In another reality, it could have been Erin Lee Carr in the submarine with Peter Madsen, the man convicted of the 2017 killing of Swedish journalist Kim Wall. Of course, in a sense, it could have been any female journalist in that submarine. But Carr, whose documentary Undercurrent: The Disappearance …
Read More »Andy Señor Jr. on the 'Cuban Conversation' Behind His 'Revolution Rent' Documentary
It was never a question that Andy Señor Jr. was going to be the one to put up Rent in Havana, the first Broadway production to be performed on the island in decades. But first thing’s first: Figure out how he was going to explain to his family why he …
Read More »D.O.A. Punk's Pivot to Politics Highlights New Documentary 'Something Better Change'
The story of how Joey “Shithead” Keithley — frontman of the Canadian hardcore legends D.O.A. — pivoted from punk to politics is the focus of the upcoming documentary Something Better Change. After four decades at the helm of the influential Vancouver punk band, Keithley entered the politics arena in 2018 …
Read More »'City Hall': Frederick Wiseman's Latest Reminds Us Why Democracy Is Slow — But Effective
Every Frederick Wiseman documentary that I’ve seen to date has … something. It isn’t easy to define. But his films, which are often long — his newest feature, City Hall (streaming online via Film Forum’s virtual cinema), runs a stark four-and-a-half hours — offer it in abundance. Moments, faces, images, …
Read More »'Midnight in Paris' Review: A Prom Night Doc to Remember
When a documentary’s opening title card is “Flint, Michigan,” your instinct might be to assume that this will be a certain stripe of downbeat, sociological, living, tragic history — a story already pre-written by the headlines you’ve read about the place. But Roni Moore and James Blagden’s Midnight in Paris …
Read More »'Varda by Agnès': A French-Cinema Icon Says Au Revoir
For roughly 65 of the 90 years she walked among us mere mortals, Agnès Varda made movies. The petite photographer-turned-filmmaker was considered a card-carrying member of the nouvelle vague, even though her first feature, 1955’s La Pointe Courte, predated the French New Wave’s big bang. It was not uncommon to …
Read More »The Orson Also Rises: A Brief History of Rescuing 'The Other Side of the Wind'
It begins with a death — a car accident that takes the life of a legendary director on his 70th birthday — and ends with a giant phallic symbol toppling over. In between those two moments, you get young film critics arguing, old actors kvetching, a Jim Morrison doppelganger, a …
Read More »Best Movies and TV to Stream in Sept: 'Maniac,' Quincy Jones Doc, Sean Penn in Space
It’s Streamageddon: On September 14th, what choice will you make? You’ve only got so many hours in a day for bingeing, so you’ll have to make a tough choice between a check-in on Bojack Horseman, Beau Willimon’s big-budget follow-up to House of Cards for Hulu (featuring Sean Penn and space …
Read More »'Wild Wild Country': Is Subject of Netflix Doc Really a 'Sex Cult'?
On the surface, the Netflix docuseries Wild Wild Country appears to be the latest addition to the utopian-commune-turned-cult cannon. But only a few minutes into the first episode, it’s evident that this veers far from the traditional narrative, complete with one of the largest bioterrorism attacks on U.S. soil, murder …
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