Documentaries

The Final Year (2017)

I expect better movies will be made about the Obama years, but as one chapter in a first draft of history, The Final Year isn’t bad. If for no other reason, it silences the talking heads and lets us think for ourselves.

Of Miracles and Men (2015)

I was ten years old when the U.S. national hockey team beat the Soviet Union in the semi-finals of the 1980 Winter Olympics. That event became known as the “Miracle on Ice,” and was dramatized in the movie Miracle (2004), among others. I’ve never wondered how the Soviet players felt about the game.

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine (2015)

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine has already upset some of the Apple faithful, but it’s mainly because Gibney was rude enough to collect and repeat many of the unflattering Steve Jobs anecdotes that have been circulating for years. Unfortunately, the film overreaches – Gibney posits that Steve Jobs was/is Apple, and by extension Apple customers are worshipping a false god.

Orgasm Inc. (2009)

Orgasm Inc. is funny. The best moment is when Liz Canner reveals that the erotic film she’d edited caused almost as many positive reactions in the placebo test group. The drug wasn’t working, but they’d proven that “women like porn.”

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015)

Alex Gibney’s documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, based on Lawrence Wright’s 2013 book, has the potential to rock your world. Although South Park’s brilliant Trapped in the Closet already covered the same ground, Going Clear features stellar interviews with a handful of ex-Scientologists. If a 21-minute cartoon parody doesn’t convince you that Scientology is batshit crazy, see this film. Beware: by the end, you’ll question a lot more than just Scientology.