News

Streaming platform MGM+ has picked up a four-part true crime docuseries on a serial killer so heinous he inspired Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs.

Psycho: The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein, directed and executive produced by James Buddy Day, will premiere on MGM+ in September, documenting a murderer and body snatcher known as “The Plainfield Ghoul” and “The Mad Butcher.”

“For years, filmmakers, journalists, and scholars have tried to unravel the mind of this notorious killer, and with new reveals and never-before-heard recordings, viewers will be transported to late-1950s Middle America and submerged in Gein’s perverse mind,” notes a description of the multi-parter. “The series explores Gein’s upbringing and twisted relationship with his mother (which famously inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho), his early grave robbing, the murders leading up to his arrest, and the police’s discovery of his terrifying house...

Using actors to bring to life story elements within documentary film is becoming a more widespread practice, if one that’s still viewed with skepticism by some purists.

The films of Robert Greene spring to mind – Kate Plays Christine and Procession, for instance – and Kitty Green’s Casting JonBenet. Errol Morris cast Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Blake Nelson, Bob Balaban and other stars to dramatize extended sequences in Wormwood, and famously used actors in the critical murder scene reenactment in the The Thin Blue Line.

The technique achieves a new level of artistry and organic relevance in Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa), which premiered tonight in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The Tunisian director cast actresses to play Olfa Hamrouni and her two eldest daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, who as teenagers abruptly disappeared from the family home after becoming attached to radical Islamist ideology. Only...

Titles backed or produced by HBO Europe (“Welcome to Utmark”), NBCU (“Sisterhood”), Fremantle (“Cargo”) and ITV Studios (“Thin Blue Line”) have been nominated for the 5th Nordisk Film & TV Fond Prize, the most prestigious Nordic award for drama series screenwriting.

In a powerful smackdown, a fifth series, “Cry Wolf,” is produced by Dr Drama, the Danish producer of Nordic Noir icons “The Killing” and “The Bridge” as well as “Borgen.”

Adding another edge to competition, the five contenders are produced by companies based in the five main Nordic countries and backed by three of its biggest public broadcasters, Sweden’s Svt, Denmark’s Dr and Finland’s Yle, as well as pan-Nordic pay TV giant Viaplay, part of the Nordic Entertainment Group (Nent).

The winner of the award, which goes to the main writer, will be announced on Feb. 3 at Sweden’s Göteborg Film Festival during its TV Drama Vision,...

Need a good real-life mystery to solve? TV audiences love them.

And documentary maker Errol Morris famously investigated a murder with The Thin Blue Line, a government LSD conspiracy with Wormwood and Robert McNamara’s role in history in Fog of War.

But, with My Psychedelic Love Story, which debuted on Showtime on Nov. 29, if you’re looking for Morris to solve the mystery of whether Joanna Harcourt-Smith was a 1970s CIA sex spy in a LSD-laced romp with Timothy Leary to return him to a California prison cell, expect few clues from his first-person interview.

“If people are interested ...

Need a good real-life mystery to solve? TV audiences love them.

And documentary maker Errol Morris famously investigated a murder with The Thin Blue Line, a government LSD conspiracy with Wormwood and Robert McNamara’s role in history in Fog of War.

But, with My Psychedelic Love Story, which debuted on Showtime on Nov. 29, if you’re looking for Morris to solve the mystery of whether Joanna Harcourt-Smith was a 1970s CIA sex spy in a LSD-laced romp with Timothy Leary to return him to a California prison cell, expect few clues from his first-person interview.

“If people are interested ...

We’ve seen television series and movies impact public perception of a criminal case; the entire true crime genre takes established narratives and finds a way to either create something new or dramatize what is already heightened. With that comes the caveat that what is being presented is a dramatic re-interpretation, changed to engage a narrative audience. Or is it? As documentarian and author Errol Morris lays out in “A Wilderness of Error,” humans are incredibly stubborn and willing to make the facts fit their beliefs, even if they’re wrong.

In February 1970 Green Beret doctor Jeffrey MacDonald’s pregnant wife and two daughters were found brutally murdered in their home. MacDonald claimed that a gang of hippies, led by a blonde woman in a floppy hat, entered his house and killed everyone. It made sense right away, particularly as the Manson family killings took place just six months before.

In his convention speech Wednesday night, Vice President Mike Pence backed cops to the hilt, while baselessly warning that a Biden administration would leave America unprotected. Pence even invoked a line from the mythology of American policing — that cops represent a fragile barrier between social order and unbridled violence. “Under President Trump, we will stand with those who stand on the Thin Blue Line,” Pence declared. “We’re not going to defund the police — not now, not ever.”

Pence’s unabashed, uncritical support for cops came as a slap in...

Becca Kufrin and Garrett Yrigoyen have pressed pause on their relationship. Two years after falling in love on season 14 of The Bachelorette, a source tells E! News exclusively the couple's engagement is off. In recent weeks, the reality TV stars were the subject of split rumors after Becca revealed Garrett's social media support for the "Thin Blue Line," a pro-police slogan associated with the Blue Lives Matter movement, had caused a rift in their relationship. That conflict is part of the reason why the source says Becca and Garrett are going their separate ways. "Becca is still very upset with Garrett's comments and the controversy...

Rachel Lindsay had some choice words to describe Becca Kufrin's fiancé Garrett Yrigoyen. The Bachelor Happy Hour host sat down with Danny Pellegrino of the Everything Iconic podcast to discuss everything Bravo, but conversation inevitably turned to Bachelor Nation and her co-host's fiancé. As usual, Rachel didn't hold back in sharing her thoughts on the recent backlash to Garrett's comments in which he expressed support for the Thin Blue Line, a countermovement to Black Lives Matter. "He has doubled down on his beliefs," Rachel said, before adding, "This is not the first time he has had problematic behavior. When he was on the season—he had a history of...

While the presence of “Minding the Gap” and “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” in the Oscar documentary feature category suggest a welcome evolution in the way the Academy thinks about nonfiction filmmaking, the documentary short ballot hasn’t changed much from years past. Once again, just causes, rather than great cinema, dominate the list of nominees, which serve as a kind of armchair activism for voters, who tend to back the issue that matters most to them. Here, the choices range from empowering women in developing nations to easing terminal patients with end-of-life choices.

The first film screened in ShortsTV’s two-hour-plus theatrical program, Ed Perkins’ “Black Sheep,” actually suggests it may be otherwise, interweaving a compelling direct-to-camera interview with Cornelius Walker with equally powerful reenactment footage of his adolescence in Essex, where the young Nigerian immigrant learned to hate the color of his own skin. The story itself...

Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 11/9” (Briarcliff Entertainment) opens Friday in over 1,700 theaters. The release comes in a year that has seen three documentaries gross over $10 million: “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” “Rbg,” and “Three Identical Strangers.” But those successes pale against Moore’s: Three of his films grossed over $30 million at 2018 ticket prices, with “Fahrenheit 9/11” at a staggering $178 million.

As always, Moore is his film’s marketing campaign; he’s gambling that he can recreate the appeal of “Bowling For Columbine” and “9/11″after a decade of seeing his films face declining results. His biggest hits came in the early George W. Bush years, when he was positioned as part of the resistance. (His last two documentaries came while Obama was president.) His last film, “Where To Invade Next,” grossed just $3.8 million in February 2016 — but that was months before anyone took Donald Trump seriously.

This cycle works both ways. Moore...

While most of the film industry community is focused on the big names that are debuting big projects at the Venice Film Festival, there seems to be a bit of controversy surrounding one of the smaller titles. “American Dharma” is a documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Errol Morris. The Oscar-winning filmmaker is probably best known for films “The Fog of War” and “The Thin Blue Line,” but his latest work, is putting him in the crosshairs of many in the media because of its relation to polarizing political figure, Steve Bannon.

Continue reading Filmmaker Errol Morris Defends Steve Bannon Documentary ‘American Dharma’ Amidst Heavy Criticism at The Playlist.

When William Friedkin says that Hitler and Jesus are the two most interesting characters in history, one is inclined to listen. The Oscar-winning director of “The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer,” and “The French Connection” is fascinated by the extremes they represent: One brought people down to hell with him, the other helped them ascend to heaven. Friedkin proves so talkative in Francesco Zippel’s documentary about him, riffing on matters both cinematic and spiritual, that it’s almost surprising he didn’t pursue a career that allows him to do it more — you can almost imagine him in front of a congregation of his own.

He isn’t the only one with a lot to say. “Friedkin Uncut” also includes testimonials from collaborators and admirers such as Ellen Burstyn, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Francis Ford Coppola; docs of this type never lack for talking heads, but there’s a sense that...

American Animals, a thrilling tale of rare book theft, is a startling mix of fiction and reality. In the age of ‘alternative facts’ is this the way ahead for the documentary?

The first thing that viewers of the slippery new thriller American Animals will see is an unusual title card which reads: “This is not based on a true story.” The next thing we know, the words “not based on” have disappeared before our eyes. So is this film, which recounts a 2004 heist in Lexington, Kentucky, a drama or a documentary? Onscreen interviews with the criminals themselves – four bored young men who hatched a plot to steal valuable books (including Darwin’s On the Origin of Species) – tip the balance in favour of documentary. On the other hand, the film features fictionalised versions of the same people played by an able young cast, as well as the sort of glossy...

Cate Blanchett will guest star as a Marina Abramovic-type performance artist in an upcoming episode of IFC’s Documentary Now!, IFC announced.

The episode, titled “Waiting for the Artist,” is a take-off on the acclaimed 2012 documentary Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present. Like the real doc, the parody follows an acclaimed performance artist – in this case, Izabella Barta, played by Blanchett – as she prepares for a major exhibition.

In the Documentary Now! episode, Blanchett’s Barta is “reconciling” her relationship with a former lover Dimo Van Omen (Fred Armisen), known as an infamous provocateur of the art world. The episode was shot on location in Budapest, Hungary earlier this summer.

“On the heels of two Emmy nominations and tremendous second quarter growth, IFC now has a two time Oscar winner in an episode of Documentary Now,” said acting IFC General Manager, Blake Callaway. “Cate’s portrayal of an art...

As the gap between great TV and great film narrows, so does the gap between their respective awards organizations. Can a project receive Oscars and Emmys? In some cases, the answer is a resounding “No”: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences changed its rules after Ezra Edelman’s acclaimed ESPN documentary “O.J.: Made in America” won the 2017 Oscar. Never again, said AMPAS, will a multi-part TV “series” cross our stage.

Still, many two-hour documentary films see theatrical debuts before they hit television, which makes them eligible for both Oscars and Emmys. This year’s Oscar winner, “Icarus,” came from Netflix, as did Oscar-nominee “Strong Island.” And they are among the five films in the Documentary Emmy race, along with “Jane” (National Geographic), Matt Heinemann’s “City of Ghosts” (A&E) and “What Haunts Us” (Starz).

“Jane” has a chance at seven Emmys, including Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, Directing,...

As the gap between great TV and great film narrows, so does the gap between their respective awards organizations. Can a project receive Oscars and Emmys? In some cases, the answer is a resounding “No”: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences changed its rules after Ezra Edelman’s acclaimed ESPN documentary “O.J.: Made in America” won the 2017 Oscar. Never again, said AMPAS, will a multi-part TV “series” cross our stage.

Still, many two-hour documentary films see theatrical debuts before they hit television, which makes them eligible for both Oscars and Emmys. This year’s Oscar winner, “Icarus,” came from Netflix, as did Oscar-nominee “Strong Island.” And they are among the five films in the Documentary Emmy race, along with “Jane” (National Geographic), Matt Heinemann’s “City of Ghosts” (A&E) and “What Haunts Us” (Starz).

“Jane” has a chance at seven Emmys, including Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking, Directing,...

Peter Sarsgaard is a strong contender for an Emmy nomination for Best Movie/Mini Supporting Actor this year for playing arrogant CIA agent Martin Schmidt in Hulu’s fact-based limited series “The Looming Tower.” And this one-time Golden Globe nominee could also contend for Best Movie/Mini Actor for his role in another true story: Netflix’s “Wormwood.” But his candidacy there is unique because “Wormwood” is actually a documentary.

“Wormwood” is helmed by filmmaker Errol Morris, who is best known for his nonfiction films including “Gates of Heaven” (1978), “The Thin Blue Line” (1988), “Mr. Death” (1999) and “The Fog of War” (2003), the last of which won him the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. In “Wormwood” he investigates the mysterious death of Frank Olson, an Army scientist who died in 1953 in what may have been a CIA-ordered assassination.

The story is told largely through interviews, particularly with Olson’s son Eric who...

“We like to get a few takes of pure improv, and not always for comedy purposes; sometimes, that’s just how you get a more realistic take. Ironically, some of the improv actually lessens the comedy,” reveals Dan Perrault in an interview with Gold Derby (watch the exclusive video above) about co-creating “American Vandal.” He is one of the producers of the true crime mockumentary starring Jimmy Tatro that famously asked, “Who drew the dicks?”

Perrault adds, “There are rhythms people are used to in comedy, in mockumentary specifically, that we’re trying to avoid and sometimes we’ll pick out an improv moment that doesn’t necessarily give us an important story point or a laugh, but just feels real and we’ll find a way to put it in there just to get people in the mindset that they feel like they’re watching a documentary.”

SEEour interview...

Errol Morris’ “Wormwood,” a six-part nonfiction series for Netflix, investigates what really happened to Frank Olson, a biological warfare scientist working for the CIA who supposedly jumped out the window of a New York hotel (room 1018A) in 1953. It’s a mystery that spans 60 years of history of the CIA and is often told through personal lens of his son Eric Olsen who, now in his early seventies, is still determined to discover the truth of his father’s death.

“This is not, in any sense, a live action, vérité account of something that is transpiring in front of the camera,” Morris said in an interview with IndieWire. “The camera is trying to bore into the past, into history, is trying to discover what did happen using all of the tools that we have at our disposal.”

Those tools involve a rich archive of documentation, both personal and governmental, but also the tools of cinema,...

Documentarian Matthew Heineman is the front-runner to win his second Directors Guild Award in three years thanks to his tense film “City of Ghosts.” That’s according to the combined predictions of more than 1,200 users who have entered their picks at Gold Derby in advance of the DGA ceremony on Saturday night, February 3. But for Heineman to win again he’ll have to get past a few legendary filmmakers: Steve James (“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”), Errol Morris (“Wormwood”) and Ken Burns (“The Vietnam War”).

Heineman previously won Best Documentary Director for “Cartel Land” (2015), in which he explored the tension between drug cartels, Mexican groups fighting back against cartel violence and border patrol agents monitoring the crossing between Mexico and the United States. Heineman’s latest film is also about a group resisting violence in their homeland: “City of Ghosts” profiles the Syrian citizen journalists who make up the group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.

“Jane,” Brett Morgen’s popular documentary about primatologist Jane Goodall, was so lauded and applauded that most Oscar experts predicted that it would land an Oscar nomination, if not win. Instead, it never made the cut.

This happens with the Academy documentary branch. While its voter ranks have expanded by more than 50 percent in the last three years, from 204 to 320 members, it’s still a relatively insular group with strong ideas about what makes a great documentary. They tend to be slow to recognize innovation. They long frowned on dramatic re-enactments, strong personalities, and rousing scores, overlooking early Michael Moore entry “Roger and Me” and Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line,” finally rewarding them with Oscars for anti-gun screed “Bowling for Columbine” and the Robert McNamara profile “The Fog of War,” respectively.

Moore returned to the Oscar fray for “Sicko,” but Morris was never nominated again. The doc branch nominated...

“Jane,” Brett Morgen’s popular documentary about primatologist Jane Goodall, was so lauded and applauded that most Oscar experts predicted that it would land an Oscar nomination, if not win. Instead, it never made the cut.

This happens with the Academy documentary branch. While its voter ranks have expanded by more than 50 percent in the last three years, from 204 to 320 members, it’s still a relatively insular group with strong ideas about what makes a great documentary. They tend to be slow to recognize innovation. They long frowned on dramatic re-enactments, strong personalities, and rousing scores, overlooking early Michael Moore entry “Roger and Me” and Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line,” finally rewarding them with Oscars for anti-gun screed “Bowling for Columbine” and the Robert McNamara profile “The Fog of War,” respectively.

Read More:Is Errol Morris’s ‘Wormwood’ a Documentary? Netflix Says Yes, Oscars Say No

Moore returned to the Oscar fray for “Sicko,...

In hindsight, it was probably inevitable that Errol Morris would contribute to the abundance of true crime we’ve been experiencing these last few years. The documentarian is ahead of the curve, after all, having directed an exemplar of the genre nearly 20 years ago with “The Thin Blue Line.” His latest is the docuseries “Wormwood,” which obsessives can now accompany with a podcast.

Read More:Review: Peter Sarsgaard Stars In Netflix’s ‘Wormwood,’ a Documentary-Fiction Combo You’ve Never Experienced Before

Here’s the synopsis: “Meet the Wormwood Podcast — from Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris, this is the official companion piece to the Netflix genre-bending documentary Wormwood. Join the discussion as we dive deeper into the mysterious death of CIA scientist Frank Olson. Did he fall or jump from his 13th floor New York hotel room in 1953? The official story is that he was purposefully drugged with LSD without his knowledge...

On November 28th, 1953, a military scientist named Frank Olson died after falling out the window of his New York hotel room. Did he jump ... or was he pushed? That question has consumed the life of his son, Eric. And it's now the focus of Wormwood, the new four-hour-plus film from Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris, who has spent his landmark career exploring the truth that governments and powerful individuals don't want us to know.

Streaming on Netflix in six episodes and screening in select theaters, Wormwood could serve as a grand...

His name is Christopher Rainey, but you can call him "Quest" – that's the nickname this North Philly resident is known by. Christine'a Rainey, his wife and a women's shelter employee, is sometimes called "Ma Quest," usually by the folks who drop by her spouse's recording studio for his "Freestyle Friday" open-houses. ("I always feel like someone's mother," she says, with both pride and weariness.) They each have kids from previous marriages – her son William has just become a father and discovered he had a cancerous brain tumor in quick succession – and one child together: P.

Like so many auteurs working on projects that are considered 'niche' -- basically anything not in Tights or in a franchise, these days -- Errol Morris has gone over to the streaming services (in this case, Netflix) with his current project. Wormwood is a documentary heavy with actor recreations; coincidentally, this is the medium that Morris practically invented with 1988's The Thin Blue Line, which saw the subsequent death-row convict released from prison. The six-part series looks at the U.S.A. government and CIA behavior in the Mk-ultra programs and the effect it has had on one man, Eric Olson, whose father, Frank, a CIA contractor, died under mysterious circumstances. The CIA dosed Frank with LSD in 1953, a mere nine days prior to his 'suicide.'...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Netflix has revealed an intense new trailer for their new series Wormwood, and it looks really freakin' good! This is a documentary series that stars Peter Sarsgaard and it tells the untold true story of the CIA. What does that entail? A history of LSD experiments, mind control, and the death of a family man are just a few of the elements involved in a massive cover-up.

The fascinating six-part series comes from director Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) and it follows the true story of Eric Olsen’s journey to uncover the truth about his father’s death. The telling of this story combines narrative scenes, archival footage, and interviews. These kinds of stories have always intrigued me, so I'm really looking forward to watching this!

Wormwood explores the limits of knowledge about the past and the lengths we’ll go in our search for the truth.

There are documentarians and then there are storytellers, and Errol Morris firmly fits in the latter category. While the director is best known for efforts like “Gates Of Heaven,” “The Fog Of War,” and “A Brief History Of Time,” his latest effort “Wormwood” probably falls more in line with his docu-drama classic, “The Thin Blue Line.” And Netflix has given the legendary filmmaker six episodes to unfold this fascinating story.

Continue reading ‘Wormwood’ Trailer: Errol Morris Explores The CIA, LSD & Mind Control at The Playlist.

Netflix’s upcoming docuseries Wormwood mixes fiction and nonfiction to investigate a thicket of decades-long conspiracy theories around the CIA — and how one family may have paid the price for the agency’s secrets.

But to Errol Morris, its Oscar-winning director, Wormwood‘s key mystery is fairly simple.

“It’s a room,” he tells People of the six-part series, exclusively previewed above. “When you boil it all down, there’s a room in this hotel on Seventh Avenue in New York overlooking the old Penn Station. Just after Thanksgiving 1953, Frank Olson, an Army scientist, goes out a window 13 floors onto the pavement below.

Errol Morris has been ahead of the curve ever since he broke out with pet cemetery documentary “Gates of Heaven” in 1978. A decade later, “The Thin Blue Line” wowed critics but alienated the hidebound documentary community with its use of “reenactments” and a rousing Philip Glass score. Decades before Netflix created “Making a Murderer,” “The Keepers,” and “Witness,” Morris’ film actually solved a murder mystery and freed an innocent Death Row convict in a Texas prison.

Since then, Glass became a go-to movie composer, earning three Oscar nominations — and could score a fourth for this year’s Oscar documentary frontrunner “Jane.” Reenactments have become standard issue for nonfiction films, filling the void between talking heads, archival footage, cinéma vérité observation, and what isn’t visually available. And Morris isn’t the only filmmaker who is a presence in his films, yelling at his subjects from behind his invention, the Interrotron.

Errol Morris has been ahead of the curve ever since he broke out with pet cemetery documentary “Gates of Heaven” in 1978. A decade later, “The Thin Blue Line” wowed critics but alienated the hidebound documentary community with its use of “reenactments” and a rousing Philip Glass score. Decades before Netflix created “Making a Murderer,” “The Keepers,” and “Witness,” Morris’ film actually solved a murder mystery and freed an innocent Death Row convict in a Texas prison.

Since then, Glass became a go-to movie composer, earning three Oscar nominations — and could score a fourth for this year’s Oscar documentary frontrunner “Jane.” Reenactments have become standard issue for nonfiction films, filling the void between talking heads, archival footage, cinéma vérité observation, and what isn’t visually available. And Morris isn’t the only filmmaker who is a presence in his films, yelling at his subjects from behind his invention, the Interrotron.

The Thin Blue Line and the Oscar-winning 2003 film The Fog of War, once again dives deep for his latest project, but in this case, he takes his time, telling the story over four and a half hours. In the six-episode series Wormwood (debuting Dec. 15 on Netflix and in theaters), the filmmaker, who will be honored with a tribute during AFI Fest, focuses on the true story of Eric Olsen, who spent 60 years investigating the mysterious 1953 suicide of his father, a scientist who was working with the CIA....

New York City’s annual Doc NYC festival kicks off this week, including a full-to-bursting slate of some of this year’s most remarkable documentaries. If you’ve been looking to beef up on your documentary consumption, Doc NYC is the perfect chance to check out a wide variety of some of the year’s best fact-based features. Ahead, we pick out 14 of our most anticipated films from the fest, including some awards contenders, a handful of buzzy debuts, and a number of festival favorites. Take a look and start filling up your schedule now.

Doc NYC runs November 9 – 16 in New York City.

“EuroTrump”

Donald Trump may seem like a sui generis figure, a one-of-a-kind monster who was forged in a perfect storm of racism, tweets, and chaos, but history suggests that he’s really just a new breed of an old type. You don’t even have to look...

In this week’s missile of a The New York Times story about the many alleged indiscretions of Harvey Weinstein, one of his past colleagues, former Miramax Los Angeles president Mark Gill, describes Weinstein’s professional climb from indie producer to Hollywood titan. “From the outside, it seemed golden — the Oscars, the success, the remarkable cultural impact.” Yet Gill said the persistent whispers that Weinstein was mistreating women were in fact “the biggest mess of all.”

While The Weinstein Co. co-founder publicly championed women’s rights, his accusers say that he was a hypocrite, secretly propositioning them for massages, kisses and more. One month after Weinstein distributed “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary about rapes on university campuses, he allegedly groped a college-aged woman in his office. Weinstein, 65, has a well-documented, on-the-record history of unflattering behavior, even against women (like in 2002, when he publicly berated director Julie Taymor at a screening of her film,...

Doc NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, has announced its 15-film Short List of Oscar contenders along with its opening-night selection, “The Final Year,” in which Greg Barker follows key members of Barack Obama’s administration during their last year in office. The festival runs November 9-16.

Thom Powers, Doc NYC’s artistic director as well as documentary programmer for Tiff, oversees curation of the Short List of films that may be in the running for the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature. This year contains a spectrum of funders and distributors, including four from Netflix — and none from HBO.

Historically, most Doc NYC picks do land on the Academy’s official 15-film Oscar Short List. For the past four years, the Short List had nine to 10 titles overlap, with four or five titles going on to Oscar nominations. For the last six years, Doc NYC screened the documentary that...

Doc NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, has announced its 15-film Short List of Oscar contenders along with its opening-night selection, “The Final Year,” in which Greg Barker follows key members of Barack Obama’s administration during their last year in office. The festival runs November 9-16.

Thom Powers, Doc NYC’s artistic director as well as documentary programmer for Tiff, oversees curation of the Short List of films that may be in the running for the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature. This year contains a spectrum of funders and distributors, including four from Netflix — and none from HBO.

Historically, most Doc NYC picks do land on the Academy’s official 15-film Oscar Short List. For the past four years, the Short List had nine to 10 titles overlap, with four or five titles going on to Oscar nominations. For the last six years, Doc NYC screened the documentary that...

“American Vandal” is one of the most delightful TV experiments of 2017, but it easily could have been something far simpler. In the parody world, it’s hard to be able to sustain a tribute to (or retooling of) a pre-existing genre or specific piece of work. Most of these riffs pick out the recognizable highlights, build a few-minute sketch around a simple tweak of the formula, and a grateful internet marvels at the accuracy or the strength of the twist.

Netflix’s latest eight-episode series nearly became just that.

“We did ‘30 for 30: Space Jam,’ ‘30 for 30: Rocky IV,’ stuff like that,” explained “American Vandal” co-creator Tony Yacenda told IndieWire. “Dan was watching ‘Making a Murderer’ and he knew I was a huge fan of true crime stuff, and he just had the broad idea for a short, to do a really low-stakes crime and treat it like it’s really serious.

As words like film, negative, celluloid, unspool, and reel become increasingly archaic, even the venerable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences realizes that it needs to evolve. At the Telluride Film Festival, I sat down with new Academy president John Bailey to discuss what he has in mind. Here’s what we can expect from the 75-year-old cinematographer of “The Big Chill” and “Groundhog Day,” who is proud to be the rare filmmaker representing the Academy board.

(Re)Define the motion picture

Bailey is a realist as much as a cineaste. At Telluride, he appreciated Paul Schrader’s well-reviewed “First Reformed” — but fully supported the possibility that the film would go to Netflix. “It’s very unlikely the studios would pick it up,” said Bailey. “In reality, Netflix and Amazon have now become the studios that have the courage to make the film nobody else would make.”

Similarly, while...

As words like film, negative, celluloid, unspool, and reel become increasingly archaic, even the venerable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences realizes that it needs to evolve. At the Telluride Film Festival, I sat down with new Academy president John Bailey to discuss what he has in mind. Here’s what we can expect from the 75-year-old cinematographer of “The Big Chill” and “Groundhog Day,” who is proud to be the rare filmmaker representing the Academy board.

(Re)Define the motion picture

Bailey is a realist as much as a cineaste. At Telluride, he appreciated Paul Schrader’s well-reviewed “First Reformed” — but fully supported the possibility that the film would go to Netflix. “It’s very unlikely the studios would pick it up,” said Bailey. “In reality, Netflix and Amazon have now become the studios that have the courage to make the film nobody else would make.”

Similarly, while...

Errol Morris has built a career around eccentric real-life figures, from pet cemetery managers to executioners, but in recent years his track record has been spotty. His portrait of photographer Elsa Dorfman (“The B-Side”) and a two-hour interrogation session with Donald Rumsfeld (“The Unknown Known”) weren’t duds so much as routine efforts from a filmmaker who excels at peculiar investigations into the whims of human behavior. As if making up for missed time, Morris pairs one of his best subjects in years with his most ambitious work to date, “Wormwood,” a six-part Netflix miniseries that screened in its entirety at the Telluride Film Festival in advance of its December premiere on the platform.

While much of Morris’ sensibilities comes through in this sprawling tale of government cover-ups and idiosyncratic loners, it’s also a radical break from the dense, interview-driven approach that has distinguished his movies for decades. Gone is the patented Interrotron,...

LSD experiments, mind control, and the death of a family man are just some of the elements that are intertwined with this upcoming new Netflix series Wormwood. The documentary series stars Peter Sarsgaard and it tells the untold true story of the CIA.

This intriguing six-part series comes from director Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) and it follows the true story of Eric Olsen’s journey to uncover the truth about his father’s death. To tell this story it combines narrative scenes, archival footage, and interviews. I love this kind of stuff, so I can't wait to watch this!

Wormwood explores the limits of knowledge about the past and the lengths we’ll go in our search for the truth. A twisting, evolving story of one man’s sixty-year quest to identify the circumstances of his father’s mysterious death. Combining a virtuosic performance...

"You are the men who know the secrets. We are the men who keep the secrets." Best known for his documentaries such as The Thin Blue Line and The Fog Of War, Errol Morris' upcoming docu-drama series will uncover the secrets of the CIA, particularly its experiments with LSD in the 1950's. Combining narrative scenes, archival footage, and interviews, Wormwood will tell... Read More...

Documentarian Errol Morris announced today a new series called “Wormwood” that will premiere on Netflix. It will launch on the streaming service on Dec. 15 and will also play this year’s Venice Film Festival. The six-part series is a hybrid of documentary and staged, dramatic re-enactments that go beyond the ones that Morris pioneered in his film “The Thin Blue Line.” Morris interviews and stages the story of Eric Olson, who spent 60 years investigating the mysterious aspects of his father’s death. In June, Morris told TheWrap, “It’s not a documentary series, it’s got a lot of drama in it.

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

A recent article (based on a very unscientific poll) argued that millennials don’t really care about old movies. Maybe that’s true, and maybe it isn’t, but the fact remains that many people disregard classic cinema on principle. These people are missing out, but it only takes one film — the right film — to change their minds and forever alter their viewing habits.

This week’s question: What is one classic film you would recommend to someone who doesn’t watch them?

Candice Frederick (@ReelTalker), Hello Beautiful, /Film, Thrillist, etc

“Rebel Without a Cause.” I’ll out myself by saying that I’ve only recently seen this film...

Given the firm grip Netflix has on true crime stories, it only makes sense that Errol Morris, who delivered the genre defining “The Thin Blue Line,” should come to the streaming service. Indeed, the director is taking a big swing with “Wormwood,” a miniseries based on a true story, and it looks compelling as hell.

Starring Peter Sarsgaard, Christian Camargo, Scott Shepherd, Molly Parker, Jimmi Simpson, Bob Balaban, Tim Blake Nelson, John Doman, Hillary Gardner, Michael Chernus, Jack O’Connell, and Chance Kelly, the six-episode series will tell the untold true story of the CIA LSD experiments, mind control, and the death of a family man.

Continue reading ‘Wormwood’ Trailer: Errol Morris Brings True Story Miniseries To Netflix at The Playlist.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Cameraperson (Kirsten Johnson)

Kirsten Johnson brings us her memoirs by way of a videographic scrapbook. Bits and pieces of the numerous documentaries she’s shot in her years as a Dp have been woven together into a travelogue / ethnographic study / commentary on the nature of cinematic framing. What was an establishing shot in one doc becomes, here, a study of the vagaries of a camera operator’s job. Documentary...

Catherine Pearson Jul 11, 2017

The Keepers is a moving and devastating documentary series that does valuable work for victims of abuse...

Recent years have seen the overwhelming success of true crime documentary series, from HBO’s The Jinx to Netflix’s own Shadow Of Truth. The viewing public want to get their teeth into a real story and rally behind a cause that they have witnessed on screen. Arguably, no other genre makes as much impact as the documentary on real world events: just look at the daily news stories that continue to report on the cases of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey and the developments that have followed Netflix’s hugely popular documentary series Making A Murderer. Horrendous miscarriages of justice are being played out before our Netflix-bingeing eyes and viewers are trying to help through online forums, Q&As with the documentary makers, and even bringing new information to the authorities.

Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This July will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.

To sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces

What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).

Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*

Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...

If the mark of a true cinephile is how accurately they quote a Stanley Kubrick film, it’s no surprise that Errol Morris takes the cake. The Oscar-winning documentarian behind “The Thin Blue Line” and “The Fog of War” has a new movie coming out: “The B-Side,” about large-format Polaroid portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman. Morris recently regaled The Daily Beast with with memories of interviewing Donald Trump 15 years ago, and recalled a certain scene from “Dr. Strangelove.”

Read More: Film Acquisition Rundown: Neon Picks Up Errol Morris’ ‘The B-Side,’ FilmRise Gets Two Sundance Premieres and More

“I mean, it’s hard not to be just utterly appalled by it all. And so, yes, I am utterly appalled by it all,” said Morris.

“I can’t even stand people trying to make sense out of it. There’s no point in trying. There’s a scene I’ve always loved in ‘Dr. Strangelove,...