Category Archives: Doc’s Movie Reviews

Misha and the Wolves (2021)

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January 26

My favorite type of documentary is the ones that have a story that it tells you that is totally unbelievable, but it is true. Previous docs that I loved in this manner included Tickled, The Imposter, Three Identical Strangers, and The Jinx. There is a new doc that shocks you with its twists and turns among this harrowing story of a young girl surviving the Holocaust by living with the wolves.

According to IMDB, “Misha and the Wolves is the dramatic tale of a woman whose holocaust memoir took the world by storm, but a fallout with her publisher – who turned detective – revealed an audacious deception created to hide a darker truth.“

I don’t want to spoil much of this tale, so all I will say is that the story told by Misha in her memoir, which became a huge selling book, is compelling enough, and what happened following its release is even more so.

This doc is well told, with some excellent editing and design. It grabs you with the story immediately and then expertly weaves through what remains for the run time.

There are some questions left at the end which made me want to know more, but the doc is truly surprising.

Misha and the Wolves is available to stream on Netflix.

Whitney (2018)

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January 25

One of the greatest voices of music has also one of the most tragic stories is the documentary for today’s Genre-ary. Whitney Houston had so many struggles in her short and successful life, from drugs and pressures of her life. The 2018 documentary Whitney was on Netflix (though it is leaving at the end of the month).

Filmmaker Kevin Macdonald used archival footage, some great performances and interviews to give a picture of Whitney Houston’s life.

The music of Whitney Houston is amazing, and that comes through in this documentary, although there could be more about the music. However, the story of what happens and what led to her untimely death is very tough. The relationships in Whitney’s world was shown as a major part of her downfall. That included her marriage to Bobby Brown and the difficult connection with her father.

It was hard to watch the two sides of Whitney Houston that we saw in the doc. It was such a struggle in her life and how the events took such a toll on her.

It is a difficult doc to watch, even if there may not be anything new revealed of her story. Putting it in one spot like this is powerful.

American Tragedy (2019)

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January 24

When I saw the synopsis for this documentary for the Genre-ary, I anticipated this film being a difficult watch. Strangely enough, this was not the emotional and gut-punch of a doc that I thought it would be.

This film was about one of the kids who participated in the shootings at Columbine. Surely, this would be a devastating film.

I was not prepared for American Tragedy, which I viewed on Amazon Prime, to be quite as dull as it was.

According to IMDB, “April 20, 1999 Columbine High School was under attack by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Sue Klebold, Dylan’s mother, attempts to reconcile how the son she thought she knew, the son she loved could willingly be a school shooter. ‘If love could have stopped Columbine,’ she says, ‘Columbine would never have happened.’ What would real prevention look like? Is it possible? Is America ready?“

The film spoke to Sue Klebold during the film, but I just did not get the expected feelings from her that I expected. Perhaps it was from years of hardening herself from the anger and the unexpected behavior, but a lot of the sections with Sue felt like the story was being told by someone else. I am sure that is not the way she felt, but it does not translate to the screen in this doc.

There were a few moments that stood out, but they were few and far between.

This is a shame that this doc does not connect with the viewer as much as it should have.

Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (2016)

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January 23

I found another Academy Award winning film to watch today for the Genre-ary. This won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 2018. The title had caught my attention at first as did some of the artwork that went with the promotion for Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405.

The short told the story of Mindy Alper, a 56-year old artist, who had spent years suffering from a variety of mental illnesses including acute anxiety, mental disorder and depression. She had been committed to mental institutions, spending around 10 years institutionalized. During that time, Mindy would receive electro shock therapy in an attempt to get past the mental states she was in.

She spent much of the time unable to speak and scared about everything in life. Much of the struggles could be traced back to a combative relationship with her father. The film does not come out and say it, but there are some implications about the relationship that might be the reason for many of the problems.

The doc short showed the progress Mindy had made and how her struggles with mental illness was something she would have to overcome on a daily basis. It showed how she used her art to really get some of the emotions out, giving them a place to go.

Some of the papier mache statues she had made, in particular one of her favorite psychiatrist, were absolutely stunning. I could not take my eyes off of these pieces of art. Her drawings were used to illustrate much of the doc as well. This art truly told a powerful story.

Mindy was a complete inspiration and, despite her life’s downfalls, she has found something that has allowed her to express her feelings.

I can see the reason why this was an Oscar winner.

MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024)

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January 22

Today’s Genre-ary documentary was found on MAX called MoviePass, MovieCrash, which looks upon the rise and collapse of the movie subscription service MoviePass.

According to IMDB, MoviePass, MovieCrash is…”Exploring the company founding and the implosion of the business by outside investors who took over the company, left it bankrupt and under investigation.”

Stacy Spikes, the founder of MoviePass, took his idea and made it a phenom. For a limited fee monthly, you could go to a movie a day at any theater. It was a revolutionary concept that helped movie theaters. Hamet Watt was a board member of the company and was a co-founder with Spikes.

As they were trying to build their business, two other men came into the orbit of MoviePass. Mitch Lowe, who became CEO of MoviePass, and Ted Farnsworth, Helios and Matheson’s CEO. Helios and Matheson purchased the company in 2017. In 2018, Spikes and Watt were fired from the company that they had founded.

It was at this point where the company started to pull shady deals because they were hemorrhaging money and they were trying to find a way to bring down costs. The problem was they did not keep the consumer, their customers, in the loop.

They worked it so one of the massive movie releases of the summer, Mission Impossible: Fallout, would be unavailable for their users to go to, despite still taking their money. More and more error messages would come up when attempting to use the MoviePass card and the business was being driven into the ground. Finally the company had to declare bankruptcy.

There is an air of racial tint to this story as well. Spikes and Watt were both African American and, at the time that they were forced out of MoviePass, the rest of the board was all white. The doc touched upon this aspect, which was some of the more fascinating pieces of the story. One would wonder how it would have gone if Spikes and Watts were white.

The story of MoviePass is a remarkable one, a company that took off like a rocket, creating a huge success in the business of theaters only to be brought down by a couple of con artists looking for an easy score. It is an amazing story.

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

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January 21

The Genre-ary for today is the oldest of the documentaries I watched for this DailyView so far. It was from 1988 and it was called The Thin Blue Line. It documented the case of wrongfully convicted cop killer Randall Adams, who had always claimed that he was innocent. After the release of this documentary, the case against Adams was reexamined and he was set free.

Randall Adams had run out of gas and had been picked up by a 16-year old runaway named David Harris. Adams and Harris hung out for the night, drinking, smoking marijuana and going to the movies. Adams claimed that he then returned to his motel and went to sleep. Harris claimed that they went out again and were pulled over by the police and that Adams shot the cop and drove off, leaving the officer to die in the street.

Apparently, the prosecutors and investigators targeted Adams as their killer, even going as far as to give Harris immunity to be their eyewitness. There were other eyewitnesses whom had driven past the pull over before it turned deadly. These witnesses claimed to have seen Adams too. However, these witnesses were dubious to say the least.

The documentary interviewed both Adams and Harris in an effort to tell the story that had happened. There were also interviews from the defense attorneys, the judge, and several of the police involved before and after.

Another thing that this doc did was to use recreations to show the events of the night through a variety of POVs. At the time, most documentary films did not use this technique in its story telling methods and it gave The Thin Blue Line a different feel. In 2025, some of these recreations were cheesy, but I did get used to them as the film went on. The film also used a soundtrack, scored by Phillip Glass, that was very memorable and created a mood for the film.

This was extremely influential in the world of the documentary. Many true crime style docs take concepts and storytelling techniques from The Thin Blue Line. It was a compelling story at the heart of the doc, with interviews with everyone involved.

MLK/FBI (2020)

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January 20

January 20th is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and, in honor of that, I watched MLK/FBI documentary on Amazon Prime for the Genre-ary.

According to IMDB, “The first film to uncover the extent of the FBI’s surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on newly discovered and declassified files, the documentary explores the government’s history of targeting Black activists, and the contested meaning behind some of our most cherished ideals. From Emmy Award winning director Sam Pollard and featuring interviews with Andrew Young, James Comey, Clarence Jones, and more.”

This doc does a great job of telling the story of conflict between Martin Luther King Jr. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, specifically thoughts from J. Edgar Hoover.

The way the campaign against Communists and Communism played right into the feeling against the civil rights movement was fascinating and some of the interviews with the crowds of people reminded me of some of the crowd interviews from today. It just seems as if all you need to do is replace one leader with another and, perhaps, replace the term Communist with Socialist.

The doc was very informative and raised some real questions about both sides of this debate. It helped show that MLK was a real person and more than just his image while it gave details on the FBI decisions and motives behind the scenes. It is also amazing how relevant this documentary is for our world today when looking at events that happened in the 1960s.

Amy (2015)

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January 19

Today’s Genre-ary was an Academy Award winner from 2016. Amy is the story of British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse.

I knew only a little bit of Amy Winehouse. I am unfamiliar with her music, but I did know of her death in 2011 and I had heard of this documentary from A24 when it was making the rounds in 2015.

Constructed by home movies, archival footage and personal interviews, Amy paints a picture of a remarkably talented woman who struggled with the traps of fame and the dangers of excess that, at times, went hand and hand with it.

Watching this tragedy unfold in this documentary, I was struck with the idea that Amy Winehouse never truly knew who she was or that she was always afraid of the truth and she spent plenty of time running from it by the drug use or the alcohol. It seemed as if there were two powerful men in her life whom she adored, her father Mitch and her husband Blake Fielder, and both of them appeared to take advantage of her celebrity. The scenes of her father bringing a camera crew to an island hideaway with Amy was repulsive.

Amy never felt comfortable as a celebrity. The constant imagery of her moving through a pool of paparazzi with cameras clicking away is one of the enduring depiction of this doc.

Another is the amazing strength of Amy’s voice and her songwriting skills. The doc had all kinds of performances from recordings over her career with lyrics to the songs written on screen allowing the song to speak as much as the sadness surrounding much of her existance.

You know you’re something special when you can have legendry singer Tony Bennett end the documentary with the quote, “She was one of the truest jazz singers I ever heard. To me, she should be treated like Ella Fitzgerald, like Billie Holliday. She had the complete gift.”

Daughters (2024)

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January 18

My internet was out for awhile this afternoon so I was starting to worry about getting the Genre-ary done today. Thankfully it came back early in the evening and I was able to watch a documentary on Netflix.

Daughters was placed on my list when I saw this one mentioned on Dan Murrell’s Year end best of video.

According to IMDB, “Four young girls prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C. jail.”

This doc does a fantastic job interacting with these four girls and their fathers. The emotions were raw for everyone involved. These people were all very nervous and scared over coming together for this dance.

The film did a great job of building up the feelings prior to the Daddy Daughter Dance which made the moment when these little girls were walking down the hallway toward their fathers all the more powerful. I actually thought to myself, what if one of the girls did not show up, what would that be like for the fathers? You could see how the doc had created this connection for me.

It ended with some unbelievable stat that said something like 95% of the Daddies in the Daddy Dance never returned to prison after being released. What an amazing stat if that is true.

It was an impressive documentary and it was very well constructed and designed.

Wolf Man

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As a fan of the old Universal Monster movies, I was looking forward to the next one to be remade by Blumhouse. When Blumhouse had done The Invisible Man back just before the pandemic, it was such an enjoyable film and offered some great new ideas for the topic.

Wolf Man did not have a lot of new ideas. It was basically what you would expect.

According to IMDB, “A family at a remote farmhouse is attacked by an unseen animal, but as the night stretches on, the father begins to transform into something unrecognizable.“

Positives: The film looked great. I enjoyed the visuals of the Wolf Man and I approved of how they kept the original creatures reasonably hidden for most of the first act or so of the film. The transformation, which was slow and took its time, was very effective.

The stress-level of the film was building as the transformation happened. You never was sure what was going to happen as the family tried to stay alive.

Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott did a nice job with their roles of married couple Charlotte and Blake. I was impressed with the young actress, Matilda Firth, who played thier daughter Ginger. Her terrified ractions were very solid and worked for the film.

The problem is that this story is so very thin and did not have anything more to it. None of the characters were sufficiently developed, with only Blake having any basic depth to him. The story was so simple that it left me wishing there was more to it.

I do think that this movie has technical aspects that are worth seeing and if you go into it not expecting too much, this is a passable monster movie. Unfortunately, Wolf Man does not reach the heights, especially story-wise, that some of the previous werewolf films do.

3.2 stars

65 Roses (2019)

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January 17

With time tight on a Friday, I found another documentary short film to watch this morning. This one I found on a website called Shortverse and it was from 2019. The title of the film was 65 Roses.

65 Roses is a symbol adopted by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for their organization. It is based on a story of a kid who could not pronounce the name of his disease and would call it 65 Roses.

This doc featured a 14-year old girl named Yllka Leti, who lived in Prishtina, Kosovo and she had cystic fibrosis. The doc looked at the things she had to do to manage her illness and her positive attitude overall about everything. She was very uch like a 14-year old girl who had to learn about and deal with this insidious illness.

The film spoke about how she would paint and sell her paintings to help fund the medicine that she needed to take. I wish there was more about this aspect of Yllka’s life in the doc. I would have liked to have seen more of the creative flow that the young girl had because selling paintings is not an easy thing to do and if she was able to do it to a significance of helping the costs of her medicine, that is an inspirational story. All of this is here, it just was not the main focus of the doc.

I have not had much experience with the illness of cystic fibrosis. The only exposure I had to it was the character of Emma on Bates Motel, who did have cystic fibrosis. Docs like this help to provide important information to help those of use who may not know as much as we should.

Shortverse had a ton of short docs available to watch, with a variety of topics for just about anything.

Bigfoot: Fear in the Woods (2020)

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January 16

There are a ton of documentaries about the existence of or lack thereof of the legendary creature known as Bigfoot. I have seen several docs on the topic. Being a Bigfoot aficionado, I enjoy the docs and shows of the creature. So this Genre-ary, I found a doc on HBO MAX called Bigfoot: Fear in the Woods, a part of a doc series called Shock Docs, and I wanted to put it on the list.

I do believe in the existence of Bigfoot, but there are some way out there theories about the cryptid. Some of those theories were given some mention on this doc, but, the ideas that were more odd were not given much depth. The idea that Bigfoot is an alien from outer space or were violent cannibalistic animals that live in caves beneath the earth’s surface is mentioned, but there is not a ton of details presented to support such bizarre ideas.

However, there are some cool things in the doc that are much more possible. I did enjoy the discussion on the first plaster casts that were made in Bluff Creek, California by a man named Ray Wallace. Some of this section was a fascinating piece of this documentary.

Even more intriguing was the information about 300 elongated skulls that had been discovered in a grave in Paracus, Peru in 1928. It was initially believed that the skulls came from tribal head binding, but the absence of the sagittal suture, “a dense, fibrous connective tissue joint between the two parietal bones of the skull.” (Wikipedia), have made some wonder what the true nature of these skulls were. This whole section about the Peru skulls was very interesting and made some sense.

Of course, I do not know what the doc may have left out, detail wise, in order to make their narrative fit. Still, this was a neat concept that I had not heard of before.

In the end, this doc did not provide anything startlingly new or mind blowing, but it did keep the concept of Bigfoot alive and well, even if there is no true evidence that such a creature ever existed.

The Rocket on the Roof (2016)

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January 15

It is Wednesday, which is always one of the busiest days of the week for me (NEW COMIC BOOK DAY) and so with the Genre-ary, it is time for another documentary short. I found this one on YouTube entitled The Rocket on the Roof and it was wild.

A doc crew investigates a rocket that is on the roof of a building that no one seems to know or care about. It is a large red rocket with USA on it, and the questions about how it got there or why it is there abound.

Thing is, our lead face of the doc, Wesley, is anything but outgoing. He would seem to be quite timid at times and has not been able to overcome his own fears and uncertainties to try and answer the nagging questions about the rocket.

When Wesley comes across the former manager of the building, Harry, things seem to take a weird turn. The manager had his own suspicions about the rocket and felt like a very sketchy individual.

The meeting with Harry was the incentive for Wesley to climb the fire escape and finally get a close up view of the rocket.

The doc’s theme of unanswered questions and the challenges of human nature speak through clearly in this doc short. It is just over thirteen minutes long, but it is a fun, crazy ride. The end may feel like a letdown, but I do think that is part of the point.

Have You Seen Andy? (2007)

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January 14

Today’s documentary in the 2025 Genre-ary was a tough one to watch.

According to IMDB, “”Have You Seen Andy?” is the personal story of a childhood friendship abruptly ended by the tragic abduction of a young boy. On a hot summer day in August 1976, ten year-old Andy Puglisi was playing along with dozens of other children at the Higgins Memorial Pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Then suddenly, he disappeared. Twenty-two years later, filmmaker Melanie Perkins, Andy’s childhood friend, begins her search for answers in this feature-length documentary.”

For someone who has spent most of his adult life working with kids, this doc about the missing 10-year old boy dealt with the possibility that he was taken by and killed by a pedophile who had been stalking kids for some time. Using a story of needing help finding his missing dog, Wayne Chapman would be the predator that the doc’s filmmaker, Melanie Perkins believed was at fault.

Shocking events that seemed to occur all helped prevent this case to be solved. The story of a bloody sock that was found in Chapman’s car that matched the sock that Andy had been wearing were taken for evidence and lost. There is no knowledge of where the sock went. There are unbelievable moments such as this that are littered through the doc.

There were also leads that turned into disappointments that piled up with this case. All the while being made all the worse with some of the beautiful pictures and home movies of Andy and his happy life.

Honestly, this doc was a labor of love from a friend looking for closure. Sadly, it has never come. Chapman died in 2021, after being released from prison.

I have a pit in my gut after watching this film. It was a painful story that is just too common in our world.

Will & Harper (2024)

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January 13

I have not been a fan of Will Ferrell. He has some movies that I absolutely hate. Yet, this Netflix documentary may just make me want to reconsider that opinion.

Will Ferrell and his friend of thirty years, Harper Steele, went on a buddy road trip across America. The hook? Harper Steele had just completed gender transition and was out as a trans woman.

Ferrell met Steele when Farrell joined SNL and they quickly became close friends. When they decided to take this trip across the country, Harper had given Will the right to ask any question about the transition. The openness of the friendship and the kind, sensitive manner in which they spoke to one another gave a real insight into the friendship they had built over the years.

Seeing how Will was protective and, at times, fearful for Harper was so sweet. The places that they traveled to were shown on the doc and the people that they came across spoke with respect and kindness.

But how many actually meant it? They came across the governor of Indiana, Eric Holcomb, at a basketball game and Holcomb dropped his rhetoric to get a picture with Ferrell. Holcomb has been an outspoken anti-trans proponent, passing severe anti-trans laws in his state.

When Farrell, dressed as Sherlock Holmes, took Steele to a steak house in Texas, the crowd at the restaurant was pretty taken aback. The social media response to the dinner was off the charts, with a ton of hatred spewing across the platforms. Of course, these people were all taking their outrage and vitriol to the safety of the internet where they can post their hatred with a certain amount of anonymousness.

However, much of the doc played against the caricature of the ignorant American and showed people who were very supportive and kind. Will Farrell was amazing with Harper, supporting her and treating her with such respect and acceptance that you could see how intimate and special their years long friendship had become.

The film was not just a powerful doc, but it was hilarious as well. Some of the scenes were just outright funny, which I guess you should expect with two funny people at the front of the film.

Will & Harper was a really enjoyable film that showed the power of friendship, the humor of a buddy road trip and the capacity of dialogue and communication.