Doc Corner: Dustin Lance Black and 'Mama's Boy'

By Glenn Dunks

Good intentions can take a movie a long way. Who doesn’t like good intentions?! The problem with good intentions is that they can too often mask deficiencies. And in the case of Mama’s Boy, those good intentions suffocate director Laurent Bouzereau’s ability to tell a story that might venture outside of the lines of the one its subject has a firm and unwavering interest in telling. It’s a lovely story of empathy, compassion, a mother’s love for her son (and vice versa) that nonetheless suffers from rudimentary structure, unadventurous editing, and is built around one talking head interview in particular that lacks spontaneity, as if reciting from a script. Considering it's adapted from a memoir, that probably makes sense.

The central figure here is Academy Award-winning screenwriter and social activist Dustin Lance Black and the film is about him more than the more interesting figure of his mother. Your mileage about that will vary...

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Review: "Holy Spider" weaves a web of provocations

by Cláudio Alves

"Holy Spider" | © UtopiaThe world's obsession with true crime is as old as crime itself. With every new format and possible presentation, another wave of such media arises, making us think, each time, that the collective obsession is a new phenomenon. Oh, how wrong we are, for as much as things change, they remain the same. One aspect constant with every iteration of the true-crime craze is the glorification of the killer. False equivalencies manifest, equating human monsters to criminal geniuses. Great purposes are projected unto them, ideas of grandeur and abstract magnetism. From popular podcasts to Netflix's Jeffrey Dahmer show, true-crime narratives make celebrities out of murderers and exploit truth into legend.

Ali Abbasi's latest film challenges this state of affairs. Reenacted violence and political commentary are at the center of Holy Spider's controversial reputation, but its demystification of the serial killer figure constitutes the picture's most radical provocation…

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Doc Corner: 'Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power' and the Male Gaze

By Glenn Dunks

Hmm. This is a curious one, isn’t it?

Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is a cinematic adaptation of an on-stage presentation by filmmaker Nina Menkes on the male gaze. Originally titled “Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression”, Menkes has reworked the live show into a curious hybrid that deconstructs the way many movies are shot and framed in a way that subjugates the female characters. The first image we see is of Ana De Armas as the nude advertisement in Blade Runner 2049 before dissecting over 170 films in one form (very briefly) or another (more up close and personal).

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Doc Corner: The female rockers of 'Nothing Compares' and 'Sirens'

By Glenn Dunks

Showtime's Sinéad O'Connor documentary, Nothing Compares, much like the artist herself, is at its best when it is prickly and confronting the hard truths of the world. It is less interesting when conforming to now well-worn standards of this sub-genre, distilling information like a Wikipedia profile. The Irish singer, known for a shaved head and distinctively accented vocals, has had a hard life of struggle and sorrow amid mega-selling hit singles and critically acclaimed albums. In short, she's perfect fodder for a documentary. Director Kathryn Ferguson and editor Mick Mahon find their strongest rhythms when observing the singer’s career through the prism of her homeland and the pull-and-tug of Catholicism, which lingers over her music like a haunting spectre...

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Doc Corner: Patricio Guzmán’s 'My Imaginary Country'

By Glenn Dunks

The spectre of director Patricio Guzmán’s career lingers over his latest, My Imaginary Country. It would be hard not to considering he is the most prominent and prolific documenter of modern Chile. But in this case it feels different. It isn’t just a case of the viewer bringing their knowledge of the director’s work into a latest. Rather, the new work is reflecting those films going back fifty years.

For you see, Guzmán has made a name for himself detailing the horrors of the Pinochet dictatorship. Most prominently across two of the most impressive film trilogies you will ever see (The Battle of Chile parts one to three, and the run of Nostalgia for the Light, The Pearl Button and Cordillera of Dreams). He didn’t expect this beloved homeland to fall once again to civil war, which is what it appeared was happening in 2019...

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