All articles tagged with #documentary
Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC stitches recovered 1970s concert footage and Graceland material into a kinetic, revealing concert film that doubles as a brisk biographical tour of Elvis’s career, delivering an immersive, non-gimmicky experience for fans.
The 2026 Oscar-nominated shorts span live-action, documentary, and animation with striking variety—from a blue-collar bar vignette and a tense Palestinian-dramatic entry to intimate portraits of a Black-led abortion clinic and a visually lush biopic—showcasing bold directing and vivid imagery. Standouts include The Devil Is Busy, Butterfly, and Retirement Plan, while several entries feel lean or underdeveloped; overall the lineup emphasizes breadth, craftsmanship, and emotional resonance in short-form storytelling.
Rob Sheffield’s Rolling Stone review argues Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert restores 1969 rehearsal and on‑stage footage in a Get Back–style edit that lets Elvis speak through archival audio, spotlighting his raw live energy and evolution from Sun Sessions to the Comeback era. The film treats Elvis as a living cultural force rather than a relic, explores the tension with Colonel Parker, and underscores why he remains America’s ultimate obsession through his music and performances.
At 70, Billy Idol looks back on a turbulent rise from London punk to MTV icon, detailing decades of excess, a heroin-fueled spiral, a near-fatal motorcycle accident, and a move to sobriety that reshaped his life as he promotes a new memoir and the documentary Billy Idol Should Be Dead, while continuing to release music like the 2025 album Dream Into It and headlining major tours.
Melania Trump used Presidents’ Day to push her Amazon documentary, which has underperformed since release. The film opened to about $7 million, has hovered at roughly $15.4 million total, and recently dropped to less than $1 million in a weekend. While some major outlets praised the film, social media critics slammed it as a “brainless” self-promotion, with harsh comments from trolls as Amazon MGM eyes streaming to recoup costs.
The piece profiles Billy Preston, the keyboard virtuoso who electrified the 1971 Bangladesh benefit at Madison Square Garden and later scored solo hits, while revealing the private pain behind his public joy—his sexuality, childhood abuse, and years of addiction—set against a backdrop of gospel roots and legendary collaborations, as a new documentary aims to honor his genius amid his life’s silences and tragedy.
The Times memorializes Frederick Wiseman, highlighting his direct cinema approach and the controversial Titicut Follies, whose ban and decades-long legal battles helped shape free-speech jurisprudence; Wiseman showed that people are defined by the institutions surrounding them, a thread he pursued across more than 40 documentaries before his death at 96.
Directors Daniel Sivan and Mor Loushy say Tyra Banks agreed to be interviewed for Netflix’s Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, with no topics off-limits and more than four hours of candid footage. Banks had final say on her participation and, as of Feb. 11, had not yet watched the series; the film holds her accountable for missteps while providing necessary context about the era. She notably avoids commenting on her relationship with Jay Manuel, and the doc hints at a potential Cycle 25, depending on how it’s handled.
Frederick Wiseman, the pioneering documentary filmmaker whose narration-free, observational portraits of public institutions helped redefine cinema verite, died at 96. A founder of Zipporah Films and a 2016 honorary Oscar recipient, his work—from Titicut Follies to City Hall—shaped generations of documentary storytelling.
Frederick Wiseman, the pioneering documentary filmmaker behind Titicut Follies and a vast catalog of institutional portraits, dies at 96. Over six decades he produced and directed 45 films under Zipporah Films, earning an honorary Oscar in 2016 and a Venice Golden Lion in 2014 for lifelong contributions.
Renowned documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, famed for long, observational films that avoid narration and focus on institutions, died Feb. 16 in Cambridge, Massachusetts at 96. A Yale Law graduate who turned to filmmaking, he created influential works from Titicut Follies (1967) to City Hall (2020) and continued working into his 90s, earning an honorary Oscar and teaching through his minimalist, editor-driven approach. Wiseman’s films emphasize patterns over heroes and have shaped modern documentary storytelling.
Netflix's Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model probes how the show fused groundbreaking reality TV moments with extreme body-shaming and exploitation, revealing painful episodes, producer complicity, and contestant distress, while painting Tyra Banks as both a trailblazer and a source of harm; the three-hour doc is access-rich but overlong and uneven, ultimately sparking a searing critique of the show's legacy rather than simply a nostalgic stroll through its era.
Netflix’s Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model reveals seven major revelations about the long-running reality series, including Tyra Banks’s clashes with Jay Manuel, the show’s body-image pressures and fat-shaming debates, the Dani Evans gap controversy, controversial race-swapping and crime-scene shoots, concerns that contestants weren’t protected in vulnerable moments, Banks’s on-set meltdown, and Miss J.’s 2022 stroke with Banks’ delayed visit.
The Ballad Of Judas Priest chronicles the band’s 50-year ascent from Birmingham to global metal icons, premiering at Berlinale with a first clip featuring Rob Halford on the inspiration behind “Breaking The Law.” Co-directed by Sam Dunn and Tom Morello in his directing debut, the documentary explores the group’s enduring impact on metal and culture, including recent milestones around the Invincible Shield era.
A documentary crew filming Store Glacier in Western Greenland endure a weeks-long delay and a perilous ice‑fall sequence as massive chunks collapse, nearly striking their helicopter and underscoring the Arctic’s raw power and rapid change.