3 Best Releases From World of Wonder Studio

Did you know that the earliest hair extensions on record are over five thousand years old? Doesn’t that just snatch your wig? That’s just one of the many facts you’ll learn by tuning into the latest arm of the Jonathan Van Ness empire, their new Netflix series Getting Curious. And it’s produced by World of Wonder – aka the company that makes the juggernaut that is RuPaul’s Drag Race.  Continue Reading →

HBO’s six-part docuseries Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes doesn’t have any shocking new revelations or unheard evidence. Some might ask what was the point of rehashing a story that broke in The New Yorker, which then became a book, which then became a podcast. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s take on Ronan Farrow’s already well-trod ground is clearly just for those folks who prefer visual media over books and podcasts (hey, no judgments) or for those obsessed with the investigation into Hollywood monster Harvey Weinstein.  Continue Reading →

Matt Yoka's documentary snaps a picture of a city -- and a family -- in transition. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.) (Editor's note: as one of the film's major subjects, Zoey Tur, is a transgender woman whom we see both before and after her transition, we will defer to Zoey's stated preference in the film to refer to pre-transition Zoey as "Bob" (he/him).) The '80s and '90s were a tough time for LA -- Rodney King, the LA riots, wildfires, the OJ Simpson trial. Southern California seemed at once the beating cultural heart of the country and a walled-in prison slowly crumbling on itself. But of course, it was catnip for a news media that increasingly favored "if it bleeds, it leads" content and the increasingly blurred lines between journalism and paparazzo. LA was also the home of helicopter news dispatches; since the city was so spread out, reporters relied on choppers to get to a fire, shooting, or crash quickly and grab heart-stopping footage they could sell to outlets. Continue Reading →