Author: Josh Hornbeck

Josh is the founder of Cinema Cocktail, and he is a writer and director, podcaster and critic, and communications and marketing professional living and working in the greater Seattle area.

The Sparks Brothers (2021) | Directed by Edgar Wright

4.5/5
Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers is an outstanding music documentary that is an absolute joy to watch. It gives a comprehensive overview of the life and career of Sparks and wisely shares enough of their music throughout so that anyone who isn’t familiar with their oeuvre doesn’t feel ostracized or unwelcome. In fact, it’s an incredibly generous film for anyone new to their music, and Wright has gathered an incredible assortment of interviews from fans, other musicians, producers, and the Mael brothers themselves to help provide context for the songs and albums. The use of archival material and found footage is phenomenal, and Wright proves to have a deft hand at structuring the material with interviews and just enough stylistic flourishes to match Sparks’ own style and personaes. It’s a fantastic, engaging, and thoroughly entertaining musical documentary.

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All Light, Everywhere (2021) | Directed by Theo Anthony

5/5
Theo Anthony’s All Light, Everywhere is an exquisite documentary exploring the nature of modern surveillance, consistently raising questions about the ethics of its own creation. Throughout the film, as we examine the history of cameras and the recorded image, as well as the ways in which this is inextricably bound up in the history of warfare and policing and weaponry, Anthony reveals the many fraught decisions a documentary filmmaker faces in crafting a film of this nature. He constantly interrogates the notion of objectivity and shows just how difficult it can be to completely remove bias from our policing and surveillance systems, especially when we put all our faith in cameras, in recording devices, in tools designed to give us a dispassionate and unbiased record of “the truth.” But the film constantly shows us the gaps in a recording device’s ability to capture reality – whether due to the technical limitations of aerial surveillance or the designed limitations of police body cams. And by continually stepping back to show us how the documentary crew sets up a shot, edits a sequence, or removes the breath from a voiceover recording, we’re continually reminded that the images we’re left with in any frame can only tell one part of a larger story. This is a fantastic work of expressionistic non-fiction filmmaking – an exhilarating viewing experience.

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Criterion Channel Surfing, Episode 48: Entry-Points to the Permanent Library

Josh is joined by regular contributor and friend-of-the-show Michael Hutchins for a conversation about entry-points to the Criterion Channel’s permanent library – along with recommendations for a few places to start.

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Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma (2021) | Directed by Topaz Jones, Simon Davis, Jason Sondock

5/5
Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma, directed by Topaz Jones, Simon Davis, and Jason Sondock, is a fantastic short documentary comprised of 26 vignettes blending surrealism, archival footage, sketch comedy, direct observation, and interview to craft a stunning portrait of contemporary Black experience. The film’s interviews with activists are essential and provide the necessary grounding for a work that so intentionally toggles between absurdity and profundity, comedy and despair, terror and joy. There isn’t a wasted moment here – this is an exceptional work of creative non-fiction and packs more into its 34 minutes than many films are able to do with three times the length. It’s an incredible and invigorating film.

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Black Power: A British Story of Resistance (2021) | Directed by George Amponsah

4.5/5
George Amponsah’s Black Power: A British Story of Resistance is another exceptionally strong documentary in this series of films outlining the struggles of Black British citizens and immigrants fighting for their rights. This installment outlines the history of and explores the groups within Britain’s Black Power movement, and looking at both the internal and external forces that eventually led to its collapse. While inspired by the United States’ Black Power movement – and even though it certainly had ties to many of the groups and leaders – the film carefully illustrates the major differences and ways that the Black British community took the Black Power philosophy and made it their own. The powerful interviews with leaders and participants in the movement detail Britain’s long history of racism and discrimination, as well as the ways in which the various groups within the Black Power movement would overlap and work together. Like all of the films in this series, the use of archival material and found footage is exceptional, as are the musical selections that underscore the narrative. And it’s especially powerful to have the film draw such a clear through line between the Black Power movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s and today’s struggle for racial justice.

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Subnormal: A British Scandal (2021) | Directed by Lyttanya Shannon

4/5
While Lyttanya Shannon’s Subnormal: A British Scandal makes use of the standard talking head documentary format, there are touches throughout that elevate it beyond traditional documentary fare. Shannon’s narration gives the film a personal touch and helps connect her family’s experience with the wider Black British experience within a discriminatory education system. And that personal touch also extends to her attempts to find individuals willing to speak on camera about their experiences – in spite of the shame and stigmatization they might face from having been wrongly placed in schools for the “educationally subnormal.” The archival materials and found footage effectively trace the roots of this scandal within the British educational system, lays out a damning case that speaks to the deep racism and prejudice involved, and draws a clear line between the issues from decades ago and their consequences for today. It’s powerful, moving, and shows how essential it is to have strong community involvement in a child’s education – especially in societies where racism put systems in place that disadvantage children of color.

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Uprising (2021) | Directed by Steve McQueen and James Rogan

5/5
Steve McQueen and James Rogan’s Uprising is a stellar three-part documentary that weaves together important events from 1981 to paint a portrait of the Black experience in Britain through the ‘70s and ‘80s. There’s an incredible wealth of archival material on display – capturing the beats and rhythms of the interviews with found footage that matches to an almost uncanny degree, alongside news reports from the day and stunning photographs that round out the visual narrative. The interviews are phenomenal and come from a wide range of experiences they all provide essential context for the events covered throughout the film. There are sublime and powerfully moving moments threaded throughout the film – especially the ways it cuts back to the black-and-white photographs of the Black children who died in the horrific New Cross house fire at key moments in the film, reminding us of the lives that were cut short and white British society’s indifference to their death. And, of course, the use of music is exquisite and the perfect approach to highlighting the joys and sorrows of the Black British community, as well as the subsequent call to rise up against oppression. It’s an exceptional documentary, one that has relevance for anyone living in a nation with a legacy of colonialism and racist oppression.

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Rocks (2019) | Directed by Sarah Gavron

4.5/5
Sarah Gavron’s Rocks is a powerful, deeply moving film that walks a delicate line in depicting the struggles a teenage girl and her young brother face after their mother abandons them. This is an honest, raw, and painful film that never becomes exploitive or veers into melodrama. Much of the film’s strength comes from the outstanding performances of the young, untrained actors. There’s a depth and honesty in all of these performances – especially in the two central roles – that is stunning. The film’s loose, handheld camera helps create a raw, unfiltered intimacy that brings us in close to the characters and embeds us in the narrative, which wisely avoids giving us too much exposition or explaining too much of the family backstory. In a film like this, it’s tempting to push the story further and further into miserablism, inflicting greater and greater trials and suffering on the protagonist up until the very end, but the film becomes a story of resilience and community, a tale of the ways that friendship can help you weather life’s difficulties – even if there are no easy solutions.

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The Rescue (2021) | Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin

4.5/5
In Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s The Rescue, the documentary filmmakers take the techniques they honed and perfected in Free Solo and apply them to the much more compelling and emotionally resonant subject matter of the underwater cave rescue of the Thai soccer team. Even though most viewers will already know the narrative’s ultimate outcome, Vasarhelyi and Chin manage to create an almost unbearable tension through their deliberate pacing and careful recounting of the unique challenges faced in mounting this rescue. Stunningly crafted re-enactments are seamlessly combined with archival materials, and the computer graphics used to visualize the cave helps orient us to the space and gives a real sense of just how difficult the rescue really was. The interviews are all compelling, and it’s essential to get into the motivations that drive individuals to dive into caves during their leisure time – though as with Free Solo, Vasarhelyi and Chin only seem to be able to draw out surface-level reflections from their subjects. Still, it’s refreshing to see how frank and honest the film is about the divers’ reluctance to take on such a difficult rescue, and ultimately, why this group of volunteer divers were the only people in the world with the skill set to attempt such a daring and unprecedented rescue. It’s a remarkable and compelling film that is deeply moving.

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Zola (2020) | Directed by Janicza Bravo

4.5/5
Janicza Bravo’s Zola is a delightful and exuberantly crafted study of perspective, performance, storytelling, and who has power in any given situation. Bravo treads a very delicate line with the film’s tone and the shifts needed to modulate in order to capture the ironic and playful detachment of the narrator’s voice from the original Twitter thread, while still making certain that we’re always aware of the potential for danger and violence lurking around every twist of the plot. It’s one of those rare films that doesn’t pathologize sex work, while still acknowledging the perils and struggles that those involved in that labor face. And while it’s all handled with a grace and subtlety you wouldn’t expect from a film that is this unapologetically boisterous, the film’s examination of shifting power dynamics based on race, class, and gender are all incredibly astute. Bravo’s use of 16mm is gorgeous, and the precise, heightened compositions echo the heightened and perfected self-images we’re all conditioned to compose for social media. The film’s sonic textures are just as important as its visuals, bringing social media to life on screen in fresh and unique ways. There so much to explore in this film – the narrative’s ties to The Odyssey, the parallels between both boyfriends left behind, the longing to return home – that you could easily spend multiple viewings diving into everything that Bravo’s doing with this extraordinary film.

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