Jon Alpert had been working on his documentary for so long, he had to transfer footage from videotape. Using a digital process known as “TerraNexing,” Alpert’s eighties and nineties footage was renewed on the 16:9 aspect ratio. What couldn’t be sanitized was the horror of the nation’s drug epidemic, which Alpert shows us in microcosm in “Life of Crime, 1984-2020,” now playing on HBO. Alpert ... more >
INTERVIEWS

THIRTY YEARS OF ADDICTION AND JAIL : “Life of Crime, 1984-2020”

INTERVIEW | Peter Middleton and James Spinney; “The Real Charlie Chaplin”
Charles Chaplin was born in a tough area of London and came to America not only to reinvent himself but partially to invent the language of the then-new art of cinema itself. Through pluck, luck and sheer determination, Chaplin became a leading man and director—often playing the familiar “Little Tramp” character for decades, first in silent films and then, most famously, with a rousing closing ... more >

Forty years later, revisiting disco inferno with “Mr. Saturday Night” | THE DIRECTOR’S INTERVIEW
When “Saturday Night Fever” came out in 1977, the small film about an Italian kid from Brooklyn who moonlighted as a disco dancer became a force of nature. It rocketed star John Travolta into the stratosphere, and the soundtrack album, heavy on the Bee Gees, sold 25 million copies, many before the film was even out in theaters. Director John Maggio’s new documentary “Mr. Saturday Night” tells ... more >

Project Recover, an NGO that searches and repatriates the remains of the lost pilots and sailors from the South Pacific, at the heart of “To What Remains,” currently showing in theaters | DOCUMENTARY
This past week marked eighty years since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, which lured the United States into WWII. Sixteen million Americans answered the call to join the armed forces against the Axis of Nazi Germany, imperial Japan and fascist Italy. Over 400,000 servicemen lost their lives in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, with approximately 80,000 more still ... more >

“People often use the term feel-good movie like it’s dismissive, if our audience comes out of the theater feeling good then we’re completely happy” JULIE COHEN AND BETSY WEST on the making of “JULIA”
Filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West make documentaries about extraordinary women. Their Oscar-nominated 2018 “RBG” followed around the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Cohen and West have returned with “Julia,” which traces the rise of Julia Child from her Southern California beginnings to becoming the world’s first celebrity chef. “Like a lot of people in my generation, I ... more >

“It’s amazing because you don’t know what the story is going to be, and I love that risk”: Jesse Moss on MAYOR PETE
After making the documentary “Boys State,” about a Texas program wherein adolescent males practice what it might be like to experience a real electoral campaign, filmmaker Jesse Moss turned his attention to a man running for real. For several months he and his crew followed then-South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg on his ultimately unsuccessful bid to win the 2020 Democratic presidential ... more >