[Mark Rabinowitz] After a string of rather high profile doc releases, this week is relatively quiet but that doesn't mean it's short on quality. It does, however, mean that there's little or no mass critical response for me to link to. "Never Apologize: A Personal Visit With Lindsay Anderson" is Mike Kaplan's film of Malcolm McDowell's one man performance and it gets some good word from Jeannette Catsoulis at the New York Times, calling McDowell "thoroughly engaging" and while I haven't seen the film, I now want to. It opens today at the Walter Reade Theater in New York.

Nathan Lee is short and to the point in his review of Thomas G. Miller's "One Bad Cat: The Reverend Albert Wagner Story," writing that the film "brings fresh light to the artist profile not only through his choice of subject, but also by his direct confrontation with the discomforting nature of Mr. Wagner's work...."
Again, a doc I shamefully missed on the festival circuit that I wish I'd seen. It opens today at the IFC Center in New York.

"Anita O'Day: The Life Of A Music Legend" from directors Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden is by far the most "covered" film opening this week, with both Metacritic (76) and Rotten Tomatoes (100%) ratings as well as a favorable review from Stephen Holden in the New York Times, calling the film "enthralling." It opens today at Cinema Village in New York.

Stelios Koul's "Apology of an Economic Hit Man," based on John Perkins similarly titled bestseller "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" is the one apparent weak link this week, with The New York Times' Andy Webster writing that while the film has some "intriguing" facts and an "arresting" scene in front of an angry crowd in Ecuador, it's "undone by bargain-basement, noir-style re-enactments; a foreboding, over-the-top soundtrack; and a wholesale abandonment of any semblance of balance." It opens at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in New York today and opens next Friday in Los Angeles.