Documentary

• Title: Scandalous: The True Story of the National Enquirer
• IMDb: link

Scandalous: The True Story of the National Enquirer examines the creation of and the highs and lows of the National Enquirer over the years starting with the paper’s purchase and relaunch under owner Generoso Pope Jr. in 1952. It’s a fascinating look at the paper’s turn from gore to celebrity-based stories to its more recent entry to politics and how it played a role in public perception of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s run for Governor of California to Donald Trump’s presidential bid in 2016 (the later being something many are still quite conflicted about).

The documentary contains interviews with several former editors and reporters for the paper who all seem to have a mix of pride and shame for their association with the magazine. Neither they nor the documentary shies away from the stories of the paper pushing limits of good taste and legality in exploring news stories. The film also includes anecdotes of the magazine extorting subjects of their exposées and making deals shelf stories for a profitable ongoing relationship (such as ignoring several reports of Bill Cosby and Bob Hope’s behavior towards women in favor of puff pieces with the celebrities).

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• Title: They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead
• IMDb: link

For more than a decade before his death, Orson Welles worked on a film that was never finished. The new documentary by Morgan Neville, featuring plenty of clips from The Other Side of the Wind and interviews with cast and crew, takes audiences back into Welles’ struggle with the experimental film about an aging director and his tumultuous relationship with Hollywood. Although Welles repeatedly denied any autobiographical nature to the film, as the documentary points out, it’s hard to not see the parallels to his own life.

With The Other Side of the Wind finally finished and released almost five decades after Welles began the project, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead is timely both in explaining the project’s history and enticing viewers to seek out the movie itself. The documentary doesn’t shy away from the rougher edges of Welles’ nature whose bullying hardheadedness led to strained relationships. Like many documentaries in the same vein, the main takeaway from They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead is how hard it is to get a film made. Whether a fan of Welles or just movies in general, the documentary is definitely worth your time.

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• Title: Free Solo
• IMDb: link

The documentary from Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi follows climber Alex Honnold and his preparations to become the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan. While diving into the Honnold’s closest relationships and his makeup, the film focuses primarily on the dangers of the climber’s quest and the ambition and drive which he cannot ignore. Featuring interviews with fellow climbers and Honnold’s mother and girlfriend, we learn a bit of what makes the climber tick as he attempts to accomplish the improbable feat of climbing the sheer granite face of a 3,000-foot mountain without any climbing gear or any kind of safety net.

Because Chin and his cameramen are friends of Honnold, the documentary also adds an unexpected undercurrent to the story of Honnold not wanting to let his friends down while they are equally fearful of the very real possibility they might be enabling the climber to film his death during an outrageously dangerous feat. The result is an engaging documentary ending in Honnold’s historic attempt.

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