This documentary is not currently listed on Amazon UK, so I will post a short review here. It is however available elsewhere, such as iTunes.
This is a short (just over an hour) documentary about pencils. Clearly there is a profitable niche here for such documentaries, there was Gary Hustwit on the font Helvetica, I have watched documentaries on Letterpress (Typeface), Sign Writers and Linotype. There is also one on typewriters (The Typewriter in the 21st Century).
Although this is potentially an interesting topic, it was marred by overly intrusive music, and far too much screen time for the more irritating interviewees and consequently not enough for the more interesting. I am also unsure why the developer of the app Paper got so much screen time, at times it was like an advert for their software.
Those interested in pencils will have plenty of unanswered questions too, how does the Blackwing enthusiast rate the new versions, what actual differentiates pencils, the lead, the wood, something else, how do Japanese pencils rate, ...
Although the documentary raises some interesting points, it suffers from treating pencils like some sort of post modern hipster affectation.
