Documentaries

Football season is over, but the sport gets one last reprieve before the long slog to August: Undefeated, the Oscar-winning documentary about an underfunded high school football team, is now on DVD and Netflix. Entertaining and insightful, Undefeated is well worth the price of admission

Read FilmJabber’s full Undefeated movie review.

The most talked about documentary of 2012 failed to garner an Oscar nomination, but it has my vote. Bully focuses the spotlight on an important and troubling topic that likely plagues every school in the country (if not the world). Take a guess.

Read FilmJabber’s full Bully movie review.

More than 20 percent of women in the U.S. military have reported a sexual assault according to Defense Department statistics featured in Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War. The department estimates that 80 percent of assaults are never reported. The Oscar-nominated documentary is eye opening, disturbing and important to see.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Invisible War movie review.

Maybe I just wasn’t in a documentary mood today. After watching Searching for Sugar Man, which underperformed expectations, I immediately switched to another Oscar-nominated documentary feature, the much heralded How to Survive a Plague. While good, it too was not the groundbreaking film it was supposed to be.

Read FilmJabber’s full How to Survive a Plague movie review.

In the 1970′s, a musician named Sixto Rodriguez released a few records that failed to resonate with American audiences. Meanwhile, in South Africa, his music came to signify the opposition to apartheid and he became more popular than Elvis and the Rolling Stones. Too bad he died before he could ever perform for his fans. Or did he?

Read FilmJabber’s full Searching for Sugar Man movie review.

Following in the vein of the Paradise Lost trilogy, the documentary The Central Park Five tells a story of crime and racism in New York City as five black youths are arrested and subsequently convicted for the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park, despite an overwhelming lack of evidence. The movie tells an important story, but the movie lacks the spark and passion expected about the subject.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Central Park Five movie review.

The third and presumably last documentary in the Paradise Lost series, the Oscar-nominated film Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory takes a continued look at the three teenagers known as the West Memphis Three, who were convicted of murdering three eighty-year-old boys during a satanic cult despite a severe lack of evidence. Unlike the previous two documentaries, the movie ends on a positive note, as the three boys – now in their thirties – are finally released from prison.

Read FilmJabber’s full Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory movie review.

In 1994, blond-haired, blue-eyed thirteen-year-old Nicholas Barclay disappeared from his home in Texas. Three years later, he reemerged in Spain. His family accepted him back with open arms. Except the boy who moved into their home was not Nicholas, and he wasn’t even a boy. He was Frédéric Bourdin, a 23-year old Frenchman with brown hair, brown eyes and an accent. The Imposter is the gripping new documentary about this unique and disturbing incident.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Imposter movie review.

Long before Snoop Dogg became Snoop Lion and various artists faked Jamaican accents, there was Bob Marley. The new documentary titled oh so creatively Marley gives what could be the most extensive and detailed account of the young musician’s rise to fame.

Read FilmJabber’s full Marley movie review.

Chimpanzees are adorable. Baby chimpanzees…. Likeohmygodtheyresocuteiwantoneiwantoneiwantone. So, the overlords over at Disney decided to make a movie about a baby chimpanzee. And just to ensure they don’t confuse anyone, they named the documentary Chimpanzee.

Read FilmJabber’s full Chimpanzee movie review.

Merrium-Webster defines terrorism as "the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion." In turn, the word terror is described as "violent or destructive acts committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands."

Read FilmJabber’s full If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front movie review.

First impressions can be deceiving. The very thought of watching a documentary about a dancer, or dancing, regardless of Oscar nominations or credentials, was agonizing. Forty minutes before the screening was to start – mind you, as a critic (who gave me the license to call myself a critic? Oh yeah, you. The reader) I get in for free – I was still debating whether to drive the ten minutes to the theater and sacrifice my evening to watch what was surely going to be a drab documentary about something I care nothing about. Shame on me.

Read FilmJabber’s full Pina movie review.