Performing Arts
Ondi Timoner’s wildly entertaining documentary tells a familiar rock n’ roll tale, one filled with crazy nights, substance abuse, out-of-control parties, temper tantrums, art-versus-commerce debates, “musical differences,” onstage fights, and smashed sitars. What makes DIG! so electrifying is that you see it all unfold in front of the cameras, as Timoner follows the highs and
The rock movie’s very own Zapruder film, Gimme Shelter stands today as a landmark portrait of a band and a generation that changed the stakes between the two camps forever. What starts as an electrifying document of the Rolling Stones’ performances on their fiery 1969 American tour switches to an inquiry into the satanic Altamont concert where Hell’s Angels — hired by the
The personal film archives of Yoko Ono were utilized for this feature-length documentary on the life of John Lennon. Predictably, it downplays Lennon’s association with the Beatles and concentrates on his years with Ono. The film spends a lot of time recounting Lennon’s anti-war activities, highlighted by a confrontation on a talk show hosted by conservative cartoonist
In 1999, when Experience Hendrix (the family company that now controls Jimi’s legacy) released the DVD entitled ‘Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock,’ they claimed that the contents of that DVD was all that remained of one of the most important musical historical documents of all time. Woodstock was a cultural moment, and Jimi Hendrix played the most important role of
The history of hardcore punk–the tougher, faster, and more politically minded stepchild of the ’70s punk movement that arose in the ’80s–is examined in exuberant detail in Paul Rachman’s documentary American Hardcore. Rachman’s cameras careen across the landscape of the U.S. to trace the movement’s beginnings in cities like Los Angeles, Washington,
In this documentary from filmmaker Alexandra Lipsitz, the cameras roll to capture the fierce competitive spirit that defined the first annual U.S. Air Guitar Championship. Staged in Finland and featuring some of the fastest-fingered shredders on the planet, the U.S. Air Guitar Championship would bring a hobby once contained to the bedroom directly into the spotlight
Noted photographer David LaChapelle makes his feature directorial debut with this documentary on a new facet of street culture in South Central Los Angeles. In 1992, after long-simmering racial tensions in Los Angeles erupted in riots following the verdicts in the Rodney King trial, a man named Tommy Johnson sought to spread a new message in a new way
TDF (Top Documentary Films) is basically "one man show" (driven by one enthusiast) and the content here is created with a passion for documentary films. The site is in open form and it is allowing readers to add comments about documentary films they like or dislike... more
