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      ‘The Fire that Took Her’ Review: An Unflinching Portrait of Pain

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      This documentary charts the case of Judy Malinowski, a young mother who suffered debilitating burns after being set on fire by a man she had dated.The experiences of Judy Malinowski, an Ohio woman who testified in her own murder trial, could have been cooked up by the novelist Jodi Picoult in an alarming courtroom melodrama. Instead, this true story’s themes of domestic violence, traumatic injury and addiction are unpacked in the straightforward documentary “The Fire That Took Her.”Anchored by interviews with Judy’s family members, particularly her mother, Bonnie, the film recounts how Judy, a young mother of two daughters, began a volatile relationship with a man named Michael Slager. According to Bonnie, Michael manipulated their family and enabled Judy’s drug addiction, casting himself as her savior while supplying her with heroin. Then, amid an altercation in 2015, Michael doused Judy in gasoline and set her on fire.Miraculously, Judy survived for nearly two years after the attack, and the documentary frequently includes footage from the hospital room where Judy resided and received care. In interviews, the director Patricia E. Gillespie has said that while pitching the film, people often asked whether she could cover or blur Judy’s face to shield audiences from her burns. Gillespie refused, and her resolve to train her camera on Judy gives the film an unflinching quality.Testimonies from the detectives and attorneys on the case beget a host of true-crime clichés. Far more startling and heartbreaking, though, are the scenes of Bonnie at home with Judy’s daughters. Seated around the kitchen table, Bonnie gently debriefs them on their mother’s medical and legislative battles. To watch these girls strive to comprehend the incomprehensible is a singular kind of agony.The Fire that Took HerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Pez Outlaw’ Review: Sweet and Lowdown

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      A purveyor of candy contraband becomes a black market hero in this blithe, lighthearted documentary.Steve Glew, the subject of Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel’s documentary “The Pez Outlaw,” is an unapologetic weirdo with long hippie hair and a big, Santa Claus beard — a natural star in this post-“Tiger King” era of quirky nonfiction portraiture. Glew, in the words of his wife, Kathy Glew, “is a creative person whose mind wanders a lot,” a cagey but charismatic oddball obsessed with breakfast cereals, Tom Clancy novels and Pez candy dispensers, which he began collecting and selling in the 1980s. His clandestine efforts to smuggle rare European dispensers into the United States made Glew a kind of black market folk hero among serious Pez collectors — of whom there are apparently many — and also drew the ire of the former president of Pez Candy USA, Scott McWhinnie, known as the Pezident.Glew is an amusing screen presence, and his story, while unquestionably trivial, has some of the absorbing, low-stakes whimsy of a nice magazine feature. The directors approach the material blithely and with humor, staging dramatic re-enactments of the anecdotes Glew and others recount in highly stylized, almost parodic form — the running of candy contraband is depicted like the climax of a breakneck espionage thriller, a toy convention is made to look like a speakeasy in a film noir, and so forth. Glew himself, importantly, is never the target of the joke: the movie has too much affection for its subject to ridicule his eccentricities, even gently, preferring to lionize him instead. An inevitable consequence of this chummy idolatry is that the playful tone begins to feel rather cloying. Like Pez, the film is charming and colorful — and perhaps too sweet.The Pez OutlawNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile’ Review: The Evolution of a Country Star

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      A close-up of the singers’ collaboration at Sunset Sound that led to Tucker receiving two Grammys.From the beginning of her career, the country singer Tanya Tucker knew what she was about. In the early 1970s, as a teenage singing sensation in the making, she turned down the song “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” Instead she insisted on recording the more downbeat lost-love tune “Delta Dawn.” Her instincts were right, not just artistically but commercially — the single put the then-13-year-old Tucker on the map.Tucker, now 64, had been largely inactive in music for nearly two decades when she went into the famous Los Angeles studio Sunset Sound with the singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile behind the mixing board (her co-producer was the musician Shooter Jennings) in 2019. This documentary, directed by Kathlyn Horan, is a straightforward chronicle of that collaboration, a reboot that worked out better than any of the participants had anticipated, yielding Tucker two Grammy Awards.Carlile clearly reveres Tucker and comes to her with several songs she’s keen for the singer to interpret. Tucker counters with an unfinished tune of her own — the one that winds up garnering the Grammys. Tucker is often nervous, likes a drink before she gets to the microphone and is frequently late to sessions. Carlile tells the camera that she’s learning to accept Tucker’s “crazy” nature. But compared to, say, Chuck Berry in the 1997 documentary “Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll,” Tucker is a pussycat.And while her singing has some new grit (she still smokes!), she hasn’t lost a step in terms of phrasing. The teardrop in her voice, strategically used in heartache songs, remains credible. The movie interweaves the contemporary sessions with a very selective — and, while not wholly sanitized, certainly discreet — account of her tumultuous past. Overall it’s a better-than-competent piece of fan service and a not unpersuasive bid for an auxiliary youth audience.The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi CarlileRated R for salty language. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power’ Review: Demystifying the Male Gaze

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      Directed by Nina Menkes, the film is a distressingly prescriptive documentary aimed at unpacking the patriarchal ways of seeing that have dominated the history of cinema.Directed by Nina Menkes, “Brainwashed” is a distressingly prescriptive documentary aimed at unpacking the patriarchal ways of seeing that have dominated the history of cinema. It employs dozens of movie clips, ripped out of context, that supposedly demonstrate the predatory gaze of the camera and the various visual techniques used to objectify women performers, with Menkes herself occasionally on-screen, lecturing to an audience, laser pointer in hand. (The documentary was developed from a public presentation and a 2017 essay Menkes wrote.)The project feels out of step with the pioneering independent filmmaker’s previous work (“Queen of Diamonds,” “The Bloody Child”), which abounds in provocation, ambiguity and women characters who resist neat interpretation.A Bernard Herrmann-esque score (by Sharon Farber) pulses conspiratorially throughout the documentary, giving the sense that Menkes’s narration is revealing secret and sinister facts about the way cinema caters to male fantasy. It uses examples from beloved and acclaimed films like “Apocalypse Now,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Phantom Thread,” and, toward the end, it presents the apparently rare films in which women do have agency, namely ones directed by Menkes.“Brainwashed” features interviews with the film theorist Laura Mulvey and directors like Julie Dash, Eliza Hittman and Catherine Hardwicke, but, for Menkes, not all women are immune to the patriarchy’s spell, citing Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” and Maïmouna Doucouré’s “Cuties” as instances of internalized misogyny. These particular illustrations suggest that Menkes may not have watched the films, both of which attempt to critique a culture that hypersexualizes girls and women.In some respects, Menkes’s assessment isn’t inaccurate — indeed, some films very much want to make women look powerless and erotic, but that’s not a problem in and of itself. The historical regularity of these depictions is another thing, and that speaks to the larger problem of the industry’s gender inequality and its normalization of sexual assault, which “Brainwashed” rightly identifies but unconvincingly ties to the cinematic language it deconstructs. Limited to a mere pointing out of which kinds of images are empowering to women and which aren’t, the documentary ultimately does a disservice to the art form, feminist or otherwise.Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-PowerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Year One: A Political Odyssey’ Review: Biden by the Numbers

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      Despite the insider access, a documentary about the president’s first year in office is short on intriguing tidbits.With the even keel of an official chronicle, the documentary “Year One: A Political Odyssey,” by the director John Maggio, sets down an account of diplomacy during President Biden’s first 365-plus days in office. The selective overview is mostly recounted by administration officials, with the New York Times correspondent David E. Sanger acting as a valuable guide throughout.Underlining Biden’s international, alliance-building outlook, the focus is on efforts to reckon responsibly with the power plays of Russia, China and Afghanistan. Key figures including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary (but not Biden), sit down for sober interviews that feel like a well-sourced recap. Some crises are less frequently referenced now (the SolarWinds hack); others still loom (Russia’s war on Ukraine).We’re reminded that Biden took office in the still-shellshocked aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021, promising a vital return to normalcy and democracy after the presidency of Donald Trump. His Covid vaccination achievement was followed that summer by a one-two punch: the rise of coronavirus variants and the fall of Afghanistan. But the chaotic unfolding of events in Afghanistan yielded lessons for responding to the run-up of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Yet the movie is quiet on domestic policy apart from the pandemic, while covering several international summits. And despite the insider access, intriguing tidbits — like how leaks kept Sanger informed about U.S. intelligence on Russia — will be few to anyone who has been reading the news. The film’s skimping on economic and social issues echoes one description of Biden’s own messaging by some pundits: low-key to the point of obscuring the full picture of his efforts.Year One: A Political OdysseyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Watch on HBO Max. More

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      ‘Mama’s Boy’ Review: Mother and Son Pave the Way Forward

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      In this documentary, the Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black looks at how his relationship with his mother motivated his L.G.B.T.Q. activism.Dustin Lance Black’s acceptance speech for best original screenplay at the 2009 Academy Awards is featured twice in “Mama’s Boy,” the new HBO documentary about Black and his mother, Anne. It’s no wonder that the writer, who won his Oscar for “Milk” (2008), the biopic of the L.G.B.T.Q. rights activist Harvey Milk, ended up in Hollywood on that podium: He’s a commanding and affecting speaker. Even when Black’s voice wavers onstage or during interviews for this film, his belief in storytelling as a tool for empathy and activism pours from each word. That stalwart belief has its advantages and disadvantages.Adapted from Black’s memoir, the film has him tracing the life of his mother chronologically, from her childhood in small-town Louisiana and her unwillingness to surrender to polio to her gradual acceptance of her son’s gay identity. Black’s childhood memories, and how his life was irrevocably shaped by both his mother’s conservatism and her resilience, appear to be the backbone of Laurent Bouzereau’s film. Anecdotes about their intimate bond, such as Christmas traditions, give texture to the film’s thesis.Yet “Mama’s Boy” lands as somewhat naïve in the contemporary climate of L.G.B.T.Q. rights. That the screenwriter’s mother was changed by her empathy for people different than her is an admirable value to have. But the film takes a somewhat myopic approach to Black’s reach-across-the-aisle activism philosophy, focusing primarily on his work toward marriage equality. It doesn’t consider how political polarization can make the strategy of sharing space with others, as his mother did, difficult to execute when many places go out of their way to bar those different from them from even entering in the first place.Mama’s BoyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Watch on HBO Max. More

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      ‘Eternal Spring’ Review: When State TV Got Hijacked

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      Two decades after members of Falun Gong took over local television programming in Changchun, China, a documentary looks back.“Eternal Spring” revisits an incident from 2002, when members of the spiritual movement Falun Gong hijacked local television programming in the city of Changchun, China. Their goal was to air a video that contradicted the Chinese government’s negative portrayal of the practice, which combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese breathing exercises. China, seeing Falun Gong’s popularity as a political threat, had banned the group in 1999.This documentary, directed by Jason Loftus, incorporates animation to revisit these past events. In an eye-catching early sequence, the cartoon equivalent of a fluid single take depicts law enforcement rounding up several people suspected of being involved in Falun Gong or of hijacking the TV signal.“Eternal Spring” primarily trails Daxiong, a Toronto-based comics artist who designed the movie’s storyboards. A Falun Gong adherent who says he had disagreed with the hijacking but who fled China to avoid the crackdown that followed it, he visits with participants in the TV takeover and adjacent figures who now live outside China. (Some of the dramatis personae are introduced with comics-style nicknames: “the mastermind,” “the runner,” “the electrician” and so on.) Daxiong draws illustrations as his interlocutors tell stories of the event’s planning and aftermath, and as they share vivid memories of planners who are no longer alive.“Eternal Spring” has value as an educational tool about Falun Gong and its place in China, and as a testament to its subjects’ bravery in defying the state. Still, while the animation gives the documentary some distinction, the narrative can’t entirely shake the sense that this momentous but brief episode is scaled more for a short than a feature.Eternal SpringNot rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Sell/Buy/Date’ Review: The Topic of Sex Work, From All Sides

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      In Sarah Jones’s engaging film about the sex trade, everyone has a say.If you’re hoping to land squarely on an “aye” or a “nay” about the sex-work industry, Sarah Jones’s documentary-narrative feature, “Sell/Buy/Date,” won’t help. And that’s a good thing.Jones — who wrote, directed and stars in the film — doesn’t treat the tensions between exploitation and empowerment, personal agency and systemic cruelties, as binaries. Instead, they are riveting, confounding and, as exchanges between Jones and her mother attest, personal. Why Jones travels with her deceased sister’s journal factors in mightily, too.In 2016, Jones’s solo show of the same name became an Off Broadway hit. Yet the announcement that she’d be turning it into a movie was met with a barrage of criticism on social media — much of it from sex workers who wanted ownership of their stories. (Laverne Cox pulled out as an executive producer; Meryl Streep stayed on.)Instead of scrapping the project, Jones embraced that blistering chapter, inviting sex-work activists more fully into her fraught and comedic reckoning. Among them: the adult-film actress Lotus Lain; the pole-dance instructor Amy Bond; the courtesan Alice Little of Nevada’s Chicken Ranch brothel; and Evan Seinfeld, the founder of the adult social platform IsMyGirl.On her quest, Jones checks in with some friends — Rosario Dawson, Ilana Glazer and Bryan Cranston, among them. She also brings along four of her characters, which she plays herself: bubbe Lorraine; Bella, a sex-work studies major; Rashid, an Uber driver; and Nereida, a women’s rights advocate. The quartet provide comic relief, and more.After Jones’s pleasant tour of Chicken Ranch, Nereida insists she meet Esperanza Fonseca, an anti-trafficking activist who addresses the knotty issue of agency, showing Jones around a Las Vegas hotel room where opulence often masks violence. As the model Terria Xo says, “It’s not a choice if you have to do it to survive.”Sell/Buy/DateNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More