Based on the book Unstoppable: From Underdog to Undefeated: How I Became a Champion by Anthony Robles and Austin Murphy, Unstoppable follows Robles, played by Jharrel Jerome, as a champion wrestler. Despite being born without a right leg, Robles becomes an NCAA Division 1 Champion wrestler, ultimately winning a national championship against the school that rejected him, national powerhouse Iowa.
William Goldenberg directed the film, which features an all-star cast that includes Jharrel Jerome, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Anthony Robles, Don Cheadle and Jennifer Lopez. The story celebrates the glory of overcoming all obstacles to win.
Goldenberg is best known for his editing talents, for which he won an Oscar for the movie Argo.
If you are lucky enough to have Disney+, catch The Beach Boys documentary celebrating the legendary band.
Frank Marshall directed the film about the legendary band that turned pop music on its ear. The iconic boy band created a harmonious sound that personified the California dream. Generations after generations listened to their music.
The documentary follows the band’s humble beginnings with family and features footage you probably haven’t seen before. The film includes new interviews with the band and other luminaries in the business.
Karim Aïnouz directed Firebrand, based on a screenplay by Jessica Ashworth and Henrietta Ashworth from the 2013 novel Queen’s Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle.
The story is about the royal relationship in blood-soaked Tudor England. Twice married, accomplished, and educated, Katherine Parr, played by Alicia Vikander. She reluctantly agrees to become the sixth wife of the tyrannical King Henry VIII, played by Jude Law.
Katherine’s decision to marry Henry carries immense personal risk, considering the fate of her predecessors, who were either divorced, beheaded, or dead. Her situation becomes even more perilous when Henry appoints her as regent, the nation’s ruler, during his absence for overseas battles, setting her on a treacherous path.
Amidst Henry’s court’s political intrigue, Katherine’s sympathies for the radical Protestant beliefs that have taken root in the kingdom become a cause for suspicion. The courtiers, fearing the threat to their power, conspire against her and sow seeds of doubt about her loyalty to the increasingly ailing and paranoid king.
Once Henry returns to England, his courtiers convince him to turn his fury on the nation’s radicals, including Katherine’s childhood friend Anne Askew, played by Erin Doherty. Anne becomes one of the many people convicted of treason and burned at the stake.
Horrified and privately grieving, Katherine finds herself under ever-increasing scrutiny and suspicion. Knowing that even a whisper of scandal might lead to her downfall, Katherine must unleash her own scheme to fight for survival.
Other supporting cast include Eddie Marsan, Simon Russell Beale and Sam Riley.
Aïnouz is an award-winning director and screenwriter. Firebrand is his first British/American film.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ellen Kuras at a film festival, where we were both on a panel discussing women and minorities in film. It was shortly after 9/11, and Kuras talked about her experience. Living across the water, she invited friends who had no place to stay after the horrific incident to her large home. Together, they watched the smoking rubble. Surprisingly, Kuras said it was both depressing and healing.
Since the film festival, Kuras and I stayed in touch at first, with me lining up an interview with a now-defunct film website. The last time I heard about her was when she received an Oscar nomination for the documentary The Betrayal, which she co-wrote and co-directed while also being the cinematographer. Kuras has won many awards for her cinematography.
Kuras directs Lee based on a pivotal decade in the life of American war correspondent and photographer Lee Miller, played by Kate Winslett. Miller’s singular talent and unbridled tenacity resulted in some of the 20th century’s most memorable images of war, including an iconic photo of Miller herself, posing defiantly in Hitler’s private bathtub.
Miller had a profound understanding and empathy for women and the voiceless victims of war. Her images display both the fragility and ferocity of the human experience. Above all, the film shows how Miller lived her life at full throttle in pursuit of truth, for which she paid a huge personal price. This forced her to confront a traumatic and deeply buried secret from her childhood.
The supporting cast includes Josh O’Connor, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Samberg, Alexander Skarsgård and Marion Cotillard.
When I saw that Kuras had directed this film, I was super excited for her and delighted at her success.
STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces explores his extraordinary life from two distinct points. The film includes never-before-seen footage with raw insights into Steve Martin’s professional and personal life.
The film focuses on his struggles to a meteoric rise, revolutionizing stand up and walking away at 35.
The documentary also presents what he is doing today, retracing his transformation.
Ron Howard and his producing buddy Brian Grazer bring us an intimately raw and magical journey through the life, mind, and heart of iconic artist Frida Kahlo. Frida is told through her own words for the first time, drawn from her famed illustrated diary, revealing letters, essays, and candid print interviews — and brought vividly to life by lyrical animation inspired by her unforgettable artwork. The feature film directorial debut of acclaimed editor Carla Gutiérrez, Frida posits a striking context of why the artist—and her art—remains as powerful as ever.
Howard directed the documentary about legendary opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, and he’s continued the genre as a producer.
Covering over 40 years of her life, the filmmakers received unrestricted access to research materials, much never shown to the public before. What is extraordinary about Kahlo’s life and art is how her images would galvanize multiple generations of admirers worldwide, doing more than solidifying her status as a modern artist of timeless import.
In an intensive two-year journey, Gutiérrez and her formidable team of artisans, primarily women and proudly Latine, gathered together to craft a singular cinematic experience that could be no ordinary art history lesson. A living portrait emboldened by the magical realism befitting Kahlo’s remarkable life emerges. Yet, her voice ultimately stands supreme, a complex and powerful sound of many Fridas: fearless, seductive, defiant, vulnerable, raucous, and wonderfully alive.
We know the end of this story, which is sad, but the film Back to Black is a pseudo-celebration of a talented artist, Amy Winehouse, played by Marisa Abela.
Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse and Jack O’Connell as Blake Fielder-Civil in BACK TO BLACK, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Dean Rogers/Focus Features.
Directed by Sam-Taylor Johnson, the movie portrays her turbulent relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, played by Jack O’Connell, which motivates her to write and record the groundbreaking album Back to Black.
Marisa Abela and director Sam Taylor-Johnson on the set of BACK TO BLACK, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Dean Rogers/Focus Features.
It is the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle of Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura, built from nothing ten years earlier.
Their volatile marriage suffered because of the loss of their son, Dino, a year earlier. Ferrari struggles to acknowledge his son Piero with Lina Lardi.
Meanwhile, his drivers’ passion to win pushes them to the edge as they launch into the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.
Based on Brock Yates’ 1991 book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Car, The Races, The Machine, with a screenplay by Troy Kennedy Martin, Michael Mann directed Ferrari as a character study unlike anything else the director has done on the big screen.
“… Enzo Ferrari, one of the most famous yet inscrutable and complex men of the 20th century. For Mann, that was a perfect hook. “There is no equilibrium in his life, and that’s the whole point of Enzo Ferrari,” says Mann. “That fascinated me because that’s more like the way life actually is,” Mann continues. “Life is asymmetrical. Life is messy. Life is filled with chaos. Ferrari was precise and logical, rational in everything to do with his factory and race team. In the rest of his life, he was impulsive, defensive, libidinous, chaotic. This asymmetry and wonderful contradiction is what made him and the other characters in this unique story so human to me.”
Ridley Scott directs Napoleon with Jacquin Phoenix in the starring role and Vanessa Kirby as Josephine.
It’s a spectacle-filled action film detailing the checkered rise and fall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
Along with a stunning backdrop orchestrated by Scott, the story captures Napoleon’s relentless journey to power through the kaleidoscope of his addictive, volatile relationship with his one true love, Josephine.
