Demob Happy

Waltz With Bashir – Ari Folman Hagai Levi, creator of the Israeli TV show ‘Be’Tipul‘ – which became in turn the inspiration for the latest HBO phenomenon, ‘In Treatment’, currently championed in the UK by The Guardian – said of Israel that “one of our problems as a nation is that in our mind we [...]

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On top of the World Trade Centre 9/10 ‘Man On Wire‘ is a documentary chronicling Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers. A meticulously planned and highly illegal stunt, which involved years of clandestine plotting and finally a generous amount of good luck, director James Marsh claims the story struck him as “a [...]

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Less interesting than watching 90 minutes of an inconsequential end of season La Liga match. 4/10 As a football supporter and a fan of daring and original cinema I was genuinely excited at the prospect of Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno’s 21st Century Portrait of Zinedine Zidane. With 17 cameras trained on the great French [...]

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In sickness and in health 7/10 The thoroughly unloveable documentary maker’s latest sets its sights on the American healthcare system – and a large and easy target it is. With Sicko’s polemic evidently intended for American audiences, Moore is typically selective or misreprentative when making comparisons to healthcare in Europe. Britian is portrayed as some [...]

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What in tarnation? 6/10 Jonathan Caouette’s highly personal film lends itself more to installational video art than to cinema or even documentary. Its frenetic visual style, using splices of camcorder and digital video footage taken over a twenty year period, often detracts from what might be of interest on camera itself. There is too much [...]

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Bear with me 9/10 Werner Herzog is noted for making films that include ‘animals doing unusual things’ and ‘long, extended landscape shots’ (IMDB). Grizzly Man fulfills both criteria, but more unusual than the behaviour of the bears that feature in this brilliant documentary, is that of film’s protagonist – Timothy Treadwell – an authentic American [...]

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