...

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