Author Archives: Mike Wood

This 1984 documentary manages to be both history lesson and an opportunity to revisit your assumptions of that history. While Black Hollywood covers much familiar ground, it also opens one’s eyes to some of the pivotal figures in the often exploited, but nevertheless defiant role of African-Americans in Hollywood.A thumbnail sketch of that role is […]

The individual stories of those who lived through Hurricane Katrina get lost in the story of the event that has taken on a life of its own. Both sides of the political seesaw have used the tragic flooding of one of America’s great cities, and the subsequent displacement of its poorest residents, whether it be […]

Long banned or heavily edited, this legendary transgressive short masterpiece is finally available in the States in its complete form. As the only film directed by poet, playwright, novelist, criminal and Saint Jean Genet, it naturally is saturated with images and emotions even his own overheated writing could rarely evoke. Un Chant D’Amour, first released […]

Based on a 2002 memoir by producer Art Linson (Fight Club, Into The Wild), What Just Happened? continues the line of self-obsessed Hollywood vehicles like The Player and Entourage, wherein the evils and shallowness of the business are brutally explored but nevertheless celebrated. Here, director Barry Levinson manages to get a good performance from Robert […]

One of the more odd theories to come out of recent speculation into multiple universes is the idea that there may be enough dimensions so that, somewhere, everything happens:You took a left instead of a right, you became a famous novelist, you bought the good car instead of the shitty one, etc. That would take […]

You might not think that there would be much information available about a performance artist whose entire catalog of work lasts about 40 minutes, and who vanished at sea. This release will dispel that notion. Here is Always Somewhere Else is not only a moving tribute of artist Bas Jan Ader, but a celebration of […]