The Movie:

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown inspired a metric ton of artists to turn inward and become reflective in making their new art. Musicians were first, churning out relevant singles and albums at a head-swimming clip; some of the most topical tunes already feel quaintly dated in this less restrictive global moment. But making movies takes longer, so it seems like we're finally seeing a crop of lockdown-influenced self-reflexive auteur works, like Steven Spielberg's wonderful The Fabelmans, A.G. Iñarritu's Bardo, and James Gray's Armageddon Time.

The new-to-Blu-ray doc Jane by Charlotte is less high profile than those flicks but it feels forged in the same soul-searching spirit. Actor-singer-director Charlot...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Director Hayley Garrigus's 2021 documentary You Can't Kill Meme is part sociology lesson and part character study. It explores the idea of "meme magic," which is a concept adopted by the alt-right posters in the 4chan message board community to imbue their use of catchy meme images (like Pepe the Frog and Ebola-Chan) with the mystical power to bring real-world change.

Garrigus narrates the doc in a lo-fi style reminiscent of a Youtube instructional (or conspiracy theory) video as she alternately charts the development of meme magic's cultural influence and uses her personal relocation to Las Vegas as an opportunity to talk with people for whom outsider ideologies have great appeal. This includes right-wing memesters but it also includes pr...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Marianne Elliott-Said, better known as her public persona Poly Styrene, was the leader of the English punk band X-Ray Spex. The group's brief but brilliant career included the release of the anthemic anti-authoritarian single "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!" and the beloved album Germfree Adolescents. As a young woman of color with braces on her teeth and her own iconoclastic sense of fashion, she became an instant outsider icon.

The new biographical documentary, Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché, is almost as unexpected as its subject. Directed by Paul Sng (Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain) and Poly Styrene's daughter Celeste Bell, I Am a Cliché is not your standard-issue punk rock doc.

Framed through Bell's complicate...Read the entire review