If “Spellbound” was the 2003 documentary that showed how you can thrill an audience and inspire cheers without having to spend millions on CGI special effects and elaborate costuming and sets, “Winged Migration” evoked awe sans X-Men, Spidey, or Neo battling three dozen Agent Smiths.

Is it possible to fill 98 minutes with flying birds and not bore an audience? Skeptics should remember that it’s been done with two guys yakking over dinner (“My Dinner With Andre”) and even one guy sitting in a chair and talking at the camera armed with nothing more than a glass of water (Spalding Gray’s various filmed monologues). In contrast, this film has a cast of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, and they come in an astonishing array of colors and shapes.

Click here for the full review by David Loftus.

For years we’ve been hearing about inflated numbers on the NASDAQ, and venture capitalists who throw astounding amounts of money at young people with nothing more than promising ideas. Startup.com tells the inside story of one such adventure.

A pair of high school classmates, ten years out, propose to start an Internet company that will help citizens deal with local governments. They call it “govWorks.” It will enable people to go online to register their motor vehicles, pay parking tickets, and do all the other nasty little things municipal and regional governments require of them. As one of the young entrepreneurs explains, the vertical market is $585 billion, and parking tickets in New York City alone generate $500 million.

Click here for full review by David Loftus.

Critics never seem to learn. Most of Kubrick’s films had detractors, and his final film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999), was no different. “It’s his eyes, I’m afraid,” wrote Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly, “that seem to have been wide shut, and his movie that wears a mask.” Maybe. But critical opinion has always lagged behind when it came to Kubrick. Look up 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in the average movie guide. Most call it an innovative masterpiece and forget to mention that a number of critics hated the film when it was released. Kubrick’s films have often been groundbreaking, controversial, and misunderstood. But critics who dare to question his artistry usually have to eat their review.

Click here for the full review by Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. 

Paradise Lost begins with the disturbing images of the brutal murders of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore, three second-graders. Discovered in a ravine in Robin Hood Hills in West Memphis, their bodies had been bruised and mutilated. A frantic search for suspects turned up Jessie Misskelley, Jr., Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin, three local teenagers. The ensuing hysteria would be fueled by the belief that the occult had played a part in the murders, and that Echols was a member of the occult. Through interviews with parents, lawyers, and the accused, Paradise Lost gives the viewer a front row seat to the hysteria and mayhem surrounding these murders.

Click here to read the full review by Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.