In his review of Robert Greenwald’s new film Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices, Salon.com film critic Andrew O’Hehir laments “the way documentary film has become a branch of advocacy journalism.” While O’Hehir proceeded with a mostly positive review of the film, I’d like to take brief issue with his stance on this [...]

For the past several years, documentaries have ruled my life. I created the content-lite variety for Discovery/TLC/Travel Channel for a few years, and now I’m knee-deep in the theory end of the pool. This past summer, I went on a Netflix binge and watched scores of films I felt I needed to see. Here’s a [...]

I wasn’t a fan of Robert Greenwald’s last major film, Outfoxed, for a variety of reasons, mostly formal. First, it was a technical mess–repeating itself over and over while appearing to be edited by a high-schooler on iMovie. From a content perspective, while the film was well-intentioned, it was preaching a message that should [...]

Seemingly as a rule, hip-hop documentaries (Scratch and Freestyle excluded) suck. Almost always, they consist of nothing more than poorly shot camcorder footage decorated with outlandishly unnecessary graphics that amount to little more than a promotional vehicle for the artist or label. (Here’s a hint: watch out for “unauthorized” biographies on Netflix–and make sure to [...]

I watched, rather randomly, the 1990 documentary “Berkeley in the 60’s” last night. I honestly expected not to like it, mostly based on the fact that it had won that year’s Oscar–I thought it would be an overwrought, hazy revisionist mess. I was completely wrong. It stands as a fantastic oral history, not just of [...]