Roger Ebert reviewed movies with an accessibility that made him the most well-known movie critic in the world. But contrary to public opinion, Ebert could also be an outlier and an iconoclast, especially when it came to documentaries. Few mainstream critics have gone to bat for nonfiction films—not to mention formally adventurous docs that didn’t play by the rules—with as much vigor as Ebert.
Tag Archives: Werner Herzog
Docutopia #40: For Interpretation—Room 237 and the Subjectivities of Postmodern Docs
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that critics hailed Rodney Ascher’s Room 237, opening in theaters and on VOD this week, as Sundance 2012′s best documentary. The film is, after all, about critical interpretation. But the multilayered Room 237 is more than just a cinephile’s inside joke—it joins a long list of acclaimed documentaries that focus on the vagaries of truth.
Docutopia #20: Bestiaire and Anti-Anthropomorphic Animal Docs
If the animal world is often benevolent in the magical kingdom of Disney, these filmmakers have focused on the more quotidian realities of nature. Furthermore, it’s not the flip side of Disney’s goodness being put on display; these docs aren’t about nature’s malevolence or mystique, which would be just as hackneyed. Rather, they present an animal world that is arguably more threatening to Manichean views of the universe: neither sweet nor cruel, maybe animals are just indifferent.
Bombast #48
This week Time Out New York released its list of the 100 Best movies shot in New York. All the Internet loves a list, and as such things go it’s well done, but while cycling through it I couldn’t help but think that perhaps the world—and American movies—would be a great deal better off if New York City got a little time off.
DOC NYC: Dispatch #1
There’s a moment late in The Chair (1962), part of DOC NYC’s essential tribute to Ricky Leacock, when it becomes apparent that what you’re watching is great art, not merely a work of great artistry.
Get it NOW: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
The #1 documentary of the year, and one of the most popular and critically acclaimed documentaries of all time, Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams is now available on SundanceNOW. If you’re not in a city where the film is currently, playing, you’ll have months to wait for the official DVD release.
Why not just get it NOW?
Little Werner Needs to Fly
And now, a brief interlude to toot our own horn: the Sundance Selects release of Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a box office smash. See it in theaters to find out what the fuss is all about.
[VIDEO] Werner brings his albino alligators to Colbert
This clip pretty much explains itself. Watch as Werner goes full-on ecstatic truth in front of an awed Stephen Colbert.
Further reading: An oldie but a goodie, in which Slate magazine debunks some of Cave‘s assertions about the alligators in its epilogue. The idea that the film’s weirdest section may just be a grand fantasy invented by a borderline madman only makes it more rad.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams is in theaters everywhere.
