Nuns Vs The Vatican (2025)

This is the story of what happened in the wake of a nun named Gloria who wrote an open letter to the Vatican and the world saying that Marko Rupnik, a world renowned artist and priest, had been abusing and blackmailing her for 28 years. With the floodgates open many other sisters came forward and began to tell their stories. 

This is a very deliberate and slowly building tale with a hidden punch. The film begins in a manner that seems almost matter of fact, until it begins to add in details and your blood begins to boil. 

As someone mentions in the film this is the story about the other 50% of people being abused by priests. While everyone was focusing on the altar boys most people were ignoring the nuns. People kind of forget there are more nuns than altar boys. Things were happening even if no one wanted to say anything.

I really liked this film a great deal. I was especially surprised about how this story goes. If you don't know the story, which I didn't, this isn't a typical tale with a typical ending. 

I fully expect this film to get a lot of attention and end up at a theater near you. When it does, make an effort and go.

FREE JOAN LITTLE (2026) Woodstock 2026

Portrait of Joan Little, who was sexually assaulted while in prison and killed her attacker, a prison guard. She was aquitted of the killing

Let  me cut to the chase, this is one of the best films you'll see this year. 

It is a film that will shake you ton your core and piss you off. Just because some one is in prison it doesn't mean that they should be sexually brualized, which is something the film makes clear that most prisoners experience. 

I was moved.

I have no notes because this film is as perfect a film as you can see.

In an age when sexual violence against women is on the rise, FREE JOAN LITTLE makes clear that it is never okay, regardless of their status because their simply being a human being and deserving of respect trumps all other reasoning.

See this movie and be moved.

Holding Liat (2024) hits VOD October 2

This is the story of the family of Liat Atzili, an Israeli/American kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. We are focused on Liat's parents who try to push for her release through channels in the US and Israel.

I have been wrestling with this film since I saw it. While I absolutely love the way that this film shows the complicated path that families have to walk to get their loved one's back, and I love how the film doesn't  shy away from showing feelings critical of Israel and the countries handling of the hostage situation, I am not certain that the pacing works as well as it could.  There is a long section where very little happens. While I intellectually like the slow pacing because it mirrors the waiting of the families, it makes it kind of hard to stay fully engaged. My dislike of the pacing/construction is due largely because I know it's going to be make or break for people who are seeing the film. Some people are going to walk away, which is a sad thing.

The truth of the matter this film is infinitely better than any coverage of the hostage situation in the media. Not having to rely on clicks or soundbytes or a definite political position, the film gives us a deeper and more resonate look at the situation in Israel and Gaza.  Things are not black and white but gray. Members of Liat's family question the Israeli hard lining.

Sitting down to write this piece a week after seeing the film, and dozens of others, I find I am still wrestling with how I feel about the film. As I said I love that this film does not dumb anything down.  I love that we get a fuller version of the truth. I love it so much that I have taken almost a week and a half to try and work out what to say. I'm still not certain I'm expressing myself correctly.

Ultimately, this is an important film. Its a film that has makes the situation in Israel much more real and relatable. If you want increased insight, see this film.

Recommended.

NAZA (2026) NYFF 2026

The people responsible for  sending out the drones and missles to level Gaza, as well as soldiers who were tasked with burning down the homes of the people who fled the bombing so they would have nothing to come back to, speak to the filmmakers and calmly tell the stories of many (but not all) of the terrible things they did. 

Naza is the term used by the Israeli military for collateral damage instead of Palestians, refugees or human beings (Men, women, children or babies) so that the deaths they caused were not seen as real people in the eyes of the soldiers.

Before the New York Festival screening of NAZA there were some quiet protests. Box trucks with LED screens drove around the festival site saying that the stories of NAZA were false and hand not confirmed. There were also four protesters holding signs outside Alice Tully. They had not seen the film.

The audience inside Alice Tully was openly sobbing during the screening. Several people around me took out their rosaries and were praying. The film laid the the audience out. Finally the weight of what was happening was sinking into the public. The war crimes are at last being noticed.

The point of the film, as stated by the directors during the Q&A, is not to dispute the right of Israel to defend itself or to get justice for the 1200 people killed on October 7 but to question the right of a government to kill well over 75,000 people, wound almost 200,000 more, and destroy the homes of even more in attacks that are exponetially greater. The want to know why all this death and destruction against people who have almost no connection to the bad guys, and simply living in the same building as them. Why is it necessary to wipe out the homes of people who simply share their national background and did nothing wrong on October 7, and drive them into the desert without food or water or shelter? The point is to make an accounting of the crimes being committed not against the people responsible but everyone around them. As one person said it was sometimes okay to take out 500 innocent people to get one suspected bad guy. What sort of madness makes that okay?

The mind boggles even more when you consider that the choice of targets is often picked by an AI program that is frequently wrong. Yes- the Israeli military is using an AI program to choose its targets but it often picks the wrong people.

Is it any wonder people are upset? Not only are war crimes being revealed but so is gross incompetence.

While the audience around me was left broken, the film was a bit less moving me. It was not because of the lack of weight of the film and it's revelations but because, as a good friend pointed out, I have been aware of this bullshit for years. Within my circle and social media follows I have been hearing about all of the charges leveled here since they started. I have read the articles upon which this film is based when they first appeared. This is a one stop shop for those who haven't been paying attention. For those who have been paying attention is this a somber summing up that rocks the soul.

As a film I can't really review it. This is not a film so much as pained cry from caring humans who want to pain and suffering to stop. Its a film made by Israelis who want to their country to come to their senses and stop killing people. Its the culmination of two years of work that puts it all together so that people can bare witness (and who, as made clear in the film, are remaining in the shadows because the evil that is directing the attacks on innocent people would turn and attack them). This is a scream not a piece of cinema.

NAZA is a vital and a live film. It is a call for peace and sanity. It is a film looking to find the better part of humanity by revealing its dakest heart. You must see this film.

Because of the need to get the film out so that people can see it, the film will be released to theaters and on line in the next couple of days. The hope is that with the release changes will come. And perhaps many of the voices who are claiming it is all not true will see that it is true- that it all is horribly and terribly true.

Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie (2026)

 

In the wake of the attack which took his eye and almost ended his life, Salman Rushdie reflects on his life before and after the publication of the Satanic Verses.

Alex Gibney’s latest film is a rather conventional film. I’m not sure if I am not in love with the film because it is so conventional compared to his other films, or if it’s just an okay film.

Told from Rushdie’s point of view this is coming to terms with his life and what happened to him along the way.  It’s a surprisingly frank telling with him admitting that mistakes were made. Its is a film that is less concerned with his writing and more concerned with the man himself

I’m rather mixed on the film, and I don’t know why. Up until now whether I liked a film from Alex Gibney or not I always felt some sort of passion on screen or in my heart. Even if I didn’t like a film I wanted to engage with it. In the case of KNIFE, when it was over I simply wanted to move on to the next film. I had no passion to continue engaging.

It’s not a bad film by any means, rather it’s simply run of the mill, or in this case the run of someone other than Alex Gibney’s mill.

Definitely worth a look, if nothing else it reveals the hatred for The Satanic Verses as ploy by Iran to whip up support during the time the Iraq war was going badly.

By Any Means (2026)

A black FBI agent in 1966 Mississippi is teamed with a mafia hitman to break the murder of the leader of the local chapter of the NAACP.

Okay, let's get this out of the way, this is more inspired by an unconfirmed story than actually based on a true story. I say this because the while the murder is real, the only actual lead character that is real is Mark Wahlberg's hitman who is based on Gregory Scarpa a mean and nasty hitman who the FBI allegedly used when illegal methods were needed.  Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Agent Strider is said, in sources outside the film, to be based on Lindley DeVecchio, though the film does not state that, it simply states that it is based on an unnamed Black FBI agent.

Overall, I liked BY ANY MEANS. There are some great things in it, but at the same time one can feel that the filmmakers weren't certain what they wanted to do with the story. Are we doing a mismatched kind of buddy film, or are we going to have a serious look at what has to be done to bring justice? There are some great dramatic pieces and a couple of more violent set pieces that feel out of place. Is this a crowd pleaser or a film to make us think? I don't think the film knows. Thinking about the film over the last almost 24 hours since I saw it, I realize that the lack of picking a tone is what works against the film the most since it never clues us into what we are supposed to feel. I have spent much of the time trying to sort out what the film is, and I have not been able to figure that out.

The other problem with the film is that Strider doesn't arc, so much as lurch. He is a quiet beat down agent who wants to do good, he then is a bit of a bumbler and then he is a force of justice at any cost. There is no real shading to his character until late in the game, with the result that emotionally we don't fully feel his change from a good man to something else. There is a sense that things were left/cut out to keep the film moving and under two hours. We can go with his lurching, but it I just wish it was smoother because there is so much to the character that I wanted to like him more.

I like that there is a moral ambiguity to the film. The film truly makes you question whether we need to do something "by any means" to bring about change.  We watch that battle in the Strider character who wants to be the good guy but sees sometimes when fighting evil one must do evil things. It's an argument many people will not like but makes sense within the context of the film works.

Is the film perfect? No. But it does entertain and it is the first Hollywood film in a long while that actually feels like it genuinely wants to start a discussion about race and justice by not giving us pat feel-good answers.

Definitely worth a look.

The Crash (2026) on Netflix

A look at the crash that killed two young men when the car Mackenzie Shirilla was dricving slammed into the side of a building.

THE CRASHED rattled my cage. It's not so much the accident but that the behavior that lead up to it was shocking. Parents let their kids drink and do drugs in their homes (never mond the morals of it, apparently Ohio where this all went down has social hosting laws which means they can get sued). I'm shocked at the parents  disconnecting all the the social media stuff Shirilla was posting and insisting that she was a "good kid" when there is something off there. 

Shirilla doesn't come off that well and I'm shocked she agreed to be interviewed. The police reveal how her parents were constantly fixing things for her. Nothing she did ever had consequences because her parents shielded her.  She never learned that things can't be taken back and watchiung the film you realize that if the crash was intentional, she probably didn't think anything would happen of any consequences.

Actually the most damning moment is during her emotional recounting that she loved her boyfriend and that she doesn't know what happened when she suddenly turns off the tears to talk to her attorney.  What the holy F was she doing with the cameras rolling.  It kind of collapses any notion that she wasn't a sociopath.

I loved this. See it.

IX XI (2026) Tribeca 2026

The events of September 11, 2001 via the stories of a people who spent time down and around the World Trade Center.

IX XI is one of the most frustrating 9/11 films I've seen.  While I absolutely love the stories told. I mean they are absolutely wonderful and completely unlike anything we've heard before becvause they give the events a different context, the filmmakers don't know what to do with them.

The problem is the presentation desn't work. The filmmakers didn't trust their story and had to present the stories in a way that distracts from the human story. It distracts in a couple of ways. First the film intercuts clips from movies and TV. Some of the clips are fine, but a large numer of them don't belong in the film.  The other thing the film does is that it has some of the inteviews take place in front of a background that resembles the sides of the towers. At the samt time the lower half of the frame is a reflecting pool  that resembles the one at the memorial. Why the filmmakers does this I can't remotely fathom because it is so distracting, especially since the background gets tinted different colors, that we stop listening to the story and look at the frameing. It is exactly precisely how not to make a film (especially since the images will probably not look so good on cellphones (which apparently is how many people watch everything things these days).

I ended up so annoyed I stopped watching the film the second time I watched it and just listened to it. It vastly improved the film.

(can some one explain why this film about  the tragedy of 9/11 opens with Edith Piaf's No Regrets? Its a huge WTF move)

Mineshaft: The Crusing Murders (2026) Tribeca 2026

This is the story of the film CRUISING, the real events that inspired it and the controversy that resulted in the protests before and after it was made.

First word of warning, keep the little kids away from this film. I know it's a no, duh, but odds are if you are a parent with kids, watching this with them will result in a lot of questions. Its not because it's bad, but because the film is frank in its discussions because it wasn't made for TV or cable. The frankness is one of the reasons the film is so good.

The film begins with the murder of Addison Verrill, a writer for Variety  who was murdered in 1977 after visiting the Mineshaft club. Verrill was killed by a man who had appeared in the THE EXORCIST and William Friedkin had remembered working with. This got Friedkin interested in the leather culture and turned into his desire to make CRUISING.

This is a great film on many levels. Its careing portrait of what it was like to be gay in the 1970's,its killer true crime tale, it's a wonderful portrait of a film that, for better or worse, is now part of popular culture. Its a film that deftly juggles all the various balls perfectly so we never lose sight of any of them. More importantly no one just becomes a "name". We get a sense of everyone, especially Addison Verrill whose tale takes up the first third of the film.

I loved this film. As someone old enough to remember the making of the film and the protests this film filled in a lot of details I never knew, which is most things. I knew what was in the papers and I read the novel that Friedkin used as the "source" because of the controversey but I didn't know much else. Now I do.

I can't wait to see this away from the festival where I can take it in and not feel rushed.

Highly recommended

Stealing Magic (2026) Tribeca 2026

Some one is taking the secrets behind various magic tricks and illusions and selling them. . A team of investigators go after them.

This is a nifty little doc. Its a wonderful little mystery that grabs us from the first moment and then drags us along the trail of the trick thieves. It's a twisty and turny ride that constantly makes you wonder what the next twist is going to be.

While the film is a probably a a little too much by the numbers in construction the quest to find out who is stealing the secrets over comes any reservations and keeps us watching.

This is an absolute delight that I can't wait to see again.

Very brief thoughts on Untold The Shooting at Hawthorne Hill (2026)

This is a look at the shooting of student Lauren Kanarek by champion equestrian rider Michael Barasone.

The weakest episode of this year'scollection of Netflix sports docs is a look at shooting where the two sides  should never have been together.  Both victim and perpatror come off as partly responsible. This reminds me of the the the infamous John Du Pont shooting where the well off host went crazy.

I liked it but I didn't love it.

The Truth and Tragedy of Moriah Wilson (2026)

This is a look at the life and death of the champion cyclist who was murdered for a stupid reason.

This is a good look at  a lovely young woman whose life was taken much too early. The film is a both a celebration of her life and a look at the circumstances of her death. The celebration part  is expertly handled. The investigative portion is a bit lacking despite the fact that most of the film focuses on the hunt for the killer.

The problem is that the killer Kaitlin Armstrong is largely a cipher.  As someone says about her early on, Kaitlin was the girl who stood next to Colin Strickland but was never introduced. That's kind of the case here.  We don't really get any sense of who she is other than she was dating Strickland and was being cheated on by Strickland with multiple girls. Who is she? We don't know other than a few random facts.

The film also bobbles it's discussion of Colin Strickland. Yes, we get some basic facts, particularly he was just a cyclist who had a knack for manipulating women, but there is no sense of who he is. Even when he briefly talks to the filmmakers at the end there is nothing there. We get no sense of his feelings, particularly concerning how he felt about his long time girlfriend killing the new girl in his life. He's just this guy who has retreated from the world despite setting in motion a murder. There could have been a whole section on how stupid people destroy the people in their lives but there is nothing.

I wanted to know more.

The  film never balances the desire to be a celebration of Wilson's life with an examination of her death. The search for her killer is the narrative thread but once that is resolved the film effectively ends about 20 minutes before the end credits roll. It is as if we have been told everything the filmmakers are going to say, and then kept going. 

The film isn't bad, it's just not as great as it could have been had it given us more details about the people around Wilson

THE VANISHING OF DOLORES WULFF (2026) Cinequest 2026

This is the story of the disappearence of Dolores Wulff, a mother of four.  On a night when she was a alone with her husband she disappeared, leaving a lot of questions and suspicion that her husband had something to do with it.

While I like this film a great deal, I'm still not certain exactly what I think of this film. There is a point where I kind of stepped away. The problem is that while the film is set up as a grand mystery, there is a point somewhere about halfway in when you realize that there really isn't a mystery here, it's simply at what point do they realize that Wulff's body had been found years before. There is no grand "ah ha" moment. We know who did it, even if the (cruel) efforts to get the killer to confess go nowhere. It's not bad, it's just not as great as the start of the film is. (I also despise the fact that everyone takes absolute delight in explaining in detail all the horrible things they did to Wulff's husband to get him to confess. In their own way they are a hairsbreadth away from being as bad as him- since they all would have gladly killed him themselves.)

That said, if you want to see a good, and moving true crime film see this film.

I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY’S(2026) SXSW 2026

This is a wild film.

This is the story of a the attempted extortion plot involving a huge bomb placed in a casino in Reno and what transpired around it. The whys and hows of it all go into some unexpected places and result in our sitting on the edge of our seat to see how it all comes out.

This was offered to me late in SXSW and I said yes just because I like true crime docs. Little did I know that I was going to fall in love with the film and send out message to my friends who also love films like this.

I really don’t have a great deal to say beyond that. It’s a gem of a film that I can’t wait to see again… and again.  While I want to say more a great deal of the fun in seeing it the first time is watching how it goes. The fun in the second  viewing is seeing how everything you know from the first time is colors the early part of the film.

This is just awesome.

See it.

in Exchange For Flesh (2025) Slamdance 2026

                         
IN EXCHAGE FOR FLESH
A look at sexual abuse in prison, particulary via the strip searchs in prison.
This is deeply disturbing look at how prison guards treat prisoners- and how the treatment of prisoners outside of prisoners would result in arrest of a regular person.

This is an excellent film that is graphic- so beware.

Snowland (2025) Slamdance 2026

This is a portrait of Cora Lee Witt a woman who was part of the FLDS whch is an off shoot of the Mormon church that practices polygamy and allows child brides. Refusing to remain quiet she created a rift between herself and the church and was cast out. Channeling her energy into a fairy tale called Snowland she tries to find her place in the world and come to terms with her past. 

This mix of straight on documentary with animation is frequently something special. Creating a unique cinematic place this film becomes more than just a portrait of an outsider artist. (in a weird way some of this reminded me of Henry Darger). 

I liked this a great deal.

Brief thoughts on Dear Lara (2026) Santa Barbara 2026

DEAR LARA is the story of classical musician Lara St. John who in 2019 revealed that she was sexually abused by some people in the classical music community. This opened the floodgates and she began to get letters from people who also suffered abuse during their journey through the classical world.

This is a really good film. Its a film that will open your eyes about the darker side od something that has always been viewed as being above board. Its a film that reveals the damage done by some evil people to people who trusted them,

At the same time the film  is portrait of St. John who survived and managed to overcome her demons.

Recommended.

Evil Influencer : The Jodi Hildebrandt Story (2025)

Netflix doc on Jodi Hildebrandt, a therapist in the Church of Later Day Saints, who was arrested for child abuse when it was discovered how she was treating the children of one of her patients /business partner.

This is a good, if a bit over long look at who one woman wrecked the lives of multiple families. Hildebrandt was a very devout member of the church and her approach to therapy appealed to a number of people in the church looking for help with their lives. The trouble was that Hildebrandt had issues of her own and a controlling personality that ended up destroying marriages.

I liked this film a great deal, however running at over 100 minutes it a bit long.  Its not that there is anything bad here, more that the stories of wrecked marriages get reputative.

Worth a look.

Kratom: Side Effects May Include (2025) Dances With Films 2026

This is a long-pained scream of a film on the largely unregulated supplement Kratom, which is found mostly in smoke shops and gas stations. The supplement is made from a leaf from Thailand and Maylasia and stimulates some of the same brain sensors as opiates and caffeine. The trouble is that it could have serious side effects including death if it overused or taken in its refined form.

This is an important film that highlights a growing problem. The number of people using the drug has gone from a million people in the US to over 24 million in the last five years. Since it is not regulated people think it’s safe, but it isn’t. It has addictive qualities (stimulating the opiate receptors), but most states and the federal government are not doing anything about it owing the large amount of money behind it.

While the film is vitally important, the telling is often messy. The film is telling several stories at the same time and it jumps between each kind of randomly. In addition to being a discussion of the drug the film also wants to be a memorial to the people who were lost to it. I can appreciate that, but we never get a solid handle on who these people were. We get their stories in pieces, and often incomplete with the over riding thing said about them was that they were good people- but who were they really? I could have let it go except that the film intertwines their story with that of the drug and we keep revisiting them so we should know more. 

Several points concerning the dangers of the drug are not immediately made clear. What exactly are the side effects? I’m still not sure because the discussion is given a piece meal. I applaud the filmmakers for giving us this important film, I just wish it were slightly better organized so that people will take it more to heart.

My reservations aside, this is an important film and should be seen.

MALDOROR (2024) hits VOD Friday

This 1990’s set thriller based in part of actual events when the police organizations in Belgium were all competing with each other and trying to catch a psycho who was kidnapping young women. The film focuses on a young cop assigned to a task force who ends up taking things into his own hands because his superiors let things get away from them.

MALDOROR is a frequently tense little thriller. A tale of frustration as the cops desperately try to get their man, the film is going to have you sitting on the edge of your seat during several sequence…including the opening credits which is highly surprising.

Unfortunately the film is going to frustrate you. It’s not that the film takes any bad turns, more that the film is trying to cover a lot of ground. We aren’t just following the cop, but his wife, her family, and other people as well. The result is a film that appears to be juggling a lot of balls and isn’t always focused. Instead of a laser focused film the film feels rambling as there is an effort to give the film a broader  background.

There is so much to love in this film that I wish the film cut tighter and more focused because by the time you get to the end of two and a half hours you feel the wrong sort of beaten up.

My reservations aside, there is enough here both narratively and thematically that the film is worth a look.