Netflix has released their 2023 Fall Schedule. Filled with a variety of entertainment — documentaries, foreign, animation, dramas, and comedies, Netflix’s Fall programming has a little something for everybody.
Continue reading “Netflix Releases its Fall 2023 Lineup”
In anticipation of the upcoming sports documentary, Stephen Curry: Underrated, I had the chance to have a sit down with the film’s executive producers, Ryan Coogler and Erick Payton, to discuss the intricacies of the year-plus long shoot, what makes this a unique documentary among others in its class, and their views on the legacy of Steph Curry as well as his impact on the game.
Continue reading “Ryan Coogler and Erick Payton Explore the Life and Times of Steph Curry in ‘Underrated’”
Palm trees wrapped around the streets of Beverly Hills, and gorgeous golden rope lights wrapped around them, on the way to the exclusive William Morris Endeavour Screening Room, located near the heart of one of California’s most famous zip-codes.
Continue reading “Mental Health Awareness Takes Center Stage at Get Lit’s ‘Our Worlds Collide’ Screening”
On another special episode of Hard NOC Life, Keith sits down with documentary filmmaker and co-founder of the Asian American Writer’s Workship, Curtis Chin, to discuss his new memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, which will be available in bookstores everywhere this October.
For the third consecutive year of its 42-year run, the Hawai’i International Film Festival has a large selection of films available to view virtually. With titles ranging from Hawaii, the mainland, the overall Asia-Pacific region, and other parts of the world, there are so many for viewers to watch from the comfort of home, each of which expressing voices and stories of all kinds.
Continue reading “Highlights from the 42nd Hawai’i International Film Festival’s Virtual Program”
Apple and Selena Gomez have just shared the news that Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me will premiere November 4, only on Apple TV+. The new documentary feature film is directed and produced by Alek Keshishian.
Continue reading “Here are the Details on the Documentary Film, ‘Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me’”
The Nacelle Company — the studio behind Netflix’s The Toys That Made Us and Disney+’s Behind The Attraction — has announced Icons Unearthed, a new documentary series that will focus on some of the biggest pop culture franchises in history. The first topic of the series will be none other than the Star Wars Universe.
Continue reading “Nacelle Company Launches Vice TV Doc Series with ‘Icons Unearthed: Star Wars’”
Happy Star Wars Day, nerds! In celebration of this very religious holiday LucasFilm has officially announced two new behind-the-scenes specials coming to Disney+.
Continue reading “Lucasfilm Announces New Behind the Scenes Specials Coming to Disney+”
Multiple GRAMMY-nominated artist Olivia Rodrigo has just shared the official poster and trailer for OLIVIA RODRIGO: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film). The new original movie, which debuts March 25 on Disney+, will have viewers following the singer-songwriter on a cinematic experience to discover the story of her hit album.
Continue reading “Watch the Official Trailer for ‘OLIVIA RODRIGO: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)’”
Creating an influential and resonating documentary that digs into the heart of cosplay and Geekdom from a Black perspective as her first film wasn’t exactly Cheyenne Ewulu’s plan to begin with. What was supposed to be more of an artistic catharsis to express the frustration with racism and lack of awareness she noticed in the community she called home, became a beacon for Black cosplayers to find hope and admiration in their work.
Continue reading “Cheyenne Ewulu on ‘Shades of Cosplay’ and Artistic Expression”
It’s Black History Month!
You know what that means, many studios and advertisements will be elevating Black voices for the entire month. But, what about the rest of the year? Rather than only uplifting voices for 28 days, it seems like many companies are listening and starting to do something about it.
Continue reading “HBO Max Celebrates Black History with ‘More Than a Month’ Campaign”
Cosplay is an enigma to me. The act of dressing up as one’s favorite character to an almost identical degree shows a mastery of craft-making, make-up, and acting that is rarely discussed in other mediums. Being a fan of a show or a character is no longer a passive experience when you cosplay, it becomes an active response to the work that inspires you.
Continue reading “‘Shades of Cosplay’ Makes Me Want to Cosplay”
Film director Cheyenne Ewulu directed the 2015 documentary Shades of Cosplay about four Black cosplayers and their experiences during the 2015 Anime-Matusuri convention. Using her background as a cosplayer, Ewulu weaves a story that interacts with the world of cosplay and its issues of racism and inclusiveness in the space. Now in the year 2022, the film is being released online for the first time on February 4, 2022 — to celebrate Black History Month.
Continue reading “‘Shades of Cosplay’ Brings the Black Cosplay Experience Front and Center”
Chaos Magic, 4chan, the 2016 election, and Egyptian gods were not the things I ever thought I would experience all at once but in You Can’t Kill Meme, a documentary film by Haley Garrigus that explores the idea of memes being magic and the magicians who use them. My third eye has been opened and I am looking deeper into the images I find funny and retweet on the internet.
Continue reading “‘You Can’t Kill Meme’ is a Genuine Attempt to Pull the Curtain on Meme Magic”
Director Steve McQueen’s newest Prime Video documentaries on West Indian and Caribbean life in 20th century London are necessary viewing. In a style similar to Ava DuVernay’s 13th, the Academy Award-winning director stitches together archival footage and thoughtful interviews that spotlight the violent history of some of London’s most vulnerable communities. Subnormal: A British Scandal, Black Power: A British Story of Resistance, and Uprising document the racially motivated atrocities that plagued black and brown neighborhoods across London in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, and captures the delicate maneuverings of McQueen’s cinematic eye.
Continue reading “Steve McQueen Highlights Necessary Histories with New Documentaries”
Matt Dillon’s film career has spanned over three decades. The actor has starred in over 50 films such as The Outsiders, Drugstore Cowboy, There’s Something about Mary, Crash, and The House that Jack Built. In 2003, he co-wrote and made his directorial film debut with City of Ghosts. Dillon’s new documentary El Gran Fellove recently had its North American Premiere Screening at the Telluride Film Festival.
Continue reading “NOC Interview: Matt Dillon on His Documentary Film, ‘El Gran Fellove’”
Animator and cosplayer Vishavjit Singh has experienced tremendous trauma in his life. He survived a genocide against Sikh people in India as a young boy, and after he and his family fled to the US, he’s constantly experienced racism and Islamophobia (despite not being Muslim) in the pre- and post-9/11 era. Despite all of this, he remains an optimist for people to treat each other better, and found through his regular cosplaying as Captain America that he could somehow achieve that. But what drew him to this initially?
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In The Beauty President, Terence Smith retells his ’92 presidential campaign as his drag queen persona Ms. Joan Black in a conversational documentary short film by Whitney Skauge. Smith didn’t realize at the time it would be such a historic moment in political art, and this film captures his surprise and delight at being a part of history.
Continue reading “A Beautiful Presidential Conversation w/ Whitney Skauge and Terence Smith”
The masterful work of Academy Award winning director Steve McQueen spans an impressive set of genres, from films to anthology series, and now the 12 Years a Slave director has three new documentaries coming to Amazon Prime. Last year, we spoke to the talented leads in McQueen’s anthology Small Axe that examined the real-life experiences of West Indians living in mid-20th century London.
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“What is this helping?” is one of the first sentences uttered by a white restaurant patron unsettled in Unapologetic’s first scene, where protestors express the reality of the recent deaths of Black residents in their community to unsuspecting people eating brunch at restaurants. The scene perfectly encompasses the themes and motives of this documentary: a large and triumphant call to arms to make a more honest and equal world while people sit quietly trying to ignore not only the performance, but the actual knowledge of those who are destroyed and subjugated by these injustices.
Continue reading “‘Unapologetic’ is an Unflinching Exploration of Activism”
As I watched the Pride flag waving as the credits ran at the end of The Beauty President, I remembered growing up in the early 2000s and how I knew nothing about what that flag meant then. That 20 years later, I can see it at my city’s town hall flying next to the United States flag. Director Whitney Skauge and the film’s subject, Terrance Alan Smith, bring a beautiful historical moment in LGBTQ+ history to the forefront with an air of grace and love that I hope everyone could see.
Continue reading “‘The Beauty President’ is a Beauty to Behold”
Two cites, two fires, and rising temperatures flare up in Bring Your Own Brigade, an American documentary film by Lucy Walker, following the aftermath of the 2018 California Camp Fire and Woolsey Fire that destroyed Paradise and Malibu, California.
Continue reading “‘Bring Your Own Brigade’ Burns Bright”
I told myself I wouldn’t begin this news about the dope new docuseries coming to Peacock mentioning LeBron James and I’ve clearly already failed. While James’ absence from the USA Men’s National Basketball team isn’t new, the real highlights of the highs and lows of the Olympics have been shouldered by the NBA’s new elite squad, specifically younger players like Devin Booker, Jayson Tatum, and Bam Adebayo.
Continue reading “Grammy Award-Winning Artist Common to Narrate USA Men’s Basketball Docuseries”