Movie review by Greg Carlson

There are so many memorable moments in the short life of musician Jeff Buckley that filmmaker Amy J. Berg could easily have gotten lost in an endless highlight reel. The veteran documentarian, whose feature debut “Deliver Us From Evil” (2006) received an Oscar nomination, focuses instead on the core relationships in her fascinating subject’s orbit, constructing a detailed portrait that will satisfy longtime fans and make believers out of the previously uninitiated. In “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” (the title a reference to “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” one of several masterworks from Buckley’s first and only studio album) Berg recognizes and honors the artist’s communion with the feminine by placing a trio of women at the heart of the film.

Berg reports that she pursued Buckley’s mother Mary Guibert for close to twenty years. And I trust Guibert knows that she made the right decision to finally accept Berg into her life and agree to sit for on-camera interviews and open up her personal archive, for the result is as moving and personal as any narrative, in fiction or lived reality, concerning the iron bond between a single mom and her child. Guibert, a first-generation immigrant, met Tim Buckley in a high school French class not far from the gates of Disneyland in Anaheim, California. And even though Guibert speaks fondly of the unique and electric connection she felt with the pre-fame singer-songwriter, she refuses to sugarcoat the pain that radiated from Tim’s decision to have no part in raising Jeff.

Even so, the shadow of Tim Buckley, who died of a heroin overdose at the age of 28, looms large throughout the young life of his gifted son. Their paths would cross for just the briefest flicker of time in 1975 when Jeff was 8 years old. Berg handles the younger Buckley’s confusion and yearning, along with Mary’s trepidation and skepticism, with a potent shot of the matchbook cover on which Tim wrote down his phone number for his estranged kid only a couple weeks before he would be dead. Later, as Jeff put in the work to sharpen his own prodigious talent, the desire to avoid direct comparisons to Tim comes to a head before Jeff’s decision to accept producer Hal Willner’s invitation to perform at the “Greetings From Tim Buckley” tribute show in 1991.

Along with Guibert, artists Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser offer exacting insights. Berg limits the total number of interview subjects to a carefully-chosen handful, including Michael Tighe, Ben Harper, Aimee Mann, and Matt Johnson, but the director capitalizes on the many ways that the close partnerships Buckley enjoyed with Moore and Wasser influenced his music. Of course, Guibert undoubtedly helped cultivate Jeff’s ear by exposing him to all kinds of incredible recordings. We get a crystal understanding of exactly how Buckley would aspire to be like Nina Simone and Judy Garland as much as Robert Plant (and unless you are made of stone, have tissues ready when Wasser recounts a meeting between Jeff and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan).

Berg also spends just the right amount of time unpacking the transcendence of Buckley’s most-played recording: the phenomenal cover of “Hallelujah” that would mark Leonard Cohen’s original with the same kind of indelible stamp made by Sinead O’Connor’s version of “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Johnny Cash’s take on “Hurt,” and Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “All Along the Watchtower.” From beginning to end, Berg reveals herself as a genuine admirer and scholar, evidenced in part by the fulfilling title, which in most other iterations of the multiverse would have used some variation of “Grace.” On my way in to see the film, my friend Nicole commented, “We know how it ends.” But like thousands of others, we will never stop listening.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Shortly following its world premiere in January, first-time feature filmmaker Kate Beecroft’s “East of Wall” won the NEXT section’s audience award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. A persuasive blend of nonfiction and fiction elements, the movie’s stunning South Dakota setting serves as an additional character in the ensemble. Populated by a number of newcomers and nonactors who in many cases inhabit versions of their real-life selves, Beecroft places two talented professionals – Jennifer Ehle and Scoot McNairy – in vital roles, seamlessly integrating the veterans with the core group led by Tabatha Zimiga and her daughter Porshia Zimiga.

Beecroft has recounted the practicalities of how she constructed “East of Wall” over a period of several years. Sundance/indie film aficionados will instantly draw comparisons to Chloe Zhao’s Pine Ridge-set features “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” and “The Rider.” Along with the South Dakota location and the rural milieus focused on horseback riding and intense relationships between caretakers and animals (both “The Rider” and “East of Wall” include stunning scenes in which protagonists calm and commune with horses), both Zhao and Beecroft sculpt magic from “embedded” relationships with performers asked to place a great deal of trust in their respective storytellers.

The elder Zimiga portrays a gloriously complex mother, daughter, partner, and friend. Tabatha’s distinctive look includes a hairstyle of long blonde locks on one side and a close shave on the other – referenced within the story as both a fierce symbol of equine identification and her gifts as a rider and trainer. The haircut can even be earned by the rough-edged teenagers who live under her care on the 3000 acres previously overseen by her late husband, who took his own life. Those kids, who practice enough trick riding and horsemanship to help Tabatha sell at local shows and on TikTok, may not always make good choices but they certainly recognize the matriarchal power of Tabatha’s eye-of-the-hurricane presence.

McNairy’s wealthy Roy Waters could easily have been reduced to a single-minded villain, but Beecroft invests in a subtler and more satisfying way of engineering narrative conflict by filling out the character with critical details that explain his personal interest in working so closely with Porshia. Waters openly admits that he stands to benefit from the financial terms of the deal he puts in front of Tabatha. Her wariness is shared by us. But making ends meet is only one of many burdens faced by Tabatha, whose strained relationship with Porshia mirrors her own difficult bond with mother Tracey (Ehle), who carries herself with enough self-awareness to acknowledge the extent to which she messed things up with Tabatha.

The three generations of women at the heart of “East of Wall” point in the direction of feminine solidarity that Beecroft so clearly values. In one emotionally raw interlude, a group of women disclose painful memories to one another while drinking around a campfire (Tabatha’s real-life mother is among that number). Beecroft handles nearly every element of her film with the confidence of a veteran moviemaker. Out of Sundance, a small number of critics expressed reservations about one thing or another, but I belong to the group of admirers who recognize Beecroft’s respect for her audience. “East of Wall,” like the wide open spaces in and around the Badlands, offers enough questions without answers and lots of room to sit with our own thoughts.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The wildly talented and ambitious Zach Cregger drags us back to the basement in “Weapons,” one of the year’s most satisfying and enjoyable films of any genre. While fans of “Barbarian” know to expect the unexpected when it comes to the filmmaker’s investment in horror and comedy, Cregger’s latest feature will expand his audience to waves of newcomers eager to see what the hype is about. Opening weekend performance at the box office has been as strong as the general critical consensus.

Word of mouth should continue to drive turnout, but don’t sleep: “Weapons” is the kind of movie that surprises and delights and rewards viewers who go in knowing little to nothing about it. And while this review aims to minimize any spoilers, I would encourage you to stop reading until you have watched the film. The premise leads us to believe that Cregger plans to explore the trauma of America’s ongoing crisis of school shootings through a chilling metaphor: 17 of the 18 third-graders enrolled in Justine Gandy’s class awake in the middle of the night and run away from their homes at exactly the same time, leaving no trace as to their whereabouts. A shocked and mystified community demands answers.

One frustrated and suspicious parent, a general contractor named Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), begins his own investigation after suggesting that Justine (Julia Garner) isn’t telling authorities everything she knows. Archer and Justine at first appear to be the central characters. But Cregger’s screenplay soon reveals a structure in the tradition of “Rashomon,” doubling back over events from the perspectives of several other important people. “Weapons” evolves into a layered symphony as each new chapter drives toward a deeper understanding of what is really going on. The approach also gives Cregger the space required to outline and refine the underlying themes of grief, loneliness, and addiction.

Some of those other people include police officer Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), drug addict and burglar James (Austin Abrams), school principal Marcus (Benedict Wong), student Alex (Cary Christopher) – the sole child from Justine’s class who did not disappear – and Alex’s aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan). The cross-section of society embodied by Cregger’s supporting players ties “Weapons” together like a miniature version of “The Rules of the Game.” Cregger has cited Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Magnolia” and Jennfier Egan’s novel “A Visit From the Goon Squad” as inspirations. Throughout the movie, which caroms from pitch-black humor to creeping dread to enough gruesome splatter to please the discerning gorehound, the director compels us to continually increase our emotional investment.

Cregger consistently shows a command of tone that turns out to be the most audacious and creative dimension of “Weapons.” By the time we reach an absolutely bonkers final section, the scares and the laughs are being traded like a top-tier Wimbledon rally. Cregger, whose liberal application of the evergreen and contextually apropos question “What the fuck?” (the phrase is uttered by multiple characters and works every single time), also pays direct homage to “Raising Arizona” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Every ounce of bottled-up tension comes blasting out of the screen in a firehose of cathartic release that wholly melts down any boundary between the horrific and the comedic.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

When I first heard the premise for “Oh, Hi!” – which has been described as a “romantic comedy,” if you imagine a twisted sense of the term – visions of two Stephen King novels popped into my head. In “Misery,” a writer is held captive by an obsessed fan. And in “Gerald’s Game,” a woman must figure out how to survive after finding herself handcuffed to a bed. King’s two stories exist principally in the space of the psychological thriller (with scary elements incorporated) while “Oh, Hi!” hopes for some laughter along with its rueful recognition of failed intimate partnerships. Director Sophie Brooks, who wrote the screenplay from a story she created with star Molly Gordon, understands the border that separates the most ridiculous expression of bad ideas from the pathos that accompanies rejection.

Gordon plays Iris, a young woman inclined to hide her tightly-wound neuroticism behind a veil of affability and enthusiasm. Iris has been seeing Isaac (Logan Lerman) long enough for the couple to plan a road trip getaway, but not long enough, we discover, for an exclusive commitment. The opening sections of the movie are the strongest, as we enjoy figuring out the contours and dynamics of this pairing. Some brief flashbacks will also fill in a few blanks. Brooks stages a clever scene on the way to the farmhouse rental in which Iris and Isaac stop to buy strawberries from a local whose flirtatious comments to Isaac bug Iris. Along with a hilarious slapstick button that wraps up the exchange and might be a sign of things to come, we note just enough of the insecurity that will shortly roar like a lion.

Settling in, Iris discovers that a bedroom closet contains handcuffs, costumes, and other erotic bondage paraphernalia. One thing leads to another, and Isaac ends up locked to the bedframe without access to a key. Iris makes the unwise decision to keep him restrained, eventually involving friends Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Kenny (John Reynolds), who add more fuel to the chaotic and illegal conundrum. Brooks and Gordon don’t fully sustain the electricity of the first-half set-up once Max and Kenny enter the story, in large part due to the way in which the broken-logic shenanigans resemble so many tropes routinely deployed in TV sitcoms. That said, Viswanathan swipes a few scenes, including one in which she casts an absurd black magic incantation.

Brooks and Gordon began discussing what would become “Oh, Hi!” during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, operating with the idea that limited locations and a small number of actors could be the route to getting something made. In a reflection published in “Variety” ahead of the movie’s Sundance premiere, Brooks summarized the desired tone: “Molly and I dreamed up a story about a woman desperately seeking love as a way to process our own fears and poke fun at them, in the hopes that people would watch it and laugh and cringe and feel seen and entertained.” Fair enough.

“Oh, Hi!” never tells the viewer exactly how to feel about either Isaac or Iris, a move that works in the film’s favor. Brooks comfortably toys with expectations and stereotypes that we all ingest on a daily basis, carefully pulling back when we start to think that Iris looks “crazy” or desperate. The same courtesy is extended to Lerman’s Isaac, who never crosses over into full-blown user/asshole territory (some critics have wrongly dismissed the quality of his performance). By withholding moral judgement of her characters, Brooks largely gets to have her cake and eat it.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Cinephiles and fans of classic midcentury Hollywood biography will find much to appreciate in Mariska Hargitay’s insightful documentary “My Mom Jayne.” As protagonist Olivia Benson on NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Hargitay holds the record for playing the longest-running primetime character on network television. Many also know her as the daughter of iconic sex symbol Jayne Mansfield. Hargitay’s feature directorial debut transcends the typical movie star portrait by re-imagining the frequently mistaken public image of Mansfield and her tragically short time in the spotlight. The first-time filmmaker’s decades of experience in the industry contribute to the ease and confidence with which she pulls together a compelling story both intimately personal and openly public.

Hargitay was only three years old in the summer of 1967 when Mansfield was killed along with boyfriend Sam Brody and driver Ronnie Harrison in a car wreck. The toddler and her brothers Miklos and Zoltan were in the back seat and survived the crash. Hargitay describes having virtually no recollection of her famous mom, conceding that her strongest memory might be more imagined than concrete. She goes on to explain that her own perceptions of her mother’s popular image led her to keep any feelings about their relationship at a distance for many years. As the story unfolds, Hargitay turns to her siblings, collecting their own stories on the way to piecing together a puzzle that will culminate with a series of shocking revelations.

After Mansfield and Mariska, the most important figure in the documentary is Mansfield’s second husband Mickey Hargitay, who served as the filmmaker’s greatest supporter and champion while she was growing up. He is depicted as the one romantic partner in Mansfield’s life that would not be characterized as a bad choice. Hargitay raises many tantalizing questions throughout the film, leaving many deliberately unanswered. Why was such a smart person so unlucky in love?

The previously buried knowledge arrives in the late sections of the film and will surprise all but the most intense followers of Mansfield. Jayne’s longtime publicist and press secretary, who was more than 100 years old at the time Hargitay interviewed him for her film, wrote a bombshell tell-all in 1974 titled “The Tragic Secret Life of Jayne Mansfield” that disclosed the truth. But Hargitay’s on-camera conversations with Raymond “Rusty” Strait confront secrets and lies with a level of calm restraint rarely seen in a space that celebrates conflict and accusation, especially in the tabloid sphere. The impressive result of their meeting opens a path for Hargitay to exorcise some ghosts that have been equally shared by herself and her mother.

Hargitay uses some choice television appearance clips to dispel perceptions that Mansfield was merely a “dumb blonde” cloned in the image of Marilyn Monroe. Mansfield spoke multiple languages fluently and loved playing the piano and the violin. We come to understand the extent to which the ambitious star used her sex symbol popularity as a means to an end. I love the interview she does with Groucho Marx, who appeared in the movie version of Mansfield’s highlight “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” in a cameo role. On a 1962 episode of “Tell It to Groucho,” Mansfield responds to Groucho’s observation that the crafted fantasy image was indeed an act/facade, saying, “I think that it’s like this: the public pays money at the box office to see me in a certain way.”

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Ari Aster’s political satire “Eddington” premiered in competition for the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May, where Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident” received the prize. A frequently laborious mash-up of genres including flashes of the filmmaker’s horror comfort zone (“Hereditary” and “Midsommar” remain the best films he has made) and slow-burn American Western/noir touches that aspire to the blending of violence and comedy that the Coens perfected, “Eddington” sees Aster taking some narrative risks, even if not every choice pays off. The nearly two-and-a-half hour length, exacerbated by somnolent pacing until at least the first shocking turning point, works against Aster by sorely testing the patience of even the most curious viewers.

Joaquin Phoenix, who led Aster’s previous feature “Beau Is Afraid,” plays the sheriff of the title New Mexico township. Pedro Pascal portrays the mayor. The rivals form two sides of a scalene triangle with Emma Stone, in which Phoenix’s Joe > Pascal’s Ted > Stone’s Louise, at least in terms of significant screen time. The diminished presence of Stone is just one of the movie’s disappointments. Her character, lost in the fog of the world during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, is married to Joe but was previously involved with Ted. Aster clearly enjoys manipulating the chess pieces of his sprawling ensemble cast, which also includes Austin Butler in a glorified cameo as a strange cult leader, Deirdre O’Connell as Louise’s mother, Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward as law enforcement officers working under Joe, and William Belleau as an Indigenous policeman with jurisdiction in the adjacent tribal lands.

Aster also introduces a group of young Black Lives Matter and social justice protesters, linking the historical events that occurred in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis to the fictional catastrophes unfolding in Eddington. The filmmaker’s ambitious recipe, which addresses not only BLM, but Antifa, mask mandates, anti-vax conspiracies, corruption and racism and brutality in policing, the environmental impact of data farms, white privilege, and the avalanche of disinformation made worse by the pastime of doom-scrolling, cooks up into a stew that can be difficult to swallow. Even as Aster boldly introduces all manner of Trump-era malaise, “Eddington” is deliberately opaque.

In her thoughtful and incisive NPR review for “Pop Culture Happy Hour,” Aisha Harris puts her finger on one of Aster’s shortcomings: “Eddington” reduces its Black and Indigenous characters to symbols, doubling-down on what Harris identifies as the movie’s status as a “cynical simulacrum.” And while it is certainly fair to argue that “Eddington” is not a character-driven story, Aster’s lack of investment in his array of inhabitants spills over into something like contempt. And it doesn’t matter whether a figure is identified with the right or the left, everyone just bumbles and stumbles along making awful decisions.

Perhaps the most American thing about the particular kind of America depicted in “Eddington” is the feverish commitment to gun violence (and violence in general). Even the trailer revels in the sights and sounds of Joe unloading a high-capacity magazine when all hell breaks loose on the streets of his otherwise sleepy town. We understand that Aster intends a kind of absurdist and comical mockery of our worst impulses as a society,  but the “both sides are equally bad” insinuation that progressives and fascists all deserve to be ridiculed – and lumped in together – is a massive false equivalency.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

With “Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything,” director Jackie Jesko takes on the legacy and legend of the late journalist extraordinaire. One of the year’s many solid, feature-length biographical documentaries, Jesko’s movie premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June before making its way to Hulu. The director highlights career accomplishments and off-camera alliances, avoiding total hagiography by looking at a handful of the transactional relationships that Walters maintained as a power player in the monied circles of NYC’s elite. Jesko also recognizes the enormous influence of Walters on subsequent generations of women (and men) in journalism, laying out her subject’s formidable ability to shatter one glass ceiling after another.

In several significant ways, the rise of Walters as covered by Jesko in the first half of the documentary invites viewers to take a rooting interest in the indomitable newshound. Initially assigned to “women’s stories” at NBC’s “The Today Show” when gender boundaries were ruthlessly defined and fiercely defended by the white men in front of and behind the cameras, Walters (who died in 2022 at the age of 93) narrates key milestones culled from archival material. It will come as little surprise that a number of potent male anchors and co-workers bullied and/or dismissed Walters, seriously underestimating the resolve, grit, and rhinoceros-thick skin required in a workplace rampant with misogyny.

Walters spent more than a decade at “Today” before something akin to fate intervened; host Frank McGee (one of many men who treated Walters with contempt) died of cancer. As a result – thanks to language in her contract – Walters became the first woman to co-host the show. Jesko draws clear lines from one big achievement to the next, even if the feature-length format requires skipping past lots of details. Once Walters was hired with a record-breaking contract to co-headline the “ABC Evening News” with Harry Reasoner, Jesko closes in on the juiciest and most satisfying stretch of her subject’s professional life: the transformative influence of the frequent exclusives Walters landed with show business celebrities and world leaders.

And not just run-of-the-mill interviews, either. Walters fine-tuned the hardball like a major league flamethrower, dazzling fans with an ability to earn trust and still cause jaws to drop with the audacity of some questions (Jesko opens the movie with a fantastic montage of Walters zingers). For decades, we ate it up and asked for more. But whether we realized it or not, Walters was contributing to, if not shaping, the fame-obsessed culture that would undergo another technological (r)evolution when the internet arrived. As a biography attempting to cover a big life, it is probably too much to ask Jesko to carve out enough time for a deep dive on the extent to which Walters weakened her industry by blurring and mixing entertainment and news.

Behind the scenes, Walters would struggle to sustain a healthy relationship with her daughter Jacqueline, although the movie delivers the memoir’s happy ending. Additionally, more than one voice in the documentary alludes to a wobbly moral compass that saw Walters in allyship with unsavory types like Roy Cohn (who assisted her father Lou Walters, a colorful figure in his own right). Jesko touches on many romances, but comes to the common conclusion: making television was the true love of Barbara Walters’ life. Anyone with even a mild interest in the glory years of the networks should make an appointment with this story.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Matt Wolf, whose lovely “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell” suggests he would be the perfect director to construct the definitive biographical account of the wholly original Paul Reubens, mostly makes good on that promise with the two-part “Pee-wee as Himself.” The story, now on HBO following a Sundance world premiere, has been identified somewhat disappointingly as a kind of “coming out” revelation, even though many fans and followers of Reubens assumed his queerness for a long, long time before it was confirmed. With a total duration of about three hours and twenty minutes, Wolf enjoys a generous enough canvas to examine Reubens in considerable detail. The chronological structure, however, builds toward the inevitable gut-punches of the dual scandals that so unfairly derailed and deflated a singular career.

Reubens, who sat in front of Wolf’s camera for some 40 hours, is every bit as clever and subversive as his (still) more famous alter-ego. The performer, who died of cancer in 2023 at the age of 70, kept his health status secret from all but a tiny circle. Wolf did not know Reubens was sick and never completed what was to be their final on-camera interview. In his “New Yorker” commentary on the film published this May, Michael Schulman provides some crucial context for how this turn of events led Wolf to a new edit of the project. Schulman notes that following the death of his subject, the filmmaker “included more fourth-wall-breaking moments, realizing that his own tug-of-war with Reubens was key to understanding the performer’s bifurcated existence.”

As suggested by Schulman’s quotation and the title, the central thesis sees both Reubens and Wolf contemplating the former’s decision to, in essence, operate only as his creation. Reubens speaks at length about treating Pee-wee Herman, the chaotic, off-axis oddity whose blend of childlike exuberance and grown-up cunning appealed to rebels and nerds of all ages, as a real person. For example, the Hollywood Walk of Fame star heralds Pee-wee and not Reubens. The toll taken by the decision to hide behind Herman plays out as a major motif in the documentary, from the actor’s early romantic relationship with sensitive painter Guy Brown, who would inspire several “Pee-wee-isms,” to the catastrophic fallout from the 1991 Florida arrest.

Part of me wishes the order of the episodes would have been flipped, since the pain of both the indecent exposure charge and the even more frustrating results of the 2002 search warrant that police obtained to go fishing for illegal images have a tendency to overshadow the massive creative achievements that beguile both die-hard superfans and Pee-wee newcomers. Thankfully, Wolf and Reubens unpack the most significant milestones in the Pee-wee Herman journey, from the origin of the character while Reubens collaborated with Phil Hartman as members of the Groundlings to the miracle of feature film “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” which remains my own favorite and most revisited piece of Pee-wee media.

It is hard to argue, however, with the impact of “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” the cult Saturday morning children’s television series that aired on CBS from 1986 to 1990 for a total of 45 episodes and a beloved Christmas special. Wolf and Reubens recognize “Playhouse” as the fulfillment of Pee-wee’s promise and treat it with the respect it deserves. Many writers have attempted to account for the hidden-in-plain-sight suggestiveness, innuendo, and adult humor – qualities that, while toned down from the stage show, were never fully scrubbed. Like the Reubens/Herman duality, the successful mashup of outré performance art with the formula of midcentury television aimed at kids is rare indeed. The secret word is genius.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As we continue to deal with the ongoing horrorshow of racism, misogyny and transphobia embraced by the current administration, films like “Sally” can serve as an important reminder that love triumphs over hate time and again. News broke just this month that the Pentagon had officially renamed the John Lewis-class oiler USNS Harvey Milk for World War II officer Oscar V. Peterson. National Public Radio reported that “Under [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth’s guidance, the Navy is reviewing the names of several other ships named after women, Black and Hispanic people.” Should these attacks on equity, diversity and inclusion – all historically valuable attributes that define America and the American dream – continue, it is not hard to imagine future efforts to strip the name of Sally Ride from the elementary schools, sections of highway, and spacecraft described in her honor.

Physicist and astronaut Ride, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at the age of 61, is best remembered as the first American woman to travel to space. Her personal and professional journey is the subject of Cristina Costantini’s feature documentary “Sally,” which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and is now available on Hulu and Disney+. Costantini draws from a rich vein of NASA archival footage (a reliable filmmaking choice for decades of visual storytelling) as well as new interviews with Ride’s colleagues, friends, and family members. The person who figures most prominently is Tam O’Shaughnessy, the love of Ride’s life and her partner of more than a quarter of a century. O’Shaughnessy directly addresses the challenges faced by queer people during an era of suffocating pressure and prejudice.

Along with many typical and traditional markers of the biographical portrait, Costantini inserts re-enactments imagining the ongoing development of the romantic relationship between Ride and O’Shaughnessy from the forging of their early friendship to the end of Ride’s life. None of these scenes add anywhere near as much value as the abundant footage of Ride’s thoroughly photographed tenure at NASA, but they are subtle enough to avoid being a total distraction. More illuminating are Ride’s reactions to members of the press when she is peppered with sexist questions and embarrassing assumptions. Costantini builds an intriguing argument that Ride’s calculated refusal to seek the spotlight worked in her favor, when she was selected over fellow NASA Group 8 member and robotic arm operator Judy Resnik to fly on the seventh Space Shuttle mission and become the first American woman in space.

Resnik would lose her life in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January of 1986, a grim chapter in our national history placed in new context by Costantini as she briefly examines Ride’s role in hearings conducted during the aftermath of the tragedy. “Sally” is filled with just enough detail on the inner workings of NASA politics to satisfy aeronautics aficionados. And when untangling some of the personal reasons that went into Ride’s long silence, Costantini points to examples like Billie Jean King, who speaks on camera in the film about the cost of public scrutiny during an era in which disclosure could negatively alter or even end careers.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The June 9 death of musician Sylvester Stewart, known much better by stage name Sly Stone, saw an outpouring of tributes, memorials, and appreciations from some who knew him personally and many who never made his acquaintance. The groundbreaking visionary and multi-instrumentalist launched hit after hit into the cosmos, defining and redefining genre boundaries with a core group of players that included Black and white, male and female years before Prince would replicate the technique. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who won an Oscar for debut documentary feature “Summer of Soul,” a brilliant reconstruction/excavation of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival that featured Sly and the Family Stone, proves to be the ideal filmmaker to honor Sly Stone’s legacy.

The stylized onscreen title of Thompson’s film is “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius),” and in context the strikethrough speaks volumes as the director interviews artists who talk about Stone and the unique pressures and unrealistic expectations faced by Black creators in a racist America. That burden is addressed as part of the movie’s contemplation of Stone’s well-documented descent into addiction and his disappearance from both the public eye and (temporarily) cultural relevance. It’s a terrific artistic choice to reframe the Icarus-like fall of Stone outside the lurid tabloid headlines that preyed on Stone’s reclusiveness and eccentricity and made him the butt of wrongheaded jokes for far too long.

Thompson integrates a mix of archival and new talking head interviews with members of the Family Stone, including Cynthia Robinson, Jerry Martini, Larry Graham, and Greg Errico. Their firsthand accounts and recollections of working with Sly speak to the good, the bad, and the ugly in the eye of the hurricane. But it is the presence of Sly admirers and scholars like Vernon Reid, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Andre 3000, Q-Tip, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, and Mark Anthony Neal that shifts the movie into the kind of high gear that Thompson does best, setting up the ideal circumstances for next-level deconstructions and breakdowns of Sly’s gifts in terms that can be understood by the layperson.

You will marvel, for example, at Jam’s dissection of “Stand!” and Reid’s superb analysis of “Everyday People.” The side-by-side arrangement of Prince’s “1999” and Sly’s “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” highlighting the rotating vocals used to perfection in each song, is another exhilarating example of Thompson’s prowess as a master DJ (I will patiently wait on any kind of Prince documentary Questlove wants to make). The anecdote about the way that “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)” – heard at the right moment in the right restaurant – almost instantaneously birthed Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” quickens the pulse. Another segment lays out the influence of Sly on hip-hop, checking samples by the Jungle Brothers, Beastie Boys, and LL Cool J.

“Sly Lives!” is a marvel of organization, drawing from dazzling archival footage of Sly and the Family Stone at work and play. Sly himself appears in both performance film clips and formal television interviews and talk show guest spots. Thompson uses discretion in the selection of these moments, since some caught our hero when he was as “high as a Georgia pine.” But even under the influence, Sly knew how to avoid being made to look foolish by the likes of Mike Douglas or Dick Cavett. Hopefully, “Sly Lives!” will introduce a new generation of listeners to one of the most vital discographies in American popular music. But Thompson would probably be the first to tell us that will happen no matter what.