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 with film director Jon Alpert
Freddie Rodriguez, Robert Steffey and Deliris Vasquez
INTERVIEW | Peter Middleton and James Spinney; “The Real Charlie Chaplin”
Documentary is currently airing on SHOWTIME
Cast: Pearl Mackie, Jeff Rawle and Paul Ryan
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
INTERVIEW / documentary
Starring Robert Stigwood and John Travolta
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 >
“I’M GOING TO FOLLOW MY INSTINCTS AS I ALWAYS HAVE”: talking with KENNY G about the new documentary “Listening to Kenny G” (directed by Penny Lane)
When Bill Simmons put out the call for documentaries for his “Music Box” series on HBO he made sure to get in touch with Penny Lane. He had seen Lane’s previous documentary, “Hail, Satan?” and asked if she had any ideas on artists to profile for “Music Box.” Lane did have an idea: Why not ask Kenny G, whom she had first seen at the Blue Note in New York years earlier, if he would be interviewed ... 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 >