Perhaps Tarkovsky’s most opaque film, Nostalghia is nonetheless one of his most personal.
The easiest way to find entry into the film is to accede to its reveries, to welcome and possibly celebrate its shifting tones and techniques.
It feels as if it set out to be an inspirational tale about underdogs beating the odds, but instead of giving color to the story, the filmmakers presented it with black-and-white ideas.
The film puts value back on people who’ve historically been undervalued, both by the Khmer Rouge and, by lack of mention, cinema history at large.
Spinning Plates may inadvertently be one of the year’s best films about class differences in America.
While there’s no doubt that a city’s walkability is important, the film would have benefitted from either stats or testimonials in favor of its central premise.
A lazily constructed documentary that doesn’t hide first-time director Spencer McCall’s admitted lack of understanding for his subject.
Robert Reich’s message to America is so simple and straightforward (you might even say obvious) that, without nitpicking, it can appear flawless.
As an adaptation of Davis Sedaris’s short essay from his acclaimed 1997 compilation, Naked, it’s a letdown, as it doesn’t exude the pop of the author’s trademark humor.
Neither Reefer Madness nor Cheech and Chong joint, it’s both funny and serious, and its depictions of pot-smoking could be read as either promotional or cautionary.
It creates a useful distance between Brandon Darby and his stories that allow for us to assess them individually, reinforcing the film’s suggestion that the truth is elusive.
Whether or not you consider this a banal topic, it’s plain to see that the puttering documentary doesn’t achieve magnificence.
Bill Siegel has made more of a Ken Burns-esque history book—that is, a medium more dry and factual—than a film.
Amy Nicholson’s documentary feels warm and fuzzy about its subject, but at the same time depersonalized.
If The Social Network didn’t make you want to quit Facebook in 2010, the brave new world outlined here should, despite the fact that your data won’t actually be erased.
Catheryne Czubek’s documentary is itself like a shotgun, as its scatter-shot thematic blast is wide and lacking in precision.
Perhaps Andrei Tarkovsky’s most opaque film, Nostalghia is also one of his most personal.
It works as a reminder of the important interactiveness of the performing arts, of actors evoking the drama, action, and emotion that computers and machines cannot.
Without being didactic, it demonstrates how an ordinary concerned citizen can take a stand when politicians neglect to make decisions for the good of the people.
An involving documentary that doesn’t offer a convincing argument against solitary confinement for those who may not fully realize what’s objectionable about it.