A few days ago I nominated BANG! The Bern Berns Story as the best music documentary at this year’s film festival (read review here). After watching Bill Frisell: A Portrait, I must say that it comes in as a close second.
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-louis Trintignant, Toby Jones Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke serves up a French-language black comedy featuring a dysfunctional family, observations on social media, euthanasia, European class structure and immigration and video surveillance in the age of the smart phone. Unfortunately, the end result of all this is less than the sum of […]
“A dead poet does not write”. Iggy Pop reads the words of Michel Houellecq in this film that addresses the issue of struggling artists and their mental health.
Starring: Salma Hayek, John Lithgow, Connie Britton At first, Beatriz At Dinner comes across as an American counterpoint to Sally Potter’s very English and very black comedy The Party (reviewed here) and also playing at this year’s film festival.
You may be aware of Tony Conrad’s contribution to music and his association with The Velvet Underground, but this lively, entertaining look at the late experimental artist reveals that there was much more to Conrad besides the drone.
Feeling a bit over day-to-day monotony? If you can handle the dizzying spectacle, Jossi Wells and his newfound French friends might set you free.
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic and clichéd…if you see one music doco at this year’s NZ Film Festival, make sure it’s Bang! The Bert Berns Story.
Horror theme park Spookers might be the stuff of nightmares, but Florian Habicht’s surreal look at the scare factory makes for a dream doco – life affirming and funny as hell.