10 Best Documentary Releases on Fubotv

Doctor Philip Zimbardo is something of the Stan Lee of modern psychology. And like the famed Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief turned mascot, that vibe has met mixed reviews. The two share an undeniable charisma and enthusiasm that tends to butt up against a frequently characterized slippery grasp of historical truths. As a former Marvel.com freelancer and therapist on hiatus, both have loomed large in my professional career. I made my piece and staked out my position on Lee some time ago. Zimbardo has proven a more complicated case. It is a struggle The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth seems to share. One that it largely fails to resolve. Before going further, it’s crucial to acknowledge Zimbardo’s death less than a month ago at 91 years old. Near as I can tell, The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth had been scheduled to air this week for some time. There was no move made to capitalize on the doctor’s demise. Additionally, Zimbardo does appear in the documentary to speak on his own behalf and appears hale and hearty. There’s no sign of mental decline in the doctor's words or body language. There isn't a hint of an attempt by director Juliette Eisner or the Muck Media team led by Alex Braverman to make a hit piece about Zimbardo. The timing is unfortunate, perhaps, but it does not seem the product of ill intent. Participants in the experiment pose with performers hired to act in a recreation. (National Geographic) As a work of structure and pacing, Unlocking the Truth is an impressive work. Divided into three segments, each ends on a sort of academic cliffhanger, compelling viewers into the next episode. Roughly speaking, part 1 is the history as most know it. This installment is skippable for those who attended grad school for anything related to psychology. Honestly, that goes for anyone who took more than two psych courses in undergrad, too. However, for the only vaguely familiar or truly unfamiliar, the episode lays out details quickly and compellingly. It’s easy to see why the Stanford Prison Experiment has become such a sticky part of psychology’s legacy. It’s fascinating and disconcerting, presenting its case in a way that flatters that “of course, I knew it!” backward reasoning. Continue Reading →

It should be no surprise that the people promoting Welcome to Wrexham Season 3 are canny. Nonetheless, it is still worth calling out. One can see it in both the sequence of the season’s first three episodes and the decision to provide all three to critics simultaneously. Without the third, it is possible to conclude that success may have thrown a spanner in the works for the series. With the third, it becomes clear that the show remains committed to what makes the first two seasons so watchable. More importantly, it confirms the series’ score of producers—including the team’s two famous owners, Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, and their right-hand man, writer and comedian Humphrey Ker—haven’t lost the ability to tell the stories. The problem that immediately faces Welcome to Wrexham Season 3 is the team’s success. It is easy to catch up with what happened with the Red Dragons’ after achieving promotion at the end of last (both TV and football) season. However, if you are making a documentary series about how the team is doing, you have a responsibility to tell that story. This places the show in a place to chronicle the team’s celebratory trip to the United States and a lot of soccer games rapid fire. When forced to be “just” a sports documentary, focused on the wins and losses and the on-pitch activities, Welcome to Wrexham is solid. As it has “taught” the audience football (soccer around these parts), it has grown looser and more comfortable, letting the on-screen action speak for itself. The break-ins by Reynolds or McElhenney to explain a term or mug about some “strange” rule happen far less, giving the audience a less mediated experience.  Continue Reading →

The New Zealand crime dramedy can’t wrangle its disparate tones into a satisfying whole. In some ways, Far North offers viewers three shows in one. There’s the harrowing tale of a quartet of Chinese women, Bi (Xana Tang), Jin (Xiao Hu), Hui (Nikita Tu-Bryant), and Ling (Louise Jiang), trapped in a boat off the coast of New Zealand. They’re under the thumb of Cai (Fei Li), a capricious crime middle manager whose corner-cutting and incompetence have left them stranded and facing death by dehydration and starvation. Unfortunately, rescue is almost as unpleasant a prospect as dying. To be saved, Cai demands they either “pay” for the rescue by sinking themselves deeper into debt and servitude or killing one of their own. On the mainland, a different kind of crime story is unfolding. A group of less-than-competent criminals working for Blaze (Fay Tofilau) believe they’re about to get the score of their lives. Employed by her to take in the meth the Chinese women are transporting, they think it’ll be as easy as loading up a camper and driving it a few towns away. Alas, between the delays and their lack of skills, complications rapidly arise. Continue Reading →

The acclaimed documentarian joins The Spool to discuss Brooke Shields, her work, her life, and her relationship to "Brooke Shields" the image. In 1981, Roger Ebert wrote a profile on Brooke Shields in which he—quoting a press agent—said, “She will be with us for the rest of our lives.” That turned out to be remarkably prescient, but neither the agent nor Ebert could have anticipated the myriad number of ways Shields has been with us in that time. Yes, she is extraordinarily beautiful. But many equally attractive people have come and gone, while Shields remains a consistent part of pop culture’s firmament. From her early appearances in films like Pretty Baby (1978), The Blue Lagoon (1980), and Endless Love (1981) and her controversial TV ads for Calvin Klein jeans, all of which focused on her sexuality while she was literally a child, to her shift in the later Eighties to become America’s Virgin to her reinvention as a comedic actress in the Nineties to becoming an advocate for those suffering from postpartum depression (and suffering the slings and arrows of Tom Cruise in full asshole mode as a result), Shields has been a persistently relevant figure in the American popular consciousness.  While Shields has lived much of her life in the public eye, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, a fascinating two-part documentary from Lana Wilson now streaming on Hulu, proves that she still has a great deal to say. Given access to nearly a half-century’s worth of archival material, which she presents alongside contemporary interviews with Shields, Wilson paints a fascinating, eye-opening portrait that demands a new consideration of Shields and her career. Much of her story is harrowing, be it specific to her life—her wrenching descriptions of sexual assault and her tumultuous relationship with her mother—or experiences too many young women in the spotlight share. (If you think having someone inquire about the state of your virginity sounds awful, imagine having talk show hosts do so on live television.) And yet, not only has Shields survived, she is thriving. She has found peace with herself and is able to look back on her life with a sense of control over it.  Continue Reading →

In Season 2, Hunters remains dedicated to exploring whether vengeance and justice can ever be one and the same. Continue Reading →

To The End opens with activist Varshini Prakash, leader of The Sunrise Movement, as she tours the destruction left in a wildfire’s wake. A bleak landscape meets her. There are houses burned and left in ruin. A car drives into the area, flames licking at the road as smoke covers the terrain. It’s a hell of a stirring beginning to Rachel Lears’ timely and extensive climate change documentary To The End.    Continue Reading →

(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Festival) Continue Reading →

Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt's observational documentary takes us through the complexities of awkward teen girlhood. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.) Being a teenager is hard. This period of life contains the contradictory belief that you can take care of yourself while also dealing with crippling insecurities. Honestly, Britney Spears said it best when she sang, "I'm not a girl but not yet a woman."  Continue Reading →

The smell of buttery popcorn and the sounds of shuffling of plastic cases only paints a partial picture of the era of a trip to a video rental store. During the '90s, the video store reigned supreme, and there was one giant that ruled them all: Blockbuster. There was once a store opening every seventeen minutes; now they’re reduced to one lone outpost in Bend, Oregon. The rise and fall of this entertainment empire is the subject of Taylor Morden’s documentary The Last Blockbuster. This quirky documentary follows the nostalgia trail, taking us on a journey from Blockbuster’s glory days to its last stand in Bend, Oregon. Continue Reading →