documentary
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Ready for Change: Discussing Sexual Assault with SafeBAE
The co-founders of SafeBAE discuss the challenges and victories of teaching students about rape culture, consent, and anti-bullying.
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There Is Simply No Time for This: Whose Streets? and Civil Rights Cinema
It is unlikely I will see the US justice system evolve toward an egalitarian ideal in my lifetime. But Whose Streets? does offer a clearly visible North Star.
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Fetishizing Distress: The Wrong Light and Sex Trafficking
Josie Swantek Heitz’s and Dave Adams’s The Wrong Light, theatrically released in NYC through Cinema Guild on July 14, is disturbing on several levels. First, there’s the story itself. The filmmakers set out to create a portrait of the Children’s…
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How The Keepers Reframes Confession as a Feminist Act
Critics have noted how The Keepers is similar to other prestige documentaries but with a significant difference—its focus on the victims and their stories.
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Casting JonBenét and the Pageantry of Brokenness
It is an uncomfortable admission, but we hunger for stories that sensationalize the extremes of human behavior. We want to crawl under the police tape and see the outlines of bodies.
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The Rumpus Interview with Laura Albert
Laura Albert discusses her alter ego JT LeRoy, Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary Author: The JT LeRoy Story, her complicated relationship with her mother, and life as a hustler.
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Macho Prey: Homophobia and Unlikely Victims in Tickled
The film only grazes the issue, but homophobia is the fuel of the harassment that the targets face.
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I Called Him Morgan
A new jazz documentary is making its way around the festival circuit. Directed by Kasper Collin, I Called Him Morgan traces the career of trumpet player Lee Morgan, who worked with greats like Art Blakey and Dizzy Gillespie before being murdered—shot dead on stage…
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Sound & Vision: Brendan Toller
Allyson McCabe talks with Brendan Toller about his love of vinyl records, buying music in local stores, and his latest documentary film Danny Says, an examination of publicist and manager Danny Fields.
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The Long Con
Literature is full of imposters and noms de plume, from George Eliot to “Robert Galbraith” (aka JK Rowling), but JT LeRoy is something else. George Eliot never did high-end fashion shoots, or received backstage passes to U2 gigs, or was…
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Official Marvin Gaye Documentary Announced
An official documentary about Marvin Gaye is finally in the works, and has been approved by the late singer’s family. The film will be titled What’s Going On, Marvin? and will center around the making of the seminal album. The artist’s children released a…
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Cooked: The Story of Everything
Because Cooked samples from all of its predecessors in style and topic, it becomes a show that can’t be pigeonholed into the tired and dry mechanisms of foodie-media.