Documentary
MLK/FBI Sure Feels Like a Film of the Moment: Review
The Pitch: What we publicly and historically know about Martin Luther King Jr. is as follows. The reverend was a pacifist and advocate for civil rights who rose to prominence in the 1960s. A champion for Black Americans, Dr. King was an oratory master, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning voice for a still-maligned class of citizens, and a firm believer in non-violent protest and demonstration. What many people don’t know – unless they’ve maybe seen movies like Ava DuVernay’s Selma — is that the goddamn Federal Bureau of Investigation dogged King for the entirety of his public life as a speaker and organizer. We’re talking wiretaps, plants, offensive leaks and letters pertaining to MLK’s infidelities, all to discredit a “communist” and an “agitator” under the auspices of J. Edgar Hoover’s square-ja...
Rage Against the Machine Release Killing in Thy Name Documentary About Race: Watch
The socio-political events of the past five years have been a too-fitting backdrop for Rage Against The Machine’s music. The legendary rock group weren’t able to tour the country last year as planned, but today they’re giving their artistic response to the reignited racial justice movement with a new documentary called Killing in Thy Name. The project is a collaboration with a collective of international artists called The Ummah Chroma (which translates to “communities of color”), and it seeks to be “a fire escape from the fiction known as whiteness and a spring for discovery.” The bulk of the 15-minute endeavor features footage of a teacher and some schoolchildren learning about the west’s dark history of slavery, manifest destiny, and the very concept of “whiteness” within the conte...
Alice Cooper, Roger Daltrey, KISS, Judas Priest, and More Star in Rock Camp, The Movie: Watch Trailer
A new documentary feature film titled Rock Camp, The Movie features such music icons as Alice Cooper, The Who’s Roger Daltrey, KISS, Judas Priest, and more. The movie chronicles the journey of four everyday people as they attend Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp. Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp has been going on for 25 years, where aspiring musicians get to hang out and jam with legendary musicians. The movie takes viewers on a backstage pass of the camp, offering an inside look at what goes on during a typical experience. Among the rockers featured in the movie are Daltrey (who was a big part of getting Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp off the ground), Cooper, KISS’ Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford and Richie Faulkner, Sammy Hagar, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, ...
Top 25 TV Shows of 2020
Our Annual Report continues as we reveal the Top 25 TV Shows of 2020. Stay tuned for more awards, lists, and articles in the days and weeks to come about the best music, film, and TV of the year. If you’ve missed any part of our Annual Report, you can check out all the coverage here. It feels strange to say, but television has never felt more important than it did in 2020. With the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic all but trapping us in our homes, the medium has served as an essential, if not comprehensive, escape for viewers worldwide. This notion became clear with Tiger King, a show that nabbed record eyes (or so Netflix says) in the budding days of lockdown. The world became so scary, we looked to a bizarre tale of over-the-top zoo owners and assassination attempts for comfort. With...
Sundance Film Festival Announces 2021 Virtual Lineup
The Sundance Film Festival will continue in 2021 and returns with a new upgrade amidst the ensuing pandemic. For the first time ever, the entire festival will take place digitally through “a feature-rich, Sundance-built online platform” in conjunction with in-person festivities that will air through Satellite Screens across the country from January 28th to February 3rd, 2021 “Togetherness has been an animating principle here at the Sundance Institute as we’ve worked to reimagine the Festival for 2021, because there is no Sundance without our community,” said Sundance Institute Founder and President Robert Redford. “Under Tabitha’s leadership, we’ve forged a new collective vision: one that honors the spirit and tradition of these invigorating yearly gatherings in Utah, while making roo...
Top 25 Films of 2020
Our Annual Report continues as we reveal the Top 25 Films of 2020. Stay tuned for more awards, lists, and articles in the days and weeks to come about the best music, film, and TV of the year. If you’ve missed any part of our Annual Report, you can check out all the coverage here. Going to the movies ain’t like it used to be, right? What an understatement. With theaters shuttered up and movie chains filing for bankruptcy, one might argue it’s been a pretty crap year for cinema. Financially speaking, they’re not wrong. But, art is a funny thing. It has a way of enduring even the most arduous obstacles — you know, that whole Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park, “life finds a way” bit — and this year was a testament to that truth. Art had no issue finding a proper stage. That stage, as fate...
TikTok to hide graphic videos behind warning screens
TikTok has unveiled a newly updated set of community guidelines and tools, which include new warning screens on graphic videos, a new text-to-voice accessibility feature, and updated health resources. The update brings new vaccine information which will be added to TikTok’s coronavirus resource hub as well as resources to be shown if people search for certain terms, like those related to self-harm. According to TikTok, the graphic content warning screens are meant to prevent the accidental viewing of content that some might find disturbing. The screen gives two options, letting users either view the clip or skip it entirely. More extreme content is removed from the service entirely, but the new warning labels cover clips that might be allowed for “documentary reasons,” scenes from horror m...
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart Is the Bee Gees Doc You’ve Been Waiting For: Review
The Pitch: Three Australian brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb formed the most formidable musical and songwriter trio this side of Holland-Dozier-Holland when they became the Bee Gees. Musical chameleons, they rose to fame during the late-staged British Invasion of the 1960s, recalibrated for the singer-songwriter era of the early-1970s, and rose to a level of fame during the height of disco not seen since The Beatles. Director Frank Marshall captures it all in his new HBO documentary, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, mixing spine-tingling isolation tracks and archival interviews with the brothers Gibb to tell a captivating story of a sibling trio who, despite their differences, thrived due to their deep love. To Love Somebody: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart finds the B...
PJ Harvey’s A Dog Called Money Documentary to Premiere Online
PJ Harvey has spent the better part of this year brushing off her catalog with an in-depth reissue series. It looks like the alt-rock icon’s canonizing won’t stop there. Earlier today, she announced the 2019 documentary PJ Harvey – A Dog Called Money will finally receive its North American premiere on December 7th. Watch the official trailer below. PJ Harvey – A Dog Called Money chronicles the making of her 2016 album The Hope Six Demolition Project. For it, Harvey accompanied photojournalist Seamus Murphy on his reporting trips to Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Washington, D.C. Along the way, he wound up capturing a larger story about the experiences that inspired her album and the complicated process she went through to create it, later turning those filmed segments into a proper document...
Hulu’s Tekashi 6ix9ine Struggle Documentary Is Low Quality Just Like His Bars
Source: PYMCA / Getty To many a Hip-Hop head, Tekashi 6ix9ine has always been considered a “struggle rapper” regardless of how many times he topped the Billboard charts or how much money he earned with his mediocre records. His lyrical content has always been linked to the struggle and now he has a documentary to match. According to Yahoo, Hulu quietly released their Tekashi 6ix9ine documentary, ’69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez is the kind of mess you’d expect from a rapper who’s seemingly been all over the place in his young and short career. Directed by Vikram Gandhi, the documentary delves deep into the somewhat public life of the 24-year-old Brooklyn rapper and though it seems to be informative, it also lacks the kind of inside information that would make ...
Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You Documentary Sheds Light on What Drives The Boss: Review
The Pitch: It’s not every day that you record the 20th studio album of your half-century career in music. When that time does come, it’s worth memorializing. Such is the case with Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You, the new making-of documentary now streaming on Apple TV+. Shot last November at Springsteen’s home studio in New Jersey during a four-day recording session with the E Street Band, the film does more than simply capture a veteran band making a hard job look easy. It also gives Springsteen a chance to expand upon and espouse the thoughts on legacy, time, and the creative process that animate the new record’s material. New Jersey in Winter: While it’s unlikely that Springsteen and his crew opted for a late fall recording date to maximize the potential for cinematic poignancy, that ...
Totally Under Control Is a COVID-19 Horror Movie for the History Books: Review
The Pitch: COVID-19. Sorry, but there really are no breaks from this fucker until we have actual, steady control over this present strain of novel coronavirus. When the culture is illness, you don’t hide under coats until the whole thing blows over. You deal head-on. And this review for this particular movie will treat the issue in that way. Despite President Trump’s assertions that COVID-19 is “totally under control,” no, it’s not. And that, in a dish served cold and fast, is the case of the new documentary Totally Under Control. With 210,000 dead in the United States and rising, millions infected, and a president unwilling to acknowledge the hubris of his actions while himself testing positive for the disease, we’re far away from anything remotely resembling “control” at this present mom...
