Yance Ford draws on poignant home-movie footage and probing interviews to confront the ways racism limits how free some American citizens can be. Instead, law enforcement questioned William’s character, while his alleged white assailant was given the benefit of the doubt. The Black, middle-class Ford family expected justice in what looked like an open-and-shut case.
The filmmaker Yance Ford digs into his own history for the Oscar-nominated “Strong Island,” a nonfiction murder-mystery covering the events surrounding the shooting death of Ford’s brother, William Ford Jr., in 1992 in Long Island. “Making a Murderer” is both an engrossing courtroom drama and an examination of how the criminal justice system often resists accepting its own errors. Across two ten-episode seasons, the filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos follow the saga of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man freed from prison after 18 years thanks to DNA evidence, only to be charged later with another murder. When this complicated true-crime story became a sensation on Netflix at the end of 2015, its success helped establish the template for a more podcast-like kind of docu-series, aiming for serious investigative reporting over sensationalism. The documentary “Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It” is a story of perseverance, about a woman who has touched audiences with both her formidable body of work and her candidness about what she had to endure to pursue her passions. She also faced racism, sexism and sexual harassment. In more than 70 years as an actor, singer and dancer, Moreno has worked with some of the most talented people in movies, television and theater, creating characters in the likes of “West Side Story” and “One Day at a Time” that audiences will remember long after she’s gone. Rita Moreno’s life story is a tale of American show business at its best and worst. ‘Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It’ (2021) Ruizpalacios contrasts the fictionalized myth-making with how the real police officers interact with citizens, and he throws in a few surprises intended to push viewers to question their own preconceptions. What starts as an intimate look at the cops’ lives - including cutesy anecdotes and thrilling “ride-along” footage of chases - gradually becomes a film more about the ways law enforcement is depicted in the media.
Nothing is ever quite as it seems in the director Alonso Ruizpalacios’s inventive documentary “A Cop Movie,” which uses interviews and re-enactments to the tell the mostly true story of two Mexico City police officers who fell in love. Greene and his crew record their subjects as they talk through their common experiences, revisit some of the places where the abuse happened and recreate some of the worst moments of their lives in short, dramatic scenes - all as a way of validating and perhaps overcoming their trauma. In this emotionally draining but ultimately cathartic documentary, the accomplished nonfiction filmmaker Robert Greene tackles the difficult topic of childhood sexual abuse, with the help of a handful of men who use drama therapy to cope with their memories of being molested by Catholic priests.
But with the help of vintage clips, animated interludes, and testimonials from Sparks’ many famous fans, the movie covers the band’s winding musical journey in full: their early experiments with theatrical rock ’n’ roll in the early ’70s their pioneering, synthesizer-driven ’80s hits and their more recent dabbling with orchestras and the avant-garde. “The Sparks Brothers” doesn’t reveal much about the Maels’ personal lives, outside of a few fascinating anecdotes about their childhood. The director Edgar Wright pays tribute to one of his favorite bands in this playful and thorough documentary about Ron and Russell Mael, the core of the cult-favorite art-pop act known as Sparks.