Radio Unnameable (2012)
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 12
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 230
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Movie Info
Legendary radio personality Bob Fass revolutionized late night FM radio by serving as a cultural hub for music, politics and audience participation for nearly 50 years. Long before today's innovations in social media, Fass utilized the airwaves for mobilization encouraging luminaries and ordinary listeners to talk openly and take the program in surprising directions. Radio Unnameable is a visual and aural collage that pulls from Bob Fass's immense archive of audio from his program, film,
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All Critics (13) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (0)
You're overwhelmed by the feeling that you've seen this tale of corporate greed and arrogant mismanagement before. Still, the filmmakers tell it with gusto.
Top CriticDirectors Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson weave together archival visual and aural materials along with new interviews with Fass, his wife, Lynnie, and other WBAI alumni.
A treasure trove of both visual and aural footage makes this terrific doc a keeper. Its affectionate appreciation of one man's long, strange trip through history make it a helluva lot of fun.
It can make you wish - or, if you're lucky, remember - that you were a sleepless New Yorker in 1967, kept from loneliness by a gentle, soulful voice on the radio.
A sporadically hard-selling homage to a cult hero from an overchronicled era ...
As haunting and heroic as anything you'll see on the big screen this year.
Radio Unnameable is at its best when it tries to find some visual analog to Fass' vibe, courtesy of cinematographer John Pirozzi, who takes beautiful snapshots of a sleepless city.
...a great window into the days before cell phones and Twitter, when broadcast radio played a key role not only in delivering information to people, but also in giving them a voice and bringing them together.
Beautifully sets up the feel and the times. . .with archival photographs and footage [but] distracts from. . .the intimate aural relationship between Fass and his audience.
A richly conceived archival tribute to the very miracle of Radio Unnameable's survival despite it all. And a troubling irony as peripherally depicted in this documentary, with Fass often in furious battle to prevail on air. A Tale Of Two Radio Stations
Gimlet-eyed view of a legendary pioneer of "free form" radio as well as a probing examination of the Balkanization of the left.
While crediting free-form radio pioneer Bob Fass with changing the culture of broadcasting, this doc remains clear-eyed about the decline of community radio and the New Left.
Audience Reviews for Radio Unnameable
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September 20, 2012:
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