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Tag: Documentaries

  • Premiere: Netflix’s New True Crime Doc Dives Into a Mother’s Mysterious Disappearance

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    The victim’s sister called it “one big Greek tragedy”—and she meant it.

    In September 2016, Nathan Carman took off in a fishing boat with his mother near Block Island. A few days later, a freighter spotted Nathan on a life raft off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. He was rescued. His mother, Linda, was never found.

    Such begins the story of The Carman Family Deaths, Netflix’s latest true crime documentary, based on a 2021 WIRED feature by Evan Lubofsky. Carman was, according to his father, the “first-born grandson of a Greek dynasty,” and when questions began to emerge following his rescue, suspicions arose that what happened at sea wasn’t what he claimed.

    Carman’s grandfather, Linda’s father, had been shot and killed several years before and there was a lot of money at stake. For the weeks following Carman’s rescue, the story made headlines as investigators tried to piece together what happened. Some thought Carman’s version of events didn’t add up, but his defenders pointed to the fact that he had autism spectrum disorder and could often be misunderstood.

    In 2022, nearly a year after WIRED published its story about the Carman family, Nathan Carman was charged with killing his mother in an alleged attempt to inherit his family’s vast estate.

    Directed by Yon Motskin, who made the UFO sighting documentary Encounters, The Carman Family Deaths is produced by Jesus Camp directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, Mary-Jane Mitchell, and WIRED Studios. The film lands on Netflix on November 19. Watch the first trailer for the documentary below and read more here.

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    Angela Watercutter

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  • In ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ fitting a filmmaking titan into the frame

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The first time the filmmaker Rebecca Miller met Martin Scorsese was on the set of 2002’s “Gangs of New York.” Miller’s husband, Daniel Day-Lewis, was starring in it. There, Miller found an anxious Scorsese on the precipice of the film’s enormous fight scene, shot on a sprawling set.

    “He seemed like a young man, hoping that he had chosen the right way to shoot a massive scene,” Miller recalls. “I was stunned by how youthful and alive he was.”

    That remains much the same throughout Miller’s expansive and stirring documentary portrait of the endlessly energetic and singularly essential filmmaker. In “Mr. Scorsese,” which premieres Friday on Apple TV, Miller captures the life and career of Scorsese, whose films have made one of the greatest sustained arguments for the power of cinema.

    “We talk about 32 films, which is a lot of films. But there are yet more films,” Miller says, referencing Scorsese’s projects to come. “It’s a life that overspills its own bounds. You think you’ve got it, and then it’s more and more and more.”

    Scorsese’s life has long had a mythic arc: The asthmatic kid from Little Italy who grew up watching old movies on television and went on to make some of the defining New York films. That’s a part of “Mr. Scorsese,” too, but Miller’s film, culled from 20 hours of interviews with Scorsese over five years, is a more intimate, reflective and often funny conversation about the compulsions that drove him and the abiding questions — of morality, faith and filmmaking — that have guided him.

    American film director Martin Scorsese gestures during a news conference in Rome to promote his movie “New York, New York,” Oct. 14, 1977. (AP Photo/Massimo Sambucetti)

    “Who are we? What are we, I should say?” Scorsese says in the opening moments of the series. “Are we intrinsically good or evil?”

    “This is the struggle,” he adds. “I struggle with it all the time.”

    Miller began interviewing Scorsese during the pandemic. He was then beginning to make “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Their first meetings were outside. Miller first pitched the idea to Scorsese as a multifaceted portrait. Then, she imagined a two-hour documentary. Later, by necessity, it turned into a five-hour series. It still feels too short.

    “I explained I wanted to take a cubist approach, with different shafts of light on him from all different perspectives — collaborators, family,” Miller says. “Within a very short amount of time, he sort of began talking as if we were doing it. I was a bit confused, thinking, ‘Is this a job interview or a planning situation?’”

    Scorsese’s own documentaries have often been some of the most insightful windows into him. In one of his earliest films, “Italianamerican” (1974), he interviewed his parents. His surveys of cinema, including 1995’s “A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies” and 1999’s “My Voyage to Italy,” have been especially revealing of the inspirations that formed him. Scorsese has never penned a memoir, but these movies come close.

    While the bulk of “Mr. Scorsese” are the director’s own film-to-film recollections, a wealth of other personalities color in the portrait. That includes collaborators like editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Paul Schrader, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Day-Lewis. It also includes Scorsese’s children, his ex-wives and his old Little Italy pals. One, Salvatore “Sally Gaga” Uricola for the first time is revealed as the model for De Niro’s troublemaking, mailbox-blowing-up Johnny Boy in “Mean Streets.”

    “Cinema consumed him at such an early age and it never left him,” DiCaprio says in the film. “There will never be anyone like him again,” says Steven Spielberg.

    Director Martin Scorsese gestures during his presentation of the Platinum Award to Leonardo DiCaprio at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Jan. 30, 2005, in Santa Barbara, Calif. (AP Photo/Michael A. Mariant)

    Director Martin Scorsese gestures during his presentation of the Platinum Award to Leonardo DiCaprio at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Jan. 30, 2005, in Santa Barbara, Calif. (AP Photo/Michael A. Mariant)

    It can be easy to think of Scorsese, perhaps the most revered living filmmaker, as an inevitability, that of course he gets to make the films he wants. But “Mr. Scorsese” is a reminder how often that wasn’t the case and how frequently Scorsese found himself on the outside of Hollywood, whether due to box-office disappointment, a clash of style or the perceived danger in controversial subjects (“Taxi Driver,” “The Last Temptation of Christ”) he was drawn to.

    “He was fighting for every single film,” Miller says. “Cutting this whole thing was like riding a bucking bronco. You’re up and you’re down, you’re dead, then alive.”

    Film executives today, an especially risk-averse lot, could learn some lessons from “Mr. Scorsese” in what a difference they can make for a personal filmmaker. As discussed in the film, in the late ’70s, producer Irwin Winkler refused to do “Rocky II” with United Artists unless they also made “Raging Bull.”

    For Miller, whose films include “The Ballad of Jack and Rose” and “Maggie’s Plan,” being around Scorsese was an education. She found his films began to infect “Mr. Scorsese.” The cutting of the documentary took on the style of his film’s editing. “In proximity to these film,” she says, “you start to breathe the air.”

    Nearness to Scorsese also inevitably means movie recommendations. Lots of them. One that stood out for Miller was “The Insect Woman,” Japanese filmmaker Shōhei Imamura’s 1963 drama about three generations of women.

    “He’s still doing it,” Miller says. “He’s still sending me movies.”

    “Mr. Scorsese” recently debuted at the New York Film Festival, where Miller’s son, Ronan Day-Lewis made his directorial debut with “Anemone,” a film that marked her husband’s return from retirement. At the “Mr. Scorsese” premiere, a packed audience at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall came to enthusiastically revel in, and pay tribute to its subject.

    “You hear all those people laughing with him or suddenly bursting into applause when they see Thelma Schoonmaker or at the end of the ‘Last Waltz’ sequence,” Miller says. “There was a sense of such palpable enthusiasm and love. My husband said something I thought was very beautiful: It reminded everyone of how much they love him.”

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  • Bon Jovi is hitting the road. Band announces first tour since Jon Bon Jovi’s vocal cord surgery

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Decades into his career and the unthinkable happened. It was 2022, and Jon Bon Jovi began struggling through his songs. He saw a doctor who said one of his vocal cords was atrophying. He needed major surgery.

    Bon Jovi had the procedure, and in the years since, has undergone extensive rehab, leading to the current moment: Next summer his band, Bon Jovi, will embark on their first tour in four years.

    The “Forever Tour” kicks off with four nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden before the band heads to Edinburgh, Scotland; Dublin and London.

    “There is a lot of joy in this announcement — joy that we can share these nights together with our amazing fans and joy that the band can be together,” Bon Jovi said in a statement. “I’ve spoken extensively on my gratitude but I will say it again, I’m deeply grateful that the fans and the brotherhood of this band have been patient and allowed me the time needed to get healthy and prepare for touring. I’m ready and excited!”

    Bon Jovi’s last concert was held on April 30, 2022, in Nashville — as seen in the 2024 Hulu documentary, “Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story.”

    An artist presale begins Tuesday at 10 a.m. Eastern. General sales launch Oct. 31, also at 10 a.m. Eastern, via bonjovi.com.

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  • Drugs, Divorce, and Directors Jail: Martin Scorsese Unpacks His Darkest Chapters in New Documentary

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    One of the most surprising realities of Martin Scorsese’s success is just how often he was on the brink of losing it. The 82-year-old auteur’s setbacks occupy as much real estate as his victories do in Mr. Scorsese, a five-part docuseries covering his film career, now streaming on Apple TV.

    Directed by Rebecca Miller, daughter of playwright Arthur Miller and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis (who starred in Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and Gangs of New York), Mr. Scorsese follows the director from his rough-and-tumble adolescence in New York’s Little Italy neighborhood to his making of the 10-time Oscar-nominated Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)—touching on every set in between. Scorsese discusses his oeuvre in great detail—with assists from family, friends, and former collaborators such as Day-Lewis, Francesca Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Steven Spielberg, Jodie Foster, and Cate Blanchett, as well as Casino’s Sharon Stone and The Wolf of Wall Street’s Margot Robbie, both of whom speak candidly about working on their respective male-dominated Scorsese projects.

    After exploring the Mob violence he grew up near on film, Scorsese was often reduced to his gangster dramas (Mean Streets, Goodfellas), but nearly as much of the filmmaker’s work is rooted in his Catholic religion (The Last Temptation of Christ, Silence). Even Scorsese’s otherwise secular titles ponder questions like, “Who are we? What are we, I should say, as human beings?” as he says in the series’ opening. “Are we intrinsically good or evil?… This is the struggle. And I struggle with it all the time.”

    That dichotomy is reflected in some of Scorsese’s darker chapters, which range from a drug addiction during the 1970s to four divorces before his marriage to his current wife, Helen Morris, in 1999. “The problem is that you enjoy the sin!” Scorsese says in the series. “That’s the problem I’ve always had! I enjoy it. When I was bad, I enjoyed a lot of it.” Ahead, some of the most revealing moments from Mr. Scorsese.

    Scorsese credits his childhood asthma with facilitating his love of cinema.

    “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster,” Ray Liotta’s character memorably declares at the end of Goodfellas’ opening scene. But Scorsese himself actually pursued the priesthood before his love of movies took root. He grew up first in Corona, Queens, then in New York City’s Lower East Side after witnessing an altercation between his father, Charles, a Garment District worker, and their landlord. “There was an axe involved. I remember seeing an axe,” Scorsese says in the doc, without elaborating much further. “Violence was imminent all the time.”

    When not braving the mean streets or finding refuge in the Catholic Church, an asthmatic Scorsese often visited air-conditioned movie theaters and engaged in people-watching from his apartment window. In the series, Scorsese even credits that particular vantage point with instilling his love of high-angle shots in movies.
    “Marty’s life depended upon going to movies,” says Goodfellas and Casino screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi. “That’s where he could breathe.” Or as Spike Lee more colorfully puts it: “Thank God for asthma!”

    Scorsese fantasized about destroying the rough cut of Taxi Driver after it received an X rating.

    After helming the Roger Corman–produced exploitation film Boxcar Bertha (1972), his first De Niro gangster epic, Mean Streets (1973), and Ellen Burstyn’s Oscar-winning turn in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), Scorsese had his major industry breakthrough with Taxi Driver in 1976—which had a fraught journey to the screen.

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • In ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ fitting a filmmaking titan into the frame

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    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — The first time the filmmaker Rebecca Miller met Martin Scorsese was on the set of 2002’s “Gangs of New York.” Miller’s husband, Daniel Day-Lewis, was starring in it. There, Miller found an anxious Scorsese on the precipice of the film’s enormous fight scene, shot on a sprawling set.

    “He seemed like a young man, hoping that he had chosen the right way to shoot a massive scene,” Miller recalls. “I was stunned by how youthful and alive he was.”

    That remains much the same throughout Miller’s expansive and stirring documentary portrait of the endlessly energetic and singularly essential filmmaker. In “Mr. Scorsese,” which premieres Friday on Apple TV, Miller captures the life and career of Scorsese, whose films have made one of the greatest sustained arguments for the power of cinema.

    “We talk about 32 films, which is a lot of films. But there are yet more films,” Miller says, referencing Scorsese’s projects to come. “It’s a life that overspills its own bounds. You think you’ve got it, and then it’s more and more and more.”

    Scorsese’s life has long had a mythic arc: The asthmatic kid from Little Italy who grew up watching old movies on television and went on to make some of the defining New York films. That’s a part of “Mr. Scorsese,” too, but Miller’s film, culled from 20 hours of interviews with Scorsese over five years, is a more intimate, reflective and often funny conversation about the compulsions that drove him and the abiding questions — of morality, faith and filmmaking — that have guided him.

    “Who are we? What are we, I should say?” Scorsese says in the opening moments of the series. “Are we intrinsically good or evil?”

    “This is the struggle,” he adds. “I struggle with it all the time.”

    Miller began interviewing Scorsese during the pandemic. He was then beginning to make “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Their first meetings were outside. Miller first pitched the idea to Scorsese as a multifaceted portrait. Then, she imagined a two-hour documentary. Later, by necessity, it turned into a five-hour series. It still feels too short.

    “I explained I wanted to take a cubist approach, with different shafts of light on him from all different perspectives — collaborators, family,” Miller says. “Within a very short amount of time, he sort of began talking as if we were doing it. I was a bit confused, thinking, ‘Is this a job interview or a planning situation?’”

    Scorsese’s own documentaries have often been some of the most insightful windows into him. In one of his earliest films, “Italianamerican” (1974), he interviewed his parents. His surveys of cinema, including 1995’s “A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese Through American Movies” and 1999’s “My Voyage to Italy,” have been especially revealing of the inspirations that formed him. Scorsese has never penned a memoir, but these movies come close.

    While the bulk of “Mr. Scorsese” are the director’s own film-to-film recollections, a wealth of other personalities color in the portrait. That includes collaborators like editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Paul Schrader, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Day-Lewis. It also includes Scorsese’s children, his ex-wives and his old Little Italy pals. One, Salvatore “Sally Gaga” Uricola for the first time is revealed as the model for De Niro’s troublemaking, mailbox-blowing-up Johnny Boy in “Mean Streets.”

    “Cinema consumed him at such an early age and it never left him,” DiCaprio says in the film. “There will never be anyone like him again,” says Steven Spielberg.

    It can be easy to think of Scorsese, perhaps the most revered living filmmaker, as an inevitability, that of course he gets to make the films he wants. But “Mr. Scorsese” is a reminder how often that wasn’t the case and how frequently Scorsese found himself on the outside of Hollywood, whether due to box-office disappointment, a clash of style or the perceived danger in controversial subjects (“Taxi Driver,” “The Last Temptation of Christ”) he was drawn to.

    “He was fighting for every single film,” Miller says. “Cutting this whole thing was like riding a bucking bronco. You’re up and you’re down, you’re dead, then alive.”

    Film executives today, an especially risk-averse lot, could learn some lessons from “Mr. Scorsese” in what a difference they can make for a personal filmmaker. As discussed in the film, in the late ’70s, producer Irwin Winkler refused to do “Rocky II” with United Artists unless they also made “Raging Bull.”

    For Miller, whose films include “The Ballad of Jack and Rose” and “Maggie’s Plan,” being around Scorsese was an education. She found his films began to infect “Mr. Scorsese.” The cutting of the documentary took on the style of his film’s editing. “In proximity to these film,” she says, “you start to breathe the air.”

    Nearness to Scorsese also inevitably means movie recommendations. Lots of them. One that stood out for Miller was “The Insect Woman,” Japanese filmmaker Shōhei Imamura’s 1963 drama about three generations of women.

    “He’s still doing it,” Miller says. “He’s still sending me movies.”

    “Mr. Scorsese” recently debuted at the New York Film Festival, where Miller’s son, Ronan Day-Lewis made his directorial debut with “Anemone,” a film that marked her husband’s return from retirement. At the “Mr. Scorsese” premiere, a packed audience at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall came to enthusiastically revel in, and pay tribute to its subject.

    “You hear all those people laughing with him or suddenly bursting into applause when they see Thelma Schoonmaker or at the end of the ‘Last Waltz’ sequence,” Miller says. “There was a sense of such palpable enthusiasm and love. My husband said something I thought was very beautiful: It reminded everyone of how much they love him.”

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  • From Madonna to Stevie Nicks: Please Make These Artists’ Music Biopic Next

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    One surefire way to grab an audience’s attention is to cast a famous actor in a music biopic about an equally famous artist. Think Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, Austin Butler as Elvis Presley, Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen, and Rami Malek’s Oscar-winning turn as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. “The success of Bohemian Rhapsody raised eyebrows about what could happen when you’re successful with a biographical film,” Larry Mestel, CEO of Primary Wave Music, a leading music publisher and talent management company told Vanity Fair last year of the music biopic boom in recent years. “It’s been a big explosion. For many years, artists didn’t want to make films that depicted their life story because they were afraid of how it would come out. There’s a much greater openness now that there’s been a bunch of these films that have done very well—their success, but also how the stories have been told and the quality being as vivid as it has been.”

    Further proof of this industry-wide trend: last week’s report from Bloomberg, citing people close to the matter, that Warner Music Group (WMG) is “close to an agreement” with Netflix to create movies and documentaries based on the company’s artists and songs. “Our company has a tremendous catalog: Prince, Madonna, Fleetwood Mac,” WMG CEO Robert Kyncl said at the Bloomberg Screentime conference on Wednesday, October 8, without confirming a specific deal or explicitly naming the streamer. “It just goes on and on and on. The stories we have are incredible, and they haven’t really been told. We’re like Marvel [Comics] for music.”

    Multiple movies about Warner Music artists have already been made (see Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in 2005’s Walk the Line) or are already in the works—including Selena Gomez as Linda Ronstadt, Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Sinatra, and Jennifer Lawrence as Ava Gardner. And John Lennon is covered by Harris Dickinson, who plays one-fourth of the Beatles for Sam Mendes’s upcoming four-part film project. But there are dozens of other musicians who’ve earned the biopic treatment.

    Below, five Warner Music artists whose stories we’d like to see on the big screen.

    Stevie Nicks

    Stevie Nicks performing at a Canadian music festival in 1983.Paul Natkin/Getty Images

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Secrets of the Beckham Marriage, According to Victoria

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    Victoria Beckham walks the runway during the Victoria Beckham Ready to Wear Spring/Summer 2024 fashion show as part of the Paris Fashion Week on September 29, 2023 in Paris, France.

    Victor VIRGILE/Getty Images

    To do so, Victoria says she transformed into “a simpler, more elegant version of myself” and debuted her first collection—10 dresses shown in a Waldorf-Astoria hotel suite—sans David, to eliminate any distraction. After earning rave reviews, Victoria gained a foothold in the fashion industry. But despite the professional respect, financial strain crept in. David was “investing a lot” in her business, and “we were tens of millions of pounds in the red,” Victoria explains in the documentary.

    “I was panicked by it. Because I never saw anything coming back,” David says of his investment in the business. “We always agreed that we would support each other no matter what, but it worried me. This isn’t sustainable.”

    Though her business recovered, the scars of that experience remained. But in the new series, David makes it clear to Victoria that he’ll support her no matter what she does. “You are so driven, so passionate, dedicated,” he tells her in the documentary, growing teary-eyed. “It makes me quite emotional because you are always trying to prove yourself to people. But who are you trying to prove it to?”

    “Maybe to you,” Victoria replies, wiping away a tear. “Of course, I feel bad. About all those times I’ve had to ask you to bail me out. When I saw your face and the kids’ faces [during her Paris fashion show], I saw for the first time how proud of me you were.”

    “You could make a cheese sandwich, and we’d be proud of you,” David replies.

    “Actually, I couldn’t,” she laughs, to which he responds, “I know.”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Melania, Brett Ratner’s Documentary About Melania Trump, Takes a Page from Melania and Melania

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    The documentary will also reportedly be supported by a three-part making-of docuseries about the documentary, which according to a representative at Amazon was filmed “during the 20 days before the inauguration, while she travels between New York City, Palm Beach, and Washington, D.C.” What will they call it? Melania and Melania are taken.

    The rights to the documentary, on which Melania is credited as an executive producer, were bought for $40 million by Jeff Bezos in December 2024 before Trump took office, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sources with knowledge of the deal said that Melania will see some 70% of that fee.

    In January, Melania told Fox News that the response to her book was so positive that people wanted to see more about her life.

    “My life is incredible, it’s incredibly busy, and I told my agent, I have this idea so please, you know, go out and make a deal for me,” she said. The film, she said then, will be about her “day-to-day life, what I’m doing, what kind of responsibilities I have. It’s day to day, from transition team to moving to the White House, packing, establishing my team, the First Lady office, moving into the White House, what it takes to make the residence your home, to hire the people that you need.”

    Representatives from the White House and Skyhorse Publishing did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s requests for comment.

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    Kase Wickman

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  • Ozzy Osbourne, Prince of Pilates?

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    “I want to feel confident enough to pull it off. Because it’s gotta be the fucking best show in the world.”
    Photo: Paramount+

    Ozzy Osbourne died 17 days after his spectacular farewell concert in July, an event that had millions of metalheads in big, beautiful tears over his legacy. It’s doubtful, though, that Osbourne would’ve made the trek to Birmingham, England — or, to be more blunt, still been alive — if it weren’t for the intensive physical therapy he received in the months leading up to the concert. Such is revealed in Ozzy: No Escape From Now, a documentary whose creators had unbridled access to the Osbourne family and their patriarch for the past four years. (It’s now available to stream on Paramount+.) Initially conceived as a project to chronicle Osbourne’s recovery and career bounce-back following a fall in his home in February 2019, No Escape From Now has since morphed into a posthumous opus that ends with the Back to the Beginning send-off in his hometown. There’s also an unexpected detour that chronicles Osbourne’s solo induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in late 2024, which he almost wasn’t cleared to travel to by doctors due to severe blood clots in his legs.

    Those legs were spiritually in Lululemon leggings for most of 2025. In order to maintain his strength in the lead-up to Back to the Beginning — Osbourne joked several times that he could no longer build strength, given, well, his batty lifestyle choices in the past — he hired a live-in physical therapist to get him into good-enough working order. The documentary shows him and the therapist, Gary Viles, making use of a Pilates reformer machine to get his lower body and core into a state of movement. “It’s a slow process. I’m not a very good patient,” Osbourne said. “I wanna get it over and done with. I go from nought to fucking 300 in one day. I wonder why I can’t walk the next day, you know.” Viles would guide Osbourne, makeup free and in a sweatband, through rounds of basic footwork and spring changes. Just add a caffè latte and he could’ve been on track to becoming a West Village Girl.

    Osbourne in his unnatural habitat. Paramount+.

    Osbourne in his unnatural habitat. Paramount+.

    “Obviously, one of the objectives is to get him functionally capable for the concert, but more importantly for me is to enhance his overall health for the rest of his life,” Viles explained. “I want to get Ozzy healthy.” At that point, Osbourne was using a cane to walk and suffered from Parkinson’s disease in addition to various other ailments that had plagued the rocker since his fall. Sometimes he used a wheelchair if he was having a particularly bad day because of his spinal damage. “All I can say is I’m working my balls off to get myself ready for the Villa,” Osbourne explained, referring to the benefit concert’s venue. “I want to feel confident enough to pull it off. Because it’s gotta be the fucking best show in the world. It’s gotta be just the best show in the world when I do it. Otherwise, what’s the point in doing it?” His eldest daughter, Aimee Osbourne — who refused to appear on The Osbournes and has maintained a life out of the public eye — enjoyed seeing the men develop an unlikely friendship as their sessions progressed. “Gary couldn’t care less about who he is or who he’s not,” she said, “and just sees a person that has the ability to overcome this and knows exactly how to get him through those moments where he’s about ready to throw the towel in.”

    Osbourne, of course, was able to ride the crazy train straight to Back to the Beginning, where he reunited with his Black Sabbath brothers and watched 17 other acts — including Metallica and Guns N’ Roses — pay their respects to his metal holiness. (He even did a five-song set of his own hits, perched on a custom throne festooned with bats.) The concert reportedly raised 140 million pounds for various charities selected by Osbourne, who would later die, surrounded by his family, on July 22. That’s one hell of a way to go out.

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    Devon Ivie

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  • What to Stream: Documentaries on John Candy and Victoria Beckham, Battlefield 6 and ‘Family Guy’

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    Documentaries on comedian John Candy and pop artist-turned-fashion designer Victoria Beckham as well as a “Family Guy” Halloween special are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Keira Knightley stars as a journalist in “The Woman in Cabin 10,” Electronic Arts is ready to get back in the fight with the game Battlefield 6 and hip-hop group Mobb Deep will release “Infinite,” their ninth and final album.

    — More than 30 years after his death at age 43, John Candy might be even more beloved than he was during his all-to-short career. “John Candy: I Like Me” (Friday, Oct. 10 on Prime Video), a documentary directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds, is a kind of eulogy and tribute to the actor of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Uncle Buck” and “Stripes.” The film, made with the cooperation of the Candy family, includes many famous faces, from Bill Murray to Mel Brooks.

    – In “The Woman in Cabin 10” (Friday, Oct. 10 on Netflix), Keira Knightley stars as a journalist aboard a luxury yacht for an assignment. In the middle of the night, she sees a woman go overboard, but the ship has no record of her, and no one believes her. Simon Stone, who directed 2021’s underrated “The Dig,” directs this thriller, based on Ruth Ware’s bestselling novel.

    — It being October, just about everything streaming service has by now trotted out their best horror offerings. By why mess around when you can go to the source? Or, at least, one of the richest B-movie legacies of synths and scares? In Directed by John Carpenter, the Criterion Channel gathers some of the filmmaker’s most vivid nightmares, including “The Fog,” “Escape Form New York” and “They Live.”

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    — Mobb Deep hath returned. On Friday, Oct. 10, the hardcore New York hip-hop duo will release “Infinite,” their ninth and final album and first since the death of Prodigy in 2017. It features P’s distinctive flow on a few posthumous tracks, produced by his other half Havoc and their frequent musical collaborator, the Alchemist. It’s clearly a labor of love.

    — Indie fans might remember the upcoming and coming folk-rocker Avery Tucker from his previous project, the primitive punk duo Girlpool. His debut album, “Paw,” out Friday, couldn’t be further from that material — but both lead with the heart. Start with “Big Drops,” “Like I’m Young,” “Malibu,” and the ascendant closer “My Life Isn’t Leaving You.” The album was co-produced by A. G. Cook, the hyperpop virtuoso best known to many as one of Charli XCX’s “Brat” collaborators. This is not a release for the club, but it one that grows and grows more bodily with each listen.

    — It has been six years since Jay Som, the project of multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Melina Duterte, released a new album. On Friday, the wait is over. “Belong” is an expansion of her once nascent talents, a rush of electro-synths, punk-pop and other variously nostalgic indie genres, presented in a new way. Perhaps it has a little something to do with how Duterte has spent the last few years: ranking up production credits on a number of beloved albums, including the Grammy-winning boygenius’ “The Record” and Lucy Dacus’ “Forever Is A Feeling.”

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    — It’s spooky season and “Family Guy” has a new Halloween special debuting Monday on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. The episode, titled “A Little Fright Music,” features Brian and Stewie’s attempt to write a hit Halloween song and Peter learning about the dangers of lying about trick-or-treating.

    — David Beckham’s 2023 Netflix docuseries was both an Emmy Award winner and internet fodder thanks to a scene where he repeatedly told his wife Victoria to “be honest” about her family’s economic status as a child. It’s only fitting that the filmmakers turned their sights on her next and she agreed. “Victoria Beckham” is a three-part docuseries launching Thursday on Netflix. Viewers will see the former pop star-turned-fashion designer share her story — and it’s TBD whether David weighs in.

    — On the subject of Emmys, Kathy Bates didn’t win this year for best actress in a drama series as predicted for her work on “Matlock.” The award instead went to Britt Lower for “Severance.” You can still watch the performance that got Bates nominated though when the show begins streaming its second season Friday, Oct. 10 on Paramount+. A third season of “Elsbeth” will also begin streaming then, too.

    — Another docuseries debuting Friday, Oct. 10 on Tubi also follows a celebrity but this one’s on the come-up. “Always, Lady London” features the rising rapper, Lady London, as she records her first album and gets ready to go on tour.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    — When it comes to video-game warfare, there are two superpowers: Call of Duty and Battlefield. The latter hit a rough patch with its last major installment, 2021’s Battlefield 2042, but Electronic Arts is ready to get back in the fight with Battlefield 6. You are part of an elite Marine squad trying to stop a private military corporation in a single-player campaign that bounces around the globe. There’s plenty of gut-wrenching infantry combat, but you also get to drive tanks and fly helicopters and fighter jets. And there will be the usual assortment of multiplayer mayhem, including the new Escalation mode, in which the territory shrinks every time a team captures a control point. Take up arms Friday, Oct. 10, on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Bandai Namco’s Little Nightmares games specialize in the kind of things that terrified when you were a kid, presenting them in a gloomy yet vivid world reminiscent of Tim Burton’s stop-motion animation. Little Nightmares III promises more of the same, with one major addition: You can now confront your night terrors with a friend in co-op play. One of you gets a bow and arrow, while the other uses a wrench to fix things or clobber enemies. Britain’s Supermassive Games, the studio that has taken over the series, is known for horror gems like Until Dawn and The Quarry, so don’t expect pleasant dreams. The haunting begins Friday, Oct. 10, on PlayStation 5/4, Xbox X/S/One, Switch and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

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  • Reviews For The Easily Distracted: Predators – Houston Press

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    Title: Predators
    Describe This Movie Using One Rose Kennedy Quote:
    “The time will come when it will disgust you to look in the mirror.”
    Brief Plot Synopsis: “Please have a seat.”
    Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3 Police albums out of 5.

    Wikipedia

    Tagline: N/A
    Better Tagline: “Probably not the Predators movie you’re thinking of.”
    Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: For anyone under the age of — say — 30, there used to be a show on a major network where they would lure would-be sexual predators to meet their victims, before they were confronted with their text/phone transcripts by host Chris Hansen, who then let the police grab them. Take that, Love Island.

    YouTube video

    “Critical” Analysis: If you’re at all familiar with To Catch A Predator, which ran from 2004 to 2007 on Dateline NBC, you know the formula: adult piece of shit shows up at what he believes is the home of an underage girl (or boy) with the expectation of sex, only to be confronted by the stern visage of host Chris Hansen.

    In early episodes, the only other people present were Hansen, the “decoy,” and the crew. However, the show really hit its stride when NBC started looping in local law enforcement, leading to tantalizing footage of befuddled perps getting taken down by a bunch of cops. To Catch A Predator was a huge hit for the network, and why not? Culling these pervs from the general populace was something almost everyone could agree was a Good Thing, regardless of political affiliation.

    Filmmaker David Osit has some thoughts about that. First, he brings in Cambridge ethnographer Mark de Rond, who was “intrigued” — if that’s the word — by what could prompt some men to prey on kids, and what made us Americans so eager to watch. And through the course of his documentary, Osit looks at some lesser known background and what the show’s legacy is.

    But he starts simply enough, interviewing the “decoys:” adults (barely) who were young enough to pass for pubescent teens. They describe how they got their first acting gig with TCAP (in a moment of weird synergy, one girl was encouraged to sign up by her own dad), and then reflect on some of the perps, in some cases — and like de Rond — expressing sympathy for the perps.

    That’s not the case with the law enforcement personnel Osit interviews (a Georgia DA, for example), or the audiences on shows like Jimmy Kimmel (timely!), The Daily Show, and Oprah. And to be fair, it’s easy to understand why men looking to rape (let’s call it what it is) children are deserving of our disgust.

    But shit hit the fan during an episode in Terrell, TX, when Rockwall County ADA Bill Conradt, recorded talking with one of the decoys but not actually traveling to the sting house, killed himself after SWAT — acting on a defective search warrant — entered his home. Again, there’s little remorse to be had, with one of the officers on the scene commenting, “That’ll make good TV.”

    Wider reactions to the suicide ranged from “ho-hum” to exaggerated handwringing from NBC competitors like 20/20. And you just know John Stossel was practically tearing his mustache out wishing he’d thought of the idea first. Conradt’s sister sued Dateline and the DA declined to prosecute any of the cases brought by that installment on jurisdictional and evidentiary grounds.

    While the first act deals with To Catch A Predator proper, the second addresses the continuing work of online vigilante groups like Perverted Justice and the copycats that followed in its wake. Enter “Skeet Hansen,” who mimics the original hosts style and mannerisms and skirts YouTube’s content restrictions by faking police involvement in his “stings.”

    Finally, we catch up with Chris Hansen in the present day. Would you be surprised to learn he’s parlayed TCAP into 15 seasons (and counting) of Takedown with Chris Hansen on something called the TruBlu Factual Streaming Network? He’s still at it, in other words, and when Osit interviews him for the finale, Hansen seems largely unfazed by suggestions that his methods were/are borderline unethical. Osit, himself a victim of child sex abuse, admits to realizing he was a survivor after watching Hansen on Dateline NBC, but still has issues with how the stings were conducted.

    To Catch A Predator had a relatively brief run on TV, but it — and Hansen — remain popular (Osit catches up with him at something called “CrimeCon”). Osit and de Rond ultimately spell out what’s pretty apparent to anyone who’s watched an episode: “understanding isn’t a goal of the show.” The instant gratification of watching these guys get humiliated, then taken down by the cops — never mind the vast majority of the show’s subjects were never tried, forget about convicted — is why we watched. The hook, as always, was the point. And if TCAP has any legacy beyond blurring the lines between journalism and exploitation, it’s in the glut of true crime podcasts and documentaries trying to manufacture those sweet “gotcha” moments themselves.

    Predators is in theaters today.

    This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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    Pete Vonder Haar

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  • New Netflix series chronicles the ’90s Philly mob war between Joey Merlino and John Stanfa

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    An upcoming Netflix series will examine an infamous chapter in Philly mob history.

    “Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia” delves into the ’90s power struggle between men loyal to John Stanfa, a veteran crime boss hand-picked by the Five Families, and those aligned with rival Joey Merlino, head of the so-called Young Turks. The factions fought for control of the city’s organized crime syndicate following the 1986 arrest of mafioso Nicky Scarfo. Tensions exploded in 1993, when Stanfa’s men shot and injured Merlino and killed his capo Michael Ciancaglini. A drive-by attack on Stanfa, which severely injured the mobster’s son, followed. The bloodshed continued until both men were arrested.

    MORE: Jimmy Kimmel returns to late night and calls Trump administration’s threats against his show ‘un-American’

    Merlino, who denies being part of the Mafia, now co-hosts a podcast and runs Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks at 3020 S. Broad St. Stanfa is currently serving a life sentence at FCI Danbury in Connecticut.

    “Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia” features interviews with former mobsters, the investigators who tracked them and journalists who covered them. Wiretap recordings and surveillance footage also help recount the conflict.

    The three-part series drops Wednesday, Oct. 22. Check out the trailer below:

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    Kristin Hunt

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  • Wrestling legend Rob Van Dam reflects on Philly’s ECW legacy and losing his best friend

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    One night in 1997, after an Extreme Championship Wrestling show in South Philly at what’s now known as the 2300 Arena, a young Rob Van Dam was sitting at the bar of the old Holiday Inn at the Sports Complex, and he felt a rumble in his stomach.

    Van Dam, an acrobatic rising star known as the “Whole F’n Show,” got an offer from an ECW fan sitting next to him to ride over to Geno’s for a cheesesteak. None of the other wrestlers wanted to leave the hotel. Van Dam took the invitation and buckled up for a quintessential Philly experience he’s never forgotten.

    MORE: As Dock Street turns 40, here’s how it grew from a countercultural idea into the oldest craft brewery in Philly

    “I got in the car with this guy I didn’t know, and that motherf***er ran every single stop sign,” Van Dam said. “I don’t mean like he slowed down and looked. He kept the gas pedal on and treated the entire thing as if he had the right of way. He said, ‘You know what the good thing about four-way stops is? The other guys always gotta’ stop.’”

    Van Dam reminisced about Philly and ECW while discussing the new documentary he produced with director Joe Clarke on the life of Terry “Sabu” Brunk, who died in May just three weeks after winning his final match in Las Vegas. Brunk was 60 years old. The documentary, which had been in the making for well over a year, presents a raw and personal look at the life of a retiring wrestler who seemed to be emotionally preparing for his death.

    “He was one of the closest people to me, and I don’t have very many people close to me,” said Van Dam, 54. “There’s a whole lifetime of memories and inside jokes – s*** that’s just gone. I didn’t know there was that much foreshadowing in the documentary until after the fact. When I got the call, I can’t say I was that surprised because I had been expecting it for 30 years. It’s really eerie.”

    Months after Brunk’s death, loved ones are still awaiting a toxicology report to pinpoint an exact cause. In the documentary, Brunk alludes to heart problems and difficulties carrying on with his life after his partner and longtime manager, Melissa Coates, died of complications from COVID-19 in 2021.

    “Everyone has their own theory,” Van Dam said. “Most of it has to do with his lifestyle – that he lived himself to death Sabu-style.”

    Fittingly, a memorial service for Sabu was held in June at the renovated 2300 Arena – still used as a venue for professional fights – where Van Dam spoke to a tight-knit family of mourners who had been touched by Brunk inside and outside the ring.

    “He was a big part of the man that I became,” said Van Dam, who occasionally still wrestles for AEW and makes sporadic appearances at WWE events.

    Van Dam joined ECW in the mid-1990’s with help from Sabu, a fellow Michigan native. They were both trained by Sabu’s uncle, a wrestling industry veteran who fought as the Sheikh, using makeshift rings set up in garages and backyards.

    ECW’s arena in South Philly, near the corner of Ritner and Swanson streets, became the epicenter of hardcore wrestling in the United States in the early 1990s. While promotions like WWE and WCW were duking it out for mainstream market share in an eventual multibillion dollar industry, ECW existed as a reckless talent incubator with an underground edge.

    “It was a pivotal platform for the wrestling business to go in a whole different direction, where instead of worrying about (being) politically correct and entertaining kids, it was adult entertainment,” Van Dam said. “It was unapologetic. The storylines were crazy. It was a full circus with completely different styles of wrestling, but altogether we were this family that was so grateful for what we had.”

    Sabu, who donned a turban as part of his extremist persona, became an innovator of brutality in ECW. He was among the first U.S. wrestlers to popularize plowing through tables, rolling around in barbed wire and wielding various weapons in his offensive repertoire.

    Van Dam remembers nights at Philly hotels filming promos for upcoming matches. ECW owner Paul Heyman would keep his wrestlers waiting all night to get paid, leaving hours for them to get drunk and high before hopping on flights to the next venue.

    It was an exhilarating lifestyle for muscled young people full of ambition, Van Dam said, but Sabu was a hardcore wrestling purist and a deep believer in karma being a reward system. He struggled with the entertainment side of the business as he got older and his WWE career plateaued, landing him back on the independent circuit.

    “He should have been a much bigger star,” Van Dam said.

    ECW shut down in 2001 after a failed national TV deal and financial struggles led to its bankruptcy. Looking back, Van Dam thinks the writing was on the wall in 1995 when a flaming object used during a match ended up in the stands and – legend has it – burned a fan.

    “The very nature of the product limited its success and its exposure because you can’t light fans on fire and not have consequences for it,” Van Dam said.

    “Sabu” can be streamed on the film distribution platform Kinema, where it’s available to be rented for $5.99.

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    Michael Tanenbaum

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  • What to Stream: Cardi B, a movie about Bumble, ‘Morning Show’ and a look at Lilith Fair

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    Cardi B releasing her long-awaited sophomore LP, “Am I the Drama?,” and Lily James playing the founder of the popular dating app Bumble in the new biographical drama “Swiped” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon’s “The Morning Show” debuting its fourth season on Apple TV+., Ariana Madix heading back to Fiji to host “Love Island Games” on Peacock and a Hulu documentary seeks to tell the story of the music festival Lilith Fair in new detail.

    — Lily James plays the founder of the popular dating app Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd, in the new biographical drama “Swiped” which streams on Hulu on Friday, Sept. 19. The film, directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, traces Wolfe Herd’s trajectory from college and beyond. In 2012, she co-founded Tinder and two years later started Bumble which would put her on a path to becoming the youngest female self-made billionaire. “Swiped,” which premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, also stars Dan Stevens and “Industry’s” Myha’la.

    — And for something completely different, and silly, Netflix has the Liam Neeson action pic “Ice Road: Vengeance” streaming on Monday. Neeson plays an ice-road truck driver who wants to scatter his brother’s ashes on Mount Everest but finds himself having to fight mercenaries. It got terrible reviews when it was released in theaters this summer, but that’s probably beside the point.

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    — She’s back and bigger than ever. On Friday, Cardi B will release her long-awaited sophomore LP, “Am I the Drama?” — seven years after the release of her landmark debut, 2018’s “Invasion of Privacy.” What has been released so far sounds like freedom: the sexy empowerment anthems “Up” and “WAP” with Megan Thee Stallion from years past, and the bravado of “Outside” and smooth flow of “Imaginary Playerz.”

    — Fans of jangly guitar tones and power pop, listen up. Philadelphia’s Golden Apples, led by singer-songwriter Russell Edling, will release an addictive new album on Friday, Sept. 19 titled “Shooting Star.” Start with “Noonday Demon,” the cheeriest-sounding song about depression you’ll hear this year. It’s a charmer.

    — It was radical then and now. In the summers of 1997 through 1999, a music festival founded by Sarah McLachlan shined a light on women musicians — both bands and solo artists. Streaming on Sunday, Sept. 21, a new documentary seeks to tell the story of Lilith Fair in new detail. “Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery” premieres on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ and features a long list of incredible talent, from those who performed to those whose music takes obvious influence from the events. That includes McLachlan, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Erykah Badu, Natalie Merchant, Mýa, Jewel, Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Brandi Carlile and Olivia Rodrigo.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    — “Dancing with the Stars” returns for its millionth, er, 34th season Tuesday on ABC and Disney+. Contestants learning the paso doble and foxtrot include Olympian Jordan Chiles, Hilaria Baldwin, actor Corey Feldman, comedian Andy Richter, Robert Irwin, son of late wildlife conservationist Steve Irwin and former NBA star Baron Davis. Whitney Leavitt and Jen Affleck from “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” will also compete. Jan Ravnik, one of the dancers from Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour,” also joins the show as a pro. Episodes stream next day on Hulu and Disney+.

    — Just as the dust has settled on season 7 of “Love Island USA,” host Ariana Madix is headed back to Fiji to host “Love Island Games” on Peacock. Premiering Tuesday, the show brings back fan-favorite Islanders from “Love Island” iterations across the globe to partake in competitions and get a second chance at love. Fans will recognize Chris Seeley, Andreina Santos and Charlie Georgiou from season 7 and Kendall Washington and Andrea Carmona from season 6 as part of the new cast.

    — Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon’s “The Morning Show” debuts its fourth season Wednesday on Apple TV+. The two play TV news anchors at a fictional news network called UBN. Each season features topical themes and this one is no different, addressing AI, deepfakes, and conspiracy theories in the media. Additional series regulars include Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass, Karen Pittman, and Nicole Beharie and adds new characters played by Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Aaron Pierre and William Jackson Harper to the mix.

    — Hulu’s legal soap “Reasonable Doubt” returns Thursday for its third season. Emayatzy Corinealdi stars as Jax Stewart, a successful criminal defense lawyer in LA who in the new episodes, is defending a former child actor accused of murder. Jax’s standing at her flashy law firm is also in jeopardy when a new hire is determined to take her position.

    — Starz’s steamy “The Couple Next Door” is back on Friday, Sept. 19 with a new season and a new cast that includes Sam Palladio (“Nashville”); Annabel Scholey (“The Split”); and Sendhil Ramamurthy (“Never Have I Ever”). Scholey and Palladio play Charlotte and Jacob, a seemingly solid couple living in a well-to-do neighborhood whose marriage gets threatened by a new colleague in their workplace. The tangled web only grows from there.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    — Over the years, Lego video games have featured the likes of Batman, Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker. Annapurna Interactive’s Lego Voyagers may have the most versatile hero of all: a simple Lego brick. It’s a cooperative game in which each player is a 1×1 piece — one red, one blue — that can attach itself to other chunks and build bridges, vehicles and other devices. Red and Blue need to work together to solve puzzles as they try to rescue an abandoned spaceship. It’s the sort of game that parents with young kids may appreciate, and things start clicking Monday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Switch and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

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  • Screening at Venice: Mike Figgis’ ‘Megadoc’

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    The director’s portrait of Francis Ford Coppola’s creative process is never allowed to probe deeply enough. Courtesy Venice Film Festival

    From Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgis, Megadoc is a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the making of Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s white whale production, which he finally released last year. The response to Coppola’s mad utopian epic ranged from baffled to mixed, and while some, like myself, were awestruck by its ambition, there’s no denying that the $120 million self-funded saga makes for an enrapturing curio. However, it’s hard not to wonder if Megadoc is the right film to answer any burning questions, given its own troubles—which become a minor subject too, as Figgis is left with no choice but to turn the lens on himself.

    There’s no denying that Megadoc has at least some academic value: it’s the kind of documentary students might watch in a Production 101 class to get a taste of the chaos of big movie sets. This might sound like a backhanded compliment, but as the 77-year-old Figgis narrates in the opening minutes (about the 86-year-old Coppola), he’s never actually seen another director at work. Megadoc is a mood piece and a process piece, shot up close with lo-fi video equipment, but it’s never allowed to probe deeply enough. With jagged cuts mid-scene, several unfolding threads are left feeling incomplete, while the movie’s two leads—Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel—barely feature, which Figgis attributes to their reluctance to be filmed on set. Much like Megalopolis, Megadoc faces challenges while searching for its voice. However, where Coppola succeeds in his pursuit by the end, Figgis does not, despite the movie’s many gestures toward riveting topics.

    The documentary not only chronicles the early days of Megalopolis rehearsals—during which Coppola plays theater and improv games, establishing his credo of having fun—but it also flashes back to earlier taped readings and screen tests from two decades ago, during which stars like Uma Thurman and Ryan Gosling were once part of the production. The long road to finally making Megalopolis just about fades into view, but the doc seldom seems to have enough footage to follow a single train of thought.

    MEGADOG ★★1/2 (2.5/4 stars)
    Directed by: Mike Figgis
    Starring: Francis Ford Coppola, Eleanor Coppola, Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Nathalie Emmanuel, Dustin Hoffman, Giancarlo Esposito, Chloe Fineman, Shia Labeouf, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Voight, Talia Shire, Robert DeNiro
    Running time: 107 mins.

    Figgis, on the occasions that he speaks to the camera, seems acutely aware of his role as a storyteller in search of on-set conflict, which he finds most often in the relationship between the experienced Coppola and the hot-headed former child star Shia LaBeouf, a pair whose respective playful and logistical philosophies make for an awkward fit. LaBeouf references the controversies that have made him persona non grata in Hollywood, and how his precarious employability informs his initially cautious approach. This care is eventually shed, leading to numerous intriguing and hilarious clashes between the duo, but the film either isn’t interested in expounding upon Shia’s life (and the way it informs his mindset) or isn’t able to get the right sound bites. Either way, it comes achingly close to finding its heart and soul in the oddball, pseudo father-son relationship between the director of The Godfather and the star of Nickelodeon’s Even Stevens, and what a joy that would have been. However, the numerous times they end up at loggerheads, with their diametrically opposed approaches to meaning and artistry, end up lost in the shuffle of the doc’s many other concerns.

    There are tidbits about budgets, costumes, visual effects and so on, but Figgis’ record is too straightforward and too chronological (often in a literal, day-by-day sense) to capture the fraught process of filmmaking and how its challenges are overcome. Anytime the department heads are seen trying to pull off some practical magic trick, Megadoc seldom establishes what goal they’re working toward, in the form of either concept art or finished footage. Although we’re allowed to glimpse the finished product of certain shots, in the meantime, all we’re left with are scenes of people tinkering and working toward objectives that are rarely clear to even viewers who have seen Megalopolis.

    Some interviews with more experienced actors like Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight provide wise insight about Coppola’s process, while relative newcomer Aubrey Plaza forms an amusing bond with the director, based on sarcastic banter. But there’s never enough cohesion behind Megadoc to make it more than just a behind-the-scenes special feature. For a filmmaker like Figgis, whose 2000 four-way split-screen movie Timecode remains a landmark of digital experimentation—it was the first feature made in one take (that too four times over), even though Russian Ark wrongly gets the credit—capturing Coppola at his most wildly experimental ought to feel like a spark of madness burning through the screen. Whether or not it actually instilled these feelings in Figgis is hard to tell, but given Megadoc’s languid unveiling, the mad science on display rarely ends up felt, and is most often observed at a casual and disappointing distance.

    Screening at Venice: Mike Figgis’ ‘Megadoc’

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    Siddhant Adlakha

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  • Hitler Confidant Leni Riefenstahl Always Said She Was Just a Filmmaker. A New Doc Reveals the Truth

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    That’s where access to Riefenstahl’s collection of memories came in. Veiel could use them to cut through her denials like a scalpel. Riefenstahl’s own photos, typed notes, and audio tapes rebut the arguments she made from talk show couches after the war, a seamless and calm dissection that should put to rest the vague defenses—maybe she really wasn’t aware of the horrors of the Holocaust—many of us heard in high school or college classes before we were shown Triumph of the Will.

    Those defenses were seemingly accepted by the Telluride Film Festival, which honored her in 1974. Riefenstahl’s contributions to the art of nonfiction filmmaking had not received the recognition they deserved, a spokesperson for Telluride said at the time, because “Leni has been maligned and called a Nazi swine.” In the years since, techniques Riefenstahl brought to the forefront—such as the use of long-focus lenses and sweeping, aerial photography—have been adopted by filmmakers like George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola (among many others), both of whom she influenced.

    “She created masterpieces,” Maischberger admits. “She was a fantastic editor, and had a sense of how to put a picture together in a way that it would be a fantastic experience, very emotional. But she was so close to evil. It was a pact with the devil.”

    Riefenstahl’s estate has a lot to teach us about the contemporary political climate. The parallels between her era and ours are striking: Even today, we see the world’s richest men prostrating themselves before an aspiring autocrat, creatives and news organizations seemingly seeking to normalize a self-proclaimed king, and various organized displays of military force. As Veiel considered Riefenstahl’s work for Hitler, he was thinking about all that too.

    “There’s something between the lines which is telling us something not only about the present, but about the future,” he says. “The longing for this strongness and the contempt of weakness, the contempt of the foreigners.”

    This is demonstrated most chillingly in Riefenstahl’s recordings of phone calls she received after media appearances in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Many of them express support for Riefenstahl—not as the unfairly maligned victim she presented herself as, but as a Nazi propagandist. Some of her fans specifically praised her work for the Nazis and the viewpoints reflected therein.

    Veiel points to one call in particular as proof that in many corners, Riefenstahl wasn’t just forgiven—she was embraced. “The guy says, ‘Well, it will take one or two generations, and then Germany will find its way back to dignity, morality, order, virtue,’” says Veiel. Instead of arguing, Riefenstahl agrees with the caller, saying that the German people are predestined to return to the values and glory they had when she was making her films.

    With Riefenstahl’s leanings more clear, Maischberger is hopeful that students of film who have excused Riefenstahl in the past will reconsider. “You should not be intrigued by someone’s talent if the soul is as rotten as this soul was,” she says. “And there is no way to separate politics and art here, because this art wouldn’t exist without the politics.”

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    Eve Batey

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  • ‘SNL’ wins big for season 50 at the Creative Arts Emmys. Obama, Kimmel and Lamar also take trophies

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    LOS ANGELES — LOS ANGELES (AP) — Barack Obama won his third career Emmy and Kendrick Lamar won his second, while the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” was the biggest winner with 11 on the second night of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

    Lamar and Tony Russell won for the music direction of his Super Bowl halftime show. He won his first Emmy in 2022 as a performer at the Super Bowl halftime headlined by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

    Obama won a star-studded documentary narrator category that also included Tom Hanks, Idris Elba and David Attenborough. He won the same award in 2022 and 2023.

    Neither Lamar nor Obama was at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles to accept his Emmy. Neither were expected to be, at a show that despite several high-profile winners including Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’Brien and Alan Cumming is primarily devoted to behind-the-scenes crew members a week before TV’s stars take the same stage for the bigger Emmys ceremony.

    Presenter Jordan Klepper laughed along with the crowd as he said, “Apparently, Barack Obama couldn’t be here tonight” after announcing the winner.

    “SNL 50: The Anniversary Special,” the pinnacle of a season-long celebration for the NBC sketch institution, won seven Emmys, including awards for its directing, writing, hairstyling and editing. A pop-up immersive experience tied to the special won an Emmy for emerging media and regular episodes of the show won three more.

    HBO’s “Pee-wee as Himself” won four awards including best documentary, posthumously giving its star and subject Paul Reubens, who died in 2023, his first primetime Emmy.

    O’Brien an Emmy for his travel series, “Conan O’Brien Must Go,” taking his career total to six. And while he didn’t get one personally for the show, Netflix’s “Conan O’Brien: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize For American Humor” beat out football halftime shows from Lamar and Beyoncé to win best variety special.

    Beyoncé did win a previously announced special Emmy for the costumes on her Christmas Day “Beyoncé Bowl” on Netflix.

    Kimmel, who has hosted both the Oscars and the Emmys multiple times, was here to accept his fourth primetime Emmy, for best host of a game show for his work on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

    He thanked the show’s late original host Regis Philbin for making “Millionaire” a cultural phenomenon.

    “Regis was the best at this,” Kimmel said backstage. “It is exciting to have this and to know that he has this same Emmy in his family’s collection somewhere.”

    “Jeopardy” won best game show, while Cumming won best host of a reality show for “The Traitors.”

    The two-night Creative Arts Emmys hands out nearly 100 awards in hyper-specific categories that can bring oddities. Like the Grammys and Oscars winning Emmys, as each did Sunday.

    The CBS Grammys telecast won for its choreography, while ABC’s Oscars telecast — also hosted by O’Brien — won for its production design.

    The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was honored with the Television Academy’s Governors Award even as it winds down its nearly 60-year work after the U.S. government withdrew funding from the institution that has helped pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and TV stations

    The award goes to a person or entity “made a profound, transformational and long-lasting contribution to the arts and/or science of television.”

    “Even an act of Congress can not erase an indelible legacy,” Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of “Finding Your Roots” on PBS, said during the presentation.

    “Queer Eye” won best structured reality show, while “Love on the Spectrum” won best unstructured reality show.

    The Creative Arts show runs quickly and efficiently — 47 awards are handed out on Sunday aloe in about 2 1/2 hours — but the atmosphere is loose. Swearing is allowed because of the lack of TV, as Kimmel showed when he told nominee Will Ferrell to shut up during his speech.

    “This is the Emmys for the people that the people who run the Emmys don’t think should be seen on network TV,” presenter Sarah Silverman said when she opened the show as a presenter.

    The two nights are edited down into one show that will air on TV on FXX on Saturday. The following day, the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Nate Bargatze, will air live on CBS.

    While Sunday honored variety, documentary and reality TV, scripted series had the stage on Saturday.

    “The Studio” won nine early Emmys including best guest actor in a comedy for Bryan Cranston, making it the front-runner to end up with the biggest total after next Sunday’s main show.

    “Severance” was tops among dramas with six awards, including best guest actress in a drama for Merritt Wever.

    “The Penguin” pulled in eight in the limited series categories, and Julie Andrews won her third Emmy at age 89 for her voice-over work on “Bridgerton,”

    ___

    This story has been corrected to show that Barack Obama has won three Emmys, not two, and that Conan O’Brien won one Emmy Sunday, not two.

    ___

    For more coverage on this year’s Emmy Awards and recent television shows, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/television

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  • Nonprofits face a tough funding landscape. They hope better storytelling will bring more donations

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    MIAMI — Cindy Eggleton has always believed in the power of a story.

    But the CEO and co-founder of Brilliant Cities, a Detroit-based early childhood development nonprofit that supports learning in underserved communities, never expected someone to tell hers. And definitely not in a sleek documentary with a slick soundtrack and plenty of images of other Detroit institutions, such as General Motors, Diana Ross, and the historic Fox Theatre.

    “It’s never been about me,” said Eggleton, adding that participating in the “Nevertheless: The Women Changing the World” documentary series on YouTube was her way of honoring her late mother, Geraldine, who inspired her to speak out and help others in their community.

    However, as they face an increasingly uncertain funding landscape, nonprofits are focusing more on storytelling in outreach to donors – both big and small – and raising production values for videos and podcasts.

    “Storytelling is how we’re able to draw people in and get them to connect to a deeper truth about themselves or about the world or a problem that needs to be solved,” said Elevate Prize Foundation CEO Carolina Jayaram Garcia. “It’s connecting those issues back to you as a human and not saying, ‘Well, that’s their problem. That’s all the way over there.’ The story allows it to be human.”

    The foundation launched the production house Elevate Studios earlier this year to tell more of those stories, Jayaram Garcia said. “Nevertheless: The Women Changing the World,” Elevate Studios’ first series, has already generated more than 3 million views on YouTube and will debut its second season in the summer of 2026.

    “It’s been incredible to see the growth we’ve had on YouTube and how it’s resonated so quickly with so many people,” Jayaram Garcia said. “We know we’re on to something here.”

    Philanthropic support of storytelling has been ongoing for decades, mostly through donors funding documentary projects. Open Society Foundations created the Soros Documentary Fund in 1996 before the Sundance Institute took it over in 2002, with the George Soros-backed nonprofit’s continued monetary support. The Ford Foundation formalized its funding plans in 2011, creating its JustFilms program that still supports 25-30 documentary films annually. Earlier this month, Firelight Media, a New York-based nonprofit supporting documentary filmmakers of color, launched the Firelight Fund, which will offer directors $50,000 grants for their projects.

    But Lance Gould, founder and CEO of media strategy firm Brooklyn Story Lab, says what Elevate Prize Foundation and others are doing is different. He says it reflects both technological improvements that have lowered the cost of documentary storytelling and the rise of social media, which allows nonprofits to interact with donors directly.

    “Being able to tell your story well is paramount,” said Gould, whose firm works with nonprofits to help them produce their own story-driven content. “But storytelling is not only about reaching viewers, it’s also about having the right message for the right viewers.”

    He suggests that nonprofits connect their work to larger initiatives like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — an ambitious list of 17 efforts from eliminating extreme poverty and hunger to guaranteeing every child a quality secondary education by 2030 — to attract more attention and support.

    Gould, who was previously executive editor of The Huffington Post and editor in chief of The Boston Phoenix, said “everyone can be their own media company at this point.”

    That’s a point Nicole Bronzan, vice president of communications and content for the Council on Foundations, hopes is not lost in the push for more storytelling.

    “We don’t want people to feel that they have to make big technological investments in order to tell better stories,” Bronzan said. “We wouldn’t want anyone to feel like they have to have a big fancy studio, but certainly the news that folks are investing in storytelling is great for us and for the whole sector.”

    In a Council on Foundations report released last year, “ A New Voice for Philanthropy: How Deeper Stories and Clearer Language Can Build Trust,” researchers, including Bronzan, reported that people had positive attitudes toward foundations, but most didn’t really understand how foundations worked. Bronzan said stories that provide more transparency about how donations are used and how those decisions are made help connect people to a nonprofit and its work.

    “If you’re telling those stories,” she said, “I can only imagine that people will be more inclined to open up their pocketbooks and say, ‘Oh, OK, these are causes that need my support.’”

    So far, that has been the case for Brilliant Cities, which saw an increase in donations after Eggleton’s episode debuted on YouTube.

    “We have a funder who wants to increase his gift from $7,000 to $100,000,” said Eggleton, whose nonprofit turns a neighborhood’s vacant homes into community centers with family services ranging from tutoring to mental health support groups. She said new donors have also reached out. “It’s kind of incredible.”

    Though Brilliant Cities doesn’t rely on federal funding for its services, Eggleton said government aid cuts have made a tough funding environment even tougher because the competition for non-governmental donations becomes even tougher.

    “Everybody’s being told what’s being taken away,” she said. “People are pulling at grant officers and individuals with stock market gains. I think it’s more than the funding, though. I think it’s about really recognizing how the world already feels so disconnected and now feels even more so.”

    Storytelling, Eggleton said, helps reduce that. By focusing on female changemakers, Elevate Studios makes an even stronger point, she said, adding she’s been quoting Spanish poet Antonio Machado — “There is no path/We make the path by walking” — as she explains the power of the series.

    “This is the time that we really do need to figure out how we build empathy through stories and not necessarily saying, ‘You’re wrong or you’re right,” she said. “You just show the world what can be and what should be.”

    _____

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • ‘Make Me Famous’ Reminds Us That Ed Brezinski, and All Artists, Deserve Better

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    Edward Brezinski in 1979. ©Marcus Leatherdale

    “Everyone kind of started out on the street, and then certain people became very successful and very hierarchical, and Edward just wasn’t having it,” painter Frank Holliday tells filmmaker Brian Vincent in the documentary Make Me Famous. The story Holliday sketches in that one sentence portrays 1980s East Village neo-expressionist Edward Brezinski as a quintessential starving artist—a painter of integrity whose refusal to sell out precluded his own stardom.

    Vincent doesn’t argue with Holliday, and his film at least entertains this mythic version of Brezinski, who is compared in passing to Van Gogh. As the title Make Me Famous indicates, the documentary also acknowledges Brezinski’s ambition and his dreams of getting off the street and grasping some of that success for himself. In the end, the story Vincent tells is not really about an overlooked genius. Instead, it’s about how our insistence on framing genius as a yes or no question reliably and efficiently destroys the human beings who make art.

    Brezinski (born Brzezinski in 1954) grew up in Michigan. His father was probably an alcoholic, his mother was distant and support for gay children in that time and place was minimal. He studied at the San Francisco Institute of Art and then moved to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he lived across from a men’s homeless shelter and became part of the growing arts scene.

    Brezinski’s moment of greatest notoriety came in 1989, when he attended a solo exhibit for Robert Gober at Paula Cooper Gallery. One of the pieces on display was an exact replica of a bag of donuts; Brezinski reached inside and ate one. Gober had treated the donuts with a toxic preservative, and Brezinski had to be rushed to the hospital. Afterward, he contacted the press, and the story became an art world legend.

    An unfinished, rough-textured painted portrait shows a man’s face in muted colors with visible brushstrokes and patches of exposed canvas.An unfinished, rough-textured painted portrait shows a man’s face in muted colors with visible brushstrokes and patches of exposed canvas.
    Edward Brezinski, Self Portrait, 1976. © Edward Brezinski

    The incident, in the context of the documentary, neatly encapsulates the combination of fierce commitment, shallow envy, failure and substance abuse that characterized Brezinski’s career. A passionate painter in surprisingly traditional modes (he is perhaps best known for his portraits and his crucifixion scenes), he was enraged to see the success of Gober’s pop art/Dada-inspired work. Probably drunk, he ate the donut as a kind of protest; he claimed, tongue-in-cheek, that he couldn’t tell them from the refreshments. Effectively, Brezinski participated in Gober’s commercial pop art spectacle; the only way he could become known was to appropriate someone else’s concept, turning his back on his own talent and work in an alcohol-fueled fugue of arch disavowal and despair.

    Brezinski was very disillusioned by the end of the ‘80s. But even earlier in the decade, the documentary chronicles the push/pull between his hatred of sellouts and his desire to become one. Numerous acquaintances talk about his incessant, pushy, gauche self-promotion; at openings, he would pass out self-made invites to his own gallery shows, and he asked virtually anyone who visited his apartment/studio to buy his paintings. At the same time, he was a perfectionist who would often destroy his own work if he thought it didn’t measure up. Since he was a portrait painter, this often meant asking other artists and art world people—colleagues and potential connections—to sit for him for hours before trashing the paintings without even letting them see them.

    No one in the documentary is exactly willing to say that the art Brezinski did finish was groundbreaking or Important with a capital I. Yet many of his efforts are eye-catching and impressive. An expressionist painting of Nancy Reagan, for example, has a striking, Warhol-esque quality with a mocking, evocative edge—Brezinski seems to be celebrating Nancy as a kind of gay icon even as he sneers at her for her and her husband’s callous indifference to gay people and the AIDS crisis. The Nancy painting isn’t remembered as a defining image of the era, but it could have been. “What’s the great difference between a Kenny Scharf painting and an Ed Brezinski painting?” curator Annina Nosei asks.

    Maybe the difference is that Brezinski once tossed a glass of wine on Nosei in revenge after she failed to show up for a gallery appointment. Being an asshole can lose you gigs, though Brezinski was hardly the only asshole, or the only drunk, in the East Village. So maybe the difference is just luck and being in the right place at the right time. Fame and fortune are a roll of the dice; get the right number and you’re everybody’s darling. Get the wrong one and you’re nobody.

    A nighttime black-and-white photo shows a crowded scene outside B-Side Gallery with dozens of people gathered on the sidewalk.A nighttime black-and-white photo shows a crowded scene outside B-Side Gallery with dozens of people gathered on the sidewalk.
    A B-Side Gallery Opening in 1984. © Gary Azon

    The film itself chronicles this calculus and occasionally questions it. “These people [with money] went out and exploited these people [artists], and if they could make them pay off, then fine, and if they couldn’t pay off, then they dumped them,” actor and curator Patti Astor comments with cheerful bitterness. When the filmmaker asks her why no one wanted to exploit Brezinski, she laughs.

    Perhaps the laugh is because Astor thinks Brezinski wasn’t worth exploiting. Or maybe she laughs because she is aware that Brezinski was, in fact, exploited. An art scene, after all, requires sub-superstars: people who contribute ideas, passion and venues; people who show your work and lend you their work to show; people who argue about what’s good and what isn’t; people who serve as muses and take you for your muse; people who create a community around art and dreams, hope and vision.

    A black-and-white photo shows a man painting a large nude figure on canvas while surrounded by models in striking outfits and theatrical poses.A black-and-white photo shows a man painting a large nude figure on canvas while surrounded by models in striking outfits and theatrical poses.
    Edward Brezinski and CLICK models for NY TALK Magazine in 1984. © Jonathan Postal

    Brezinski participated enthusiastically in the scene that launched Keith Haring and Basquiat and his friend David Wojnarowicz to fame. And for his pains, he got little respect, little love and a pauper’s grave in France, where he died penniless and alone in 2007 at the age of 52. The Reagan administration’s callous disregard of AIDS was merely an extension of the administration’s, and the culture’s, indifference to the lives of creators and gay people. We learn late in the film that Brezinski’s money troubles might have been solved by an inheritance had he not been estranged from his family. But of course, queer people are often estranged from their families, which is why queer people are disproportionately poor.

    If the U.S., or New York State, or New York City, had a real arts policy and valued all artists rather than the select few who could be turned into investment opportunities, maybe Brezinski would still be alive. Instead, the U.S. has elected a president who hates the arts and LGBT people even more than Reagan did. Rather than cultivating and celebrating creators with talent, drive and dreams, we seem determined to create an endless carousel of Brezinskis, each of whom we are determined to strangle with the entrails of their own dreams.

    Make Me Famous is a sad film because Brezinski wanted to be famous and was not. It’s an enraging film because it shows the extent to which we devalue and despise the arts and all the non-famous people who create them.

    More in Artists

    ‘Make Me Famous’ Reminds Us That Ed Brezinski, and All Artists, Deserve Better

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  • Christopher Reeve’s kids wanted to be ‘honest, raw and vulnerable’ in new documentary ‘Super/Man’

    Christopher Reeve’s kids wanted to be ‘honest, raw and vulnerable’ in new documentary ‘Super/Man’

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    NEW YORK — Christopher Reeve’s children say they made a point to include all the complexities of their father’s life — his strengths and weaknesses — in the new documentary “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” — because that’s what he would have wanted.

    The film includes family home videos, mixed with interviews and movie clips of Reeve, who famously played Superman in four films, in addition to other acting and directing roles later in his career. Reeve’s three children, Matthew, Alexandra and Will Reeve, say there were no restrictions on topics or video used in their father’s story.

    “He wouldn’t have wanted to be viewed through rose-colored glasses. He would want art and cinema and factual, comprehensive storytelling and that’s what he got,” Reeve’s youngest son, Will told The Associated Press. “It’s important to us to be honest and raw and vulnerable and give a 360-degree view of a very human life, of a very human family.”

    Known as the Man of Steel, Reeve — an avid athlete, sailor, skier and horseman — was nearly killed in a 1995 horse-riding accident that left him paralyzed for the rest of his life. He used his platform to become an advocate for people with disabilities, starting a foundation in his name.

    Directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui were able to access some never-before-seen home movies of the Reeve family before and after the accident. “When we started to make the film, one of the things they were adamant (about) is that they will share everything. They will share the archive, but they will share their emotional states … everything,” Bonhôte said. “That was the first time they were going to do it, and they were going to go all out.”

    Reeve had recorded audio of his memoir before he died in 2004, so his narration is used in parts, adding to the film’s intimacy. The actor became a father to Matthew and Alexandra with his first partner, Gae Exton, and the family was living in the U.K. before Reeve decided he needed a break and moved back to the U.S. alone. Exton, who is interviewed in the film, shares compelling memories of that time, and Matthew and Alexandra admit their father was not around regularly during their childhood.

    Other interviews include Susan Sarandon and Glenn Close, who befriended Reeve after he graduated from the Julliard School and started taking on acting roles in New York. Close suggests in the film that Reeve and Robin Williams — Julliard classmates and close friends — had a deep connection and that if Reeve were still alive, Williams likely would be too.

    Reeve’s kids say the process of going through their archives and being interviewed for the film gave them a new perspective and appreciation of their dad. Will Reeve was only 12 when his father died. His mother, Dana, was diagnosed with cancer and died less than 18 months later. Now an ABC News correspondent, Reeve says he was fortunate to have had family and close friends help raise him and considers himself “pretty well-adjusted.”

    “There’s a scenario in which things could have turned out differently,” Will Reeve said. “But because of the values instilled in us by our parents, because of the way that they let us into their lives, the good and the bad, the joyous and the tragic … that prepared us for life’s difficulties and life’s joys.”

    One thing that impressed the directors most in their research was Reeve’s commitment to help others even after he was physically limited in his own life. After becoming a quadriplegic, Reeve and his family were shocked at the lack of resources for people with disabilities and started the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation to help improve quality of life and fund research for a cure for people with spinal cord injuries.

    “He allowed him(self) to have 10 or 15 minutes of self-pity, and then he was on a mission to change the world. And I think that’s very, very inspiring because … the family as a whole, Dana and the kids, they faced a huge amount of difficulties, you know, 24-hour care, the cost,” Bonhôte said. “So he would fight for those that are less privileged than him.”

    Alexandra Reeve Givens has kept up the advocacy in the family, working on the foundation and as a Washington attorney and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology. She said reflecting on her father’s life was powerful.

    “To see those elements of his character that stayed constant throughout his life: the commitment, the intensity, the passion, the strength,“ she said. “Those things changed after the accident and manifested in new ways. That strength suddenly meant something totally different. It was a strength to get up every day.”

    The film is being widely released Friday to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Reeve’s death this month.

    Matthew Reeve— a writer, producer and director —says the film reemphasized lessons the family learned from their parents, including the fragility of life.

    “I think what it also instilled in us very early on was this deep sense of gratitude of everything, from being thankful that he survived the accident to an enduring gratitude that tomorrow is not promised and that you have to really value the present,” he said.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct that Christopher Reeve died in 2004, not 2005.

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