They’re big, they’re hairy, they’re an urban myth that refuses to die — they’re the mythological creatures known as Sasquatches, those reclusive figures occasionally seen wandering in the woods and who may or may not rock a size 22 men’s shoe size. Some may doubt their existence, given that they …
Read More »'Girls State' Revisits Faux-Government Program From the Female Perspective. It's Not Pretty
You may remember Boys State, the 2020 documentary in which filmmakers Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss embedded themselves with the decades-old program that lets teenagers get a taste of the political process. Watching as hundreds of young Texans played out mock versions of campaigning, strategizing, stumping and either sticking to …
Read More »Cynthia Erivo Is the Reason You Need to See 'Drift'
There is a moment in Drift, the character study from filmmaker Anthony Chen, that you know is inevitable. (It’s now playing in New York, opens in L.A. on Feb. 16, and goes wide on Feb. 23.) You spend so much of this carefully constructed film’s running time bracing for it, …
Read More »Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg Are Shaggy Beasts in 'Sasquatch Sunset' Trailer
Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg shape-shift into shaggy, mythical beasts in the absurdist comedy Sasquatch Sunset. Less than a minute into Bleecker Street’s Sasquatch Sunset trailer, one bearded sasquatch dry humps another in a North American forest. The trailer then follows the family of ape-like creatures as they forage, hike, …
Read More »Jane Schoenbrun Made Sundance's Hottest Horror Movie About Their Trans Experience
In the fall of 2021, filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun found themselves back in their hometown, walking the streets of Ardsley in Westchester County, New York, with a disposable camera in hand. They’d taken a day trip up from Brooklyn in the hopes of revisiting the places that had once defined their …
Read More »Sex, Drugs, and Sitar Fights: How 'DIG! XX' Explodes and Rebuilds a Cult Rock Doc
Once upon a time on the West Coast, two bands were plotting a revolution. Well, really, it was one musician concocting a grand plan to dismantle the record industry, bring back a massive revival of 1960s psychedelic rock, and achieve total world domination. His name was Anton Newcombe, and this …
Read More »How Shiori Itō Took on Her Powerful Rapist and Changed Japan Forever
On the night of April 3, 2015, Shiori Itō, an intern at Thomson Reuters, met Noriyuki Yamaguchi at a restaurant under the guise of a job interview. Yamaguchi, then the Washington bureau chief of Tokyo Broadcasting System and a personal friend (and biographer) of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was a …
Read More »'As We Speak' Exposes the Racism Behind Criminalizing Rap Lyrics
The double standard is almost as old as hip-hop itself. A decorated filmmaker gets laurels for his or her latest bullet-laden gangster movie. A rock or country star is proclaimed a songwriting genius for violent tales of man’s inhumanity to man. But rappers are held to a different standard, their …
Read More »'Will & Harper' Follows Will Ferrell and His Trans Best Friend Harper Steele Across a Divided America
Long before she transitioned, Harper Steele was a writer at Saturday Night Live. She was hired in 1995, the same week that a performer named Will Ferrell joined the cast. Unlike his fellow Groundlings Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri, who’d also been recruited from the L.A.-based improv group to join …
Read More »Taylor Swift's Documentarian Explores the Strange World of Psychics
Lana Wilson was in her mid-twenties and working for a non-profit in New York City when she learned that George Tiller, the medical director of one of the only clinics in the U.S. that provided third trimester abortions, had been assassinated by an anti-abortion terrorist. “I was so horrified and …
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