Category Archives: Documentary

Behind the Music, Documentary, On Music, Rock 'n' Roll

Hollow body be thy name: Don’t Forget Me (***)

September 14, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 12, 2026)

Look up in the sky, up towards the north
There are three new stars, brightly shining forth
They’re shining oh so bright, from heaven above
Gee we’re gonna miss you, everybody sends their love

– from “Three Stars”, by Eddie Cochran

I was introduced to Eddie Cochran’s music long before I realized that I had been introduced to Eddie Cochran’s music. Hell…I was playing Eddie Cochran songs long before I realized I was playing Eddie Cochran songs. To elucidate: I found cuts like “Summertime Blues” by the Who, “Cut Across Shorty” by Rod Stewart, “Twenty Flight Rock” by Montrose catchy, easy to figure out and fun to play on guitar.

In the early 80s I was living in San Francisco, and worked for a spell pulling product at a distribution center for a Bay Area record store chain called The Record Factory. The job didn’t pay for shit, but one of the perks for me as a music geek was having access to the “returns” warehouse, which was where you could find all the cool stuff (and buy it at cost!). I was pawing through the bins one day and stumbled across this import compilation:

Well, you could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I scanned the track list and espied “Summertime Blues”, “Cut Across Shorty”, and “Twenty Flight Rock” among the selections (I’m a little slow on the uptake, but eventually I figure things out). One thing that struck me while listening to the originals was how stripped-down they were in comparison with the cover versions that I had cut my teeth on. There was something…elemental about them.

For instance, take “Summertime Blues”. Cochran’s relatively minimalist backing arrangement (with acoustic guitar and hand claps front and center) makes quite a contrast with The Who’s power chord-driven version on their Live at Leeds album. Yet, Cochran’s version is no less powerful; and the lyrics convey a timeless expression of teenage angst.

I’m gonna take two weeks
Gonna have a fine vacation
I’m gonna take my problem
To the United Nations
Well, I called my congressman
And he said, quote:
“I’d like to help you, son
But you’re too young to vote”

When Cochran wrote the song (at age 19), he was, in fact, too young to vote. Sadly, he was too young to die when he was killed in a 1960 car accident at age 21. Despite his short time on the planet (releasing only one studio album in his lifetime), his music and stage persona inspired a bevy of rock and roll’s heavyweights, from the Beatles to the Pistols.

For her documentary Don’t Forget Me, Kirsty Bell utilizes family recollections, personal diaries, original fan letters, rare archive material, and commentary from contemporary musical luminaries to tell Cochran’s story. In addition, “Eddie” himself (portrayed by Jack Harris) makes an occasional appearance and does some first person voiceovers (this “ghostly narrator” device has become somewhat trite since the 1981 documentary This is Elvis, but thankfully Bell doesn’t overdo it).

As recounted in the film, Cochran’s career trajectory was nothing, if not meteoric. His older brother gave him a guitar in the early 1950s, and taught him a few chords. By 1955, he was dropping out of high school to become a professional musician. By 1956, he was making his first movie appearance, in the Jayne Mansfield vehicle The Girl Can’t Help It.

Keep in mind, Cochran is all of 17 years old in that clip. All the elements that made him a star are on display: good looks, natural charisma, confident stage presence, and most importantly…a true rock and roll attitude (which in hindsight, borders on punk). Plus, the cat knew how to hold an axe; he was the archetype for the guitar hero.

As a guitar player, I appreciated the nods regarding his weapon of choice: a 1955 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins hollow body guitar, modified with a Gibson pickup (I had a chance to view it up close some years back at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum). While we’re on the subject of gear, I do have one minor quibble with the production designer. In one of the reenactment scenes, “Eddie” is in a recording studio, speaking on the phone. In the background sits a Marshall amp head. Marshall heads were not in production until 1962-two years after Cochran’s death (I know…there’s an annoying pedant in every crowd).

The breadth of Cochran’s influence is demonstrated by the array of legendary rockers on hand who are eager to sing his praises: Keith Richards, Cliff Richard, Alice Cooper, Roger Daltrey, Peter Frampton, Billy Idol, Suzi Quatro, Brian Setzer, Ronnie Wood, Rod Stewart, and Sting (Sting strums and sings a bit of “Three Steps to Heaven”, a possible nod to his cameo in the 1979 film Radio On, where he played a rural gas-station attendant who kills time singing Eddie Cochran songs).

My “minor quibble” aside, this is an engaging portrait of an artist whose influence arguably holds more import than his relatively scant output; then again, as he sang (almost self-prophetically) in his touching tribute to Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, “Three Stars”:

Ritchie, you were just starting to realize your dreams
Everyone calls me a kid, but you were only seventeen
Now almighty God has called you, oh so far away
Maybe it’s to save some boy or girl, who might have gone astray
And with your star shining through the dark and lonely night
To light the path and show the way, the way that’s right
Gee we’re gonna miss you, everybody sends their love

(Currently in UK theaters; US theatrical release pending)

Biopic, Corporate Intrigue, Documentary, Up the Workers

Lord, I am so tired: Top 20 Films for Labor Day

September 8, 2026 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 7, 2026)

Raise your glass to the hard-working people
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
who need leaders but get gamblers instead

-“Salt of the Earth”, by Mick Jagger & Keith Richard (from the album Beggar’s Banquet)

“It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest. To be remembered was the wish, spoken and unspoken, of the heroes and heroines of this book.”

― Studs Terkel, from his book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

So, what does Labor Day mean to you? Back to school? A three-day weekend? A new mattress? It’s easy to lose sight as to the true meaning of Labor Day. According to the U.S.D.O.L. website:

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

By the way, Labor Day isn’t the sole “creation of the labor movement”. Next time you’re in the break room, check out the posters with all that F.L.S.A. meta regarding workplace rights, minimum wage, et.al.

You know…all that stuff that we now take for granted.

I have curated a Top 20 list of films that inspire, enlighten, or just give food for thought in honor of this holiest of days for those who make an honest living. So put your feet up, cue up a movie, and raise a glass to yourself. You’ve earned it.

Blue Collar – Director Paul Schrader co-wrote this 1978 drama with his brother Leonard. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto portray Motor City auto worker buddies tired of getting the short end of the stick from both their employer and their union. In a fit of drunken pique, they pull an ill-advised caper that gets them in trouble with both parties, ultimately putting friendship and loyalty to the test.

Akin to Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, Schrader subverts the standard “union good guy, company bad guy” trope with shades of gray, reminding us the road to Hell is sometimes paved with good intentions. Great score by Jack Nitzsche and Ry Cooder, with a memorable theme song featuring Captain Beefheart (“I’m jest a hard-woikin’, fucked-over man…”).

Bound for Glory – “This machine kills Fascists”. There’s only one man to whom Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen must kowtow-and that’s Woody Guthrie. You can almost taste the dust in director Hal Ashby’s leisurely, episodic 1976 biopic about the life of America’s premier protest songwriter/social activist.

David Carradine gives one of his finest performances, and does a credible job with his own singing and playing. Haskell Wexler’s outstanding cinematography earned him a well-deserved Oscar. The film may feel a bit overlong and slow in spots if you aren’t particularly fascinated by Guthrie’s story; but I think it is just as much about the Depression itself, and perhaps more than any other film on this list, it succeeds as a “total immersion” back to that era.

The Corporation – “To assess the ‘personality’ of the corporate ‘person’ a checklist is employed, using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social ‘personality’: it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism.”

– from the official website for the film, The Corporation

While it’s not news to any thinking person that corporate greed and manipulation affects everyone’s life on this planet, co-directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott deliver the message in a unique and engrossing fashion. By applying a psychological profile to the rudiments of corporate think, Achbar and Abbott build a solid case; proving that if the “corporation” were corporeal, then “he” would be Norman Bates.

Mixing archival footage with observations from some of the expected talking heads (Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, etc.) the unexpected (CEOs actually sympathetic with the filmmakers’ point of view) along with the colorful (like a “corporate spy”), the film offers perspective not only from the watchdogs, but from the belly of the beast itself. Be warned: there are enough exposes trotted out here to keep conspiracy theorists, environmentalists and human rights activists tossing and turning in bed for nights on end.

The Crime of Monsieur Lange – With its central themes regarding exploited workers and the opportunistic, predatory habits of men in power, this rarely-presented 1936 film by the great Jean Renoir (La Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game) plays like a prescient social justice revenge fantasy custom-tailored for our times. A struggling pulp western writer who works for a scuzzy, exploitative Harvey Weinstein-like publisher takes on his corrupt boss by forming a worker’s collective. While it is essentially a sociopolitical noir, the numerous romantic subplots, snappy pre-Code patter, busy multi-character shots and the restless camera presages His Girl Friday.

El Norte – Gregory Nava’s portrait of Guatemalan siblings who make their way to the U.S. after their father is killed by a government death squad will stay with you after credits roll. The two leads deliver naturalistic performances as a brother and sister who maintain optimism, despite fate and circumstance thwarting them at every turn. Claustrophobic viewers be warned: a harrowing scene featuring an encounter with a rat colony during an underground border crossing is nightmare fuel. Do not expect a Hollywood ending; this is an unblinking look at the shameful exploitation of undocumented workers.

The Grapes of Wrath – John Ford’s powerful 1940 drama (adapted from John Steinbeck’s novel) is the quintessential film about the struggle of America’s salt of the earth during the Great Depression. Perhaps we can take comfort in the possibility that no matter how bad things get, Henry Fonda’s unforgettable embodiment of Tom Joad will “…be there, all around, in the dark.” Ford followed up with the Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley (1941) another drama about a working class family (set in a Welsh mining town).

Harlan County, USA – Barbara Kopple’s award-winning film is not only an extraordinary document about an acrimonious coal miner’s strike in Harlan County, Kentucky in 1973, but is one of the best American documentaries ever made. Kopple’s film has everything that you look for in any great work of cinema: drama, conflict, suspense, tragedy, and redemption. Kopple and crew are so deeply embedded that you may involuntarily duck during a harrowing scene where a company-hired thug fires a round directly toward the camera operator (it’s a wonder the filmmakers lived to tell this tale).

Last Train Home – This absorbing, beautifully photographed documentary by Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan centers on the Zhang family: Changhua (dad), Suqin (mom), their 17 year old daughter Qin, and their young son. Changhua and Suqin are two of the 130 million migrant workers who crowd China’s train depots and bus stations every spring in a mass, lemming-like frenzy to get back to their rural villages in time for New Year’s holiday. And like many of those workers, these are the few precious days they have per year to see their children, who, due to the fact that their parents lack urban residency status, do not qualify to attend the public schools in the cities where they work.

Changhua and Suqin toil away their days in the city of Guangzhou, working in a factory. Early on in the film, a wordless sequence, wherein we watch the couple performing their evening ablutions before turning in for the night, speaks volumes about the joyless drudgery and quiet desperation of their daily life. They appear to be bunking in a closet-sized cubicle (with only a curtain for privacy) within some kind of communal flophouse (possibly adjacent to, or perhaps part of, their factory building-which is an even more depressing thought). One colorless day blends into the next.

The only break in the monotony comes when the New Year arrives, and the couple attempt to make their way home in time-and I have to say, this is as far from a madcap John Hughes romp starring Steve Martin and John Candy that you can possibly get.

The director was given an amazing degree of latitude by the family in filming their lives; to the point of feeling almost too close for comfort at times (especially during an intense family row that gets physical). As difficult as some of it is to watch, however, the end result is an engrossing portrait of what happens in a country like China, which has seen so much rapid industrialization and exponential economic growth in such a relatively short period of time that the infrastructure and social policies have fallen light years behind.

And the saddest (and most ironic) part is that the millions of working poor like the Zhangs, who made the country’s new prosperity possible, are in no position to benefit from it. Although…when you think about it, that scenario is not exclusive to China. (Full review)

Made in Bangladesh – “Repeat after me,” a union organizer directs a roomful of female garment workers in a key scene from writer-director Rubaiyat Hossain’s 2020 docu-drama: “Worker’s rights are human rights… [And] women’s rights are human rights.” Through a First World lens this dialog may appear a bit heavy-handed, but the sad fact remains there are still places in this world where these truths are not necessarily held to be self-evident.

The central character is a headstrong 23 year-old named Shimu (Rikita Nandini Shimu). To avoid a forced child marriage, she fled her home village when she was a pre-teen and now lives in Dhaka with her husband of choice Reza (Shatabdi Wadud). Like many young women in the capital, Shimu has found gainful employment in the garment industry. That is not to say she has a dream job; in point of fact she works in a sweatshop.

In addition to putting up with the low wages, long hours, unsafe conditions and spotty overtime compensation Shimu and her fellow workers regularly face sexual harassment, workplace intimidation, and all the other systemic maladies of a patriarchal society. Still, it’s a paycheck; with her husband chronically unemployed, somebody has to pay the rent.

After an explosion and fire kills a fellow employee, Shimu is approached by an investigative journalist, who after hearing her account of working conditions steers her to a local union organizer (Shahana Goswami). Shimu embarks on a mission to unionize her factory. With obstacles at every turn (including at home) she has her work cut out for her.

While it is a familiar narrative (especially if you have seen Norma Rae, a film the director has cited as an inspiration, along with the real-life story of a woman named Daliya Akhter who is a factory worker and union leader) Hossain offers us a 21^st Century feminist heroine who challenges the stereotype of the subservient Muslim woman and reminds us that the final chapter in the struggle for worker’s rights is yet to be written.

Made in Dagenham – Based on a true story, this 2011 film (directed by Nigel Cole and written by William Ivory) stars Sally Hawkins as Rita O’Grady, a working mum employed at the Dagenham, England Ford plant in 1968. She worked in a run-down, segregated section of the plant where 187 female machinists toiled away for a fraction of what male employees were paid; the company justified the inequity by classifying female workers as “unskilled labor”.

Encouraged by her empathetic shop steward (Bob Hoskins), the initially reticent Rita finds her “voice” and surprises family, co-workers and herself with a formidable ability to rally the troops and affect real change. An engaging ensemble piece with a standout supporting performance by Miranda Richardson as a government minister.

Matewan – This well-acted, handsomely mounted drama by John Sayles serves as a sobering reminder that much blood was spilled to lay the foundation for the labor laws we take for granted in the modern workplace. Based on a true story, it is set during the 1920s, in West Virginia. Chris Cooper plays an outsider labor organizer who becomes embroiled in a conflict between coal company thugs and fed up miners trying to unionize.

Sayles delivers a compelling narrative, rich in characterizations and steeped in verisimilitude (beautifully shot by Haskell Wexler). Fine ensemble work from a top notch cast that includes David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, James Earl Jones, Joe Grifasi, Jane Alexander, Gordon Clapp, and Will Oldham. The film is also notable for its well-curated Americana soundtrack.

Modern Times – Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 masterpiece about man vs. automation has aged well. This probably has everything to do with his embodiment of the Everyman. Although referred to as his “last silent film”, it’s not 100% so. A bit of (sung) gibberish aside, there’s no dialogue, but Chaplin finds ingenious ways to work in lines (via technological devices). In fact, his use of sound effects in this film is unparalleled, particularly in a classic sequence where Chaplin, a hapless assembly line worker, literally ends up “part of the machine”. Paulette Goddard (then Mrs. Chaplin) is on board for the pathos. Brilliant, hilarious and prescient.

Next Sohee – Writer-director July Jung’s outstanding 2023 film is reminiscent of Kurosawa’s High and Low, not just in the sense that it is equal parts police procedural and social drama, but that it contains a meticulously layered narrative that has (to paraphrase something Stanley Kubrick once said of his own work) “…a slow start, the start that goes under the audience’s skin and involves them so that they can appreciate grace notes and soft tones and don’t have to be pounded over the head with plot points and suspense hooks.”

The first half of the film tells the story of a high school student who is placed into a mandatory “externship” at a call center by one of her teachers. Suffice it to say her workplace is a prime example as to why labor laws exist (they do have them in South Korea-but exploitative companies always find loopholes).

When the outgoing and headstrong young woman commits suicide, a female police detective is assigned to the case. The trajectory of her investigation takes up the second half of the film. The deeper she digs, the more insidious the implications…and this begins to step on lot of toes, including her superiors in the department. Jung draws parallels between the stories of the student and the detective investigating her death; both are assertive, principled women with the odds stacked against them. Ultimately, they’re tilting at windmills in a society driven by systemic corruption, predatory capitalism, and a patriarchal hierarchy.

Norma Rae – Martin Ritt’s 1979 film about a minimum-wage textile worker (Sally Field) turned union activist helped launch what I refer to as the “Whistle-blowing Working Mom” genre (Silkwood, Erin Brockovich, etc).

Field gives an outstanding performance (and deservedly picked up a Best Actress Oscar) as the eponymous heroine who gets fired up by a passionate labor organizer from NYC (Ron Leibman, in his best role). Inspiring and empowering, bolstered by a fine screenplay (by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr.) and a great supporting cast that includes Beau Bridges, Pat Hingle and Barbara Baxley.

The Old Oak – The bookend of a triptych of working-class dramas set in Northeast England (preceded by I, Daniel Blake in 2016 and Sorry We Missed You! in 2019), Ken Loach’s 2024 drama marks the 87-year-old director’s 28^th film.

The story (scripted by Paul Laverty) is set in 2016, in an unnamed “pit town” on the Northeast coast of England, and centers on TJ (Dave Turner), who is barely making ends meet as the owner and proprietor of The Old Oak pub. He inherited the pub from his late mother, who had invested in the property with the settlement money she had received after TJ’s father died in a mining accident. TJ himself began working in the local mine just before a major strike in the mid-80s. After the mine closed, he threw himself into community organizing. Depressed over a broken marriage, he’s become more withdrawn in recent years.

TJ was born and raised in the village, so he’s known the pub’s hardcore regulars since his school days. Many of them worked alongside TJ in the mine, and are suffering similar economic hardships, living off modest pensions or on the dole. You get the impression daily life for the town’s residents has become predictably drab; a reliable disappointment. In addition to providing a cozy space where they can toss back a pint or two and forget their problems, The Old Oak has become the de facto community center.

One day, a busload of Syrian refugees appears and disembarks in the center of town. Unfortunately, not all the locals appear willing to roll out the welcome wagon. When xenophobic catcalling escalates into a scuffle that results in a young Syrian woman’s camera getting damaged, TJ intervenes and defuses the situation. TJ learns that Yara (Ebla Mari) has picked up her English skills from working as a volunteer in a refugee camp in Jordan. The camera is her most prized possession, as it was given to her by her father, who is imprisoned back in Syria. TJ and Yara strike up a friendship that fuels the heart of the narrative.

The Old Oak is rife with Loach’s trademarks; not the least of which is giving his cast plenty of room to breathe. The entire ensemble (which ranges from first-time film actors to veteran players) delivers relatable, naturalistic performances. Hovering somewhere between Do the Right Thing and Ikuru, The Old Oak is raw, uncompromising, and genuinely moving (so rare at the multiplex nowadays), with an uplifting message of hope and reconciliation. If this is indeed its director’s swan song-what a lovely, compassionate note to go out on. (Full review)

On the Waterfront – “It wuz you, Chahlee.” The betrayal! And the pain. It’s all there on Marlon Brando’s face as he delivers one of the most oft-quoted monologues in cinema history. Brando leads an exemplary cast that includes Rod Steiger, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden and Eva Marie Saint in this absorbing portrait of a New York dock worker who takes a virtual one-man stand against a powerful and corrupt union official. The trifecta of Brando’s iconic performance, Elia Kazan’s direction, and Budd Schulberg’s well-constructed screenplay adds up to one of the finest American social dramas of the 1950s.

Roger and Me – While our favorite lib’rul agitprop director has made a number of films addressing the travails of wage slaves and ever-appalling indifference of the corporate masters who grow fat off their labors, Michael Moore’s low-budget 1989 debut film remains his best (and is on the list of the top 25 highest-grossing docs of all time).

Moore may have not been the only resident of Flint, Michigan scratching his head over GM’s local plant shutdown in the midst of record profits for the company, but he was the one with the chutzpah (and a camera crew) to make a beeline straight to the top to demand an explanation. His target? GM’s chairman, Roger Smith. Does he bag him? Watch it and find out. An insightful portrait of working class America that, like most of his subsequent films, can be at once harrowing and hilarious, yet hopeful and humanistic.

Silkwood– The tagline for this 1983 film was intriguing: “On November 13^th, 1974, Karen Silkwood, an employee of a nuclear facility, left to meet with a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there.” One might expect a riveting conspiracy thriller to ensue; however what director Mike Nichols and screenwriters Nora Ephron and Alice Arden do deliver is an absorbing character study of an ordinary working-class woman who performed an act of extraordinary courage which may have led to her untimely demise.

Meryl Streep delivers a typically masterful performance as Silkwood, who worked as a chemical tech at an Oklahoma facility that manufactured plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods. On behalf of her union (and based on her own observations) Silkwood testified before the AEC in 1974, blowing the whistle on health and safety issues at her plant. Shortly afterwards, she tested positive for an unusually high level of plutonium contamination. Silkwood alleged malicious payback from her employers, while they countered that she had engineered the scenario herself.

Later that year, on the last night of her life, she was in fact on her way to meeting with a Times reporter, armed with documentation to back her claims, when she was killed after her car ran off the road. Nichols stays neutral on the conspiratorial whispers; but still delivers the goods, thanks in no small part to his exemplary cast, including Kurt Russell (as Silkwood’s husband), and Cher (who garnered critical raves and a Golden Globe) as their housemate.

Sullivan’s Travels — A deft mash-up of romantic screwball comedy, Hollywood satire, road movie and class warfare drama from writer-director Preston Sturges.

Joel McCrea is pitch-perfect as a director of goofy populist comedies who yearns to make a “meaningful” film. Racked with guilt about the comfortable bubble his Hollywood success has afforded him and determined to learn firsthand how the other half lives, he hits the road with no money in his pocket and masquerades as a railroad tramp (to the chagrin of his handlers).

He is joined along the way by an aspiring actress (Veronica Lake, in one of her best comic performances). His voluntary crash-course in “social realism” turns into much more than he had originally bargained for. Lake and McCrea have wonderful chemistry. Many decades later, the Coen Brothers co-opted the title of the fictional “film within the film” here: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Working Man – Even during “normal” times, losing a job can be traumatic; especially for career employees in traditional blue-collar manufacturing jobs who get blindsided by unexpected factory shutdowns. Such is the lot of the Every Man protagonist in writer-director Robert Jury’s 2020 drama.

His name is Allery Parkes (Peter Gerety). Allery has been working at the same factory most of his adult life, living quietly with his devoted wife Iola (Talia Shire) in a small (unidentified) rust belt town (maybe in Illinois). As the film opens, Allery wearily un-crumples himself from his bed in the manner that weary elderly folks do. He goes through his morning ablutions, slaps together a Braunschweiger sandwich on white bread (no condiments), nods goodbye to his wife and dutifully sets off on his morning walk to work, replete with thermos and lunch pail.

Not unlike Allery himself, who not so much walks as waddles due to his time-worn hips, this is a town obviously on its last legs. Abandoned buildings abound, many adorned with “for lease by owner” signs. Allery works at a factory that manufactures plastic…widgets?

Sadly, the factory is closing, and this is to be the last shift for Allery and his co-workers. They are instructed to knock off early, line up for final paychecks, then sent off on their (not so) merry way. However, Allery is determined to finish out his full shift, to the chagrin of his supervisor-who nonetheless understands the gesture and lets Allery exit the stage with dignity intact.

Without giving too much away, suffice it to say that while the factory has shut down, Allery is not ready to rest on his laurels. One day (to the puzzlement and concern of his wife and neighbors) Allery sets off as he has for decades, thermos and lunch pail in hand.

What’s he up to? As this was the last operating factory in town…where is Allery headed?

For that matter, with 90 minutes more to fill-where is this story headed? I’m not telling.

For those who may currently find themselves in a situation like Allery’s, the film may deliver a shot in the arm that they could use right about now; perhaps a glimmer of hope that all is not lost, that this too shall soon pass …or at the very least, an affirmation of the dignity of work.

Previous posts with related themes:

The Big Scary ‘S’ Word

Martin Eden and Mank

Top 10 Great Depression Films

Capital in the Twenty-first Century

Rush Hour

Antarctica: A Year on Ice

Lula, Son of Brazil

Reds and The Internationale

Kleptocracy Now: A Top 1% List

An Elpee’s-worth of Covers: A Labor Day Mixtape

Documentary, Movie Movie, On Politics, On Pop Culture

Tribeca 2026: Hollywood Does Abortion (***)

June 14, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted at Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 13, 2026)

Considering the complexity of the topic, it’s amazing how much ground this documentary (directed by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater and Mike Attie) covers in 95 minutes. The film examines how abortion has been depicted in TV shows and films over the 50+ years since Roe vs. Wade (let’s not mention 2022).

The starting point is the groundbreaking 1972 2-part episode of Norman Lear’s sitcom Maude, in which the 47 year-old lead character deals with a surprise pregnancy (“Maude’s Dilemma”). Other touchstones include Dirty Dancing and Juno (my 2007 review).

As you watch a plethora of clips, you realize that, more often than not, it’s been a case of the tail wagging the dog; and at times the misinformation approaches Reefer Madness-level hysteria. There are no easy solutions to resolving the polarization on this issue; and the filmmakers wisely don’t try to provide any. However, they do offer food for thought, which will hopefully encourage some productive dialog.

Behind the Music, Documentary, On Music

Tribeca 2026: Earth, Wind, and Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s the Weight of the World) (****)

June 14, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 13, 2026)

As a self-proclaimed, smarty-pants “musicologist”, I thought I already knew everything there was to know about the wildly successful pop-funk institution Earth, Wind, and Fire. I was wrong. In his absorbing documentary (this year’s Opening Night world premiere), musician and filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Summer of Soul, Sly Lives!) takes a deep dive into the group’s evolution and flowering, tracing both its musical and spiritual roots.

The lion’s share of screen time is devoted to the group’s late founder and bandleader Maurice White, an ambitious, dynamic and (as it turns out) somewhat complicated and enigmatic individual. I’ll admit that I had no idea White played drums in the Ramsey Lewis Trio from 1966 until 1970 (when he left to form the first iteration of Earth, Wind and Fire). The most fascinating revelation for me was White’s embrace of Afro-futurism, and how he incorporated it into the group’s ethos (while the two bandleaders’ musical styles were quite different, I was struck by a number of similarities with free jazz pioneer Sun Ra’s journey).

The vibe is largely joyful and celebratory, but this is no hagiography. Former group members pull no punches about how mercurial and controlling White could be; some recall how they were made to feel less like creative collaborators and more like employees. Still, they all acknowledge White’s total commitment to his musical vision and how he tirelessly strove for excellence. Inspiring, moving, and packed with jams from a top-shelf catalog. (Now streaming on HBO/MAX).

Documentary, On Politics, Politics

Tribeca 2026: Micronations (***)

June 5, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

Give some people an inch, and they think they’re a ruler. Yes, I know…you rolled out of your crib the first time you heard that one. Still, I got a few genuine chuckles out of Joe Kowalski’s lighthearted study of a subculture comprised of self-appointed potentates with handles like Queen Carolyn, Grand Duke Travis, Prince Phil, King Earnest, and President Kevin.

These heads of state don’t wage wars or rule their people with an iron fist; their sovereign territories range in size from a backyard mini-kingdom to the sprawling 11 square acre Republic of Molossia (nestled somewhere in the Nevada desert). These “micronations” aren’t members of the U.N.-but their rulers do attend occasional summit meetings that are really closer in spirit to Star Trek fan conventions.

That’s not a putdown; as George Carlin once said: “If people stand in a circle long enough, they’ll eventually begin to dance.” Everybody wants to belong, to connect, to have a legacy; and that’s what makes this affectionate, non-judgemental portrait so relatable.

Documentary, Drama, Rock 'n' Roll, Sci-Fi

Instant International Film Festival

June 1, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 30, 2026)

Ah, Summertime …when the livin’ is easy and the movin’- pitcher Pickens are Slim:

Now, I have no personal beef with crowd-pleasing spectacles centering on video game characters, supernatural toys, hitchhiking demons, sheep detectives, the Star Wars universe, the world of high fashion, or the planet of rocky aliens-but if you are in the mood for something more off the beaten path that, you know …isn’t primarily targeting 15 year-old males-summer movie season can be exasperating.

If you are of like mind, no worries. I’ve been covering film festivals for Hullabaloo since 2006. So if you’d rather pass on Indy Jones and satisfy your “indie” Jones instead, I’ve combed the archives and curated a “Best of the Festivals Festival” that you can program from the comfort of your living room (since its acronym is BOFF, I thought it best not to use that as a header).

These 15 fine selections are all available via various platforms. Add popcorn and enjoy!

Another Earth (USA, 2011) – Writer-director Mike Cahill’s auspicious narrative feature debut concerns an M.I.T.-bound young woman (co-scripter Brit Marling) who makes a fateful decision to get behind the wheel after a few belts. The resultant tragedy kills two people, and leaves the life of the survivor, a music composer (William Mapother) in shambles. After serving prison time, the guilt-wracked young woman, determined to do penance, ingratiates herself into the widower’s life (he doesn’t realize who she is). Complications ensue.

Another Earth is a “sci-fi” film mostly in the academic sense; don’t expect to see CGI aliens in 3-D. Orbiting somewhere in proximity of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, its concerns are more metaphysical than astrophysical. And not unlike a Tarkovsky film, it demands your full and undivided attention. Prepare to have your mind blown.

Bad Black (Uganda, 2016) – Some films defy description. This is one of them. Written, directed, filmed, and edited by Ugandan action movie auteur Nabwana I.G.G.at his self-proclaimed “Wakaliwood studios” (essentially his house in the slums of Wakaliga), it’s best described as Kill Bill meets Slumdog Millionaire, with a kick-ass heroine bent on revenge. Despite a low budget and a high body count, it’s winningly ebullient and self-referential, with a surprising amount of social realism regarding slum life packed into its 68 minutes. The Citizen Kane of African commando vengeance flicks.

Becoming Who I Was (South Korea, 2016) – Until credits rolled for this South Korean entry by co-directors Chang-Yong Moon and Jeon Jin, I was unsure whether I’d seen a beautifully cinematic documentary, or a narrative film with amazingly naturalistic performances. Either way, I experienced the most compassionate, humanist study this side of Ozu.

Turns out, it’s all quite real, and an obvious labor of love by the film makers, who went to Northern India and Tibet to document young “Rinpoche” Angdu Padma and his mentor/caregiver for 8 years as they struggle hand to mouth and strive to fulfill the boy’s destiny (he is believed to have been a revered Buddhist teacher in a past life). A moving journey (in both the literal and spiritual sense) that has a lot to say about the meaning of love and selflessness.

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (USA, 2012) – Founded in 1971 by singer-guitarist Chris Bell and ex-Box Tops lead singer/guitarist Alex Chilton, the Beatle-esque Big Star was a musical anomaly in their hometown of Memphis, which was only the first of many hurdles this talented band was to face during their brief, tumultuous career. Now considered one of the seminal influences on the power pop genre, the band was largely ignored by record buyers during their heyday (despite critical acclaim from the likes of Rolling Stone).

Then, in the mid-1980s, a cult following steadily began to build around the long-defunct outfit after college radio darlings like R.E.M., the Dbs and the Replacements began lauding them as an inspiration. In this fine rockumentary, director Drew DeNicola also tracks the lives of the four members beyond the 1974 breakup, which is the most riveting (and heart wrenching) part of the tale. Pure nirvana for power-pop aficionados.

Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road (USA, 2021) – It’s been a long, strange trip for Beach Boys founder/primary songwriter Brian Wilson. After a 2-year streak of hit singles about sun, surf, cars and girls (beginning with the 1963 release of “Surfin’ U.S.A.”), Wilson hit a wall. The pressures of touring, coupled with his experimentation with LSD and his increasing difficulty reconciling the heavenly voices in his head led to a full scale nervous breakdown (first in a series).

Still, he managed to hold the creeping madness at bay long enough to produce the most innovative work of his career (Pet Sounds, in 1966). Wilson’s roller coaster ride was only beginning, with a number of well-documented ups and downs (personal and professional); but his unique creative faculties remained intact. Considering what he has been through, it is amazing Wilson is even alive to tell the tale.

Brent Wilson’s documentary borrows the “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” concept, following Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine and Brian Wilson as they cruise around L.A., listening to Beach Boys tunes. Fine gently prompts Wilson to reminisce about the personal significance of various stops along the way. Most locales prompt fond memories; others clearly bring Wilson’s psyche back to dark places he’d sooner forget. What keeps the film from feeling exploitative is the fact that Wilson demonstratively trusts Fine (they are longtime friends). A sometimes sad, but ultimately moving portrait.

Drunken Birds (Canada, 2021) – Ivan Grbovic’s languidly paced, beautifully photographed culture clash/class war drama (Canada’s 2022 Oscar submission) concerns a Mexican cartel worker who finds migrant work in Quebec while seeking a long-lost love. Grbovic co-wrote with Sara Mishara. Mishara pulls double duty as DP; her painterly cinematography adds to the echoes of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven. It also reminded me of Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm; a network narrative about people desperately seeking emotional connection amid a minefield of miscommunication.

Hacking Hate (Denmark/Norway/Sweden, 2024) – Move over, Lisbeth Salandar…there’s a new hacker in town, and she’s stirring up a hornet’s nest of wingnuts. Simon Klose’s timely documentary follows award-winning Swedish journalist My Vingren as she meticulously constructs a fake online profile, posing as a male white supremacist. Her goal is to smoke out a possible key influencer and glean how he and others fit into right-wing extremist recruiting.

Vingren is like a one-woman Interpol; her investigation soon points her to U.S.-based extremist networks as well, leading her to consult with whistle-blower Anika Collier Navaroli (the former Twitter employee who was instrumental in getting Trump booted off the platform) and Imrab Ahmed (another one of Elon Musk’s least-favorite people, he was sued by the X CEO for exposing the rampant hate speech on the platform).

This isn’t a video game; considering the inherently belligerent nature of the extremist culture she is exposing, Vingren is taking considerable personal risk in this type of investigative journalism (she’s much braver than I am). Especially chilling is the shadowy figure at the center of her investigation, who is like a character taken straight out of a Frederick Forsyth novel.

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (USA/Canada, 2021) – Several years ago, I saw Tom Jones at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Naturally, he did his cavalcade of singalong hits, but an unexpected moment occurred mid-set, when he launched into Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song”. Jones’ performance felt so intimate, confessional and emotionally resonant that you’d think Cohen had tailored it just for him. When Jones sang, I was born like this, I had no choice/I was born with the gift of a golden voice, I “got” it. Why shouldn’t Tom Jones cover a Cohen song? I later learned “Tower of Song” has also been covered by the likes of U2, Nick Cave, and The Jesus and Mary Chain.

A truly great song tends to transcend its composer, taking on a life of its own. The reasons why can be as enigmatic as the act of creation itself. In an archival clip in Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s beautifully constructed documentary, the late Cohen muses, “If I knew where songs came from, I’d go there more often.” Using the backstory of his beloved composition “Hallelujah” as a catalyst, the filmmakers take us “there”, rendering a moving, spiritual portrait of a poet, a singer-songwriter, and a seeker.

I Like Movies (Canada, 2023) – Too call Lawrence (Isaiah Lehtinen), the 17-year-old hero of writer-director Chandler Levack’s coming of age dramedy a “film freak” is an understatement. When his best bud ribs him by exclaiming in mock horror, “I can’t believe you never masturbate!” Lawrence’s responds with a shrug, “I’ve tried to, but…I’d rather watch Goodfellas or something.” Levack’s film (set in the early aughts) abounds with such cringe-inducing honesty; eliciting the kind of nervous chuckles you get from watching, say, Todd Solondz’s Happiness (a film that Lawrence enthusiastically champions to a hapless couple in a video store who can’t decide on what they want to see).

Lawrence, who dresses (and pontificates) like a Canadian version of Ignatius J. Reilly, is obsessed with two things: Paul Thomas Anderson’s oeuvre, and the goal of getting into NYU film school in the fall (despite not even having been accepted yet, and that he’s not likely to save up the $90,000 tuition working as a minimum wage video store clerk over the summer). Wry, observant, and emotionally resonant, with wonderful performances by all.

he Integrity of Joseph Chambers (USA, 2022) – This psychological thriller has a slow burn, but really gets under your skin. Early one morning, a white-collar father of two (Clayne Crawford) rolls out of his warm bed and readies himself to go deer hunting. His half-awake (and concerned) wife reminds him he has never gone hunting by himself and has limited experience with firearms. Undeterred, he insists that the best way to get experience is to “just go out and do it.” After stopping at a friend’s house to borrow his pickup truck (and a rifle), he heads for the woods. What could possibly go wrong? Anchored by Crawford’s intense performance, writer-director Robert Machoian has fashioned a riveting tale infused with a dash of Dostoevsky and a dollop of Deliverance.

The Last Film Show (India, 2021) – Child actor Bhavin Rabari gives an extraordinary performance in writer-director Pan Nalin’s moving drama. Set in contemporary India in 2010, the story centers on Samay, a cinema-obsessed 9-year-old boy who lives with his parents and younger sister. He is frequently beaten by his father, who is embittered by having to support his family as a railway station “tea boy” after losing his cattle farm. He forbids Samay to watch movies unless they are “religious” in nature.

This of course drives Samay to play hooky from school and sneak into the local theater whenever possible. Eventually he befriends the projectionist, who takes Samay on as a kind of protégé, in exchange for the delicious school lunches that Samay’s mother packs for him.

There are obvious parallels with Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso and Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, but Nalin puts his own unique stamp on a familiar narrative. Gorgeously photographed and beautifully acted, this is a colorful and poetic love letter to the movies.

Love Spreads (USA/UK, 2020) – I’m a sucker for stories about the creative process, because as far as I’m concerned, that’s what separates us from the animals (even if my “inner Douglas Adams” persists in raising the possibility that “there’s an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out.”). Welsh writer-director Jamie Adams’ dramedy is right in that wheelhouse.

“Glass Heart” is an all-female rock band who have holed up Led Zep style in an isolated country cottage to record a follow-up to their well-received debut album. Everyone is raring to go, the record company is bankrolling the sessions, and the only thing missing is…some new songs. The pressure has fallen on lead singer and primary songwriter Kelly (Alia Shawcat) to cough them up, pronto.

Unfortunately, the dreaded “sophomore curse” has landed squarely on her shoulders, and she is completely blocked. The inevitable tensions and ego clashes arise as her three band mates and manager struggle to stay sane as Kelly awaits the Muse. It’s a little bit This is Spinal Tap, with a dash of Love and Mercy-bolstered by a smart script, wonderful performances, and catchy original songs.

Monkey Warfare (Canada, 2006) – Written and directed by Reginald Harkema, Monkey Warfare is a nice little cinematic bong hit of low-key political anarchy. The film stars Don McKellar and Tracy Wright (the Hepburn and Tracy of quirky Canadian cinema) as a longtime couple who are former lefty radical activists-turned “off the grid” Toronto slackers.

When McKellar loans the couple’s free-spirited young pot dealer and budding anarchist (Nadia Litz) his treasured “mint copy” of a book about the Baader-Meinhof Gang, he unintentionally triggers a chain of events that will reawaken long dormant passions between the couple (amorous and political) and profoundly affect the lives of all three protagonists.

Monkey Warfare is not exactly a comedy, but Harkema’s script is awash in trenchant humor. If you liked Jeremy Kagan’s The Big Fix, Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty, or Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (my review), I think this film should be right in your wheelhouse.

Nowhere Boy (UK, 2009) – There’s nary a tricksy or false note in this little gem from U.K. director Sam Taylor-Wood. Aaron Johnson gives a terrific, James Dean-worthy performance as a teenage John Lennon. The story focuses on a specific, crucially formative period of the musical icon’s life beginning just prior to his first meet-up with Paul McCartney, and ending on the eve of the “Hamburg period”.

The story is not so much about the Fabs, however, as it is about the complex and mercurial dynamic of the relationship between John, his Aunt Mimi (Kirstin Scott Thomas) and his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff). The entire cast is excellent, but Scott Thomas (one of the best actresses strolling the planet) handily walks away with the film as the woman who raised John from childhood.

Polisse (France, 2011) – Winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2011, this is a docudrama-style police procedural in the tradition of Jules Dassin’s Naked City. You do have to pay very close attention, however, because it seems like there are about 8 million stories (and just as many characters) crammed into the 127 minutes of French director Maiwenn’s complex film.

Using a clever “hall of mirrors” device, the director casts herself in the role of a “fly on the wall” photojournalist, and it is through this character’s lens that we observe the dedicated men and women who work in the Child Protective Unit arm of the French police. As you can imagine, these folks are dealing with the absolute lowest of the already lowest criminal element of society, day in and day out, and it does take its psychic toll on them.

Still, there’s a surprising amount of levity sprinkled throughout Maiwenn’s dense screenplay (co-written by Emmanuelle Bercot), which helps temper the heartbreak of seeing children in situations that they would never have to suffer through in a just world. The film fizzles a bit at the end, and keeping track of all the story lines is challenging, but it’s worthwhile, with remarkable performances from the ensemble.

Settlers (UK, 2021) – Writer-director Wyatt Rockefeller’s sci-fi drama is Once Upon a Time in the West on Mars. The story centers on 9-year-old Remmy (Brooklyn Prince), who lives with her settler parents (Sofia Boutella and Jonny Lee Miller) at a remote homestead. Following an attack by hostile parties and subsequent arrival of a drifter who claims that the homestead rightfully belongs to him, Sofia’s life (as well as the family’s dynamic) changes drastically. The story takes place over a 9-year period; with Nell Tiger Free playing 18-year-old Remmy. Not wholly original, but smartly written and well-acted, with great production design and cinematography (exteriors were filmed in South Africa).

Sorry, Baby (USA, 2025) – Mumblecore is alive and well, as evidenced by SIFF’s 2025 Closing Night Gala selection. Written, directed and starring Eva Victor (who you may recognize from Showtime’s Billions) this dramedy is a sometimes meandering but generally affable portrait of an independent young woman’s long recovery in the aftermath of a traumatic betrayal of trust. Victor slowly reveals her character’s arc in episodic fashion, using a non-linear timeline. Solid performances all around in a story that chugs along at the speed of life. The film left me thinking about something Mr. Rogers once said…“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” He was right, you know.

Trollhunter (Norway, 2010) – Like previous entries in the “found footage” sub-genre, Trollhunter features an unremarkable, no-name cast; but then again you don’t really require the services of an Olivier when most of the dialog is along the lines of “Where ARE you!?”, “Jesus, look at the size of that fucking thing!”, “RUN!!!” or the ever popular “AieEEE!”.

Seriously, though- what I like about Andre Ovredal’s film (aside from the surprisingly convincing monsters) is the way he cleverly weaves wry commentary on religion and politics into his narrative. The story concerns three Norwegian film students who initially set off to do an expose on illegal bear poaching, but become embroiled with a clandestine government program to rid Norway of some nasty trolls who have been terrorizing the remote areas of the country (you’ll have to suspend your disbelief as to how the government has been able to “cover up” 200 foot tall monsters rampaging about). The “trollhunter” himself is quite a character. Not your typical creature feature!

U Are the Universe (Ukraine, 2025) – As Elton John sang, it’s lonely out in space. Especially if there’s no Earth to come home to. Andriy (Volodymyr Kravchuk) is the pilot on a garbage scow loaded with nuclear waste destined for disposal on one of Jupiter’s moons (it’s just his job, 5 days a week). When he gleans that the world’s entire population has been wiped out by a cataclysmic event, he’s saddled by the realization he may be the last living human in the universe.

Considering that there is an ample yet finite supply of food on the ship, Andriy has calculated he can survive for a while, but obviously not as long as he would have expected, had the Earth not been destroyed. His growing sense of existential despair is kept somewhat in check by the presence of his onboard AI technical assistant/personality-enhanced companion Maxim, which at least gives him “someone” to interact with.

Then, one day, out of the vacuum, a glimmer of hope. He receives a voice-only communication from a Frenchwoman named Catherine, who tells him she’s the sole occupant of a space station on a collision course with Saturn (she figures she only has a couple weeks before there’s an earth-shattering kaboom). Andriy now has a raison d’être; he immediately sets course for a rescue mission (despite Maxim’s dire warnings about his ship’s limited power reserves).

While this may be familiar territory (with shades of 2001, Solaris, Silent Running, and Miracle Mile), Ukrainian director Pavlo Ostrikov’s film (which was in the midst of wrapping production in Kyiv in 2022 as Putin began sending salvos of missiles into the city) is armed with a smart script, tight direction, a nuanced performance by Kravchuk, and a beautiful statement on love, compassion and self-sacrifice-adding up to one of the best genre entries I’ve seen in some time.

Waves (Czech Republic, 2025) – While it is set on the eve of the 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, in some respects writer-director Jiří Mádl’s riveting political thriller could have been ripped from today’s headlines.

In 1967 Prague, a young man named Tomás (Vojtěch Vodochodský) lives in a cramped apartment with his younger brother Paja (Ondřej Stupka). Tomás is Paja’s legal guardian. The conservative and apolitical Tomás is concerned about rebellious Paja’s increasing involvement with an anti-regime activist group. One day, he is chagrined to learn that Paja has sneaked off to an open audition for a job as an assistant to a popular but controversial radio journalist. Tomás rushes down to the station to intervene, but stumbles into landing the gig himself.

While he cannot foresee it, Tomás is about to get swept up into the vortex of tumultuous political upheaval in his country, culminating in the August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces (the film is based in part on the rousing story of how Czech Radio managed to keep broadcasting, even after Soviet troops forced their way in and seized control of the main studios).

Waves plays like a mashup of Three Days of the Condor and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and is a welcome throwback to films that hit that sweet spot between historical sweep and intimate drama. Oh, and don’t forget to support your favorite independent journalists, because democracy dies in…well, you know. Full review

Behind the Music, Documentary, Radio Biz, Rock 'n' Roll

SIFF 2026: Radioheart: The Drive and Times of DJ Kevin Cole (***)

May 17, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 16, 2026)

First, full disclosure…from my 2008 review of The Gits:

In the fall of 1992, I moved to Seattle with no particular action plan, and stumbled into a job hosting the Monday-Friday morning drive show on KCMU (now KEXP) , a mostly volunteer, low-wattage, listener supported FM station broadcasting from the UW campus with the hopeful slogan: “Where the music matters.” I remember joking to my friends that my career was going in reverse order, because after 18 years of commercial radio experience, here I was at age 36, finally getting my first part-time college radio gig. I loved it. […]

What I didn’t realize until several years following my 7-month stint there, is that KCMU was semi-legendary in college/alt-underground circles; not only was it literally the first station in the country to “break” Nirvana, but counted members of Mudhoney and Pearl Jam among former DJ staff. I was just a music geek, enthusiastically exploring somebody else’s incredibly cool record collection, whilst taking my listeners along for the ride; in the meantime I obliviously became a peripheral participant in Seattle’s early 90’s “scene”.

And now, I find myself in 2026, writing a review of a documentary about the 25-year tenure of a popular KEXP DJ who started his gig at my old alma mater 7 years after my stint (even on a good day, Time is cruel).

Peter Hilgendorf and Andrew Franks co-directed this absorbing portrait of KEXP’s longtime afternoon drive host Kevin Cole. I’ve often tuned in to his show over the years and enjoyed his knowledgeable, laid-back on-air persona and thoughtful music curation, but had no inkling of his fascinating backstory.

As it turns out, Cole is like the Zelig of alt-music, starting with his involvement in the Minneapolis underground nightclub scene in the ’70s. More specifically, he was a popular house DJ at the legendary First Avenue, right at the time Prince was first making his mark at the venue (in the film, Cole recalls the time the artist shyly approached him at the club and asked him to DJ one of his house parties).

In 1994, Cole was one of the founders of the short-lived but highly influential “REV105”, a Twin Cities-based alternative music FM station. It was a “commercial” radio station, but its programming philosophy was closer in spirit to the free-form, music community-oriented “underground” FM stations that flourished in the late 60s and early 70s. When he moved to Seattle in the early 2000s, he briefly worked for Amazon music.

What emerges is an inspiring portrait of someone whose enthusiasm for discovering and sharing new music is showing no signs of waning. And it’s particularly heartening to learn that rumors about the death of true community radio have been greatly exaggerated.

Documentary

SIFF 2026: Ghost in the Machine (***)

May 11, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

I swear, it seems like you can’t swing a dead Cat-5 around these days without hitting another hand-wringing report about our imminent enslavement by A-I (or, at the very least, a trip to the unemployment line). Not to mention environmental concerns that stem from massive amounts of electricity being sucked from the grid in order to power the huge data centers.

Indeed, those are all legitimate concerns, but thankfully not the main focus of Valerie Veatch’s documentary, which doesn’t extrapolate on A-I’s application but rather, the makeup of its disposition.

To wit: Is A-I racist?

You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that there is a sizable overlap in the Venn diagram connecting the development of A-I with the history of eugenics theory. Veatch devotes a good chunk of the film to this aspect. It’s a fascinating (if disturbing) history lesson.

It gets worse. The biggest revelation for me was a segment revealing what may be the A-I techbros’ dirtiest little secret: outsourcing and exploiting workers in African nations to do data labeling and content moderation (all at poverty wages). The interviews with workers are eye-opening…and enraging. Welcome to digital colonialism.

While it may not be the definitive overview of the A-I revolution, it will give you pause for thought the next time you cozy up on the couch to debate with Claude about whether it was Han or Greedo who shot first.

Documentary, On Politics

SIFF 2026: The Seoul Guardians (****)

May 9, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

Winston Churchill once said: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.” It’s tough to argue with that, especially after watching one of the most gripping political thrillers I’ve seen in some time. Actually, The Seoul Guardians is a documentary; but no less of a nail-biting thrill ride than John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May or Costa-Gavras’ Z.

On December 3, 2024, democratically elected South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, alleging political collusion between opposition party members and the North Korean government. Almost immediately, something truly extraordinary occurred- citizens, journalists, and parliamentarians spontaneously leapt into action (spoiler alert: democracy won the day).

You likely already know the gist of the story (it was all over the news), but the most dramatic and decisive moments took place inside (and outside) of the National Assembly chamber, during the course of one evening. Co-directors Jong-woo Kim, Shin-Wan Kim, and Chul-Young Cho have masterfully assembled a riveting, “fly on the wall” narrative, culled from reams of real-time footage recorded by citizens and journalists as the events of the night unfolded.

It’s like watching January 6th in reverse. Instead of an aberrant president inciting a mob of citizens to storm Congress in a brazen attempt to stop legislators from doing their jobs (thereby thwarting the democratic process), here you have a mob of citizens storming their National Assembly to help protect their elected representatives from the soldiers sent by an aberrant president to stop legislators from doing their jobs.

We should be so lucky.

Documentary, On Politics, War

SIFF 2026: Birds of War (***)

May 9, 2026 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

Filmmakers Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak share much more than the directing credits for this autobiographical documentary-they are longtime professional colleagues…and life partners. Those various degrees of collaboration didn’t hatch all at once; their “against the odds” relationship has rendered a love story as deeply personal and politically expansive as Reds or Doctor Zhivago.

Lebanese journalist Janay Boulos was working as a producer for the BBC (based in London) when the Syrian revolution exploded in the spring of 2011 after the brutal Assad regime reacted to widespread street protests with lethal force. At the time, Syrian activist and cameraman Abd Alkader Habak was living in Aleppo. Since reporters were forbidden from entering the city, Boulos needed a source who was already on the ground. Hence (as they say)…it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Drawn from 13 years worth of personal archives, the resulting film delivers a real-life tale of love and war that is by turns touching and harrowing, and ultimately…hopeful.