Doc Corner: 'The Andy Warhol Diaries' on Netflix

By Glenn Dunks

There have been a lot of films, series and books about Andy Warhol and the company he kept. Documentaries alone, I could definitely list off a dozen titles by heart from prestige to the trash. And there's no reason for that to stop now. After all, Warhol’s factory of superstars and the art they produced will no doubt continue to inspire other creatives for as long as there is art. The Andy Warhol Diaries on Netflix will certainly not be the last. Although it may just go down as at least one of the more definitive of the bunch—as well as the slickest...

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SXSW: Exploring Volcanoes in ‘Fire of Love’

By Abe Friedtanzer 

I’m grateful that SXSW includes a “Festival Favorites” section that includes titles that have played elsewhere and been popular since it’s often not until a festival has ended or all of its screenings have concluded that I hear about something I’m told I have to see. Fortunately, the documentary Fire of Love which was acquired by National Geographic (for quite a sum), meaning that those without access to film festivals will be able to see this inventive and visually striking film soon enough…

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SXSW: An Eccentric Collector in ‘The Pez Outlaw’

By Abe Friedtanzer

 

I don’t think I ever got into Pez. I may have collected Beanie Babies briefly and bought Pokémon cards for a week, but that was about it for any obsession that wasn’t movies or TV. But what always interested me about Pez – and I suspect this is the case for most people – is that it wasn’t the candy inside but the dispenser that was the attraction. It turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, that there are people who spend their entire lives tracking down the rarest among them. Far ahead of the competition is Steve Glew, also known as the Pez Outlaw… 

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Doc Corner: Keith Maitland's 'Dear Mr. Brody'

By Glenn Dunks

Sometimes it is those brief moments in history that can offer the greatest glimpse at the changing state of a nation. Keith Maitland does just that with the story of Michael Brody Jr., a blip on the radar of pop culture by today’s standards, but who in 1970 at the age of 21—a self-proclaimed hippie millionaire, the heir to a large margarine fortune—caused pandemonium when he declared his intentions to give away his entire wealth to anybody who asked for it...

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Doc Corner: Salomé Jashi’s 'Taming the Garden'

By Glenn Dunks

Streaming now on MUBI.

The notes for Taming the Garden reference Werner Herzog and it’s not hard to see why. The absurd relationship between man and nature is as pivotal to Georgian filmmaker Salomé Jashi’s quiet and observant documentary as it is to so many of Herzog’s.

But Jashi’s film is nonetheless one all its own, blending modesty and spectacle in ways that may have its audience questioning the crux of its narrative just as much as its subjects do. It is the bizarre story of one (unseen) billionaire's efforts to uproot seemingly half of Georgia for his own pet arboreal project. Full of mesmerising static shots as trees are lumbered through the landscape looking like the Ents from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movies and where the sight of a 30-metre high tree being shipped over the Black Sea attains a surreal grandeur that belies its otherwise restrained tone.

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