For some inexplicable reason, TV star Nathan Fielder (along with veteran documentarian Lance Oppenheim) was given almost unlimited access to Elizabeth Holmes and her boyfriend Billy Evans, an heir to the Evans Hotels hospitality group and tech entrepreneur, in their San Diego rental home. He is an omnipresent figure in the Evans-Holmes household and it’s a bit unsettling when we see him looking on during unguarded moments. The result is one jaw-dropping moment after another.
As expected, Whalefall is a claustrophic, anxiety-inducing thriller
Imagine going for a dive to reclaim your father’s remains supposedly near shore, but instead ending up in the belly of a whale in a matter of moments. It’s not some sea shanty… it’s a real thing thanks to writer David Krauss and writer-director Brian Duffield. Jay Gardner (Austin Abrams) has never had what you’d consider a good relationship with his father. Always being harassed for not following in his footsteps or at the very least chided on to appreciate nature in the intense, nearly fanatical way, his old man did.
Alex Gibney’s Musk is a gargantuan portrait of terrifying influence.
Gibney’s latest documentary follows the natural progression of this path to profile perhaps the most frighteningly influential of all: Elon Musk.
Orcas Island Film Festival announces guests, special events.
In their twelfth year of running a festival on the gem of the San Juan islands, it’s basically a given that the small but mighty Orcas Island Film Festival will quietly drops one of the season’s most complete and compelling film festival lineups of the year. The quality of the program is an embarrassment of riches and it’s basically in our backyard (provided that your backyard has a seaplane or a ferry boat).
NAZA shouts horrible truth from the rooftops
Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (part of the Oscar-winning collective behind No Other Land), have returned with NAZA. Now playing in theaters, and soon to follow online, it is another striking piece of documentary and journalism that illuminates the horrors of the last three years in the conflict between Israel and Gaza.
NYFF Journal: Double Freedom
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on Double Freedom, Lisandro Alonso’s a quasi-remake of his 2001 debut, La Libertad.
The Social Reckoning is too much and too little too late
A lot of time has passed since the Social Network landed; the sequel feels almost as tired as all of us are.
NYFF Journal: My Undesirable Friends – Part II: Exile
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on My Undesirable Friends – Part II: Exile, Julia Loktev’s massive globe-spanning documentary about dissident Russian journalists.
NYFF Journal: My Wife Cries
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on My Wife Cries, as wonderful a film Angela Schanelec has ever made.
NYFF Journal: The Diary of a Chambermaid
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on The Diary of a Chambermaid, Radu Jude’s most sentimental tale yet.