Theatrical Releases

Every Friday we update you all with the week's theatrical documentary releases. Now, this is not a perfect process as our beloved genre prefers the rolling/limited release schedule instead of a big nationwide or international-wide release. So apologies if a film isn't out in your area or if you are a filmmaker and we missed the boat on announcing your documentary's big day (if that is the case, please let us know and we'll correct the mistake).

Now, with that introduction out of the way, here's this weekend's releases with their current rating on the amazing website Rottentomatoes.com:

Hubble 3D– (78% rating) Through the power of IMAX® 3D, “Hubble 3D,” narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, takes moviegoers on an unprecedented voyage through distant galaxies to explore the grandeur and mystery of our celestial surroundings. Experience never-before-seen 3D flights through the farthest reaches of the universe, and accompany spacewalking astronauts on some of the most difficult and important endeavors in NASA’s history.(Rottentomatoes.com)

Kimjongilia – (60% rating) For sixty years, North Koreans have been governed by a totalitarian regime that controls all information entering and leaving the country. For Kim Jong Il’s 46th birthday, a hybrid red begonia named kimjongilia was created, symbolizing wisdom, love, justice, and peace. The film draws its name from the rarefied flower and reveals the extraordinary stories told by survivors of North Korea’s vast prison camps, of devastating famine, and of every kind of repression. Their experiences are interspersed with archival footage of North Korean propaganda films and original scenes that illuminate the contours of daily life for a people whose every action is monitored and whose every thought could bring official retribution. Along with the survivors’ stories, Kimjongilia examines the mass illusion possible under totalitarianism and the human rights abuses required to maintain that illusion.(Rottentomatoes.com)

Neil Young Trunk Show– (93% rating) Jonathan Demme gives us some Neil Young musical and spiritual soul. Young on a stage full of personal icons: alone in the center of a circle of his beloved acoustic guitars; in the midst of stellar musicians Ben Keith, Ralph Molina, Rick Rosas, Pegi Young and Anthony “Sweet Pea” Crawford, plus an onstage painter portrayed by Eric Johnson. There are delicately offered acoustic numbers like “Sad Movies” and “Mexico”; mesmerizing electric travelogues into the artist’s psyche (“No Hidden Path”); searing, chaotic anthems including “Like a Hurricane” and “Cinnamon Girl”; and rarely performed pieces like “Kansas” and “Ambulance Blues” that provide glimpses of Young’s less public persona. In addition to his distinctively blistering and plaintive guitar, Neil draws deep melancholy from an old piano and pats it on the side after like a beloved old dog. He sings his heart out again and again. It is a collection for the ages.(Rottentomatoes.com)

See What I'm Saying– (No rating provided) follows the journeys of four deaf entertainers through a single year as their stories intertwine and cumulate in some of the largest events of their lives. Bob, a drummer in the world’s only deaf rock band Beethoven’s Nightmare, produces the largest show in the band’s 30 year history; CJ, a comic known around the deaf world but unknown to hearing people fights to cross over to mainstream audiences by producing the first international sign language theatre festival in Los Angeles; Robert, a brilliant actor who teaches at Juilliard struggles to survive when he becomes homeless; and TL, a hard of hearing singer is caught between two worlds when she produces her first CD “Not Deaf Enough.”(Rottentomatoes.com)