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Young filmmakers document their colleague's budding online friendship with a young woman and her family which leads to an unexpected series of discoveries.
Directors:
Henry Joost,
Ariel Schulman
Stars:
Yaniv Schulman,
Ariel Schulman,
Henry Joost
The Muppet Elmo is one of the most beloved characters among children across the globe. Meet the unlikely man behind the puppet - the heart and soul of Elmo - Kevin Clash.
Director:
Constance Marks
Stars:
Whoopi Goldberg,
Bill Barretta,
Kevin Clash
Capitalism: A Love Story examines the impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world). The film moves from Middle America, to the ... See full summary »
Tells the story of a chimpanzee taken from its mother at birth and raised like a human child by a family in a brownstone on the upper West Side in the 1970s.
Director:
James Marsh
Stars:
Nim Chimpsky,
Stephanie LaFarge,
Herbert Terrace
A documentary that follows a billionaire couple as they begin construction on a mansion inspired by Versailles. During the next two years, their empire, fueled by the real estate bubble and cheap money, falters due to the economic crisis.
Director:
Lauren Greenfield
Stars:
Virginia Nebab,
David Siegel,
Jaqueline Siegel
An examination of the life of acclaimed 'horse whisperer' Buck Brannaman, who recovered from years of child abuse to become a well-known expert in the interactions between horses and people.
Using state-of-the-art equipment, a group of activists, led by renowned dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, infiltrate a cove near Taijii, Japan to expose both a shocking instance of animal abuse and a serious threat to human health.
Director:
Louie Psihoyos
Stars:
Richard O'Barry,
Louie Psihoyos,
Hardy Jones
This documentary follows one year in the life of Joan Rivers, who sees herself first and foremost as an actress, with her life as a comedienne/writer just an extension of being an actress. Now at age 75, Rivers has faced her ups and downs in her forty plus year career, the year leading up to filming being a down compared to what she would have wanted, which is a calendar full of engagements with several engagements each day. That want is in part to support her opulent personal lifestyle, but is more a need to bolster her own sense of self-worth as a basically insecure person who is probably best known now for her overuse of cosmetic surgery rather than her professional work. She feels that Kathy Griffin, who she admires, is now getting all the engagements she would have gotten in her prime. During this year, Rivers is seen going from engagement to engagement, some big - such as a Kennedy Center Honors for George Carlin, a double bill with Don Rickles in New York, and her own celebrity... Written by
Huggo
Joan Rivers is asked, "Don't we want to be loved for our real self?" To which she tellingly replies, "What's the real self?"
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is not funny even though you'd expect a year in the life of one of the world's funniest ladies to be so. But it is as documentaries go one of the best ever: It is uncompromising in depicting how a 75 year-old icon is working every minute of her day, not to sharpen her craft necessarily, but rather to make money to keep up a lavish lifestyle best exemplified by her Versailles-like apartment in New York.
Truth is, however, that she likes what she does better than anything else, a workaholic who makes people laugh. In the process she is ribald, abrasive, bitchy, and irreverent, attributes she displayed almost 50 years ago, when highly educated ladies just didn't do that kind of thing. But from the Tonight show with Johnny Carson through Celebrity Apprentice, she has done it all in comedy while taking gigs from Wisconsin to Juno, all to stay alive in a profession that eats its young and discards its seniors every day.
When she says, "Let me show you what fear is" and explicates by revealing a blank appointment page, she is speaking for every worker in show businessmost of whom face periods of inactivity regularly and bravely. Her fear of bombing with her act is almost as palpable and never more apparent than when she painfully puts down a heckler but suffers remorse for what it did to him, her audience, and of course her self confidence.
Yet the two most devastating events of her life, the suicide of husband Edgar and the ultimate rejection by Johnny Carson may have affected her most in 75 years. This doc is much more about suffering than laughter.
Rivers holds her acting talent above her comedic, a telling admission about the calculating, opportunistic foundation of her career, with comedy a mere avocation. Directors Riki Stern and Anne Sundberg skillfully keep the tension of uncertainty on Joan, as if the camera should be as close as possible to Joan's face to capture that actress's honesty.
"Actress" and "honesty" don't always go together, and they are in question here. How honest is any portrayal by a comic who keeps thousands of jokes on file and surgically alters her face as many times as she may change jewelry? On this topic, I remain skeptical; on the matter of this doc being successful deconstruction of show business's vagaries, it's a powerful work in progress.
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Joan Rivers is asked, "Don't we want to be loved for our real self?" To which she tellingly replies, "What's the real self?"
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is not funny even though you'd expect a year in the life of one of the world's funniest ladies to be so. But it is as documentaries go one of the best ever: It is uncompromising in depicting how a 75 year-old icon is working every minute of her day, not to sharpen her craft necessarily, but rather to make money to keep up a lavish lifestyle best exemplified by her Versailles-like apartment in New York.
Truth is, however, that she likes what she does better than anything else, a workaholic who makes people laugh. In the process she is ribald, abrasive, bitchy, and irreverent, attributes she displayed almost 50 years ago, when highly educated ladies just didn't do that kind of thing. But from the Tonight show with Johnny Carson through Celebrity Apprentice, she has done it all in comedy while taking gigs from Wisconsin to Juno, all to stay alive in a profession that eats its young and discards its seniors every day.
When she says, "Let me show you what fear is" and explicates by revealing a blank appointment page, she is speaking for every worker in show businessmost of whom face periods of inactivity regularly and bravely. Her fear of bombing with her act is almost as palpable and never more apparent than when she painfully puts down a heckler but suffers remorse for what it did to him, her audience, and of course her self confidence.
Yet the two most devastating events of her life, the suicide of husband Edgar and the ultimate rejection by Johnny Carson may have affected her most in 75 years. This doc is much more about suffering than laughter.
Rivers holds her acting talent above her comedic, a telling admission about the calculating, opportunistic foundation of her career, with comedy a mere avocation. Directors Riki Stern and Anne Sundberg skillfully keep the tension of uncertainty on Joan, as if the camera should be as close as possible to Joan's face to capture that actress's honesty.
"Actress" and "honesty" don't always go together, and they are in question here. How honest is any portrayal by a comic who keeps thousands of jokes on file and surgically alters her face as many times as she may change jewelry? On this topic, I remain skeptical; on the matter of this doc being successful deconstruction of show business's vagaries, it's a powerful work in progress.