Vickie Hunter and Heather Whinna, the directors and producers of Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?, are nothing if not ambitious and hardworking.

Spending time in the audience and behind the scenes at the Cornerstone Festival in Illinois, along with various band tour stops across the Midwest, the duo have put together a 90-plus-minute "exploration" of punk and indie Christian music. But despite an expansive roster of interview subjects and concert footage, Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? never really makes a cogent point.

One the glaring omissions of Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? is any sort of context. How does independent and punk Christian music fit into the overall music scene? Of the tens of people interviewed for the 95-minute documentary, Dan Sinker of Punk Planet magazine and famed music producer Steve Albini are the...Read the entire review

There are 60 miles or so of highway in between Seattle and Olympia, Wash, an almost straight shot down I-5. Those 60 miles separate two of the most important and influential music scenes of the last 25 years.

Seattle is the best known to the casual music listener; bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam put the city on the map for something other than a lot of rain and the mediocre Seattle Supersonics. But it was a little label that could in Olympia, Wash. that set the stage for the Seattle sound years earlier – and at the epicenter of that was K Records. The Shield Around the K, a reference to the label's insignia, is an interesting look at the formation and early days of the influential label.

While the story is about K Records in general, label co-founder Calvin Johnson gets the lion's share of attention. His band, Beat Happening, was an incredibly influential band in the 1980s, w...Read the entire review

There is a certain forklore behind Boston sports that is almost wholly undeserved. The Celtics is one of the two great franchises in the NBA, sure, and the Bruins has a tremendous history, but the Red Sox are best known for not winning for a very long time and the Patriots have had many more down years than up ones.

City of Champions: The Best of Boston Sports focuses mostly on recent history in order to boost its case for Boston being the quintessential American sports town. But it's mix of C-list celebrities, B-list athletes and homer journalists serve mostly to get in the way of what might as well be an hour-long highlight reel.

Featuring no narration, an incessant soundtrack and loads of highlights, City of Champions showcases the top moments in Boston sports history. The Boston Bruins (NHL), Boston Red Sox (MLB), New England Patriots (NFL) and Boston Celtics (NB...Read the entire review

To call the New York Knicks a "dynasty," as the NBA has done by releasing the team's history in the "NBA Dynasty Series," is a bit of a stretch. The team has two titles to its name, less than any of the other four franchises (Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Philadelphia 76ers) represented in the series. Most seasons, the Knicks are mediocre at best, squeaking into the playoffs and exiting in the first round.

There are, it seems, some advantages to being located in the country's biggest media market. And no, I don't mean the possibly-fixed draft lottery that gave the Knicks the right to draft Patrick Ewing.

Whether the team itself is worthy, The New York Knicks: A Complete History is an incredibly in-depth release, with NBA Entertainment dipping deep into the vaults to come up with footage from every era of the team.

The main feature of the five-disc set...Read the entire review

Only in director/writer Guy Maddin's world would a film containing a hair salon/abortion clinic and hand transplants be called an "autobiography."

Originally conceived as part of an art instillation at the Power Plant Art Gallery in Toronto (and to be viewed in ten six-minute segments through peepholes), Cowards Bend the Knee is a 60-minute head trip, one that "represents" Maddin's life in more of an allegorical manner than a straightforward fact-based approach. While it muddles the details of Maddin's life, it makes for a strangely entertaining, fascinating look at the relationship between man and woman and the attraction to all things "new."

Guy Maddin (Darcy Fehr) is a star player for the Winnipeg Maroons, but his personal life is something less than exemplary. His girlfriend Veronica (Amy Stewart) needs an abortion, his mother is in the hospital, and his eyes are wandering β€...Read the entire review

Jim is the new guy at work. He got a job that is a little above his station – he's a bit green. He makes some mistakes, but also does a lot of things right and brings in a lot of money to the company. He gets a big head, starts copping an attitude and is sent on his way. Nothing unique, right?

In the world of professional wrestling, though, everything – in front of and behind the curtain – is drama. The "Jim" in the above case is Jim Hellwig, better known to the ticket-buying public as the Ultimate Warrior. The company in question is what at the time was known as the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment). And the above situation is now documented by the WWE's DVD release The Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior.

The documentary lays out, in detail, the career of the Ultimate Warrior, starting from his days tag-teaming with Sting, moving through ...Read the entire review

It is hard to really mess up a good script. If the words on the page inspire, the other elements of a film can fall easily into place, whether it be the acting, direction or below-the-line duties.

Twelfth Night would be successful simply based on the script, of course; there's a reason William Shakespeare's works have survived for so long, and this is one of his most-loved stories. But add in fantastic performances and the smooth direction of Royal Shakespeare Company legend Trevor Nunn, and this production becomes the standard-bearer for screen adaptations of the play.

After a shipwreck leaves Viola (Imogen Stubbs) homeless, she poses as a male servant to Count Orsino, a man she fancies, in order to be closer to him. But the plan begins to backfire when the woman Orsino loves – and whom he sends Viola to woo - falls for … Viola, now disguised and going by the name Cesario. <...Read the entire review

The "six pack" is the most important feature of any beach-ready body for guys. It's the portion of the body featured on the cover of just about every fitness magazine, the point of emphasis in any television ad that tries to sell sex to women, and the basis of millions of fad diet and workout programs. For women, the abdominal and stomach area is just as, if not more, "desired," whether it is a chiseled look or just a smaller waist size.

But core strength, having well-developed muscles in the stomach, abdomen and lower back, is important for much more than wooing the opposite sex. Nearly every motion in the body either originates with or uses the muscles in that region. Everything from posture to a proper golf swing is dependent on control over the body's core.

With the obsession over the surface, it's easy to forgive fitness videos like Crunch: Fat Burning Ab Attack for catering ...Read the entire review

Perky instructors, bad generic music and bright, ugly workout clothes – why yes, yes it is a home fitness DVD!

The goal of Crunch: Cardio Dance Blast! is, hopefully, not to fill a previously-ignored niche in the DVD market. There is little here to differentiate this disc from any of the hundreds of other fitness programs on the market. But for what it is, Crunch: Cardio Dance Blast! is, at a minimum, adequate.

If Bally's or Gold's Gym is the McDonald's of the national gym chains, Crunch is the next step up – TGIFriday's, maybe, or Bennigan's. It's slightly more expensive, with slightly better equipment and slightly better group exercise classes.

For Cardio Dance Blast!, Crunch instructor Marie Forleo leads the home sweat-er through an aerobic routine filled with moves such as "Island Jam," "Fast and Funky" and, most emasculating of all, "Diva Dance." Read the entire review

The hip-hop documentary field is littered with poor efforts. Starting with The Show in 1995, most of the efforts are bankrolled by the subjects. This is especially true of straight to DVD releases, such as Hip Hop Story: Dirty South, which manages to spend more time talking about RapRock Records (who?) than Outkast.

The Industry is a pleasant change, thanks to a very focused subject; instead of just being about the sprawling enterprise that is "hip-hop," The Industry is about the manager, the man or woman behind the artists that does everything from deal with the record label to set up release parties.

Narrated by MC Lyte, The Industry shows the viewer what it's like to be in charge of Outkast, like Blue Williams is, when a genr...Read the entire review

For those raised on Star Wars, Star Trek, even The Last Starfighter, the term "science fiction" evokes images of people piloting large ships and spreading good ol' American values across the galaxy to inferior races (then, if you're Captain Kirk, taking their women).

Of course, director/writer/composer Hal Hartley has never been one for conventional definitions. His "science fiction" has less to do with space and more to do with what the future will look like here on earth. The Girl From Monday, which features an early credit that says, "A Science Fiction by Hal Hartley," imagines an America run by marketing. It's an America where the "pursuit of happiness" is, by law, a pursuit of purchasing power.

It is an interesting view of the future, that of a clean, well-kept and wealthy dystopia. Hartley's imagination runs wild throughout The Girl From Monday a...Read the entire review

Maybe it's the accent. Maybe it's his role in the James Bond series as Q, the sophisticated scientist, or in Fawlty Towers as Basil Fawlty, the faux-sophisticated hotel owner. But actor/writer/Python John Cleese just seems like a guy that knows wine, doesn't he?

Oddly enough, he doesn't. Yet here we are anyway, with John Cleese – Wine for the Confused, a chance for him – and, by proxy, us – to learn about all things wine: How it's made, how to describe it and why it costs so much at a restaurant.

The documentary – designed to fit snugly into a two-hour block on the Food Network – features Cleese learning about the terminology used to describe wine (with several friends, including Brendan Fraser), traveling to different wineries on California's central coast and talking about what wine to serve with what dishes.

Having a wine neophyte host like Cleese adds...Read the entire review

I hate the term "one hit wonder."

So many people without a true appreciation for music tend to use the term to label a band that only made it to MTV once – as if the former music channel was the end-all be-all of quality. So many excellent artists have been labeled in such a way – The Cardigans, Jill Sobule and the Verve all made VH-1's list of the greatest one-hit wonders despite having great bodies of work.

So it is we come upon Violent Femmes, a band so many people are willing to write off as "one hit wonders" despite not only a series of good-to-excellent albums, but also a second song ("American Music") that made a pretty good-sized splash.

Permanent Record is a Rhino DVD release celebrating the band's original lineup; drummer Victor DeLorenzo left after the release of 1993's greatest hits album Add It Up. Shot at the Boat House in Norfolk, Va., the live c...Read the entire review

Have you ever tried to actually watch children's television today? Most of it appears to be written by a writing staff dropping acid or people who think kids lack the ability to process anything that isn't hit-over-the-head-with-a-hammer obvious.

Do Not Adjust Your Set, a British television show from the late 1960s, is what children's programming should look like: A show that the family can appreciate together, with clean material and laughs for kids and adults alike.

The five member cast of Do Not Adjust Your Set is a pretty incredible group of talent – Pythons-to-be Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin team up with David Jason and Denise Coffey. The Pythons wrote all of the material, which was good training since Monty Python's Flying Circus premiered five months after the conclusion of Do Not Adjust Your Set.

There are shades of what would ev...Read the entire review

The modern documentary seems to have divided itself into two camps: The Op-Ed (think Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock) and the Feature (think March of the Penguins). The former wants the audience to take action, whether it be protest or boycott. The latter wants the audience to understand, to see something in a new light. It seeks to simply tell a story from beginning to end.

Let the Church Say Amen, a documentary released by indie kings Film Movement, falls squarely into the latter category. It does not argue any point at all or make any statement. Rather, filmmaker David Petersen seems perfectly content to turn on the camera and get out of the way; it is a style that is beneficial to the audience's understanding, but certainly means there is not a tidy ending – or even a feeling of ending – to be found.

World Missions for Christ Church is the homefront for an entire co...Read the entire review

First off, a somewhat-anal correction: The World At Their Feet is subtitled "The Legendary Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team." The "U.S. Women's Soccer Team" still exists, of course. As long as the U.S. Soccer Federation continues to "support" women's soccer in America, there will be a team. The team that this video is referring to is the 1999 version of the squad.

A small error? Perhaps. But it illustrates the major problem with The World At Their Feet: This is a DVD without a market. Hardcore soccer fans will gleam no new information from the one hour presentation, while the zeitgeist that enthralled the casual sports fan (and even some sports haters) has long since passed.

Starting from the roots of the U.S. Women's National Team program in the 1980s, The World At Their Feet examines the growth of the sport and the individual players. The 1991 World Cup win, ...Read the entire review

It's hard to imagine any other network allowing a show solely composed of poetry readings to last three (admittedly shortened) seasons, much less supporting such a show with DVD releases.

Yet once again HBO shows why it has the reputation for being the most daring network in television with Def Poetry Season 3, the third season of the Russell Simmons-backed poetry series that has not only spawned a Broadway show, but has done more to spotlight this form of expression than any other event in recent history (including Jewel's book).

The breakdown of Season 3's episodes:

Episode 1: One of the best episodes ever on the show. Black Ice and Suheir Hammad (the latter may be my favorite Def Poet) both bring strong poems, but it is apoet named Rives that steals the show with a poem about teach self-expression through poetry at a school for the hearing-impaired ("We call the...Read the entire review

Depending on where you lived, they were the Road Warriors or the Legion of Doom. Their toughest foes were the Midnight Express or Demolition. They were good guys or they were bad guys.

But for the 1980s, Hawk and Animal were the pinnacle of tag team professional wrestling. At a time before non-Hulk Hogan wrestlers could be movie stars, the Road Warriors were bigger than life figures in the wrestling game.

Road Warriors takes the viewer on a tour of the group's life, beginning in Minnesota and ending with the death of Hawk in 2003. In usual WWE DVD fashion, the disc is just as attractive, if not more so, for its extras than the main feature.

Meeting first in Minnesota at a gym, Hawk and Animal were never mat technicians. They didn't wear opponents down in the ring. They just beat up whoever got in their way. One of the first teams to combine power and energy in such a way ...Read the entire review

The biggest moment in professional wrestling in the last decade has not happened in front of the camera.

When WCW and ECW each folded, Vince McMahon and the WWE swept in and bought up the remaining assets. That's not just extra ring ropes or turnbuckles, but also the tape libraries of each federation. Now, the WWE essentially owns the televised history of professional wrestling in America.

That has led to some excellent DVD releases over the past few years, highlighting wrestlers and going through their entire careers in ways heretofore considered impossible. Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan, among others, have seen full retrospective releases.

Killing 15 birds with one stone, the latest WWE release, WWE Greatest Wrestling Stars of the 80s, tries to do the same thing for a host of 1980s grapplers. It ends up not being quite as in depth as individual releases would be, but a good ...Read the entire review

Stand-up comedy has become balkanized. The most successful comedy tours of the past few years have been broken down by ethnicity (Original Kings of Comedy, Latin Kings of Comedy), gender (Queens of Comedy) or sexual orientation (Gay Comedy Jam).

Another such comedy-by-interest show, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, brought together four comedians with one trait in common: They are all rednecks. They are all down-home, southern country folks, replete with accents and stories of cars on blocks in the front yard.

Each of the four comics on the Blue Collar tour had careers before the tour became a multimillion-dollar success, the most notable being Jeff Foxworthy and his "You might be a redneck" jokes.

Ron White, Jeff Foxworthy & Bill Engvall - Live from Las Vegas! is a compilation of three stand-up routines from the late 90s, all taped (as implied) in Las Vegas.

It s...Read the entire review

The battle between modern day society and a society based on the tenets of the Muslim faith rages throughout Viva Laldjerie as a woman in her mid-20s, Goucem, and her mother, a retired exotic dancer, fight both for a nightclub and their rights as women.

Nadir Mokneche's distinct point-of-view comes through very early in the film; it is clear that the writer/director sees creeping Muslim fundamentalism as a major threat to society in general and women in particular. The pain caused by such a threat is apparent, and really more of the focus than the nightclub itself.

But there's a thin line between presenting the reality of the situation and presenting anguish for the sake of emotional manipulation. Mokneche crosses that line on a few occasions, and it is easy to tell – it just feels false and out of place.

What is most interesting, though, is how Mokneche treats this soc...Read the entire review

Whether it is a blockbuster such as Thelma and Louise or more independent-minded fare such as the underrated The Business of Strangers, the idea of feminist revenge is a favorite of filmmakers looking to get away from the old Hollywood standard of wilting flower, damsel in distress roles for actresses in dramas and suspense films.

The synopsis of Alexandra's Project sounds like another film in that vein: A housewife takes out her marital frustrations on her hapless husband. But director/writer Rolf de Heer has crafted something different here – on the surface it shares a great deal with the aforementioned films, but instead it becomes a test of how much revenge can be too much – where does revenge stop and simple cruelty start?

Steve works a title-less job in a nameless company, making enough money to support his wife, his son and his daughter while maintaining ...Read the entire review

In recent years there has been no shortage of Hollywood (or faux-indie, at least) examinations of dysfunctional families – and why not? These films are cheap, easy to shoot and often get the attention of Academy voters.

Our neighbors to the north produce quite a few of these on their own, with the latest to cross the border (thanks to the fine work of Film Movement) being Falling Angels, directed by Scott Smith and based on a novel by Barbara Gowdy.

Jim (Callum Keith Rennie) and Mary (Miranda Richardson) come from different walks of life; he is an ex-soldier that watched his brother die on the battlefield, she used to be a dancer. This dysfunctional couple gave birth to three clichΓ©s…er…daughters: The late 60s rebellious teenager Lou (Katharine Isabelle), the pretty, future house/trophy wife Sandy (Kristin Adams) and the frumpy, quiet shy one, Norma (Monte Gagne). Now, wit...Read the entire review

There is no more exciting moment in a sports event than a goal in soccer.

Bold words? Maybe. But compare it to a home run in baseball, a dunk in basketball, even a touchdown in football. Which happens the most frequently? Which is plastered all over SportsCenter, all over the local television news? It's why even ardent soccer-haters can usually admit that highlights of a good soccer match are exciting to sit down and watch.

FIFA Fever, though, is more than just highlights from the World Cup, the biggest sporting event in the world. With profiles on some of the top players and teams in the event's history, packages on the top games and even reports on uniform fashion, this two-disc DVD set is an incredible source of information and entertainment.

You want great teams? There are profiles of the 1954 Hungary, 1958 Brazil, 1970 Brazil and the 1970s Holland squads. Each...Read the entire review

MacBeth

The world probably didn't need another version of the Scottish play, especially with a fairly definitive version recently released by A&E. This 1998 made-for-British-television version stars Sean Pertwee as the titular character and Greta Scacci as his wife, and is set in a modern-day world that is somewhere between Mad Max and the ghetto.

The story is all-too-familiar; MacBeth kills the king, becomes the king, and then goes insane. So does his wife.

Moving the story to modern day does nothing for anyone involved. It says nothing about modern society (mainly because the characters inhabit a world without anything resembling a government) and manages to clash with the play in several places, the most noticeable being the banquet dinner when MacBeth first starts to lose the plot. The clash of cul...Read the entire review

Are you ready for some poetry, mother[expletives]?" - Mos Def, host

Mos Def's opening line never fails to earn a chuckle, thanks to the apparent dichotomy between his street-tough language and delivery and his subject. But Def Poetry Season 2 has precious little to do with stuffy readings in university lecture halls. These are real people, expressing real emotion and doing it with a unique eloquence, the type of "real life" that one could never find on television – even "reality TV."

There were seven episodes in the second season of the show:

Episode 1 – Strong, strong, strong. Beau Sia comes strong with a self-described rant about the status of Asian-Americans in America ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ain't the end"), Twin Poets match him on the topic of ghetto dreams, and it closes with "Brother Foxx" (hint: He has an Oscar) and a great send-up of th...Read the entire review

The fun of watching a suspense or action film in the theaters is often found in the crowd. Even in the worst film of the genres (in fact, maybe more often in the worst films), there will be one or two moments in which every bone in an audience member's body will be screaming at the character, "Don't go through the door YOU IDIOT! ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS HAVE DIED AFTER GOING THROUGH THE DOOR!" Oftentimes, in group settings, someone will, in fact, yell exactly that.

Very few people could ever have that group experience with Wolves in the Snow, a French-Canadian independent film picked up for DVD distribution by indie heroes Film Movement. But while sitting in my chair at home, in front of my television, I had exactly that experience repeatedly. By the end of the film, the lead character has made the obviously wrong choice so many times, I didn't care about the outcome.

Lucie (M...Read the entire review

Quick: Identify Martinique on a map. Could you?

Liar.

Alright, maybe that's harsh. I'm sure DVDTalk readers are more sophisticated and learned that the average American. But to most, the Caribbean nation's cinematic contribution has been a few moments in The Truth About Charlie and The Thomas Crown Affair.

In Sugar Cane Alley, a French film from 1983 getting top-notch DVD treatment from New Yorker Video, we get a glimpse at the workings of the Caribbean island in the 1930s through the eyes of a child trying to rise above his impoverished family life, and it is at times heartbreaking and life-affirming.

Director and novel-adapter Euzan Palcy's film tells us the story of young Jose, an orphan who moves in with his grandmother. The depth of the village's poverty is overwhelming, but Jose sees a way out through his education and, eventually, a move to th...Read the entire review

Before there was an Aqua Teen Hunger Force, before there was an Adult Swim – before there was a big demand for "adult cartoons" in general – there was Space Ghost Coast to Coast. One of the few "original" shows on Cartoon Network, the program used old cartoon clips from B-hero Space Ghost as clip art, sticking the animation in a new setting and turning a super-hero into a semi-super talk show host.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast vol. 3 is collected of episodes aired in 1997. It was a strange year in many ways for the folks from Williams Street (the show's creators); there were 24 new episodes that year, the most by far of any single year of the show. Since that time, in fact, there have been less than 40 new shows. It's a production schedule that Williams Street at that point was uncomfortable with, but it produces some excellent work – even if some of the shows lack the signatu...Read the entire review

Fade to Black is not Stop Making Sense.

That sounds like a rather obvious statement on its surface – one film is about one of the greatest rappers in the game today, and the other is a more-than-20-year-old concert video of a new wave band. But in many ways, Stop Making Sense is, to this day, the best representation of a concert ever filmed. It is clean, crisp, and focuses on the music, not the crowd or backstage antics.

Fade to Black is mostly a concert film, chronicling Jay-Z's "retirement show" at Madison Square Garden. But spliced into the proceedings are clips of Jay-Z meeting with different producers to record "The Black Album," his final release, along with backstage testimonials from invited guests. It makes for a film that, at times, just tries to do too much.

On the positive side of the ledger, Jay-Z is one of the best live acts in hip-hop...Read the entire review

The premise sounds at home in a particularly witty post-graduate English class: What if we wrote a story about the most minor character in another story? How did those characters get involved in the plot? What are their individual motives separate from the main character?

British playwright Tom Stoppard asked those very questions about two of Shakespeare's most minor characters; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern make cameo appearances in Hamlet and don't even get a good on-stage death.

This makes the duo perfect fodder for Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, a film adapted from Stoppard's play that asks the simple question: Who are these guys?

At the outset, the duo (played by – in no particular order – Tim Roth and Gary Oldman) have been summoned to the King's castle at His Highess' bequest, on a mission to figure out what troubles Hamlet, the new king's steps...Read the entire review

There's a great deal to like about The Missing. Cate Blanchett is at the top of her game as a tough frontier woman, and Tommy Lee Jones can do no wrong as her father, thrust back into her life. Salvatore Totino's cinematography is, at times, breathtaking, visually allowing the audience to feel both the desperation of the situation and the isolation of the main characters. Ron Howard's direction does its job well and economically; unlike some of his other features, the camera never manages to get in the way of the story.

But The Missing also hangs around like the last guest at a party: Even after everyone else has left, he's sitting on the sofa or going through your CD collection, and all you want him to do is leave. The Missing just seems to outstay its welcome.

Blanchett plays Maggie Gilkeson, a widowed mother, taking care of her daughters on the New Mexico frontier...Read the entire review

Does anyone not know how Hoosiers ends?

This is not a film that will surprise anyone. The Hollywood sports film formula has been long established: Plucky underdogs endure the slings and arrows of a difficult season to win the "Big Game." It's all too obvious where the film is going.

But in the case of this film, the journey is so much more than the destination. It's not just a story about winning, but about second chances and redemption – for the team, for its coach (Gene Hackman), his love interest (Barbara Hershey) and even the father of one of the players (Dennis Hopper).

Coach Norman Dale moves to the small town of Hickory, Indiana and takes over one of the state's smallest high school teams. But can a big city guy come to this "hick town" with his gruff style and win over not only a group of players, but also a community?

The easy plot summary has to...Read the entire review

There are a lot of little details for a writer to keep straight when writing a film with a big "twist" ending. But the biggest detail is to make sure the film still makes sense. Even a "twist" ending should be inevitable, if unexpected; it's the end of a series of events, with the twist coming in how the viewer has interpreted those events to this point.

What's so maddening about Employee of the Month is not that there is a twist ending – or, in this case, a couple of twist endings – but that it is non-sensical and, in fact, invalidates earlier scenes in the film.

The employee in question (though he is never given the grandest distinction of "Employee of the Month") is David (Matt Dillon). He's engaged to a wonderful woman (Christina Applegate), has a good job where he's well liked by his co-workers, and a loyal – if twisted – group of friends that includes coroner impers...Read the entire review

There's so much that is so fascinating about comedian and counter-culture legend Lenny Bruce. He was a pioneer in many fields: Comedian, social satire and destruction through "self-medication."The 1972 documentary Lenny Bruce Without Tears manages to miss most of the above on its own. The narration is pointless, the narrative is strictly linear – it looks like a final year film project. The saving grace of the picture is Bruce himself; when he gets center stage, Bruce shows us what exactly America lost in his early death.

"I have a reputation for being controversial and irreverent," Bruce says early on in the documentary, while on Steve Allen's show. But documentarian/jazz musician/admitted Bruce drug connection Fred Baker never shows us that. He talks about it, a couple of other people talk about, but the Bruce material never gets to his subversive best. In fact, save a couple of late...Read the entire review