In Cooking with Paris, Hilton capitalizes on her portrayal of being a competent woman, while highlighting its anachronism through her absurd performance. Rosler manipulates the camera in the same way.
Documentary
Posted inFilm
Why Do People Keep Finding Their Lives Onscreen Without Their Consent?
A man says Blue Bayou took details of his life without his permission. Several women who appear in the documentary Sabaya say they did not consent to be filmed. How can filmmakers avoid these ethical pitfalls?
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The Loneliest Whale Tries to Find the Internet’s Favorite Whale
“The 52-hertz Whale,” which sings a song at a frequency no other whale uses, is a social media phenomenon. But this film shows that the phenomenon says more about us than whales.
Posted inFilm
The Velvet Underground Brings the New York of the ’60s Back to Life
With dense split-screen use of period artifacts and a killer Velvets soundtrack, Todd Haynes’s documentary is a loving tribute to his favorite band.
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New Anthony Fauci Documentary Shows Why His Hero Image Is Flawed
Fauci is not quite a hagiography of “America’s doctor,” but it comes close. It ignores or twists the flaws in his responses to both AIDS and COVID-19.
Posted inFilm
Film Reels Dredged from the Sea Become an Eerie Meditation on Mortality
Bill Morrison’s new documentary The Village Detective: A Song Cycle is an eerie meditation on mortality made from forgotten parts of cinema history.
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A New Documentary Explores the Life of Unheralded Civil Rights Activist Pauli Murray
Filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen talk to Hyperallergic about Murray’s archives and holding themselves accountable as white women biographing a Black figure.
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Bob Ross the Dreamer Got a Rude Awakening
The new documentary Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed pulls back the curtain to expose the realities of Bob Ross, Inc. but does it go far enough?
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Don’t Miss These Experimental Works at the New York Film Festival
With films touching on protest in France, China’s one-child policy, and Indigenous life in Canada, the 2021 Currents program stays both culturally and politically forward-thinking.
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The Story of the “First Lady of Religious Broadcasting”
The Eyes of Tammy Faye features a riveting performance from Jessica Chastain, but proves less interesting than the documentary it’s based on.
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There Are Now Not One But Two Documentaries About the Salvator Mundi Saga
Both The Lost Leonardo and Savior for Sale dig into how museums and galleries are not merely complicit with the unregulated art-industrial complex, but are necessary to it.
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Unearthed Interviews Shed New Light on Truman Capote
Ebs Burnough’s documentary The Capote Tapes uses hundreds of hours of newly discovered interviews about the infamous author to take a deeper look at his life.