Long before Occupy Wall Street, there was Bob Fass, the legendary overnight host on WBAI whose 50-year career is lovingly saluted in the documentary Radio Unnameable.
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. It also, in the Fass way, does a little meandering.
The charm of Radio Unnameable is, finally, elegiac. 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.
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Slant MagazineBill Weber
Slant MagazineBill Weber
While crediting free-form radio pioneer Bob Fass with changing the culture of broadcasting, this documentary remains clear-eyed about the decline of community radio and the New Left.
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Time Out
Time Out
It's as haunting and heroic as anything you'll see on the big screen this year, even if the film itself has a tendency to traffic in an abundance of dead air.
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Village VoiceMelissa Anderson
Village VoiceMelissa Anderson
Now 79, the man with the snow-white ponytail in the radio booth hasn't flagged; as one of Fass's contemporaries says, "He can let someone go on and on and on."