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      ‘Slava Ukraini’ Review: Tour of a War-Torn Nation

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      The French public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy travels to different parts of Ukraine in this dispatch-documentary, shot in the second half of 2022.The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy does not pretend that “Slava Ukraini,” a war dispatch that he directed with Marc Roussel, is a polished documentary. In his closing narration, he describes it as an “unfinished film that we deliver as such, from the road.”For better and worse, that is how it plays. Lévy’s second documentary on the war in Ukraine (the first, “Why Ukraine,” aired on television in Europe) follows his travels to cities around the battered country in the second half of 2022. He meets with soldiers and civilians to capture the human stakes of the fight, with the goal of rallying the world against complacency in the face of the Russian president Vladimir V. Putin’s aggression.Lévy’s effort demands respect. Public intellectuals in the United States seldom travel through war zones with a camera running. (For that, we have Sean Penn.) They do not head into the center of a still-smoldering Bakhmut as the rumble of combat echoes in the background. Nor do they stand across the Dnipro River from an active Russian military position, in apparent view of a sniper. “For the time being, there is only sporadic fire,” Lévy explains over footage of himself hastening back to a car.It is also facile to dismiss Lévy, as some have, as a conflict-chasing opportunist. He’s been at this long enough. Lévy first wrote as a war correspondent in the early 1970s. His documentary “Peshmerga,” on Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State in Iraqi Kurdistan, and its follow-up, “The Battle of Mosul,” were released here in 2020.Yet Lévy does not make especially cohesive documentaries, and “Slava Ukraini” consists, like the Iraq films, of a disjointed, often insufficiently contextualized collection of interviews and interactions from his travels. It is hard not to wish for a version of “Slava Ukraini” in which Lévy played a less central onscreen role, or at least one without so much obtrusive scoring or voice-over.Occasionally his commentary is poetic. A breathtaking hand-held shot shows him trudging through a trench with soldiers as he reflects in narration “on this archaic habit of men burying themselves so not to die.” Yet more often, at least as subtitled, his words are so florid (“And we walk, under an insolently blue sky, looking for miraculous survivors”) that they risk trivializing his encounters. The camera says a lot without him.But artistic values aren’t really the point, which is to meet Ukrainians and to see different corners of the bombarded country, where residents, Lévy suggests, have in many cases become inured to the sight of a bombed office building or to the sound of warning sirens. “If there’s an evacuation, where will I go?” says a woman making borscht outdoors. Lévy visits a synagogue that sheltered outsiders, an act that he says serves as “a magnificent rebuttal to Putin’s propaganda about the inexpiable war between Ukraine and its Jews.” Survivors in liberated Kherson gather around generators to charge their phones, preparing to call people who may have been killed.Maybe Lévy didn’t need to be the one to put them in a movie. But he’s the one who did.Slava UkrainiNot rated. In French, Ukrainian and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘Anxious Nation’ Review: The Kids Aren’t All Right

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      Young people discuss their troubles with anxiety and panic in this unfocused advocacy documentary.Among American youth, anxiety is an epidemic. “Anxious Nation,” directed by Vanessa Roth (the short documentary “Freeheld,” which won an Oscar) and Laura Morton, persuasively argues as much. Yet when it comes to the causes of this mental health crisis or the precise ways in which it manifests, the documentary falters, unable to distill its empirical material into insights.The film opens with home-video footage of Morton and her teenage daughter, Sevey. In a voice-over, Morton explains that Sevey has suffered lifelong anxiety and near-daily meltdowns, and that the trials inspired Morton to explore adolescent anxiety in a film. She proceeds to talk to a handful of struggling teenagers and some of their parents, who describe distressing episodes that run the gamut and include tantrums during homework, compulsive behaviors and suicidal ideation.The sensation of panic or dread is not easy to describe, and the young subjects comport themselves exceptionally well. Rather than pair these accounts with observational footage, however, the directors reach for visual interest by interspersing scans of children’s artwork and lingering on the images with slow pans. (A title card at the end of the film reveals that the pieces were created by young people asked to illustrate their experiences with anxiety.)Interviews with psychologists offer a few concrete guidelines for parents: Steer clear of catastrophizing, for one, and avoid accommodating irrational anxieties. But as an advocacy documentary, “Anxious Nation” is unfocused, and ultimately feels like less than the sum of its parts.Anxious NationNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In select theaters and available to watch through virtual cinema. More

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      ‘King Charles, the Boy Who Walked Alone’ Review: Reflections on a Monarch

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      A sort of cinematic advance man for this week’s coronation, the documentary makes a show of seeking balance but often tips its hand in favor of Charles.Several times in this picture its interviewees attempt to contradict the impression that King Charles is an “old dry stick.” Hence the documentary, directed by Jim Nally, is juicier than its sad-sack title indicates. The “boy who walked alone” phrase comes from Johnny Stonborough, who was a schoolmate of the then Prince of Wales at Gordonstoun, a strict Scottish boarding school (referred to by some, says Stonborough, as “Colditz in a kilt”) where Charles’s father sent him to “toughen him up.” Not only did Charles not make many friends there, but he also endured bullying from upperclassmen under approval from the headmaster.Once out of school, though, he did rather well with members of the opposite sex. The picture teems with contemporary interviews with former Charles-daters who speak of his wit, his “cheekiness” and his delightful flirtatiousness. But even as he enjoyed himself on beaches and polo fields with women he was well aware he could never marry, he still kept his eye on one; the movie reminds us that he’d met Camilla Rosemary Shand when he was a teen, and he did not take his eye off her after marriage made her Camilla Parker Bowles.The movie itself highly approves of the match. About an hour into proceedings, there’s a spate of Princess Diana-bashing during which the phrase “not to speak ill of the dead” is never uttered. Near the movie’s end, a “royal journalist” and a “royal biographer” wax rueful that Prince Harry has lashed out at Dad Charles, who is maybe, in their opinion, the last royal to really care about the monarchy. Gosh. If there’s one thing this movie demonstrates, it’s that whatever the actual function of said monarchy, it does give Britain’s taxpayers their money’s worth in drama if nothing else.King Charles, the Boy Who Walked AloneNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      ‘Nuclear Now’ Review: Oliver Stone Makes the Case for Power Plants

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      The director’s new documentary considers our complicated relationship to nuclear energy and argues that it is our best hope against climate change.Given Oliver Stone’s track record of diving into political controversies with his work (“Platoon,” “JFK,” “Snowden”), it is perhaps surprising how staid his approach is to his new documentary, “Nuclear Now.” All the more surprising is that the film’s measured tone is what lends it its visceral power. With his straightforward proposal — that nuclear energy has been the solution to climate change all along — Stone looks past politics, providing an antidote to the climate doomerism that many viewers have probably felt over the last several years.The film, a vital rejoinder to the 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” considers both the past and future of nuclear power and, by laying out the simple facts of the ever-worsening state of climate change, makes a compelling case for it as the energy source that can most reasonably and realistically help us face the crisis.Stone, who wrote the film with Joshua Goldstein and narrates it, knows the perceptions he’s up against. The documentary’s first half wrestles with the enduring fears that nuclear boosters have struggled to debunk — the result of a few snowballing factors, the film argues, including the association of nuclear power with nuclear warfare and the exceptional disasters that occurred in 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, and in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.The latter sections, concerning the innovations and obstacles to future applications of nuclear power, veer somewhat into the weeds. But the film’s aversion to formal or rhetorical bombast as it discusses scientists’ hopes for a better future is its own balm. We’re staring down catastrophe, Stone explains matter-of-factly, but our greatest tool is already in our grasp.Nuclear NowNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Wynonna Judd: Between Hell and Hallelujah’ Review: The Show Must Go On

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      A documentary about the country star, whose mother and singing partner, Naomi Judd, died last year, mostly fails to kindle unguided emotions.As portrayed in the new documentary “Wynonna Judd: Between Hell and Hallelujah,” the country artist Wynonna Judd experiences, in real time, a cruel kind of suffering. Her mother and longtime singing partner, Naomi Judd, died by suicide last year. In the director Patty Ivins Specht’s film, Wynonna is left to pick up the pieces.The film’s wistful opening frames are hauntingly emotional, showing the two women in conversation in their early years of performing as the Judds. But Wynonna is also a superstar with a history of her own, one that Specht’s film mostly omits in favor of a sweeping statement about perseverance and the importance of a solid support system in the face of tragedy.The doc, which captures the singer on a tour she was supposed to share with Naomi, seems content to exist primarily as a lifeline for others who have experienced loss. When Wynonna’s sister, the actress Ashley Judd, appears, it’s clear they’re working on their relationship, but not why they have to. Earlier, though, when Wynonna flips through old family photos at her mother’s home, that action is heartbreakingly specific. For the viewer, it’s a more palpable feeling.The rest of “Between Hell and Hallelujah” amounts to a performance-focused tour diary with Hallmark-movie energy. Though Wynonna powers through the songs with admirable grit and grace, Specht’s approach is too awkwardly methodical and cloyingly vague to kindle enough unguided emotions. Without those rich details that make a song like the Judds’ “Flies on the Butter” come to life, the film plays like a country song with more chorus than verse.Wynonna Judd: Between Hell and HallelujahNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Paramount+. More

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      ‘Little Richard: I Am Everything’ Review: The Nitty-Gritty Beyond ‘Tutti Frutti’

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      This documentary presents the self-proclaimed “architect of rock ’n’ roll” as a man of contradictions.Judging from “Little Richard: I Am Everything,” the best way to understand the self-proclaimed “architect of rock ’n’ roll” is through his contradictions.In this documentary, directed by Lisa Cortés, Little Richard, who died in 2020, is seen as a musician who could simultaneously lay the groundwork for an entire genre and not get his due. Without him, we probably wouldn’t have the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie or Prince — artists who were happy to cite his influence even as they stole his thunder and his style.In the 1950s, he broke with the slower sounds of Ray Charles and B.B. King in favor of fast songs with lyrics not so subtly about sex. Yet over the years he seemed to have a conflicted relationship with his own sexuality. (He is shown in an early 1980s interview with David Letterman claiming both that he believed he was one of the first gay people to come out and that he was no longer gay.) He went from flamboyant rocker to gospel singer and back again.“He was very, very good at liberating other people through his example,” the pop-music scholar Jason King says in the film. “He was not good at liberating himself.”Mick Jagger, who credits Little Richard with teaching him how to work the whole stage, and John Waters, who says his mustache is a tribute, are among the famous faces here who testify to how he liberated them. “I Am Everything” also skews gratifyingly wonky for a pop-music bio-doc. The sociologist Zandria Robinson describes the cultural atmosphere in the South — a space, she says, for the different, the Gothic and the nonnormative — at the time Richard was formed as an artist. King describes Little Richard’s piano playing as a left hand of boogie-woogie and a right hand of Ike Turner-influenced percussion.Little Richard himself, seen in a bounty of archival footage, gives good quotes — “everybody likes to go to orgies,” he says at one point. And even in decades-old video, his musical performances, like a rendition of “I Can’t Turn You Loose” at the 1989 induction of Otis Redding to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, are showstoppers.Cortés tries a few things to upend the humdrum rock-doc template. She has musicians re-create breakout moments in Little Richard’s career, such as a night in the 1940s when Sister Rosetta Tharpe had him take the stage in Macon, Ga., or a spontaneous rendition of “Tutti Frutti,” before its lyrics were sanitized, at the Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans. (A montage depicts the song’s popularity as a cosmic explosion, even as Little Richard is shown complaining bitterly in an interview that Elvis and Pat Boone “sold more of ‘Tutti Frutti’ than I did.”) At the end of the day, though, “I Am Everything” is content to be a thorough, energetic, largely chronological appraisal, more interested in saluting a musical legend who shook things up than in shaking up conventions itself.Little Richard: I Am EverythingNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Judy Blume Forever’ Review: The Y.A. Author Who Went There First

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      The documentary, streaming on Amazon Prime Video, features Blume narrating the milestones of her life and career, along with interviews of her famous fans.There are few living children’s authors who have connected as deeply to their readers as Judy Blume. That’s the argument of “Judy Blume Forever,” a new documentary from Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok that pays unwavering tribute to Blume and her imprint on young adult literature. The film, streaming on Amazon Prime Video starting Friday, features the 85-year-old writer narrating the major milestones of her life and career, cut together with interviews of famous Blume acolytes such as the writer and director Lena Dunham, the comedian Samantha Bee, the writer Jacqueline Woodson and Anna Konkle, the co-creator of “PEN15.”Since the publication of her breakthrough novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” in 1970, while she was a young housewife in suburban New Jersey, Blume has maintained a fiercely devoted audience that has found enlightenment and understanding through her preteen and teenage characters. It’s not uncommon to hear fans of Blume’s work say that reading her books felt as though she was speaking directly to them through the pages. This is thanks, in no small part, to her frank discussion of mature themes that, at the time she was writing, were considered unusual for what we now call Y.A. novels: adolescent sexuality, religion, disability, bullying, and — in many of her books — the unfair expectations of purity and obedience that parents and society place on children.“Judy Blume Forever” does a fine job of synthesizing the influences that Blume’s life had on her writing — in particular her father’s death when she was 21, as well as the marriage and divorce that inspired her first adult-oriented novel, “Wifey.” Blume, a longtime free-speech advocate, also has no qualms about drawing parallels between the Reagan-era book censorship campaigns she endured and the hundreds of attempts to ban books in just the past year.In a successful showcase of what might be lost if Blume’s books were removed from libraries and schools, the film returns to one of the most compelling aspects of career: her correspondence with thousands of children, whose letters to her span 50 years and are now archived at Yale. Pardo and Wolchok interview two of Blume’s pen pals, now adults themselves, and their recounting of her impact on their lives encompasses some of the film’s most moving portions.At times, “Judy Blume Forever” can resemble a highlight reel of Blume’s bibliography, with large sections dedicated to her books’ most memorable excerpts, such as the masturbation sequence in “Deenie.” Given her vast literary output, it’s hard to give complex stories like “Blubber” and “Forever” the nuance they deserve in a short documentary, especially one this preoccupied with showing Judy Blume the person, jogging on the beach and owning a small bookstore in Key West. Compared with her most obvious predecessor, Maurice Sendak, who led an intensely private life, Blume has always been an open book, despite the flurry of controversy around her. That may not make for the most exciting documentary, but it does make Blume herself even more endearing.Judy Blume ForeverNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Amazon Prime Video. More

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      Ex-Member of Menudo Says He Was Raped by Father of the Menendez Brothers

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      The allegation, made in a forthcoming docuseries, resembles the claims of abuse by the brothers, who were convicted in 1996 of murdering their parents.It was a gripping case that was one of the first to draw a daily national audience to a televised criminal trial. Two affluent young men were charged three decades ago with murdering their parents by marching into the den of their Beverly Hills mansion with shotguns and unloading more than a dozen rounds on their mother and father while they sat on the couch.Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted in 1996 of murdering their mother, Mary Louise, a former beauty queen who went by Kitty, and their father, Jose, a music executive, despite defense arguments that the brothers had been sexually molested for years by their father, and had killed out of fear.Now, Roy Rosselló, a former member of Menudo, the boy band of the 1980s that became a global sensation, is coming forward with an allegation that he was sexually assaulted as a teenager by Jose Menendez.The assertion was aired on Tuesday in a segment on the “Today” show that outlined some of the findings of a three-part docuseries scheduled to air on Peacock, the streaming service from NBCUniversal, beginning on May 2. The series, “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed,” based on reporting by the journalists Robert Rand and Nery Ynclan, is largely focused on Mr. Rosselló. He describes an encounter with Mr. Menendez but also recounts separate incidents of sexual abuse that he says were inflicted on him by one of Menudo’s former managers when he sang as part of the group.“I know what he did to me in his house,” Mr. Rosselló says of Mr. Menendez in the clip of the docuseries that aired on “Today.”It is unclear what impact, if any, Mr. Rosselló’s account will have on efforts by defense lawyers to secure a new trial for the brothers, whose prior appeals have been denied.The credibility of the brothers’ account, and the admissibility of defense arguments that pointed to sex abuse as a mitigating factor in the case, was central to the criminal trials that unfolded after the discovery of the murders in 1989. The first prosecution, which began in 1993, ended with two hung juries and mistrials. When the brothers were retried together two years later, they were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, where they remain.The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the cases in the 1990s, did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday morning.The “Today” report previewed interviews with Mr. Rosselló in which he is said to describe a visit to the Menendez home in New Jersey when he was 14 — a visit during which he says Jose Menendez drugged and raped him.“That’s the man here that raped me,” he says in a clip of the docuseries, pointing to Mr. Menendez in a photo. “That’s the pedophile.”He is also heard saying, “It’s time for the world to know the truth.”Roy Rosselló, a former member of the singing group Menudo, has accused Jose Menendez, the father of Erik and Lyle Menendez, of sexually assaulting him when he was 14.via PeacockMr. Menendez was affiliated with Menudo because he had signed the group as an executive of RCA Records.Mr. Rosselló has previously described being sexually abused as part of Menudo. Others have also said they were verbally, physically, emotionally and sexually abused as part of the band in the four-part HBO Max docuseries “Menudo: Forever Young.” No one has ever been criminally charged in connection to the allegations.One of Kitty Menendez’s brothers, Milton Andersen, 88, used an expletive to describe Mr. Rosselló’s allegation as flatly false and said the Menendez brothers should not be set free.Mr. Andersen said his brother-in-law was not a sexual predator and objected to the idea that the new accusation could in any way lead to Lyle and Erik having their case re-examined.“They do not deserve to walk on the face of this earth after killing my sister and my brother-in-law,” he said.The Menendez murders drew wide public attention, in part because the brothers had been children of affluence. Lyle was attending Princeton at the time of the killings. Erik was pursuing a career in professional tennis. Prosecutors presented them as coldblooded killers, interested in getting unfettered access to their parents’ $14 million estate.Jose Menendez was shot five times, including once in the back of the head. By the brothers’ own testimony, after they had discharged several rounds, Lyle went to his car, reloaded his 12-gauge shotgun, and pushed the muzzle of his gun to his mother’s cheek and shot her again.The police initially believed that the slayings were tied to the Mafia. But investigators turned their attention to Lyle, who was 22 at the time of his arrest, and Erik, 19, after the brothers bought Rolex watches, condominiums, sports cars and other items in the months after the murders.Though they initially denied any role in the killings, they became primary suspects after the discovery of taped recordings of conversations the brothers had with their psychologist in which the brothers explained what had led them to kill their parents.As the first trial neared, the brothers’ defense lawyers came forward with their own explanation for the crimes: that Lyle had confronted his father about the family’s sex abuse secrets, that his father had become enraged and threatening, and that the brothers had killed out of concern for their lives.The defense argued that the murder charges should be reduced to manslaughter because the defendants had honestly, if incorrectly, believed that their lives were imminently threatened.The trials, which played out on Court TV, ushered in a new era of televised courtroom drama. At least some jurors in the first set of trials believed the brothers, who had movingly testified of the abuse they suffered. The testimony left the jurors split between manslaughter and murder verdicts and contributed to the impasse that led to the mistrials.When another jury convened to decide the brothers’ fate, the circumstances had changed. The judge banned cameras in court and severely restricted witness testimony and evidence related to Jose Menendez’s parenting. Prosecutors, who had let the brothers’ molestation accusations go unchallenged at the first trials, went right at Erik Menendez when he took the stand, seeding doubt about whether the abuse had happened at all.“Can you give us the name of one eyewitness to any of the sexual assaults that took place in that home,” the lead prosecutor, David Conn, repeatedly asked Erik Menendez, as he ticked through the places the brothers had lived.According to transcripts of the testimony, Mr. Menendez kept repeating the same answer: “No.”The defense also did not present at trial anyone beyond the brothers who described Mr. Menendez as a sexual predator.As the trial wound to a close, the judge, Stanley M. Weisberg, ruled that the “abuse excuse” argument could not be used at all. The ruling essentially forced jurors to decide between letting the brothers off entirely, or convicting them of murder.They did the latter.“We did think there was psychological abuse to some extent. I think most of us believed that,” one juror, Lesley Hillings, told The Los Angeles Times afterward. “Sexual abuse? I don’t think we’ll ever know if that’s true or not.”Legal experts said that even with the new allegation brought by Mr. Rosselló, the lawyers defending the Menendez brothers would face an uphill battle if they sought to have the case re-examined.Laurie L. Levenson, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who provided legal analysis of the Menendez case in the 1990s, said Mr. Rosselló’s information might come “too little, too late.”“In the end, in the second trial, the jury just didn’t believe them,” Professor Levenson said of the brothers and their sex abuse allegations.Mr. Rosselló’s account “could be something you could file with the court and claim that it’s newly discovered evidence and that it would have made a difference in the case,” she added. “But they will have the burden to show that.”In the segment aired by “Today,” Alan Jackson, a criminal defense lawyer, agreed that the brothers had “a big mountain to climb.” Still, he said the assertion brought forward by Mr. Rosselló provided the brothers a “glimmer of hope.”Kirsten Noyes More