Writing about experience necessarily sanitizes it, theorizes Sangjoon Han, a Korean-American soldier who fought in Iraq and is one of many articulate talking heads in Richard E. Robbins’s documentary “Operation Homecoming.” Built around the firsthand recollections of soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the film is a spinoff from an anthology of essays, e-mail messages, poems and letters com
ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL is the sensitive and irresistibly funny story of unsung heroes of Canadian heavy metal Anvil. Jewish teenagers Robb Reiner and Steve "Lips" Kudlow met in the mid-seventies in a Toronto high school and soon decided that rock was their destiny. Anvil was forged. The band gained a cult following among heavy metal enthusiasts during the eighties, but never really made it in t
Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story comes home to the issue he’s been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).But this time the culprit is much bigger than General Motors, and the crime scene far wider than Flint, Michigan. From Middle America, to the halls of power in Washingt
A fascinating account of a relatively unknown piece of political history. Before the Iraq war and the Bush Administration, there was John Lennon, who used his fame and fortune to protest the Vietnam War and advocate world peace. This documentary is the compelling true story of how and why the U.S. Government tried to silence him, and the events that transformed him from a beloved musical artist in
End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones is a 2003 documentary about the highly influential punk rock band the Ramones. The film, produced and directed by Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia, follows the band's history and 22 years of touring. The movie was generally well received by critics and fans alike, receiving a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was released on DVD August 9, 2005.The film tells
Alternately teasing and terrifying, Strange Culture molds one man’s tragedy into an engrossing narrative.In 2004, Steve Kurtz (Thomas Jay Ryan), an associate professor of art at the State University of New York, Buffalo, was preparing an exhibition on genetically modified food for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art when his wife, Hope (Tilda Swinton), died in her sleep of heart failu
“It all started when I Googled my name” said Killeen of his movie. And who in today’s day and age hasn’t engaged in just such an activity in a moment of idle “webbing.” The difference here that the filmmaker actually followed up on his findings by not only contacting his namesakes but also traveling to whatever remote location called for to meet and interview the subjects of his search, even disco
Ron Mann investigates the miraculous, near-secret world of fungi. Visionaries Gary Lincoff and Larry Evans lead us on a hunt for the wild mushroom and the deeper cultural experiences attached to the mysterious fungi. The oldest and largest living organisms recorded on Earth are both fungi. And their use by a new, maverick breed of scientists and thinkers has proven vital in the cleansing of sites
The Cove begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O’Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation “Flipper.”But his close relationship with those dolphins – the very dolphins who sparked a global fascination with tr