HBO | Film Festival Today

Series Review: Though Not Without Script Flaws, “We Own This City” Engages and Horrifies Throughout

April 25, 2022

TIFF Review: “Listening to Kenny G” Makes the Man and His Music (Surprisingly) Come Alive

September 20, 2021

Interview with “In the Same Breath” Director Nanfu Wang

August 23, 2021

AFI DOCS Review: In Rousing “LFG,” the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Fights for What They Deserve

June 24, 2021

Film Review: “Tina” Perfectly Celebrates Its Brilliant Star

March 27, 2021

Film Review: “Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn” Skillfully Tells Story of Tragedy While Highlighting Dreadful Racial Tensions of Late 1980s

August 11, 2020

Film Review: “Welcome to Chechnya” Chillingly Showcases the Hell of Kadyrov’s Violent Campaign Against Gays and Lesbians

June 29, 2020

Film Review: “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn” Tells the Story of Its Subject, Once Again

June 17, 2020

Film Review: “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind” Offers Solid Portrait of Its Subject

May 4, 2020

Film Review: “Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections” Grimly Profiles the End of Democracy

March 26, 2020

Film Review: “STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie” Offers Delightful Homage
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
May 12, 2023
STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie (Davis Guggenheim, 2023) 3½ out of 4 stars. Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim has made many fine documentaries, including the 2006 Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth, a justly celebrated examination of the perils of climate change, featuring former Vice President Al Gore. Despite those credentials, he also directed the 2010 Waiting for Superman, a movie which committed the egregious sin of blaming the problems plaguing ... >>
Film Review: “Anxious Nation” Offers Fine Cinematic Therapy
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
May 5, 2023
Anxious Nation (Laura Morton/Vanessa Roth, 2022) 3 out of 4 stars. In the new documentary Anxious Nation, directors Laura Morton (a best-selling author making her feature-film debut) and Vanessa Roth (Mary J Blige’s My Life) explore the many different ways in which children and young adults suffer from anxiety in our modern world. Morton is herself a partial subject, since her daughter, Sevey, is one such teenager. But the movie covers a ... >>
Film Review: “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” Achieves Comedy Without Romance
By Hannah Tran
May 5, 2023
What’s Love Got to Do with It? (Shekhar Kapur, 2023) 2½ out of 4 stars. The cover’s classic rom-com trappings may suggest a by-the-numbers romance, but Indian director Shekar Kapur’s What’s Love Got to Do with It? bites off a bit more, asking its title’s central question in regard to the larger topic of arranged, or assisted, marriages in modern Britain. When Zoe, a thirty-something documentarian, finds out her neighbor and lifelong friend Kaz ... >>
Film Review: In Compelling “Imagining the Indian,” Native American Mascots Must Go
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
April 4, 2023
Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting (Aviva Kempner/Ben West, 2021) 3 out of 4 stars. Sports teams serve an important function in the modern world, sublimating societal aggression into something more benign than actual martial conflict. That’s the idea of their purpose, anyway, even if fans occasionally have other notions (I see you, European soccer enthusiasts). Within that universe, team mascots help rally the ... >>
Series Review: “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” Offers Insight and Inspiration
By Christopher Llewellyn Reed
April 2, 2023
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields (Lana Wilson, 2023) 3 out of 4 stars. The two-part documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, from director Lana Wilson (Miss Americana), is both a fan’s dream and a solid, in-depth look at the actor’s life and career. Following Brooke Shields from infancy to the present, the series (if we can call it that with so few episodes) examines the highs and lows of a very public existence. One may envy celebrities their wealth ... >>