Tag: Documentary

REVIEW: The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019 – Documentary)

Release Poster – HBO

The following is a review of The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley — Directed by Alex Gibney.

In 2019, we’ve already been given multiple tantalizing tales of young entrepreneurs revealed to be con artists, phoneys, or fraudsters. Call them what you will, but, with the two documentaries about the catastrophic ‘Fyre festival’ and now this documentary about a wannabe-disruptor and con artist in the biomedical industry, I find myself thinking about the loopholes these young people jumped through and how investors were fooled into making them frontmen, leaders, and innovators. In the case of The Inventor, it is not so much about incompetence but more about deception and how investors were deceived into propping up a transfixing, deep-voiced, and intense Stanford drop-out with delusions of grandeur, even as she spouted out incredibly vague descriptions of her grand idea. Continue reading “REVIEW: The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019 – Documentary)” →

REVIEW: Antoine Griezmann: The Making of a Legend (2019 – Documentary)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a quick review of Antoine Griezmann: The Making of a Legend — Directed by Alex Dell & Damien Piscarel.

The Making of a Legend is a French one-hour Netflix documentary about a famous French football player named Antoine Griezmann, who, in recent years, has become one of the frontmen for the French national team and a world-class player in Spain. In this documentary, Alex Dell and Damien Piscarel tell you the story of how Griezmann went from being a dismissed French talent to becoming a star player for the French national team that won the World Cup last year. Continue reading “REVIEW: Antoine Griezmann: The Making of a Legend (2019 – Documentary)” →

REVIEW: Waiting for the Punchline (2019 – Documentary)

Poster – Rooster Teeth

The following is a short review of the RT Doc ‘Waiting for the Punchline‘ — Directed by Mat Hames.

Nick Scarpino is a co-founder of the San Francisco-based online entertainment company Kinda Funny. Before he began appearing on-camera during podcasts for Kinda Funny, he was most comfortable behind the scenes as a producer. Having found an audience and a sufficient amount of confidence, Scarpino, in early 2017, revealed to the other members of Kinda Funny that he wanted to try stand-up comedy. This documentary, Mat Hames’ Waiting for the Punchline, details his experience as a San Francisco stand-up who desperately wants a chance to do comedy on the stage of a notable San Francisco comedy club. Continue reading “REVIEW: Waiting for the Punchline (2019 – Documentary)” →

REVIEW: Leaving Neverland (2019 – Documentary)

Release Poster – HBO

The following is a review of Leaving Neverland — Directed by Dan Reed.

The saying goes that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. When it comes to the case of Michael Jackson and everything surrounding him there’s been more smoke than you can safely breathe in. Indeed, Leaving Neverland-director Dan Reed and his film’s subjects would allege that Michael Jackson has been blowing smoke most of his adult life about what exactly goes on inside Jackson’s bedroom or his Neverland-ranch. Continue reading “REVIEW: Leaving Neverland (2019 – Documentary)” →

REVIEW: FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019 – Documentary)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened — Directed by Chris Smith.

Nowadays it’s tough to be informed about every tiny little thing social media cares about. When I’m not terrified about why an elderly star’s name is trending on Twitter, I don’t pay a lot of attention to what is trending on social media — something has to stand out, or my timeline has to tweet about it constantly, for me to really notice (unless it’s relevant to my interests, of course). Continue reading “REVIEW: FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019 – Documentary)” →

REVIEW: Shirkers (2018 – Documentary)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of the Netflix Documentary Shirkers — Directed by Sandi Tan.

In the early 1990s, a group of teenage Singaporean cinephiles became filmmakers when they wrote, cast, produced, and shot their independent road movie, Shirkers. Though the film was directed by their American mentor Georges Cardona, the premise and the script came from Sandi Tan who also played the protagonist. As Sandi Tan waited to go into post-production on Shirkers, Cardona, who was in possession of the film reels, ignored her and disappeared out of nowhere with the film — leaving her and her friends empty-handed and without the film that a film critic friend of theirs thought was childish but ahead of its time.  Continue reading “REVIEW: Shirkers (2018 – Documentary)” →

REVIEW: Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018 – Documentary)

Release Poster – HBO

The following is a review of Jane Fonda in Five Acts — An HBO Documentary Film.

Documentary filmmaker Susan Lacy, who directed last year’s Spielberg, has with her newest HBO documentary film — Jane Fonda in Five Acts — pointed the camera at Jane Fonda, one of the most fascinating and controversial American movie stars of the last sixty years. The film takes you through her career, which included both ups and downs, and attempts to make the argument that she was defined by others until she found herself down the road. Continue reading “REVIEW: Jane Fonda in Five Acts (2018 – Documentary)” →