Email Author Andrew Schenker

2011 Stories by Andrew Schenker

• The Pill

  published December 14, 2011

  Fred (Noah Bean) is the slimiest little shit to hit the screen in years, and one of the chief pleasures of J.C. Khoury's inadvertently topical... More >>

• Fanny, Annie & Danny

  published December 7, 2011

  Fanny, Annie & Danny is one of those movies where everyone is either a nasty human being or a loser—often both at the same time.... More >>

• Laredoans Speak: Voices of a South Texas Border City

  published November 16, 2011

  Good intentions don’t always translate into good cinema, and in Victor A. Martinez and Ryan Schafer’s documentary, Laredoans Speak:... More >>

• God’s Fiddler

  published November 9, 2011

  A middling portrait of mid-20th-century Lithuanian violin virtuoso Jascha Heifetz, Peter Rosen’s doc God’s Fiddler attempts to... More >>

• In the Family

  published November 2, 2011

  With an incisive understanding of character, believably naturalistic acting, and lengthy scenes that don’t feel stretched out so much as... More >>

• The Double

  published October 26, 2011

  The Double, Michael Brandt’s post–Cold War spy film, is grade-B hokum, but it’s not without its occasional generic... More >>

• Cargo

  published October 19, 2011

  Cargo, the latest entry in the emergent sex-slavery subgenre, posits forced prostitution as a model of global capitalism. The trade is run... More >>

• Well Worth the Trip: Trek to Keep Tibetan Culture Alive in Journey from Zanskar

  published September 21, 2011

  Everything documented in Frederick Marx’s Journey from Zanskar is fraught with the potential for sensationalist and/or inspirational... More >>

• Fragments of a City, Sewn Together, in Buttons

  published August 31, 2011

  "Found films from the everyday" is how filmmakers Alex Kalman and Benny and Josh Safdie describe the hundreds of tiny video snippets that... More >>

• The Whistleblower: One Man's Failed Attempt to Get Bernie in Chasing Madoff

  published August 24, 2011

  Brimming over with outrage not so much at the eponymous Ponzi schemer as against the government body that failed to rein him in, Chasing... More >>

• Friday Night Lifts: Small Town Texas Sports Uplift in All She Can

  published July 27, 2011

  In the dusty small-town Texas of Amy Wendel's All She Can—the centerpiece movie of the week-long Latino-themed Maya Indie Film... More >>

• House of Boys: A Gay Love Story Set In the Early Days of AIDS

  published July 27, 2011

  Charting a self-enclosed world of dancing, drugs, and fucking—and eventually true love—House of Boys details the mid-'80s... More >>

• Human Interest Runs Its Course in Race Doc Hood to Coast

  published July 13, 2011

  It would be virtually impossible to present the 197-mile relay race that gives Christoph Baaden’s Hood to Coast its title as... More >>

• The Undead Seek Revenge, Generally, in Fading of the Cries

  published July 6, 2011

  What do demons, zombies, and a kid that looks like a vampire have to do with one another? Not a whole lot, except that all figure one way or... More >>

• It's Complicated: American Jewish Identity Explored in Between Two Worlds

  published June 29, 2011

  “Who is invited to speak for the tribe?” asks filmmaker Deborah Kaufman in Between Two Worlds, pondering the hijacking of the... More >>

• Prison Drama ABCs in R

  published June 15, 2011

  We probably need another prison drama like a shiv to the chest, but R has at least a few things going for it. Tobias Lindholm and... More >>

• Lord of the Dance: Irish Step Gets Its Perfunctory Doc in Jig

  published June 15, 2011

  If the structure behind Jig seems familiar, it is. That’s because Sue Bourne’s film employs the same formula as nearly every... More >>

• Muslims? They're Just Like Us!

  published June 8, 2011

  Back in 2005, Albert Brooks went Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. In Ahmed Ahmed’s Just Like Us, the... More >>

• The Farming Life, Detail by Painstaking Detail, in Agrarian Utopia

  published June 8, 2011

  Uruphong Raksasad’s Agrarian Utopia is the most heavily process-oriented film to hit screens in recent years. Recalling Lisandro... More >>

• Whatever Happened to Melodrama? Coming of Age Without Much Enthusiasm in Harvest

  published May 4, 2011

  A grandfather on death’s door, a slightly shady uncle, a New Agey Mom—and one college kid returning home for the summer to the... More >>

• Under the Boardwalk: Doc Not Worth Your Monopoly Money

  published May 4, 2011

  In the brief segment of Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story devoted to the history of the classic board game, we learn that the... More >>

• Believe It or Not: Vito Bonafacci Preaches to the Choir

  published May 4, 2011

  For a film about spiritual crisis, Vito Bonafacci is surprisingly placid—all lush widescreen photography and soothing strings. But... More >>

• Planned Parenthood: The Too Obvious Fate of a Pregnant Teen in Lebanon, Pa.

  published April 27, 2011

  Lebanon, Pa. begins as a tale about male, middle-aged self-discovery, but soon becomes something quite different: a clear-eyed if... More >>

• Chronicling an Ordinary Life, Hilarious Shtick in American: The Bill Hicks Story

  published April 6, 2011

  When charged with making a documentary about a subject whose work is far more interesting than his life, how does a filmmaker proceed? If... More >>

• The Family Jams: Only for Die-Hard 'Freak Folk' Fanatics

  published April 6, 2011

  Only a true fanatical follower of the “freak folk” musical scene with a high tolerance for artless verité camerawork will find... More >>