Becoming documentary review: hope floats
Verges on an ad for Michelle Obama’s memoir, but a sincerely warm one. We glimpse a woman authentically funny, self-aware, down-to-earth. Like spending time with a friend you didn’t realize you had.
2020 releases
Spaceship Earth documentary review: under the dome, and under a scrutinous eye
Was Biosphere 2 scientific adventure or eco-entertainment? This is a gripping portrait of the billionaire’s folly/performance-art project, a hippie SF soap opera with unsettling resonance for today.
How to Build a Girl movie review: instruction manual not included
The hypocrisy of the world’s expectations of girls gets a gently sardonic knock via an audaciously confident young woman battling to be herself. This is a lovely, goofy movie, easygoing and chaotic.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century documentary review: eat the rich (cuz they’re eating us)
Attention, social justice warriors. French economist Thomas Piketty’s howl-of-rage academic treatise is now a hugely engaging documentary, eye-opening and brutally entertaining. Man the barricades!
Bad Education movie review: school for scandal
A laugh-until-you-cry dramedy burlesque, brilliantly structured and horrifically compelling, about the endless grift that passes for an economy in America. Hugh Jackman is at the peak of his powers.
The Assistant movie review: the realities of being a girl
A quietly brutal film that shows the dark underbelly of an industry — of a world — dominated by often predatory straight white men. Could be an eye-opener on a larger scale… if only we listen.
Extraction movie review: meet the sociopathic white savior
Who are we rooting for in this accidental parody of the empty absurdity of modern action films? Everyone is awful, or a human macguffin. This is soulless technical wankery bereft of humor or humanity.
Planet of the Humans documentary review: we’ve done it, and we’ve been doing it for centuries
From the warnings of the 1950s to the 21st-century corporate takeover of green energy, a grim look at humanity’s fate as the planet heats up. Is there any hope? This feels like only half the story.
To the Stars movie review: run into the ground
Coming-of-age melodrama about misfit girls is at first passingly diverting, but it whips up mystery and suspense where it shouldn’t be, diminishing and minimizing an already neglected kind of story.
True History of the Kelly Gang movie review: toxic came the masculinity
Revisionist tale of the Australian folk hero rages against the dark forces that shaped him: emotional and economic neglect and abuse forged in patriarchy and colonialism. Electrifyingly punk and vulgar.
