This story is part of The Hollywood Reporter’s 2023 Sustainability Issue (click here to read more).
We’re currently living in a golden age of panic-inducing eco-documentaries gushing facts and statistics at us about how humans are killing the planet. These didactic films are vital for grounding us in the sobering truths of climate change and spurring activism across generations. But it’s easy to feel wrung out from the constant finger-wagging, too. Unquestionably, it’s more challenging for filmmakers to transmit environmentalist messages via tone, mood or imagery alone — but for viewers, the rewards can be spectacular.
The documentaries in this list showcase the grand scale of Earth, but they’re also able to demonstrate the refinement of our microcosmic communities. Some focus on explorers who either conflict or harmonize with their subjects; others are dialogue-free meditations on life itself. We’re witnesses to tragedy and celebration, spirituality and terror.
We’re currently living in a golden age of panic-inducing eco-documentaries gushing facts and statistics at us about how humans are killing the planet. These didactic films are vital for grounding us in the sobering truths of climate change and spurring activism across generations. But it’s easy to feel wrung out from the constant finger-wagging, too. Unquestionably, it’s more challenging for filmmakers to transmit environmentalist messages via tone, mood or imagery alone — but for viewers, the rewards can be spectacular.
The documentaries in this list showcase the grand scale of Earth, but they’re also able to demonstrate the refinement of our microcosmic communities. Some focus on explorers who either conflict or harmonize with their subjects; others are dialogue-free meditations on life itself. We’re witnesses to tragedy and celebration, spirituality and terror.
- 3/22/2023
- by Robyn Bahr
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Director Jason Woliner took over the "Borat" franchise from Larry Charles with the raucously hilarious follow-up "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm," making headlines around the world and sending shockwaves across the web. Since then, it sounds like he's been busy putting the finishing touches on a Peacock original series that follows in the same footsteps of the documentary style comedy that has made millions cringe and crack up at the same time.
Peacock has just debuted the first trailer for a new series called "Paul T. Goldman." Who is this? Well, as far as we know, it's not a new character from Sacha Baron Cohen, though we wouldn't be surprised if you thought that after getting a glimpse at this peculiar man and the journey he's taken over the past decade. The streaming service describes the new series as "a groundbreaking project that mixes fact and fiction to tell a bizarre and incredible tale,...
Peacock has just debuted the first trailer for a new series called "Paul T. Goldman." Who is this? Well, as far as we know, it's not a new character from Sacha Baron Cohen, though we wouldn't be surprised if you thought that after getting a glimpse at this peculiar man and the journey he's taken over the past decade. The streaming service describes the new series as "a groundbreaking project that mixes fact and fiction to tell a bizarre and incredible tale,...
- 12/8/2022
- by Ethan Anderton
- Slash Film
Werner Herzog is well-known for his penchant for the extreme. The idiosyncratic director has one of the more impressively diverse careers, helming everything from documentaries on unusual figures such as the so-called "eco-warrior" Timothy Treadwell in "Grizzly Man" to movies like "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" and everything in between. Somewhere on that continuum sits 2006's "Rescue Dawn," Herzog's dramatization of a documentary he'd produced a decade prior with "Little Dieter Needs to Fly."
The film focuses on the experience of former U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler who was shot down over the Laotian jungle during the Vietnam war. Dengler proceeded to undergo a truly incredible, and highly distressing, experience as a Pow before making his escape, and Herzog obviously couldn't get enough of the tumultuous story, making Dengler the focus of two very different projects. In the case of his movie version, the director needed a...
The film focuses on the experience of former U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler who was shot down over the Laotian jungle during the Vietnam war. Dengler proceeded to undergo a truly incredible, and highly distressing, experience as a Pow before making his escape, and Herzog obviously couldn't get enough of the tumultuous story, making Dengler the focus of two very different projects. In the case of his movie version, the director needed a...
- 11/28/2022
- by Joe Roberts
- Slash Film
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)
The Movie: "Grizzly Man"
Where You Can Stream It: The Roku Channel, Kanopy (free with library card)
The Pitch: Real found footage helps craft a documentary portrait of Timothy Treadwell, the quixotic bear enthusiast who lived among grizzlies -- until he was killed by one.
Werner Herzog writes, directs, and narrates "Grizzly Man," which also utilizes interviews with people who knew Treadwell or were connected to him, such as the airplane pilot...
The post The Daily Stream: Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man Is A Sobering Reminder Of Our Place In The Natural World appeared first on /Film.
The Movie: "Grizzly Man"
Where You Can Stream It: The Roku Channel, Kanopy (free with library card)
The Pitch: Real found footage helps craft a documentary portrait of Timothy Treadwell, the quixotic bear enthusiast who lived among grizzlies -- until he was killed by one.
Werner Herzog writes, directs, and narrates "Grizzly Man," which also utilizes interviews with people who knew Treadwell or were connected to him, such as the airplane pilot...
The post The Daily Stream: Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man Is A Sobering Reminder Of Our Place In The Natural World appeared first on /Film.
- 6/5/2022
- by Joshua Meyer
- Slash Film
A consummate showman who would happily bungee jump into Hell with a camera in his hands just for the joy of narrating that footage, Werner Herzog was a legendary filmmaker long before the breakout success of “Grizzly Man” saw him reborn as a living meme — as a morbidly hilarious mouthpiece for the savagery of a world that doesn’t think you’re special. Somewhere between pulling Joaquin Phoenix from a car wreck, brushing off a bullet wound in the middle of an on-camera interview, and coming to the deadpan conclusion that Timothy Treadwell was eaten alive by his bear friends because “the common denominator of the universe is chaos, hostility, and murder,” this titan of New German Cinema became a human version of the “this is fine” dog.
Not that Herzog seemed to mind. Not only did the new cachet make it possible for him to be more prolific than ever before,...
Not that Herzog seemed to mind. Not only did the new cachet make it possible for him to be more prolific than ever before,...
- 9/10/2020
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Michael James Brody Jr.’s legacy is not widely known today, in part because it’s so tough to parse. In 1970, the shaggy-haired 21-year-old heir to the Jelke oleomargarine fortune publicly declared his intention to give away his millions to anyone who asked, inviting a flood of letters and impassioned pleas from around the country. Three years later, he was dead by his own hand.
Brody was a hippie millionaire devoted to saving the world, but he was also a mentally ill drug addict with a Messiah complex. That conflict remains a messy tangle of questions 50 years later, but director Keith Maitland’s enlightening documentary “Dear Mr. Brody” works through the paradox, suggesting that the tragedy of Brody’s fate is matched by the window into the American dream catalyzed by his offer.
Brody’s story has many layers, and Maitland sometimes struggles to unite the disparate pieces. The heir...
Brody was a hippie millionaire devoted to saving the world, but he was also a mentally ill drug addict with a Messiah complex. That conflict remains a messy tangle of questions 50 years later, but director Keith Maitland’s enlightening documentary “Dear Mr. Brody” works through the paradox, suggesting that the tragedy of Brody’s fate is matched by the window into the American dream catalyzed by his offer.
Brody’s story has many layers, and Maitland sometimes struggles to unite the disparate pieces. The heir...
- 9/1/2020
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
In 2003, Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Hugenard, were killed and eaten by a bear in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. The naturalist’s tragic end followed 13 years of living in the wilderness, where he studied animals through a quixotic style that traditional scientists deemed dangerous and irresponsible.
It also brought Werner Herzog to the masses. When “Grizzly Man” came out 15 years ago, the eccentric filmmaker was familiar to the arthouse circuit as a member of the German New Wave. His best-known work was released decades earlier, but Herzog continued cranking out idiosyncratic documentaries, mining for poetry in the natural world and humankind alike.
With Treadwell, Herzog found the ideal subject: a wild-eyed obsessive carving a unique path, fully aware that it could lead to self-destruction. The movie is a small wonder of non-fiction commentary, weaving Treadwell’s revealing home videos along with the filmmaker’s own entrancing observations about...
It also brought Werner Herzog to the masses. When “Grizzly Man” came out 15 years ago, the eccentric filmmaker was familiar to the arthouse circuit as a member of the German New Wave. His best-known work was released decades earlier, but Herzog continued cranking out idiosyncratic documentaries, mining for poetry in the natural world and humankind alike.
With Treadwell, Herzog found the ideal subject: a wild-eyed obsessive carving a unique path, fully aware that it could lead to self-destruction. The movie is a small wonder of non-fiction commentary, weaving Treadwell’s revealing home videos along with the filmmaker’s own entrancing observations about...
- 8/12/2020
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
At the beginning of the new Netflix documentary Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, a strip club proprietor tells the camera, “The big cat people are backstabbing pieces of shit.” The statement sounds both like nonsense and hyperbole. By the end of the seven-part series, it turns out to have been a vast understatement.
Tiger King, which began streaming on March 20th, unfolds like a wild-eyed hybrid of the popular S-Town podcast and HBO’s The Jinx, and follows a protracted feud between two eccentric big-cat owners that nearly ended in murder.
Tiger King, which began streaming on March 20th, unfolds like a wild-eyed hybrid of the popular S-Town podcast and HBO’s The Jinx, and follows a protracted feud between two eccentric big-cat owners that nearly ended in murder.
- 3/27/2020
- by Phoebe Reilly
- Rollingstone.com
The two most prevalent topics for (virtual) water-cooler conversations these days? Coronavirus, of course, and Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, Netflix’s roaringly popular docuseries about the battle between rival exotic cat businesses, culminating in a mind-boggling alleged murder-for-hire plot.
If you’re isolated at home and have already made your way through Tiger King‘s seven episodes, here are equally captivating offerings.
We should have all learned by now that keeping a tiger as a pet is … a bad idea. But this one-hour documentary, available with Amazon Prime Video, shares the science of how your regular house cat is connected to wild felines.
If you’re isolated at home and have already made your way through Tiger King‘s seven episodes, here are equally captivating offerings.
We should have all learned by now that keeping a tiger as a pet is … a bad idea. But this one-hour documentary, available with Amazon Prime Video, shares the science of how your regular house cat is connected to wild felines.
- 3/27/2020
- by Michele Corriston
- PEOPLE.com
From the heart-wrenching exploration of Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man, whose real-life adoration of the titular creatures would portend his own death, to exploring the forgotten paintings and rituals of the stone age in transcendent 3-D in Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog is a nomad himself in the documentary field. For his latest non-fiction, Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, he’s turning the camera to his late friend. Music Box Films has now unveiled a new trailer for his new documentary, scheduled to be released in select cinemas April 8.
An official selection at Tribeca, Herzog tackles the personal subject of the life of his friend Bruce Chatwin, travel writer, explorer, novelist, and journalist. To honor his friend’s legacy, he embarks on the same journey Chatwin made–featuring Patagonia, the Black Mountains in Wales, and the outback of Australia– and it is of course narrated by the...
An official selection at Tribeca, Herzog tackles the personal subject of the life of his friend Bruce Chatwin, travel writer, explorer, novelist, and journalist. To honor his friend’s legacy, he embarks on the same journey Chatwin made–featuring Patagonia, the Black Mountains in Wales, and the outback of Australia– and it is of course narrated by the...
- 3/5/2020
- by Margaret Rasberry
- The Film Stage
For most of his career, Werner Herzog has oscillated between narrative and documentary features, injecting his idiosyncratic worldview into both of them. With the odd microbudget “Family Romance, LLC,” he brings those two modes together for his strangest movie of the decade, and that’s saying something for a guy whose 3D documentary on cave paintings ended with albino alligators.
A scrappy drama shot on the fly during a stopover in Japan, Herzog’s minor-key story revolves around Japan’s bizarre rent-a-family business, a concept so Herzogian it’s a wonder the filmmaker didn’t dream it up on his own. While the movie’s rough production values and meandering plot never quite gel, “Family Romance, LLC” is a fascinating convergence of filmmaker and subject, providing the rare opportunity for Herzog to bury his observations in the material at hand.
To some degree, however, the movie is a hybrid narrative...
A scrappy drama shot on the fly during a stopover in Japan, Herzog’s minor-key story revolves around Japan’s bizarre rent-a-family business, a concept so Herzogian it’s a wonder the filmmaker didn’t dream it up on his own. While the movie’s rough production values and meandering plot never quite gel, “Family Romance, LLC” is a fascinating convergence of filmmaker and subject, providing the rare opportunity for Herzog to bury his observations in the material at hand.
To some degree, however, the movie is a hybrid narrative...
- 5/22/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
With Mikhail Gorbachev — the eighth and final President of the Soviet Union — Werner Herzog has finally met his match. In the opening seconds of the legendary filmmaker’s latest documentary, Herzog sits across from the retired world leader responsible for hits like glasnost and perestroika, and attempts to hijack the man’s life story for his own ecstatic purposes.
“Meeting Gorbachev, for a German, is burdened by history” he narrates in his signature drone of despair, alluding to the violence of World War II and already trying to reframe the facts in order to heighten the emotional truths behind them. “The first German you met wanted to kill you,” Herzog declares to his star, hoping to gaslight Mikhail Gorbachev into believing that his life has always been a Herzog movie waiting to happen. It’s the same technique the filmmaker used to portray Dieter Dengler, the Woodcarver Steiner, and Timothy Treadwell,...
“Meeting Gorbachev, for a German, is burdened by history” he narrates in his signature drone of despair, alluding to the violence of World War II and already trying to reframe the facts in order to heighten the emotional truths behind them. “The first German you met wanted to kill you,” Herzog declares to his star, hoping to gaslight Mikhail Gorbachev into believing that his life has always been a Herzog movie waiting to happen. It’s the same technique the filmmaker used to portray Dieter Dengler, the Woodcarver Steiner, and Timothy Treadwell,...
- 9/3/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Next month, Netflix offers up a big selection of films of all stripes — modern to classic, animated to live action, Best Picture winners to teen phenomenons — and we’ve picked seven that you should watch as soon as humanly possible, either for the first time or as part of a nostalgic little binge. Enjoy.
1. “Unforgiven” (available October 1)
The winner of four Oscars, including Best Picture, Clint Eastwood’s 1992 film “Unforgiven” is the last Western he directed and starred in, and he made it count. About an aging outlaw tasked with one final job, the film examines the myths of the West and how they’re perverted and distorted over time, as well as the contradictions within established national archetypes. It’s arguably Eastwood’s defining masterpiece, and one of the very best films of the 90s. See it immediately.
2. “Dazed and Confused” (available October 1)
The 1993 cult classic “Dazed and Confused...
1. “Unforgiven” (available October 1)
The winner of four Oscars, including Best Picture, Clint Eastwood’s 1992 film “Unforgiven” is the last Western he directed and starred in, and he made it count. About an aging outlaw tasked with one final job, the film examines the myths of the West and how they’re perverted and distorted over time, as well as the contradictions within established national archetypes. It’s arguably Eastwood’s defining masterpiece, and one of the very best films of the 90s. See it immediately.
2. “Dazed and Confused” (available October 1)
The 1993 cult classic “Dazed and Confused...
- 9/22/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
The Internet is all around us, connecting humans with each other and providing the world with more information than ever before, but what is its existential impact? How has it changed our worldviews? Director Werner Herzog chronicles the virtual world from its origins to its outermost reaches in his new documentary “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World.” Containing interviews with such luminaries as Bob Kahn, Elon Musk, and Sebastian Thrun, Herzog explores the digital landscape with his trademark curiosity and sparks a number of provocative conversations about how the online world has immeasurably transformed our real world, from business to education, space travel to healthcare, and even our personal relationships. Watch an exclusive promo for the film below.
Read More: Sundance Review: Werner Herzog’s ‘Lo and Behold’ Will Make You Experience the Internet in New Ways
Werner Herzog is one of the more acclaimed film directors of the 20th century.
Read More: Sundance Review: Werner Herzog’s ‘Lo and Behold’ Will Make You Experience the Internet in New Ways
Werner Herzog is one of the more acclaimed film directors of the 20th century.
- 8/19/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
Portishead‘s Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury will reteam with Ex Machina director Alex Garland to score Annihilation, Pitchfork reports.
See a video essay on imitation, contamination, and dissolution in Bong Joon-ho‘s Memories of Murder:
Fantastic Fest 2016 has announced its first wave of programming including films from Andrea Arnold, Werner Herzog, and more.
Read an extensive profile on Mike Mills and the making of 20th Century Women at Semi Permanent:
When it came to shooting 20th Century Women, he actually welcomed the chance to revisit his adolescence, and commune with the spirit of his mother who, he says, was a bit too thorny for that when she was alive.
Portishead‘s Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury will reteam with Ex Machina director Alex Garland to score Annihilation, Pitchfork reports.
See a video essay on imitation, contamination, and dissolution in Bong Joon-ho‘s Memories of Murder:
Fantastic Fest 2016 has announced its first wave of programming including films from Andrea Arnold, Werner Herzog, and more.
Read an extensive profile on Mike Mills and the making of 20th Century Women at Semi Permanent:
When it came to shooting 20th Century Women, he actually welcomed the chance to revisit his adolescence, and commune with the spirit of his mother who, he says, was a bit too thorny for that when she was alive.
- 8/2/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
There are filmmakers who earn the title of mad genius, but Werner Herzog is one of the few where his films, his personality, and his teaching dictate and demand that the phrase be conjured. The German director recently sat down to answer questions for a Reddit AmA, where he discussed everything from his craft to finding inspiration, and some of his favorite books. Check out the best responses below, along with a trio of new posters for his upcoming documentary, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World.
On remaking Nosferatu:
Comment from discussion I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. Ama..
On being focused for film ideas and work:
Comment from discussion I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. Ama..
On his favorite directors:
Comment from discussion I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. Ama..
On his favorite documentary filmmakers:
Comment from discussion I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. Ama..
At being...
On remaking Nosferatu:
Comment from discussion I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. Ama..
On being focused for film ideas and work:
Comment from discussion I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. Ama..
On his favorite directors:
Comment from discussion I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. Ama..
On his favorite documentary filmmakers:
Comment from discussion I am Werner Herzog, the filmmaker. Ama..
At being...
- 7/18/2016
- by Mike Mazzanti
- The Film Stage
Mubi is showing Werner Herzog's Fata Morgana April 21 - May 20, 2016 in the United States.Fata MorganaI have a bone to pick with conventional wisdom about the films of Werner Herzog. You will often hear it said in a film class or a Herzog article that his body of work, which is acclaimed equally for fiction and documentary films, “blurs the line” between those two storytelling poles. To my knowledge, no filmmaker with as regarded a name as Herzog’s has such a voluminous body of work within the fiction and documentary bounds. Countless filmmakers have reached heights in both, but few have done it as consistently and repeatedly. Making Herzog rarer still are his other films (or sometimes just scenes in his films) which cast aspersions on this kind of talk that separates documentary and fiction as opposites meant to be mixed. The experimental works, of which the beguiling...
- 4/23/2016
- by Nate Fisher
- MUBI
History is written in blood by tooth and claw and gunpowder, and no recent film makes that point with more graphic impact than "The Revenant." Based on a novel that tells the story of Hugh Glass, a fur trapper who was attacked by a bear and then left for dead by the men who were supposed to tend to him, the film is a testament to punishment, both in terms of the story being told onscreen and in terms of what it must have taken to wrestle the film up onto the screen. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has been an expert chronicler of human suffering so far in his career, and it makes his films difficult emotional experiences. I still remember that sinking feeling I got when I saw "Amores Perros" in the theater the first time. I felt it again during "Babel" and again during last year's "Birdman." Innaritu seems...
- 12/9/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
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50 fabulous documentary films, covering hard politics through to music, money and films that never were...
Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix, we’ve never had better access to documentaries. A whole new audience can discover that these real life stories are just as thrilling, entertaining, and incredible as the latest big-budget blockbuster. What’s more, they’re all true too. But with a new found glut of them comes the ever more impossible choice, what’s worth your time? Below is my pick of the 50 best modern feature length documentaries.
I’ve defined modern as being from 2000 onwards, which means some of the greatest documentaries ever made will not feature here. I’m looking at you Hoop Dreams.
50. McConkey (2013)
d. Rob Bruce, Scott Gaffney, Murray Wais, Steve Winter, David Zieff
Shane McConkey was an extreme skier and Base jumper who lived life on the edge, and very much to the full.
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50 fabulous documentary films, covering hard politics through to music, money and films that never were...
Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix, we’ve never had better access to documentaries. A whole new audience can discover that these real life stories are just as thrilling, entertaining, and incredible as the latest big-budget blockbuster. What’s more, they’re all true too. But with a new found glut of them comes the ever more impossible choice, what’s worth your time? Below is my pick of the 50 best modern feature length documentaries.
I’ve defined modern as being from 2000 onwards, which means some of the greatest documentaries ever made will not feature here. I’m looking at you Hoop Dreams.
50. McConkey (2013)
d. Rob Bruce, Scott Gaffney, Murray Wais, Steve Winter, David Zieff
Shane McConkey was an extreme skier and Base jumper who lived life on the edge, and very much to the full.
- 11/12/2015
- by simonbrew
- Den of Geek
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
After narrowing the Oscar documentary feature shortlist to five at the 87th Academy Award nominations Jan. 15, a number of notable exclusions were featured, particularly Al Hicks‘ Keep on Keepin’ On, which documents the mentorship and friendship of a jazz legend and a blind piano prodigy, and Steve James‘ Life Itself, about the life and career of famed film critic Roger Ebert. (James is no stranger to snubs and the exclusion of his 1994 film Hoop Dreams led to rule reform within the documentary category.) Both films hold 97 percent positive ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some films surprised when they didn’t even land a spot on the shortlist, such as Red Army, which examines the rise and fall of the Soviet Union’s hockey team from the perspective of its coach. That film holds a 100 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In light of these best documentary feature snubs,...
Managing Editor
After narrowing the Oscar documentary feature shortlist to five at the 87th Academy Award nominations Jan. 15, a number of notable exclusions were featured, particularly Al Hicks‘ Keep on Keepin’ On, which documents the mentorship and friendship of a jazz legend and a blind piano prodigy, and Steve James‘ Life Itself, about the life and career of famed film critic Roger Ebert. (James is no stranger to snubs and the exclusion of his 1994 film Hoop Dreams led to rule reform within the documentary category.) Both films hold 97 percent positive ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some films surprised when they didn’t even land a spot on the shortlist, such as Red Army, which examines the rise and fall of the Soviet Union’s hockey team from the perspective of its coach. That film holds a 100 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In light of these best documentary feature snubs,...
- 1/23/2015
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
I remember watching the documentary Grizzly Man many years ago and thinking that the late Timothy Treadwell was pretty whacky, for choosing to live with grizzly bears. But Abraham Poincheval is taking that whackiness to a whole nother level. He's not living with a grizzly bear... he's living Inside of a grizzly bear.
Odditity Central reports that Poincheval, a French performance artist, is known for cramming himself into tight spaces for extended periods of time, and he recently spent an entire week in a small hole underneath a bookstore. This past Tuesday, Poincheval began his most unusual living art exhibit to date, converting the inside of a real-life grizzly bear into a small apartment, where he will remain through April 13th.
Poincheval excavated the bear himself and reconstructed it with plywood, plaster, foam and tubes, covering the makeshift home with the animal's actual skin and fur. Inside are reading materials,...
Odditity Central reports that Poincheval, a French performance artist, is known for cramming himself into tight spaces for extended periods of time, and he recently spent an entire week in a small hole underneath a bookstore. This past Tuesday, Poincheval began his most unusual living art exhibit to date, converting the inside of a real-life grizzly bear into a small apartment, where he will remain through April 13th.
Poincheval excavated the bear himself and reconstructed it with plywood, plaster, foam and tubes, covering the makeshift home with the animal's actual skin and fur. Inside are reading materials,...
- 4/4/2014
- by John Squires
- FEARnet
Cinema, as Jean-Luc Godard wrote, is truth 24 times a second. Documentaries both prove and disprove the point; but the truth is their strongest weapon. Here, Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best
• Top 10 arthouse movies
• Top 10 family movies
• Top 10 war movies
• Top 10 teen movies
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. Man With a Movie Camera
To best understand this 1929 silent documentary, one ought to know that its director, the exotically named "Dziga Vertov", was actually born David Abelevich Kaufman in 1896. Some say the name derives from the Russian word for spinning top, but the pseudonym is more likely an onomatopeic approximation of the sound made by the twin reels of film as the director ran them backwards and forwards through his flatbed editor. For Vertov, film was something physical, to be manipulated by man, and yet, paradoxically, he also saw it as a medium...
• Top 10 arthouse movies
• Top 10 family movies
• Top 10 war movies
• Top 10 teen movies
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. Man With a Movie Camera
To best understand this 1929 silent documentary, one ought to know that its director, the exotically named "Dziga Vertov", was actually born David Abelevich Kaufman in 1896. Some say the name derives from the Russian word for spinning top, but the pseudonym is more likely an onomatopeic approximation of the sound made by the twin reels of film as the director ran them backwards and forwards through his flatbed editor. For Vertov, film was something physical, to be manipulated by man, and yet, paradoxically, he also saw it as a medium...
- 11/12/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Herzog's films portray humans as frail creatures caught in the gap between an indifferent nature and a punishing God. Ahead of the UK release of As Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing, which Herzog executive produced, Michael Newton celebrates a unique world view
For a man whose "social network" is his kitchen table, Werner Herzog's image is very present on the internet. You can see him (deceptively edited) discoursing in doom-laden tones concerning the "enormity of the stupidity" of hipsters or Republicans. (Originally he was discussing chickens.) He's there (or rather someone impersonating him is) intoning about the dark intensities of "Where's Waldo". (The clip has had more than a million hits on YouTube.) And, most notably, he can be seen in Les Blank's short film (this time for real) eating his shoe to celebrate the successful completion of Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven (1978). While the shoe boils,...
For a man whose "social network" is his kitchen table, Werner Herzog's image is very present on the internet. You can see him (deceptively edited) discoursing in doom-laden tones concerning the "enormity of the stupidity" of hipsters or Republicans. (Originally he was discussing chickens.) He's there (or rather someone impersonating him is) intoning about the dark intensities of "Where's Waldo". (The clip has had more than a million hits on YouTube.) And, most notably, he can be seen in Les Blank's short film (this time for real) eating his shoe to celebrate the successful completion of Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven (1978). While the shoe boils,...
- 6/1/2013
- by Michael Newton
- The Guardian - Film News
The simian star of new Disney film Chimpanzee is the latest animal to be portrayed as having human emotions. But does such anthropomorphism give a distorted view of nature?
You could say cinema and nature got off on the wrong foot, or paw, right from the start. In 1926, to much excitement, an adventurer named William Douglas Burden brought back two komodo dragons to New York's Bronx zoo – the first live specimens the western world had ever seen. Most of that excitement had been generated via a movie Burden had made depicting these semi-mythical reptiles in the Indonesian wild, voraciously devouring a wild boar. By comparison, the real, live komodo dragons were something of a disappointment. They just lay about lethargically in their cage, and died a few months later. It later transpired that Burden's film had been heavily edited and staged to amp up the drama. The dragons hadn't actually...
You could say cinema and nature got off on the wrong foot, or paw, right from the start. In 1926, to much excitement, an adventurer named William Douglas Burden brought back two komodo dragons to New York's Bronx zoo – the first live specimens the western world had ever seen. Most of that excitement had been generated via a movie Burden had made depicting these semi-mythical reptiles in the Indonesian wild, voraciously devouring a wild boar. By comparison, the real, live komodo dragons were something of a disappointment. They just lay about lethargically in their cage, and died a few months later. It later transpired that Burden's film had been heavily edited and staged to amp up the drama. The dragons hadn't actually...
- 4/26/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
A man said to the universe:
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
"A sense of obligation."
--Stephen Crane
 
That man can be found at the center of Werner Herzog's films. He is Aguirre. He is Fitzcarraldo. He is the Nosferatu. He is Timothy Treadwell, who lived among the grizzlies. He is Little Dieter Dengler, who needed to fly. She is Fini Straubinger, who lived in a land of silence and darkness since she was 12. He is Kaspar Hauser. He is Klaus Kinski. He is the man who will not leave the slopes of the Guadeloupe volcano when it is about to explode. He is those who live in the Antarctic. She is Juliana Koepcke, whose plane crashed in the rain forest and she walked out alive. He is Graham Dorrington, who flew one of the smallest airships ever built...
"Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
"A sense of obligation."
--Stephen Crane
 
That man can be found at the center of Werner Herzog's films. He is Aguirre. He is Fitzcarraldo. He is the Nosferatu. He is Timothy Treadwell, who lived among the grizzlies. He is Little Dieter Dengler, who needed to fly. She is Fini Straubinger, who lived in a land of silence and darkness since she was 12. He is Kaspar Hauser. He is Klaus Kinski. He is the man who will not leave the slopes of the Guadeloupe volcano when it is about to explode. He is those who live in the Antarctic. She is Juliana Koepcke, whose plane crashed in the rain forest and she walked out alive. He is Graham Dorrington, who flew one of the smallest airships ever built...
- 2/2/2013
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
“Movies do not change anything…”Werner Herzog says calmly into the microphone surrounded by the scarlet and black colours of Qtv radio’s studio. The interviewer, Jian Ghomeshi, is momentarily stunned and repeats Herzog’s statement in search of an explanation. Ghomeshi’s surprise is understandable. In front of him sits arguably one of the most respected directors alive today, so much so, his films are considered some of the finest in recent film history by cinema goers and critics alike. However, Herzog’s statement is, as always, no off the cuff remark. He effortlessly articulates his point in his distinct and captivating German accent. The point he makes in regard to one of his more recent films ‘Into the Abyss’ (a film about the death penalty in the United States) is that the notion that films can evoke effective change is exaggerated and change can only come about through political debate and media outlets,...
- 12/17/2012
- by Anders Anglesey
- Obsessed with Film
People make documentaries for all kinds of reasons. To shed light on an unknown topic or tell an untold side of a story. Or perhaps they're making a love letter to something, or even a takedown piece. If you were going off of The Ambassador alone, it would seem that director Mads Brügger makes documentaries because he wants to get himself killed. This is his Grizzly Man, only Brügger is both Werner Herzog and Timothy Treadwell, and instead of living amongst bears, it's rebel soldiers. The Ambassador is a film that finds Brügger posing as an over-the-top, rich European man who wants to buy his way to diplomatic status in the Central African Republic. In doing so he peels back layer after layer of systemic corruption, outing government...
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- 9/1/2012
- by Peter Hall
- Movies.com
While real bears often attack humans, sometimes fatally, the stuffed version can be an emotional crutch for people of all ages
Only in a film comedy, you might think, would a 35-year-old man otherwise in possession of his senses still be clinging to his teddy bear; and even then only if it happened to be able to talk. In fact, more than a third of British adults sleep alongside a prosaically mute ursine stuffed toy, if a recent Travelodge survey is to be believed. Fifteen per cent of men and 10% of women regard their teddy as their best friend.
Perhaps few go as far as 28-year-old Charles Marshall of Cincinnati, who was arrested in June for the fourth time for sexual behaviour with a teddy bear in public. Nonetheless, teddies have been exerting an ever-tightening grip on the human heart since they we first hugged them a century ago.
As is well known,...
Only in a film comedy, you might think, would a 35-year-old man otherwise in possession of his senses still be clinging to his teddy bear; and even then only if it happened to be able to talk. In fact, more than a third of British adults sleep alongside a prosaically mute ursine stuffed toy, if a recent Travelodge survey is to be believed. Fifteen per cent of men and 10% of women regard their teddy as their best friend.
Perhaps few go as far as 28-year-old Charles Marshall of Cincinnati, who was arrested in June for the fourth time for sexual behaviour with a teddy bear in public. Nonetheless, teddies have been exerting an ever-tightening grip on the human heart since they we first hugged them a century ago.
As is well known,...
- 8/6/2012
- by David Cox
- The Guardian - Film News
Sharks, dogs, rats, snakes, even earthworms. Any one of them (being big enough, or with enough of their friends) can kill you dead…quickly. The animal world is pretty much a bastard with big teeth and an insatiable appetite waiting to eat whatever lesser life form comes across its path. Piranha 3Dd is the newest reminder of that.
Everyone loves their favorite pet and can't get enough of happy little penguins or otters or other cute creatures, but the truth is animals can be simply brutal. Just keep that little fact in the back of your mind the next time you bend down to pet a strange dog. Snap! Goodbye nose. With that in mind, and with Piranha 3Dd hitting the open waters, isn't it only fitting that we would take a look back at the Top 13 Killer Animal Films of All Time?!?!
Of course we mustn't forget our honorable mentions!
Everyone loves their favorite pet and can't get enough of happy little penguins or otters or other cute creatures, but the truth is animals can be simply brutal. Just keep that little fact in the back of your mind the next time you bend down to pet a strange dog. Snap! Goodbye nose. With that in mind, and with Piranha 3Dd hitting the open waters, isn't it only fitting that we would take a look back at the Top 13 Killer Animal Films of All Time?!?!
Of course we mustn't forget our honorable mentions!
- 6/1/2012
- by Doctor Gash
- DreadCentral.com
Article by Dan Clark of Movie Revolt
Welcome to the first installment of Streaming for Your Pleasure where I highlight interesting and unique films now available on Netflix streaming. In each segment I will focus on one major overall category – this first time round I am looking at some intriguing documentaries that are worth checking out.
Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade
Directed By Lincoln Ruchti
Synopsis: At the unassuming Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, early gamers fought for bragging rights at the 1982 Video Game World Championships. See how competitive gaming started, and meet arcade owner Walter Day, who still oversees scoring.
Why You Should Check It Out: There is just something about that arcade experience that I really miss. Today’s online gaming world is full of foul mouth preteen kids mocking you in almost every turn. Back in the day those kids were standing right next to you...
Welcome to the first installment of Streaming for Your Pleasure where I highlight interesting and unique films now available on Netflix streaming. In each segment I will focus on one major overall category – this first time round I am looking at some intriguing documentaries that are worth checking out.
Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade
Directed By Lincoln Ruchti
Synopsis: At the unassuming Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, early gamers fought for bragging rights at the 1982 Video Game World Championships. See how competitive gaming started, and meet arcade owner Walter Day, who still oversees scoring.
Why You Should Check It Out: There is just something about that arcade experience that I really miss. Today’s online gaming world is full of foul mouth preteen kids mocking you in almost every turn. Back in the day those kids were standing right next to you...
- 4/9/2012
- by Guest
- Nerdly
We salute 50 of the finest contemporary films with budgets of less than $10million. Did your favourite make the list…?
In this age of multi-million dollar blockbusters and eye-watering fees paid to some actors, you may forget we’re in an age of austerity. However, for the vast majority of the film industry, there is no huge vat of money, nor has there ever been. But this hasn’t stopped some of the finest films of recent years being made on a relative shoe-string, and in some cases, quite literally with a shoe-string.
I reckon filmmaking thrives at the sharp end, and low budgets mean more creative ideas, and as a result, more engaging films. To prove this, here is a list of what I consider to be the finest 50 contemporary films made for under $10 million. There is a breathtaking array of recognisable genre pictures in here, too, with budgets rangin...
In this age of multi-million dollar blockbusters and eye-watering fees paid to some actors, you may forget we’re in an age of austerity. However, for the vast majority of the film industry, there is no huge vat of money, nor has there ever been. But this hasn’t stopped some of the finest films of recent years being made on a relative shoe-string, and in some cases, quite literally with a shoe-string.
I reckon filmmaking thrives at the sharp end, and low budgets mean more creative ideas, and as a result, more engaging films. To prove this, here is a list of what I consider to be the finest 50 contemporary films made for under $10 million. There is a breathtaking array of recognisable genre pictures in here, too, with budgets rangin...
- 2/2/2012
- Den of Geek
With "The Grey" coming in No. 1 at the box office this weekend -- which finds Liam Neeson and a group of guys stuck in the frozen Alaskan wilderness, being hunted by a pack of wolves -- "Extra" is counting down 10 of the best man vs. nature flicks to grace the big screen.
Top 10 Man vs. Nature Movies10. 'Jaws'
Three guys against a man-eating shark - guess who wins?
9. 'The Mist'
A freak storm unleashes enlarged...
Top 10 Man vs. Nature Movies10. 'Jaws'
Three guys against a man-eating shark - guess who wins?
9. 'The Mist'
A freak storm unleashes enlarged...
- 1/30/2012
- Extra
This Friday sees the release of Cane Toads 3D: The Conquest, a documentary film about one of Australia’s greatest environmental catastrophes, and the lengths that people are willing to go to try and stop, the troublesome cane toad. To celebrate its release we take a look at some of the stand out films that see humans take on the animal world and the species that have inspired these environmental thrillers.
1) Arachnophobia (1990) – Man vs Spider
One of those movies you used to moan about being on TV all the time until they stopped showing it on TV all the time, Arachnophobia tackles the source one of human natures most common fears – the spider. A killer spider hitches a ride in a coffin from a South American rainforest to a small Us town in the coffin and begins mating with indigenous spiders to create a breed that’s venom causes instant death.
1) Arachnophobia (1990) – Man vs Spider
One of those movies you used to moan about being on TV all the time until they stopped showing it on TV all the time, Arachnophobia tackles the source one of human natures most common fears – the spider. A killer spider hitches a ride in a coffin from a South American rainforest to a small Us town in the coffin and begins mating with indigenous spiders to create a breed that’s venom causes instant death.
- 9/29/2011
- by Phil
- Nerdly
We start the Top 7. You finish the Top 10.
With this weekend’s impending release of Shark Night 3D, we at The Scorecard Review thought it appropriate to take a look back at Hollywood’s best in the killer beast department. As a note to the reader: We’ve taken King Kong, velociraptors, and all the other fantastical creatures of H-wood, out of the running — this list is to feature killer animals that populate films of a certain degree of realism. Yes, this stuff could actually happen! Really!
I swear!
7. Anaconda (1997)
Recap: A “National Geographic” film crew is taken hostage by an insane hunter (Jon Voight), who takes them along on his quest to capture the world’s largest – and deadliest – snake.
Reason: This movie is truly awful. But it’s also hilarious, and fun to watch. The cast is as ridiculous as the fakey-as-all-get-out snake. Jennifer Lopez shows off her...
With this weekend’s impending release of Shark Night 3D, we at The Scorecard Review thought it appropriate to take a look back at Hollywood’s best in the killer beast department. As a note to the reader: We’ve taken King Kong, velociraptors, and all the other fantastical creatures of H-wood, out of the running — this list is to feature killer animals that populate films of a certain degree of realism. Yes, this stuff could actually happen! Really!
I swear!
7. Anaconda (1997)
Recap: A “National Geographic” film crew is taken hostage by an insane hunter (Jon Voight), who takes them along on his quest to capture the world’s largest – and deadliest – snake.
Reason: This movie is truly awful. But it’s also hilarious, and fun to watch. The cast is as ridiculous as the fakey-as-all-get-out snake. Jennifer Lopez shows off her...
- 9/1/2011
- by Aaron Ruffcorn
- The Scorecard Review
9. The Cove: Psihoyos and Barry assemble a crack team like some sort of Clooney to infiltrate and record the goings-on. They gather world champion free divers to plant underwater cameras and microphones. They get Industrial Light and Magic to craft hidden HD cameras in realistic boulders and shrubbery. They get high-tech night vision and heat-sensitive cameras to scope out for guards and danger as they go all Spy Tech on the fishermen. It's a tense and dangerous operation because they're going espionage on a multi-million dollar industry. Water park dolphins sell for a minimum $150,000. But their efforts work. We see the butchery first-hand, and it's unnerving. Essentially, the dolphins are harpooned to death, as the cove fills with blood. By the finish, they're hooking carcasses out of the water, and the cove itself is drenched with sanguine waters.
8. Grizzly Man: Your view on whether Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man...
8. Grizzly Man: Your view on whether Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man...
- 8/15/2011
- by Dustin Rowles
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Between humans and animals there is an insurmountable comprehension barrier. We project emotions and personality onto them that may not be there, and we generally feel some empathy if we see them suffer. Occasionally it will seem that my cat really understands me, until I realise he just wants me to feed him. An animal can offer solace from the far more complex world of human relations, but they will still ultimately act according to their nature and evolution, a point underlined by Werner Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man, wherein Timothy Treadwell lived happily among the grizzly bears until one killed him.
Of course, Treadwell was unstable to begin with; among mammals, grizzly bears are about the most efficient killing machines there are. Project Nim, the new documentary from James Marsh, director of Man on Wire, is concerned with the life of a chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky...
Between humans and animals there is an insurmountable comprehension barrier. We project emotions and personality onto them that may not be there, and we generally feel some empathy if we see them suffer. Occasionally it will seem that my cat really understands me, until I realise he just wants me to feed him. An animal can offer solace from the far more complex world of human relations, but they will still ultimately act according to their nature and evolution, a point underlined by Werner Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man, wherein Timothy Treadwell lived happily among the grizzly bears until one killed him.
Of course, Treadwell was unstable to begin with; among mammals, grizzly bears are about the most efficient killing machines there are. Project Nim, the new documentary from James Marsh, director of Man on Wire, is concerned with the life of a chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky...
- 8/12/2011
- by Adam Whyte
- Obsessed with Film
In a selection from The Rules of the Tunnel: My Brief Period of Madness, Vanity Fair contributing editor Ned Zeman recounts his assignment to cover the death of Timothy Treadwell—the late activist immortalized in the 2005 Werner Herzog documentary Grizzly Man. As Zeman explored a remote region of Alaska, dispatched by his editors to write the piece that eventually became “The Man Who Loved Grizzlies” (May 2004), what he found didn’t quite match his expectations.
- 8/3/2011
- Vanity Fair
The extent to which wild animals are similar to humans has been a recent source of contention in the documentary world: In the just-like-us camp, there was March Of The Penguins, which identified human-like feelings of love and devotion in the mating patterns of emperor penguins. In the opposing the-fuck-they-are camp, Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man warned of the dangers of such mushy-headed anthropomorphizing, which cost self-proclaimed Alaskan grizzly “protector” Timothy Treadwell his life. James Marsh’s riveting documentary Project Nim explores the murky ethical and emotional territory between those two extremes, recalling a deeply flawed experiment to raise a ...
- 7/7/2011
- avclub.com
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Between humans and animals there is an insurmountable comprehension barrier. We project emotions and personality onto them that may not be there, and we generally feel some empathy if we see them suffer. Occasionally it will seem that my cat really understands me, until I realise he just wants me to feed him. An animal can offer solace from the far more complex world of human relations, but they will still ultimately act according to their nature and evolution, a point underlined by Werner Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man, wherein Timothy Treadwell lived happily among the grizzly bears until one killed him.
Of course, Treadwell was unstable to begin with; among mammals, grizzly bears are about the most efficient killing machines there are. Project Nim, the new documentary from James Marsh, director of Man on Wire, is concerned with the life of a chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky...
Between humans and animals there is an insurmountable comprehension barrier. We project emotions and personality onto them that may not be there, and we generally feel some empathy if we see them suffer. Occasionally it will seem that my cat really understands me, until I realise he just wants me to feed him. An animal can offer solace from the far more complex world of human relations, but they will still ultimately act according to their nature and evolution, a point underlined by Werner Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man, wherein Timothy Treadwell lived happily among the grizzly bears until one killed him.
Of course, Treadwell was unstable to begin with; among mammals, grizzly bears are about the most efficient killing machines there are. Project Nim, the new documentary from James Marsh, director of Man on Wire, is concerned with the life of a chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky...
- 6/17/2011
- by Adam Whyte
- Obsessed with Film
Another Earth Review [Sfiff]
The Alfred P. Sloan Prize, given at Sundance each year, seems a bit arbitrary, although I'm sure the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation who funds it, would argue otherwise. It's a $20,000 cash prize given to a feature film that focuses on science or technology as a theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. There's wiggle room in that definition, however. The prize in 2005 went to Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. I don't think too many people would argue Timothy Treadwell was any of those things. This year, Sundance recognized Mike Cahill's sci-fi film Another Earth for the honor. Cahill cowrote the script with Brit Marling who starred as a smart girl, about to enter MIT when the decision to drink and drive changes everything forever.
Thanks for reading We Got This Covered...
The Alfred P. Sloan Prize, given at Sundance each year, seems a bit arbitrary, although I'm sure the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation who funds it, would argue otherwise. It's a $20,000 cash prize given to a feature film that focuses on science or technology as a theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. There's wiggle room in that definition, however. The prize in 2005 went to Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. I don't think too many people would argue Timothy Treadwell was any of those things. This year, Sundance recognized Mike Cahill's sci-fi film Another Earth for the honor. Cahill cowrote the script with Brit Marling who starred as a smart girl, about to enter MIT when the decision to drink and drive changes everything forever.
Thanks for reading We Got This Covered...
- 5/6/2011
- by Blake Griffin
- We Got This Covered
Werner Herzog's presence in his own films – including the new Cave of Forgotten Dreams – marks him out as a romantic, eager to experience what he's trying to understand
Few film directors seem as directly present in their work as Werner Herzog. Not only does he have an instantly recognisable aesthetic, but unlike most European auteurs of his generation, he has become a familiar face in front of the camera. We are so accustomed to seeing him – playing football with Peruvian indians, arguing with Klaus Kinski, eating his own shoe at Chez Panisse – that we might mistake him for just another "personality", one of the celebrities who parade past at various scales, from cellphone to Times Square, on our screens. Directors are required to be showmen, particularly directors of documentaries, who always have to hustle to finance and screen their work. But Herzog's presence, his insistence on being in the middle of things,...
Few film directors seem as directly present in their work as Werner Herzog. Not only does he have an instantly recognisable aesthetic, but unlike most European auteurs of his generation, he has become a familiar face in front of the camera. We are so accustomed to seeing him – playing football with Peruvian indians, arguing with Klaus Kinski, eating his own shoe at Chez Panisse – that we might mistake him for just another "personality", one of the celebrities who parade past at various scales, from cellphone to Times Square, on our screens. Directors are required to be showmen, particularly directors of documentaries, who always have to hustle to finance and screen their work. But Herzog's presence, his insistence on being in the middle of things,...
- 4/18/2011
- by Hari Kunzru
- The Guardian - Film News
He has a reputation for being difficult and dangerous, his films celebrated for their nihilistic brilliance. Yet despite saying he never smiles, the German director can't stop laughing at himself – and the comedy in his work
Perhaps it is because the German film-maker Werner Herzog has, over the years, during working hours, been shot at, hauled a steamboat over a mountain, threatened to kill his leading man, thrown himself on a cactus, informed the Greek military that he would kill anyone who got in the way of his filming, been caught in the middle of a South American border war, taken a film crew to the lip of a volcano, and once, on camera, ate his shoe, he has a reputation for, let's say, reckless eccentricity.
It is a reputation that has been compounded by events that have happened to him off sets – including being shot by an air rifle...
Perhaps it is because the German film-maker Werner Herzog has, over the years, during working hours, been shot at, hauled a steamboat over a mountain, threatened to kill his leading man, thrown himself on a cactus, informed the Greek military that he would kill anyone who got in the way of his filming, been caught in the middle of a South American border war, taken a film crew to the lip of a volcano, and once, on camera, ate his shoe, he has a reputation for, let's say, reckless eccentricity.
It is a reputation that has been compounded by events that have happened to him off sets – including being shot by an air rifle...
- 3/7/2011
- by Hadley Freeman
- The Guardian - Film News
Dear Sarah:
Excellent days to you my warrior princess!
I just wanted to congratulate you on your sexy and smart new reality show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska!"
I want to thank you for bringing Alaska to my attention. As I am Canadian, I honestly thought it was a made-up country that existed only on a Risk board, like Kamchatka. But what I discovered was that it was a real country, full of real people who shoot rifles, handle bloody fish heads, dogsled, appear on Bill O'Reilly from the TV studio in their own fortress/mansion, people who, "Don't retreat, just reload." It's a pretty cool place, Sarah, and I thank you for introducing me to it.
I also want to thank you for being pretty. You have awesome hair, Sarah. It's as beautiful as Mt. McKinley, and I think I'd like to make a nest out of it to curl up into each night.
Excellent days to you my warrior princess!
I just wanted to congratulate you on your sexy and smart new reality show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska!"
I want to thank you for bringing Alaska to my attention. As I am Canadian, I honestly thought it was a made-up country that existed only on a Risk board, like Kamchatka. But what I discovered was that it was a real country, full of real people who shoot rifles, handle bloody fish heads, dogsled, appear on Bill O'Reilly from the TV studio in their own fortress/mansion, people who, "Don't retreat, just reload." It's a pretty cool place, Sarah, and I thank you for introducing me to it.
I also want to thank you for being pretty. You have awesome hair, Sarah. It's as beautiful as Mt. McKinley, and I think I'd like to make a nest out of it to curl up into each night.
- 11/19/2010
- by Michael Murray
Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski on the set of Cobra Verde Top Ten Werner Herzog Films
The films of Werner Herzog haunt that hazy corridor between dream and reality, where madness and the true nature of the universe lurk. They're surreal, but not by any of the boiler-plate attributes we associate with head-trip cinema. They're horrific, but never by cheap shocks. They're beautiful, but not in a painterly sense. Each one is a tone poem searching for both new images and what Herzog calls the "ecstatic truth," a blending of fact and fiction for a higher cause. There's a uniqueness to his films that's unforgettable.
I not only admire Herzog's films, I admire the man behind them. Herzog's fearlessness is fascinating. He's an artist who risks it all to get "the shot." Studio backlot shooting is not an option. His obsessive, nearly self-destructive need to film in the hottest of...
The films of Werner Herzog haunt that hazy corridor between dream and reality, where madness and the true nature of the universe lurk. They're surreal, but not by any of the boiler-plate attributes we associate with head-trip cinema. They're horrific, but never by cheap shocks. They're beautiful, but not in a painterly sense. Each one is a tone poem searching for both new images and what Herzog calls the "ecstatic truth," a blending of fact and fiction for a higher cause. There's a uniqueness to his films that's unforgettable.
I not only admire Herzog's films, I admire the man behind them. Herzog's fearlessness is fascinating. He's an artist who risks it all to get "the shot." Studio backlot shooting is not an option. His obsessive, nearly self-destructive need to film in the hottest of...
- 9/20/2010
- by David Frank
- Rope of Silicon
82nd Annual Academy Awards Best Documentary Feature winners for The Cove; Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens backstage with Paula DuPre Pesman and Ric O'Barry
Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / A.M.P.A.S. With last week's release of The Tillman Story and A Film Unfinished, Oscar Doc season is officially in full swing. A perfect time to make some early predictions for the five films that will battle out for this year's Academy Award for best feature documentary.
The Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary has been one of the most difficult competitions to handicap over the years for several reasons. The rules were often confusing and the nomination process was quite unfair prior to 2002. That's when the Academy finally made significant changes based on the large number of complaints from both filmmakers and the public at large. Up until that time decisions were made by a handful of people and...
Photo: Todd Wawrychuk / A.M.P.A.S. With last week's release of The Tillman Story and A Film Unfinished, Oscar Doc season is officially in full swing. A perfect time to make some early predictions for the five films that will battle out for this year's Academy Award for best feature documentary.
The Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary has been one of the most difficult competitions to handicap over the years for several reasons. The rules were often confusing and the nomination process was quite unfair prior to 2002. That's when the Academy finally made significant changes based on the large number of complaints from both filmmakers and the public at large. Up until that time decisions were made by a handful of people and...
- 8/27/2010
- by Bill Cody
- Rope of Silicon
Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors. For the second time in a month, I'm thinking of a director whose career started back in the 70's (actually earlier, but it took off in the 70's). As always, since our interest here is in the importance of these maestros to modern cinema, I'll try and keep the discussion to the past ten years (or so).
Maestro: Werner Herzog
Known For: Movies about madness, movies with Klaus Kinski, and his own bizarre behavior.
Influences: Murnau, obviously. Also Bunuel, Kurosawa, many of the great old ones.
Masterpieces: We'll go all the way back to the old days for these starting with Aguirre, The Wrath of God, including Stroszek and arriving at Grizzly Man.
Disasters: If only I'd seen enough of his movies to answer this accurately, but alas availability issues arise. No big disasters by my watch.
Maestro: Werner Herzog
Known For: Movies about madness, movies with Klaus Kinski, and his own bizarre behavior.
Influences: Murnau, obviously. Also Bunuel, Kurosawa, many of the great old ones.
Masterpieces: We'll go all the way back to the old days for these starting with Aguirre, The Wrath of God, including Stroszek and arriving at Grizzly Man.
Disasters: If only I'd seen enough of his movies to answer this accurately, but alas availability issues arise. No big disasters by my watch.
- 7/1/2010
- by Robert
- FilmExperience
Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage might have been made for each other. Herzog, the wigged-out visionary film-maker domiciled in La, has lost his way in recent years, coasting on the fame of his great collaborations with Klaus Kinski (Aguirre: Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo), his muse, his goad and, on and off, his deadliest enemy. Kinski died in 1991, since when the director has been in search of a star who understood his demented flair and love of risk. He briefly found him, too, in the person of Timothy Treadwell, a naturalist whose obsessive quest for togetherness with grizzly bears became the subject of his astonishing 2005 documentary Grizzly Man. Unfortunately, the partnership was brutally sundered when Treadwell made his final exit, pursued and killed by a bear.
- 5/20/2010
- The Independent - Film
We start the Top 7. You finish the Top 10.
Top 7 “When Animals Attack “Movies
This weekend’s Furry Vengeance may make you wish for a good old-fashioned homicidal animal on a rampage movie. Sure you could sit in front of Syfy and watch “Megashark” or “Megadodo,” but you’re a connoisseur, you read The Scorecard Review, you want the best. Here are a list of the finest films featuring angry, overlarge, killer beasts.
For more Top 7 lists, click here
7. Alligator (1980)
Recap: Do you remember that urban legend about alligators in the sewers? Well this film, written by John Sayles (of Eight Men Out fame) posits that a baby alligator, flushed down a toilet in Chicago grows over time into a huge behemoth. Soon the entire city of Chicago is in a panic with only cop David Madison (Robert Forster) standing between the populace and man-eating reptilian destruction.
Reason: Sure it’s cheesy,...
Top 7 “When Animals Attack “Movies
This weekend’s Furry Vengeance may make you wish for a good old-fashioned homicidal animal on a rampage movie. Sure you could sit in front of Syfy and watch “Megashark” or “Megadodo,” but you’re a connoisseur, you read The Scorecard Review, you want the best. Here are a list of the finest films featuring angry, overlarge, killer beasts.
For more Top 7 lists, click here
7. Alligator (1980)
Recap: Do you remember that urban legend about alligators in the sewers? Well this film, written by John Sayles (of Eight Men Out fame) posits that a baby alligator, flushed down a toilet in Chicago grows over time into a huge behemoth. Soon the entire city of Chicago is in a panic with only cop David Madison (Robert Forster) standing between the populace and man-eating reptilian destruction.
Reason: Sure it’s cheesy,...
- 4/27/2010
- by Megan Lehar
- The Scorecard Review
Earth Day is on April 22 and to celebrate, the latest film from Disneynature will be releasing "Oceans," a documentary focusing on on the vast oceans across the world.
To celebrate Earth Day and the release of "Oceans," we decided to list five of our favorite nature-related documentaries!
The Cove
"The Cove" won the Oscar for Best Documentary Film at the Academy Awards last month. The film profiles the annual killing of dolphins in Japan and the impact that this practice has the rest of the world and the dolphin population as a whole.
Earth
Last year, Disney released the film "Earth" to coincide with Earth Day. The film takes the viewer on journey of the Earth, focusing on how the plants and animals respond to seasonal changes throughout the year.
In the process, the humpback whale, African elephant and polar bear are all profiled. Here's the trailer:
March of the Penguins...
To celebrate Earth Day and the release of "Oceans," we decided to list five of our favorite nature-related documentaries!
The Cove
"The Cove" won the Oscar for Best Documentary Film at the Academy Awards last month. The film profiles the annual killing of dolphins in Japan and the impact that this practice has the rest of the world and the dolphin population as a whole.
Earth
Last year, Disney released the film "Earth" to coincide with Earth Day. The film takes the viewer on journey of the Earth, focusing on how the plants and animals respond to seasonal changes throughout the year.
In the process, the humpback whale, African elephant and polar bear are all profiled. Here's the trailer:
March of the Penguins...
- 4/20/2010
- by amcsts@gmail.com
- AMC - Script to Screen
The film-maker has taken his 3D camera among the rocky fissures and 30,000-year-old cave artwork at Chauvet in France
From his film about the hostage survivor Dieter Dengler, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, to his examination of the life and death of the eccentric grizzly bear activist Timothy Treadwell, Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog always seems to have an eye for stranger-than-fiction scenarios that make for fascinating documentaries. Over on Roger Ebert's blog, there's news of a new Herzog project that might represent his most important venture into factual film-making yet.
Herzog has apparently been given permission to film inside the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave, a site in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, dating back at least 30,000 years. Even more intriguingly, Herzog is planning to shoot much of the film in 3D.
The Chauvet cave, discovered in 1994, cannot be accessed by tourists, as the...
From his film about the hostage survivor Dieter Dengler, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, to his examination of the life and death of the eccentric grizzly bear activist Timothy Treadwell, Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog always seems to have an eye for stranger-than-fiction scenarios that make for fascinating documentaries. Over on Roger Ebert's blog, there's news of a new Herzog project that might represent his most important venture into factual film-making yet.
Herzog has apparently been given permission to film inside the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave, a site in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, dating back at least 30,000 years. Even more intriguingly, Herzog is planning to shoot much of the film in 3D.
The Chauvet cave, discovered in 1994, cannot be accessed by tourists, as the...
- 4/13/2010
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
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