Crude (2009) NYT Critics' Pick

An Ecuadorean cancer victim’s reflection in an oil-polluted stream near her home, in an image from the documentary “Crude.”
Big Oil’s Stain in the Amazon
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: September 9, 2009

Because of concerns about climate change, a lot of current environmentalist advocacy — including movies like “An Inconvenient Truth” — concentrates on the dire results of burning fossil fuels. Joe Berlinger’s “Crude,” a thorough and impassioned new documentary, focuses its gaze on production rather than consumption. The film, which follows the fitful progress of a class-action lawsuit undertaken on behalf of the people of the Ecuadorean Amazon, is not about the unintended consequences of using petroleum. Instead, it examines the terrible, frequently unacknowledged costs of extracting oil from the ground. More

9 (2009)

From left, 9, 7 and 5, who with their fellow soft automatons evade evil machines in “9.”
In a Grim, Mysterious World, a Burlap Hero With a Heart of Golden Fuzz
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: September 9, 2009

9, who is about the size and shape of one of those posable tabletop mannequins used by art students, has a soft burlap body and a zipper up his middle. His outsize eyes blink like camera shutters, and they take in a world of monstrous terror and haunting mystery. More

Gogol Bordello Non-Stop (208)

Eugene Hütz performing in “Gogol Bordello Non-Stop.”
Relentless Ringmaster of an Ecstatic Circus
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: September 11, 2009

“It is all sexes, all ages, all nationalities,” announces Eugene Hütz, the charismatic Ukrainian-born founder and frontman of the Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello, in Margarita Jimeno’s choppy, high-energy documentary of the band’s rise from a cult phenomenon to international acclaim. The scenes of the nine-member band, which includes two dancers, in theatrical attire cavorting with the audience in a Lower Manhattan club are beyond joyous. Anthems like “Immigrant Punk,” powered by a frantic pogo beat strung with wild, squealing accordion and violin that suggest demonically fueled klezmer music, generate an ecstatic communal anarchy. More

Give Me Your Hand (2008)

Alexandre Carril and Victor Carril in "Give Me Your Hand," directed by Pascal-Alex Vincent.
Double the Sadness
By MIKE HALE
Published: September 11, 2009

Pascal-Alex Vincent’s first feature, “Give Me Your Hand,” harks back to an earlier and much better film, Bertrand Blier’s “Going Places” (1974). Two young men of less than sterling character take a road trip across France, finding and discarding sexual partners as they go. In Mr. Vincent’s film, the men are identical twins (played by Alexandre and Victor Carril), on their way to Spain for their mother’s funeral, and the partners are of both sexes. More