by James Olsen for FILMbutton.com Starting and ending with Vancouver Pride, the audience is taken on a journey to Zurich for InterPride Conference; and to Warsaw, Sao Paolo, Moscow, and New York for in-depth looks at their Pride parades. The elaborate parties and parades of Vancouver, Sao Paolo, and New York City are a sharp […]
by James Olsen for FILMbutton.com This film tells the story of Manuela von Meinhardis (Romy Schneider) who has lost her mother and is sent to a girls’ school run by the strict Sr. Superior (Therese Giehse) who is determined to ensure all the young women in her care learn how to follow orders: “Obedient women […]
by James Olsen for FILMbutton In 1956, Allen Ginsberg wrote his poem Howl. In 1957, City Light Books, the company that published it in book form, was taken to court over the perceived indecency of the work. Over the course of 90 minutes, the audience is introduced to the poem in three formats. First, we […]
by Michael Murray for FILMbutton.com “Leave Them Laughing. It’s a documentary about a stand-up comic who’s dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease.” I think I sighed. “But it’s supposed to be absolutely hilarious!” he quickly added. This, I knew, was a movie I absolutely did not want to see. Like a lot of people, I’ve had […]
by Allan Tong of Reel ‘n’ Rock for FILMbutton.com Samba, jellybeans and Communist disco dominate a slate of documentaries at this year’s edition of Hot Docs. For what’s good and what’s not, read on (ratings based on four stars): Disco and Atomic War (***) is a clever, funny voyage through the end of the USSR […]
By Alan Gordon for FILMbutton There was once a time when, if you were in show business, the clearest indicator that you’d “arrived” was a drawing of you by Al Hirschfeld in the Sunday New York Times. Hirschfeld’s drawings were as free, clever, inventive and as full of joy as any great performance, and his […]
The Brothers Warner by Allan Tong for FILMbutton Harry Warner’s granddaughter, Cass Warner Sperling, invites audiences to look at the rise and fall of Warner Brothers, one of the big Hollywood studios that her family founded a century ago. Harry Warner was the quiet one, Albert was serious but professional, Sam was the visionary; and […]
NUREMBERG: ITS LESSON FOR TODAY (1948) [The 2009 Schulberg/Waletzky Restoration] screening at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival by Tobi Gordon for FILMbutton The documentary film has come a long way since its early days as either an instructional tool or tool of propaganda. The ponderous male voice intoning over scratchy black and white images has […]
