Werner Herzog Gets Shot (2006)

Review:
This isn't an actual documentary but an interview with Werner Herzog.During this interview Werner was shot by an unknown air rifle sniper while talking to Mark Kermode. When Kermode suggested they postpone the interview Herzog insisted they continue. He later remarked,  “It is not significant. It does not surprise me to be shot at.”

The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose (2006)

Director:

Sam Wainwright Douglas and Paul Lovelace

IMDB

Review:

From their origins in New York’s Greenwich Village folk scene and their involvement in the “Easy Rider” soundtrack, to the lost years of constant drugging, endless touring and a final shot at redemption, The Holy Modal Rounders... Bound To Lose recounts the unique forty-year history of these true American originals. With startling intimacy, the film also documents the band’s arduous, amusing, and sometimes heartbreaking struggle to capitalize on their recent resurgence in popularity, culminating in an unpredictable 40th anniversary concert in Portland, Oregon.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore (2003)

Director:
Dez Vylenz

IMDB

Review:
ALAN MOORE -writer, artist and performer- is the world's most critically acclaimed and widely admired creator of comic books and graphic novels.  In The Mindscape of Alan Moore we see a portrait of the artist as contemporary shaman, someone with the power to transform consciousness by means of manipulating language, symbols and images.  The film leads the audience through Moore's world with the writer himself as guide, beginning with his childhood background, following the evolution of his career as he transformed the comics medium, through to his immersion in a magical worldview where science, spirituality and society are part of the same universe.  The Mindscape of Alan Moore is an audiovisual document of utmost relevance in the wake of current global developments.

Terror's Advocate (2007)

Director:
Barbet Schroeder

IMDB

Review:
An examination of the career of Jacques Vergès (1925- ), attorney for members of Algeria's FLN, Palestine's FPLP, the Khmer Rouge, Carlos and associates, Klaus Barbie, and other revolutionaries and outcasts. Archival footage, news articles, and photographs mix with contemporary interviews of Vergès, friends, associates, and historians. Connections with Nazis are explored, as well as Vergès's marriage to Djamila Bouhared, his courtroom methods, his disappearance from 1970 to 1978, and the roots of his radicalism. Throughout, Vergès remains playful and charming, with a soupçon of arrogance. The film suggests Vergès's anti-colonial nature is at his center.

Nagisa Oshima: The Man Who Left His Soul on Film (1984)

Director:
Paul Joyce

Review:
Virtually a crash course on the most important and talented living Japanese filmmaker after Kurosawa and related aspects of contemporary Japanese politics and culture. This superb feature-length documentary made in 1984 by Paul Joyce for England’s Channel Four offers an indispensable look at a fearlessly innovative and political filmmaker who is all but unknown in this country today, thanks to the reluctance of his U.S. distributor to make such vital works as Boy, Death by Hanging, and The Ceremony available on video. Making intelligent use of Anglo-American commentators (writers Donald Richie, Roger Pulvers, and Paul Mayersberg) as well as Oshima himself, this film somehow manages to cover everything in Oshima’s career from his early youth shockers to In The Realm of the Senses and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence–including his fame as a Japanese TV personality (at the outset we see him acting in a commercial for bug spray). Essential viewing.

Made in Serbia (2005)

Director:
Mladen Djordjevic

IMDB

Review:
A portray of the Serbian video porn industry presenting four life stories of domestic porn actors. Unlike their Western counterparts, these people work in porn industry in order to survive and obtain basic life supplies.  The film follows the young hot shot porn star who travels to a shoot in Hungary, a bisexual actor who visits hometown, a 40 year old actress that invites her husband into the porn business and a peasant who became a local legend thanks to working in porn industry.

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell (2008)

Director:
Matt Wolf

IMDB

Review:
Arthur Russell's music is the very product of its time and space, NY in the 70-80's, and the very product of a country man meeting the most free and creative art scenes. You'd find all of this in his art, sweet melancholy, great tension, sensuality, sound researches (what he brings out of his cello is just amazing), and ultimately an incredible sense of groove in his proto-disco gems. This documentary tells the life of this great artist through the vision of people who lived around him, or worked with him, his parents, his ever loving boy-friend (a very moving character), the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, label owners, musicans, etc...

Young @ Heart (2007)

Director:
Stephen Walker and Sally George

IMDB

Review:
As early as autumn 2006, surreal and hilarious video clips of Stephen Walker's documentary (which originally aired on the BBC) were making the rounds on YouTube and in email inboxes all over the U.S.--tantalizing, out-of-context glimpses of the Young At Heart vocal choir, composed of elderly men and women, having a go at chestnuts by Sonic Youth, the Clash, and the Ramones. It seemed that the feature film, re-released for the screen in 2008, would perhaps be an uncomfortably comic look at a bunch of geezers set up to look ridiculous for the smug delectation of hipster audiences everywhere. The reality is not so far off-base, at least on first glance, but Walker's film, tracking the progress of the chorus as they prepare for a big gig, provides enough good-natured humour, personal narrative, and intimate details to inspire respect and admiration--and some major heart-string-plucking--in filmgoers.  Viewers witness the blossoming of long-buried or completely latent musical talents in the elderly folks; learning the new, unfamiliar material, under the direction of irascible 50-something conductor Bob Cilman, keeps their neurons firing and their emotions kindled, while communing with and trusting each other staves off the isolating effects of old age, even as they cope with heartbreaking losses within their ranks. It is undeniably funny to watch them struggle with the more challenging punk, classic rock, and soul songs as their leader kvetches wearily, but Walker skilfully ensures that, by the end of the film, we are laughing with the intrepid Young At Hearters, and not at them.

Fetishes (1996)

Director:
Nick Broomfield

IMDB

Review:
In Fetishes Broomfield invades the demimonde of dominatrix Mistress Raven, who runs a pricey Manhattan parlor, Pandora's Box, catering to fetishists. The documentary opens with black and white footage from an Irving Klaw film depicting models, including Bettie Page, wearing fetish attire. Nick Broomfield and his film crew then arrive at Pandora's Box on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and are given a tour of the facility by Mistress Raven, including the dungeon and the medical room.

The Most Hated Family in America (2007)

Director:
Geoffrey O'Connor

IMDB

Review:
The Westborough Baptist Church believe that America is condemned by God because of its acceptance of homosexuality and rejection of His true teaching. The members of the church are overwhelmingly from one family – the Phelps family under the tutelage of Pastor Phelps – father or grandfather to many of the group. In an attempt to understand why they are so hated and try to get a grip on their beliefs, Louis Theroux spends several months with them at their home, talking to them as individuals and joining them on their pickets at the funerals of dead soldiers, whom they believe are dead because God is punishing the US.  Louis Theroux has made a name for himself in seeking out the weird and the wonderful characters and scenes in the world and managing to get close to them, using his affable and harmless manner to often reach the heart of the people and let them show more than they intended. And so it is here with the Phelps family – a group that we start out seeing as a group of religious cracks but gradually become more and more upsetting as the film goes on. The film does a great job of exploring its subjects and Louis effortlessly brings a lot out of some of them.

You're Gonna Miss Me (2005)

Director:
Keven McAlester

IMDB

Review:
Documentary about rock n roll pioneer Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson, whose band the 13th Floor Elevators coined the term "psychedelic rock" in the 60's. Struggling with drug abuse and schizophrenia, he spent 3 years in Rusk State Hospital after pleading insanity on marijuana charges. His new band, Roky Erickson and the Aliens managed to stay vital during the 70's with a darker and more aggressive rock sound. After losing interest in music, he became a recluse, living in poverty and filth. The movie details the rise and fall of Roky Erickson and his brothers struggle to get Rokys life back on track.

Bigger Stronger Faster* (2008)

Director:
Chris Bell

IMDB

Review:
Finally an honest look into the steroid world. These days in order to compete with your peers/teammates, you almost have to take some sort of performance enhancing drugs. If you don't, you'll fall behind. Standard case of "keeping up with the Jones's". I feel it is very obvious to the world and sports fans that this is going on, but NO ONE is honest about it! And when one guy gets busted, he's looked down upon and singled out. Not fair to single them out and criticize when everyone else on the team is doing it.  This doc doesn't really detail team sports, but it is still the same concept. You finally get a good look into this world and a good look into why people do these types of drugs. Very informative, well done documentary. I am so glad to have seen it, and for anyone curious, it's worth watching.

Desperate Man Blues (2003)

Director:

Edward Gillan

IMDB

Review:

Record collector Joe Bussard parties like it's 1929! A cultural scavenger, musician and broadcaster, he was a pioneer in the preservation of 78rpm records and the roots music produced in pure and undiluted form in the 20s and 30s. Bussard has rescued priceless shellac artefacts from attics and basements across the US for more than 50 years. He has amassed a vast collection of more than 25,000 rare discs. At 65 Bussard has the enthusiasm and energy of a 16-year-old and will happily spin 75-year-old records all day for anyone who will listen. All the while he gives a running commentary on the music and performer, reliving the day it was made and relating some crazy tale of how he came to rescue the record!

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)

Director:
Marina Zenovich

IMDB

Review:
There are few who are unfamiliar with the notorious Polanski sex scandal of 1977 which led to him absconding from America prior to the start of the trial, never to return. This recent documentary presents the case for both sides and leaves it to the viewer to determine the guilt or innocence of the legendary director.

Surfwise (2007)

Director:
Doug Pray

IMDB

Review:
As usual Doug Pray does an amazing job. The inspiring and tumultuous story of 85-year old surfer, health advocate and sex guru, Dr. Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, his wife Juliette, and their nine children who were all home-schooled and raised in a small camper on the beach, where they surfed and had to adhere to the strict diet and lifestyle of animals in the wild.