George Michael: Freedom calls on so many talking-head rock-doc tropes, it’s as though it’s following an instruction manual. Earnest interview footage of its subject that seeks to deepen and humanize the common public perception of him? Check. Fawning interviews from his famous friends, collaborators, and admirers?…
There has never been a film like Dina. The documentary, which won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize prize at Sundance earlier this year and was released in New York on Friday with more locations in coming weeks, plays like a quirky indie rom-com. It’s a slice of working-class life just outside of Philadelphia that…
A new documentary about Andrew Wakefield, the former gastroenterologist and floppy-haired mascot of vaccine skepticism, draws its title from a phrase Wakefield used to describe himself. The film does not get much more critical from here.
There are artists and there are pop stars and rarely the twain shall meet. In a review of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent Comme des Garçons exhibit, artist/writer David Salle wrote a sentence that succinctly exposed just how different these professional species are: “The modern artist says, Love me for hating…
In 1990, George Michael risked throwing his immense fame away for the sake of his artistry. He was tired of being a commodity, and instead of merely complaining, he actually did something about it. Coming off the phenomenal global success of his solo debut Faith, he recorded a mostly downcast, singer-songwriter album …
Before YouTube tutorials and social media, there was Kevyn Aucoin—the first true celebrity makeup artist, whose life is celebrated in Kevyn Aucoin: Beauty & The Beast In Me, a documentary that aired Thursday night on Logo.
The new documentary Ex Libris - The New York Public Library works like a Russian nesting doll of information about information about information. In the signature style of master documentarian Frederick Wiseman, this sprawling, almost three-and-a-half-hour opus delivers a series of vignettes (many recurring) shot at…
Every new bit of information that’s released about Gaga: Five Foot Two inexplicably makes me more excited to see it—strange, for a movie about a pop star that I do not care that much about.
I’ve never clamored for a Lady Gaga tour documentary, but after seeing these brief clips of the one that is on its way, my body is now completely ready.
Before Joyce Bonelli, Pat McGrath, and Wendy Rowe, there was Kevyn Aucoin.
Diana, Princess of Wales, was the most famous woman of the late twentieth century, and August 31 is the two-decade anniversary of her death. Consequently, the media business on both sides of the Atlantic plans to spend the next few weeks in a total, shameless scramble for ratings.
“Do you feel personally threatened by the .44 Caliber Killer because you have long dark hair?” That’s the question Channel 11 News reporter Jeff Kamen posed to various women on the streets of New York City 40 years ago during the Summer of Sam.
The Syrian Civil War was roughly a year old by the time Dalya Zeno and her mother, Rudayna Aksh, fled Aleppo for Los Angeles in 2012. Arriving in Southern California as American citizens, Dalya and Rudayna struggled to adjust to life after Syria in a nation that, they believed, could be unwelcoming toward Muslims.
At last, here is the trailer (via E! News) for the documentary about Whitney Houston that her estate doesn’t really want anyone to see.
Oliver Stone appeared on Monday night’s The Late Show to promote his Vladimir Putin documentary and looked every bit uncomfortable as Stephen Colbert questioned the director’s alarmingly unchallenging interview with a dictator.
“I don’t know if I’m more afraid of walking on an empty street and seeing no one, or if I’m afraid of encountering someone along the way,” says a woman’s voice as the camera moves through a poorly illuminated tunnel. From the first moments of the trailer for the forthcoming Brazilian documentary Chega de Fiu Fiu,…
On June 12, 2016, Pulse Nightclub in Orlando was the scene of the worst mass shooting in United States history when Omar Mateen opened fire and killed 49 people and wounded 53 others. Now, a documentary called One Pulse will tell the story of the shooting by focusing on the victims’ stories and highlighting what law…
When director and photojournalist Kate Brooks began filming The Last Animals, which premiered last month at the Tribeca Film Festival, there were seven Northern White Rhinos left on the planet. Now there are only three, all living under 24-hour armed protection at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Sudan, the last…
“It’s hard to speak in a world where everything can get out and hurt you,” Mary J. Blige says in a documentary about the recording of her Strength of a Woman in which she also alludes to her estranged husband’s alleged mistress.
Before the Wednesday evening premiere of Whitney. “Can I Be Me” at the Tribeca Film Festival, its co-director (and documentary legend) Nick Broomfield announced that his film had been in jeopardy of being yanked from the festival slate—he’d been given final the go-head to screen less than three hours before. Since…
