The second season of the Dead to Me marked cinematographer Toby Oliver’s first Netflix TV series production. The series has been ranked in the platform’s top ten since it was released in May, spending a week or so at number #1. Oliver, originally from Australia, has worked frequently with Blumhouse, including shooting the breakout hit Get Out. He spoke with Filmmaker from Los Angeles. Filmmaker: How were you hired for Dead to Me? Oliver: I was in Mexico working on a movie called Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar, which was written by and stars Kristen Wiig and […]
by Daniel Eagan on Jul 14, 2020A summer action movie (based on a pre-existing comic book) starring Charlize Theron may feel like a familiar recipe for a blockbuster hit. But as envisioned by Gina Prince-Bythewood, The Old Guard is less cookie-cutter, multiplex fodder than a humanist portrait of independent contractors who just happen to be immortal beings keeping the peace. From the Crusades through the Civil War and, as the film opens, America’s current War on Terror, the old guard consists of its leader, Andy (Theron) and three men (Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli) who have fought in every war the world has ever […]
by Erik Luers on Jul 14, 2020Premiering at Sundance back in the pre-pandemic festival days (uh, January) Mucho Mucho Amor is a much-needed uplift in these trying times. Co-directed and produced by Cristina Costantini (Science Fair) and Kareem Tabsch (The Last Resort), and produced by Alex Fumero (I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson), the doc, which hits Netflix today, is a fascinating odyssey into the beautifully eccentric world of Walter Mercado. Combining the fashion sense of Liberace with the relentless positivity of Tammy Faye Bakker, the Puerto Rican astrologer, psychic and defiantly nonbinary pioneer spent decades spreading his mantra of “mucho mucho amor” to an audience […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jul 8, 2020Disclosure, directed by Sam Feder (Kate Bornstein is a Queer & Pleasant Danger) and executive produced by Laverne Cox, debuts on Netflix today, June 19th. And in the wake of the whiplash from the Trump administration’s decision to erase healthcare protections for trans people, followed by the US Supreme Court’s momentous ruling protecting those same folks from workplace discrimination, it couldn’t have arrived at a better time. The doc is an exhaustive and entertaining look at how trans individuals have historically been depicted onscreen through surprising archival footage (Birth of a Nation and Bugs Bunny make appearances) and insightful interviews […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jun 19, 2020Executive produced and directed by Liz Garbus, Alex Gibney and Roger Ross Williams, with episodes also helmed by Jed Rothstein, Andy Grieve and Sarah Dowland, The Innocence Files is a riveting, nine-part docuseries that dives deep into eight wrongful convictions that The Innocence Project and its affiliated Innocence Network fought tooth and nail to overturn. The Netflix series gets off to a binge-worthy start with its first three installments — “The Evidence: Indeed and Without Doubt,” “The Evidence: The Truth Will Defend Me,” and “The Evidence: The Duty to Correct” — all directed by Academy Award-winner Roger Ross Williams. (And if your time […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 24, 2020Long an enclave for individuals to frequent and explore without fear of condescending judgment, brick-and-mortar porn shops have been going the way of the dodo bird. Why browse in person when you can search through endless adult content online free of charge? Who wants to sheepishly walk toward the back of a store, slipping through the creaky saloon doors to peruse graphic DVD covers that promise over eight hours of explicit content when you can just as easily scroll through an infinite archive on your phone? Feel awkward purchasing toys, lubricants, edibles, and reading material over the counter in person? […]
by Erik Luers on Apr 24, 2020Access to food serves as the most basic representation of wealth in Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s The Platform, a dystopian allegory for economic inequality in which a vertical prison pushes people to the edge of their humanity. Inside the Vertical Self-Management Center (Centro Vertical de Autogestión)—as the facility is formally known in the fiction—two individuals are housed per level, and each is allowed to bring one personal item with them. They receive sustenance once a day on a floating platform. Those on the higher floors fill their bellies with disregard for the unfortunate ones below. But once a month each pair wakes up on […]
by Carlos Aguilar on Apr 3, 2020Miriam Shor is unrecognizable as Lorraine Ela in the powerful new Netflix film Lost Girls. It’s the kind of performance that doesn’t feel performed, that doesn’t get recognized often because it’s invisible. We talk about that phenomenon this half hour, and break down a hilarious moment from the show Younger, where Shor played the beloved character Diana Trout. She talks about the importance of feeling like she is in collaboration with a director, and how being cast in a role you don’t think you’re “right for” can help you grow. Plus much more! Back To One can be found wherever […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Mar 25, 2020The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez is a six-part Netflix docu-series from Brian Knappenberger (Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press) that delves into one of the most horrific crimes to hit Los Angeles headlines in recent years — the death of eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend after years of physical torture and emotional abuse. Taking as its starting point the courtroom drama of death penalty defendant Isauro Aguirre (after one too many outbursts from Gabriel’s mom Pearl Fernandez the accused murderers are ultimately tried separately), the series soon becomes something else entirely — a […]
by Lauren Wissot on Feb 26, 2020Tell Me Who I Am, the Telluride-premiering feature from Academy Award-nominated (for Best Documentary Short Subject) director Ed Perkins, digs into the stranger-than-fiction saga of Alex Lewis, one half of an identical set of twins, who at the age of 18 lost his memory in a motorcycle accident. Upon awakening from a coma the only person Alex was able to recognize was his brother Marcus — the mirror image he would come to rely on to relearn pretty much everything, from the mundane (down to brushing his teeth) to his very sense of self. In turn, Marcus devotes himself wholeheartedly […]
by Lauren Wissot on Oct 20, 2019