Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Ratings (out of five): ***

Something's Gonna Live is filmmaker Daniel Raim's follow-up to his Man on Lincoln's Nose, and once again looks at former Hollywood production designer Robert Boyle, now 97 during the filming of this documentary. It's a love letter to a Hollywood long since gone with some of its surviving members, a sweet, poignant little portrait of a neglected artist. If it has a bit of a home movie feel to it and doesn't have a great deal of dramatic energy to it, for anyone who considers them an aficionado of Old Hollywood, it's very worthy viewing.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Ratings (out of five): ****

Paul Goodman didn't change my life. Unfortunately. But I wish he had. Born 30 years before me (in 1911), he published his famous work, Growing Up Absurd, around the time I was attending a Christian Science school (Principia College), a place at which a fellow like Goodman -- proudly bisexual and "out" (before the use of that word had even come into being!) -- would not have found favor. Once I abandoned that foolish religion and began to grow up (absurd or not), I did learn something of Goodman and read an occasional essay of his.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Ratings (out of five): ** 1/2

Among its other accomplishments, the new documentary The Swell Season manages very clearly to differentiate fan bases: that of the fans of the 2006 movie Once (which starred the subjects of this new film: Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová), or the fans of the performers themselves. Fans of the former -- such as myself, who found Once a tiny, no-budget marvel with a lovely story, some wonderful songs and a bittersweet ending about as close to perfection as movies get -- can only feel supremely indebted to John Carney, the writer/director of Once, who, probably more than anyone, brought this film to fruition with his sense of pacing, subtlety and story-telling skills.

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Ratings (out of five): ** (round up 1/2 if you're keen on the subject)

Watching the extremely retro documentary The Sons of Tennessee Williams, directed, edited, written and produced by Tim Wolff, it's hard not to wonder at the rather shockingly old-fashioned attitudes, interests, and behavior of the gay denizens of New Orleans and its environs, as they reminisce and ready themselves for a relatively recent Mardi Gras ball.

Granted, this is all about Mardi Gras, a time when letting loose and having fun is evidently paramount. (I have never been to Mardi Gras or to carnival in Rio, so I can't claim to understand what all the fuss is about.) Still, Mr. Wolff's concentration on dressing up in drag as the be-all and end-all of gay liberation seems a bit much. While the press materials hails this as a history of the earliest civil right movement for gays in the U.S.A. -- and time-wise this indeed appears to be true -- the interests of the men shown here seem to begin and end with dressing up in drag and getting away with it. This is certainly a part of gay liberation, for some, but making a whole movie around it is a tad circumscribed, no?