Review: Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten

Tales of meteoric rise, inevitable burnout and slow climb back to something resembling normalcy are familiar from the biographies of a thousand haunted artists, but Julien Temple's Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten stands out for its extraordinarily smooth filmmaking, which incorporates clips from contemporary films, photos, Strummer's own artwork, and music from his BBC radio show to good effect. The result is an affectionate rock doc that follows the Clash frontman's life from his boarding school childhood to his death in 2002. Read Jürgen's review of Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. More from About Documentaries.

Also opening today: Darfur Now, a documentary about the ongoing crisis, and Martian Child, starring John Cusack. At Film Forum in New York, Jean-Jacques Beneix' dazzling 1981 hit Diva is beginning a revival run. Beineix was a veteran assisstant director when he finally got his chance to make a feature, and he used it well -- Diva as a non-stop celebration of the possibilities of cinema that should not be missed.