(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTFor some thirty years, from the 1980s until their decline in the 2010s, video shops were crucial arenas for film culture – and both highbrow and lowbrow American cinema has documented their rise, fall and changing meanings. Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven, a labour of love ten years Continue Reading
Documentaries
Strap yourself with a full-on ride with The Wild Ones
(courtesy First Showing (c) AppleTV+) SNAPSHOTExplore hidden corners of the Earth with a trio of experts as they try to save six endangered species from extinction. With crafty camerawork & survival skills, the team race to find, record, protect these elusive creatures before it’s too late. Battling the North Atlantic, Continue Reading
Wi-fi is not the only connection that matters: Thoughts on Backyard Wilderness
There is always something inherently restorative about watching a nature documentary that takes you quietly and with real fascination through the seasonal cycles of one specific location. You feel, almost immediately, as if you are immersed in this world, a feeling heightened to a wholly rewarding degree in Backyard Wilderness, Continue Reading
Thoughts on the Secret World of Sound with David Attenborough
(courtesy IMDB) If you’ve seen as many nature documentaries as this reviewer – they have always been and will likely remain one of my prime happy places – you could well wonder if there’s anything new under the sun, any new way of approaching the genre that feels fresh or Continue Reading
Not the people you thought you knew: Thoughts on Secrets of the Neanderthals
(courtesy IMDb (c) Netflix) Growing up, I remember being fascinated by the idea that there were other human species alive on the Earth, not just well before Homo Sapiens but crossing over with us. At the present time, there are a number of species that have been discovered to have Continue Reading
Discover the secret that connects us all with Our Living World
(courtesy & (c) Netflix) SNAPSHOTAt first glance, the grazing patterns of reindeer in the Arctic may not appear to have much to do with the day-to-day lives of hippos in Africa. Despite the physical distance between these herds, however, their survival is bound together in a vast and intricately linked Continue Reading
Documentary review: Epic Animal Migrations – Patagonia
(courtesy IMDb) Documentaries in our hyper-sensationalised digital age have a lot to contend with. With almost everything braying at us with unrelenting 24/7 intensity, you have to be loud and intense and a little tabloidy to cut through; fair enough in one sense – if everyone else is yelling, you Continue Reading
Documentary review: The battle for survival on Life on Our Planet
(courtesy IMP Awards) There’s an interesting trend in some parts of modern documentary making that views the enthralling wonder of information in and of itself as not enough to keep peoples’ attention. To be fair, we do live in a hyper-attentive age where people are pulled in a thousand different Continue Reading
To understand life, we must go back to the beginning: Life on our Planet teaser trailer
(courtesy YouTube (c) Netflix) SNAPSHOTThis is the story of life’s epic battle to conquer and survive on planet Earth. Today there are 20 million species on our planet, yet what we see is just a snapshot in time — 99% of earth’s inhabitants are lost to our deep past. The Continue Reading
Documentary review: Experience life’s extraordinary journeys with Our Planet II (narrated by David Attenborough)
(courtesy IMP Awards) Back in a far more innocent time, watching nature documentaries was simply a matter of sitting back and letting the splendour of the natural world wash over you. Not a mention was made, and honestly maybe it should have been, of the fact that humanity was trashing Continue Reading