The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, directed by Alex Gibney, is an intriguing documentary into the mind of an inventor and what it takes to go into the unknown, find something before it exists, recruit people to invest in it, and chase after it relentlessly. It is about believing in something that might be unbelievable, unprovable, or even undoable.
The film tells the story of Theranos, a multi-billion-dollar tech company, and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, who was celebrated as the youngest self-made female billionaire. That context matters because it shows how big the belief system became around her and the company.
The intro begins to break down the mind of an inventor, establishing the inventor entrepreneur as the hero. The film frames that identity early, setting up the idea that the inventor is someone who sees what others cannot and is willing to take risks that most people will not.
By the second act, there are hints in interviews that maybe everything is not as it seems. Small cracks begin to show. The story starts to suggest that what we are being told and what is actually happening may not line up.
What I found interesting was that while this person was clearly flawed, the hunger of her followers to have a woman hero of Silicon Valley blinds them to reality. It becomes clear that identity starts to surpass competence or reality. As the science starts to come down, it becomes more and more clear that things are not as they seem, but at the core of the institution, that reality is being overlooked.
The capacity for humans to lie or manipulate reality and the lengths they will go to feels profound. It makes you wonder if geniuses are sometimes just people willing to lie to themselves so deeply that they no longer recognize it.
At its core, the film exposes the dangers of humans becoming hypnotized. We overlook things. We see what we want to see. In that space, we often want to believe something more than see it for what it is. I myself thought, maybe she can do it. Maybe she is a genius or maybe she is a sociopath?
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley becomes less about technology and more about belief, identity, and how easily people can be pulled into a story that feels bigger than the truth.
I watched the documentary Melania tonight in the theater with about 15 other people. One guy walked in wearing a hat that read “Gulf of America.” I knew right away I was among Trumpers.
The film was entertaining. It leaned heavily into propaganda, fashion, and behind-the-scenes access to the life orbiting Donald Trump. It played more like a visual scrapbook of a First Lady’s life. Like her or hate her, Melania Trump is attractive, she has undeniable style, and she knows how to hold presence, especially now in the second term.
One of my first criticisms came right out of the gate. The opening line suggested that this story was being told because “everybody wants to know.” That immediately felt hollow. Not everybody wants to know, and that framing came across as a little egocentric.
The luxury of the Trump lifestyle is not very relatable, either. The film does not aggressively rub wealth in your face, but it is always present. I would be lying if I said a part of me did not wish I had access to some of that level of comfort and privilege.
As a positive, there were moments where I found myself connecting in small ways and laughing at her and Trump. Trump is undeniably funny. If you disagree, you're lying; he just is.
Technically, a number of shots were out of focus, and not in an intentional rack focus way. They were just soft, and that was distracting. For a film of this profile, it stood out more than it should have.
From a storytelling standpoint, I wanted more depth. More backstory. More history. More insight into the struggle. But the film never really builds a strong narrative arc. It feels mostly flat. You walk in knowing what you know, and you walk out without many new revelations. For a documentary that feels like a missed opportunity.
Politics aside, it was still an interesting look into a fashion-forward First Lady figure and a carefully curated public persona. She seems approachable. She seems intentional. I don't, not like her. It functions more as an access piece than an investigative or emotionally revealing portrait.
Empty America, a short documentary by Barry Walton, captures a haunting snapshot of the United States during the height of COVID. Told through the point of view of a lone driver beginning in California, the film unfolds as a road trip across a nation brought to a standstill.
Through a mix of time-lapse photography, aerial drone footage, and organic handheld shots, the film presents striking images of emptiness. Closed beaches. Locked parks. Frozen construction zones. COVID warning signs. Times Square without crowds. The National Mall is absent of visitors. Familiar American landmarks become symbols of a country on pause.
What sets Empty America apart is its use of regional AM and FM radio sound bites layered over the visuals. These fragmented broadcasts ground the film in the political, cultural, and emotional noise of the moment, creating a powerful contrast between silence on the streets and chaos on the airwaves.
Beyond documenting the pandemic, the film has undertones of deeper themes of collectivism, centralized decision-making, and the weight of bureaucracy. Religious sound bites from old school preachers close out the piece with moral warnings suggesting a broader reflection on where society is headed, leaving viewers to question the cost of compliance and whether the crisis could have been handled differently.
Empty America has won 18 film festival Best Documentary Short awards, including Mindfield Film Festival, Golden Wheat Awards, Cooper Awards, Only the Best Awards, American Golden Picture Film Festival, and Florence Film Awards, quickly establishing itself as a rising presence on the festival circuit.
Director Barry Walton, a working-class filmmaker with over 20 years in the industry and an Emmy to his name, takes a grassroots approach to distribution, building momentum through smaller festivals and inviting the industry to take notice.
More than a documentary, Empty America functions as a time capsule. It captures a version of the country few ever witnessed firsthand and asks a lingering question. How did we get here, and what is the road back home?
Today, Walton is expanding the project into a short novel based on the experience. The book will explore the passage, intent, and motivation behind the film, examining American history, technology, media, marketing, and the forces that shaped this moment. The novel is positioned as a compelling reflection on who we are as Americans and is expected to be released in 2030.
Empty America is not just a documentary. It is a mirror held up to a nation in crisis, a record of silence, fear, and reflection, and a reminder of a moment that reshaped how America sees itself.
I had the chance to sit down for a podcast conversation with Oscar Boyson about his film, The Future of Cities. Oscar got his break working with the well-known YouTuber Casey Neistat. As his videographer and editor, Oscar worked at a fast pace, made compromises along the way, and learned a great deal from the experience.
In this interview, we talk about his time working with Casey and his transition into filmmaking. We also discuss The Future of Cities, a focused and visually restrained documentary that explores how urban environments are evolving in response to growth, technology, sustainability, and social change. Rather than positioning cities as broken systems, the film presents them as living organisms shaped by design, policy, and human behavior.
I recently watched Being Eddie, the 2025 biographical documentary streaming on Netflix, directed by Angus Wall, and it captures one of my favorite film actors of all time. The film chronicles the life, rise, and long career of Eddie Murphy, a once-in-a-generation comedic force whose presence on camera helped define an era of American entertainment.
At its core, Being Eddie is an interesting look into celebrity. Not just fame, but the machinery around it, the mythology of it, and the toll it takes on the person inside the image. The documentary revisits Eddie Murphy’s meteoric ascent from a teenage stand-up comic performing in New York clubs at 17, to joining Saturday Night Live straight out of high school, to becoming a comedy supernova and eventually a Hollywood icon spanning nearly five decades.
The film is full of highs and lows. Structurally, it is not a particularly strong story. But the celebrity of Eddie Murphy is deep enough, rich enough, and culturally important enough that you want to keep watching. His experiences, his moments in the limelight, his purity as an entertainer, his laugh, his smile, and his inspirations, particularly Richard Pryor, are fascinating to revisit. The highlights of his time on Saturday Night Live, and the momentum that carried him directly into film, remind you how miraculous the rise of someone like Eddie really was.
I, too, dreamed of becoming famous. As a case study, I’m always amazed by the people who actually make it. They seem to possess something internal and undefinable. Maybe it’s the command of the camera. Maybe it’s the control of an audience. Maybe it’s timing. Most likely, it’s all three. Beverly Hills Cop and Coming to America stand out as moments where those elements aligned perfectly. Eddie had total command, and he became one of the first Black men to truly cross into what Hollywood long considered a “white world,” whether we like that phrasing or not.
The documentary features candid interviews with Eddie Murphy himself, along with reflections from peers and collaborators including Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Hart, Jerry Seinfeld, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Brian Grazer. These voices reinforce his influence across generations and genres, from comedy and action to animation and drama. There is no denying his legacy.
Where the film loses me is in its narrative framing of struggle.
The one piece I strongly criticize is that Eddie Murphy leans into a familiar posture I see repeated across many modern celebrity documentaries. The insistence on casting every hardship through the lens of racial grievance, and then projecting that struggle outward as if it belongs to all of us to carry the blame for. For a Black man to reach Eddie’s level of global fame requires breaking through an oligarchy of wealth and power. That same oligarchy exists for everyone. While Black Americans historically faced greater barriers, which is undeniable, the narrative that contemporary society is still collectively holding black people back feels increasingly disconnected from lived reality.
At times, the film feels like it loses the plot.
Racism is real. It affects people differently. It sucks at some level for everybody. But the repetition of grievance without resolution, without recognition of progress, and without grounding in the present, begins to feel less like illumination and more like division. It fuels a cycle of villainization and victimhood that we seem unable to exit.
Structurally, Being Eddie also struggles with pacing. Too much time is spent inside Eddie’s high-end home, which creates emotional distance rather than intimacy. He feels distant and untouchable. Historically, what made Eddie Murphy so attractive was how relatable and accessible he felt. Here, he sometimes feels like he’s performing himself rather than revealing himself.
There is also a lack of archival depth. Films like Arnold succeed because they dig deeper, allowing raw material to speak for itself. Being Eddie feels warmer, more polished, and more celebratory, but also safer than it should be. Eddie occasionally feels like he’s putting on airs, and that distance dulls the emotional impact.
And yet, I loved it. And I hated it.
I love Eddie Murphy. He is incredibly talented. He deserves an Oscar. I also feel exhausted by the same narrative being woven again and again in project after project. In some ways, Eddie has become a version of what he once pushed against. That may be the cost of success. Or the cost of survival inside fame.
The closure to identity politics and the so-called color wars is not an endless rehashing of pain. It is acknowledging how far we’ve come while still demanding better. Without that balance, we remain trapped in cycles of resentment rather than progress.
Eddie, you’re better than this.
Being Eddie is warm, nostalgic, celebratory, and often very funny. It is also flawed, distant, and at times frustrating. That tension may be honest. Or it may be avoidance.
What I love most about Cover-Up, directed by Laura Poitras, is the access it provides to an extraordinarily rare individual, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. A longtime New York Times journalist, author, and whistleblower advocate, Seymour has built his career on exposing power at great personal cost. The behind-the-scenes moments reveal a subject who clearly has a deep, earned relationship with the crew, one built on trust rather than transaction. You can feel that this access exists only because of that bond. Seymour has repeatedly turned down funding and professional growth for the truth, refusing institutional paths that might have softened or silenced his reporting. That conviction is deeply compelling. His fear of power, mistrust of systems, and guarded relationship with people felt honest and human, and it immediately drew me in.
As the hero of the film, Seymour, spends his life building a career around a single guiding principle: telling the truth no matter the consequences. In that pursuit, he uncovers some of the most consequential stories of our time, including covered-up tragedies in Vietnam, the misuse of power by former American presidents, the CIA, FBI (including Richard Nixon and Kissinger), and the ongoing crisis unfolding in Israel and Palestine as we speak. These are stories Americans are curious about, but that power would rather they forget. They are also stories that only a small number of individuals are willing to bring into the light, knowing the professional, legal, and personal risks involved. The film serves as a reminder that journalism at its best is not about access, influence, or growth, but about responsibility.
Cover-Up may be one of my favorite biographical documentaries. The level of access reminded me of what I felt watching Billy Corbin’s Cocaine Cowboys and 30 for 30: The Two Escobars. That kind of intimacy is rare, and speaking from experience, it is incredibly difficult to achieve. When filmmakers are allowed to look directly into a life like this, it should never be taken for granted.
In the closing moments of the film, something unexpected happens. As the documentary moves into subjects Seymour is not comfortable discussing, the film team had gotten access to sources the leak info to Seymour, and he breaks character. The man who has spent his entire life exposing power suddenly becomes unwilling to have his own life exposed. You can see it touch a nerve. He shuts down. That moment is striking in its irony. My instinct was to want to protect him, to shield a man who has done so much good in telling difficult truths. But I also wondered if that instinct was misplaced. Journalism has been his profession, and that profession has placed countless others into the spotlight, often unwillingly. Watching that moment forced me to question whether he should be more comfortable with the process, or whether that discomfort is precisely what makes him who he is.
The documentary My Octopus Teacher is one of the most unique films I have seen in the past decade, if not my entire life. At its core, the film is about relationships. Not just between a man and an octopus, but between a human being and the natural world he had quietly drifted away from. Directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed, the film begins as a personal reset. Burned out and disconnected, Foster turns back to the sea near his home in South Africa, a place that once grounded him. What follows feels almost impossible. Through patience, repetition, and respect, he slowly builds trust with a wild octopus. Watching that connection form feels less like observation and more like witnessing first contact. It is intimate, strange, and deeply human.
What also makes the film so powerful, and almost hypnotic, is the narration and storytelling itself. Craig Foster has a way of telling this story that allows you to completely disappear inside it. There is no sense of performance or over-explanation, only reflection. For anyone who works in documentary filmmaking, this is the magic sauce. The ability to guide an audience through a deeply personal experience with a fluidity of conversation that you'd have with someone you've known forever. I have long admired and aspired to that kind of fluid, honest storytelling, and Foster assembles his narrative with a quiet confidence that feels nearly seamless. The story unfolds naturally, like a conversation rather than a script.
The film then pulls us beneath the surface into a daily ritual of free diving in the frigid waters of False Bay. I know this environment well. I lived in central California for nearly a decade and spent years swimming and diving in the cold Pacific among kelp forests. That water is unforgiving. The idea that Foster committed himself to these dives every single day, without a wetsuit, purely to observe and learn, speaks volumes about his dedication. That commitment pays off in astonishing ways. The footage reveals an intelligence and awareness in the octopus that challenges how we think about sea life altogether. Its ability to camouflage, problem solve, and interact with its environment forces uncomfortable questions about consciousness and our relationship to the creatures we so casually consume.
By the end of My Octopus Teacher, you are no longer just watching Craig Foster’s relationship with the octopus. You have developed one yourself. The octopus becomes a presence, almost like family, and when nature inevitably cycles through life and death, the loss feels real. What lingers is not sadness, but curiosity. A feeling that maybe we can be more connected to the natural world than we allow ourselves to be. My Octopus Teacher is not simply a nature documentary. It is a reminder that wonder still exists, and that sometimes the most profound relationships are waiting just beneath the surface.
This time last year, I was in the middle of working on a documentary series featuring USA Boardercross athlete and Olympian Jake Vedder. I was collaborating with Milk Means More, the United Dairy Industry of Michigan (UDIM), and Brandfly Studios to capture and tell Jake’s journey through the sport. The pitch was to document training camp in New Hampshire and capture a snapshot of the work that goes into preparing for the annual Boardercross World Cup season under the FIS, while also telling his story of reaching the Olympics and his aim to return in 2026.
For the first portion of production, I traveled with filmmaker Wil Hughes to New Hampshire to film at Waterville Valley Resort. There, we were met headfirst by the realities of Mother Nature. Over the three-day period we had set aside to film, we battled frozen rain, brutal winds, and freezing temperatures. Each day was a challenge to get up the hill on foot with gear and capture moments of Jake in his element. I had my concerns, yet we persisted, and after overcoming freezing hands, deep snow, and icy slopes, the footage we came back with was spectacular.
Having made it back from the cold frigid mountains of New Hampshire with our cameras partially intact, we set our sights on capturing Jake’s life in Pinckney, Michigan, where he grew up. Inspired by his story of going from a small town to the world stage of the Olympics, we worked to embed ourselves in the Boardercross community and get a firsthand look at the sacrifice and commitment needed to make it to the top.
From his hometown high school to his favorite place to eat and his workout routine, we worked to represent the brand of Milk Means More (UDIM) and its commitment to Jake’s journey and success. Through the highs and lows, they had supported him from the start, and it was easy to see why. Jake had optimism, focus, and the commitment of a champion that remained consistent throughout our time together.
With a total of six days of footage in the can, we returned to the edit studio and went to work fashioning The Grind. Working in collaboration with the team at Brandfly Studios, we shaped the story from the physical struggle of getting up the mountain in Waterville Valley to the mental and emotional struggle of making it to the Olympics. With the initial plan of shaping a YouTube series, we built it out into five parts, each outlining Jake’s journey and the sport of boardercross, with the common theme of how milk has helped fuel his success along the way.
In the fall of 2025, Milk Means More released the series on YouTube to great reviews and feedback. Jake went on to do a series of interviews and press throughout his home State of Michigan and the city of Detroit. It has been exciting and rewarding to say the least.
As it stands, Jake Vedder has not been officially named to the 2026 U.S. Olympic snowboard cross team. The final Team USA roster for Milan Cortina 2026 will be determined after the qualification period concludes, around mid-January 2026.
There is a documentary called Restrepo, and it has stayed with me for years. It is a wartime snapshot of the conditions U.S. troops endured while traversing Afghanistan in the years following 9/11, tasked with hunting terrorist cells and confronting an enemy that was often invisible and undefined. What moved me most was how deeply the filmmakers embedded themselves within a single platoon. This was not coverage from a distance. It was lived experience. As someone who once dreamed of becoming a war journalist but never found that path, watching this firsthand account was both thrilling and sobering. You feel the adrenaline, the fear, and the exhaustion, but you are also forced to confront the larger, harder questions. Why were we there? Who exactly was the enemy? And what does victory even look like in a place like this?
The interviews, shot after the soldiers returned home, are burned into my memory. Framed against a black background in a dark room, they feel like confessions rather than commentary. There is no spectacle, no dramatic flourish, just faces carrying the weight of what they experienced. That approach deeply influenced how I think about documentary interviews and how close a camera should be allowed to get. Restrepo reinforced my belief that the most powerful stories emerge when you create a space where people feel safe enough to speak honestly about the human cost of their experiences.
I hold a high regard for both the director Sebastian Junger and his partner and cinematographer Tim Hetherington. Hetherington later lost his life in 2011 while covering the Libyan civil war, killed by shrapnel during a mortar attack in Misrata. His death is a sobering reminder of the risks carried by journalists who choose to stand closest to the truth. His work was never about spectacle, only about humanity, dignity, and bearing witness. My deepest respect and condolences remain with his family, friends, and colleagues. If you get the chance to watch Restrepo, I highly recommend it, not because it explains war, but because it refuses to simplify it.
Reaching Reality is less about the pursuit of perfect waves and more about the quiet, often uncelebrated work of turning a dream into something lived. On the surface, the film follows three friends who sail a 24-foot boat from San Francisco to Cabo San Lucas, battling weather, fatigue, and uncertainty while searching seven islands for untouched surf and barren beaches. Beneath that narrative, however, is a deeper meditation on commitment, risk, and the fragile balance between ambition and reality when the ocean becomes both companion and adversary.
What makes Reaching Reality resonate is its understanding of scale. These are not world record-breaking feats or headline-grabbing achievements, yet the emotional weight of each small victory feels enormous. The film taps into a universal memory of those moments that may look insignificant from the outside but feel monumental to the person experiencing them. Standing on a wave for a few fleeting seconds or safely reaching a remote shoreline becomes a reminder that meaning is not measured by recognition, but by personal fulfillment.
Reaching Reality also reflects on the narrow window society allows for passion before expectation and responsibility begin to close in. The voyage itself happened years before the film was completed, and that distance adds an unexpected layer of honesty. The documentary becomes as much about revisiting a former version of oneself as it is about the journey at sea. The long arc of the project mirrors its message, that worthwhile things often take time, patience, and a willingness to endure doubt both from others and from within.
By the time the film reaches its conclusion, Reaching Reality feels like an argument for honoring the pursuits that matter to you, even when they carry little social currency. It celebrates the kind of joy that does not ask for permission or applause. In doing so, the film reminds us that following what feels big to us, no matter how small it may appear to the world, is not indulgent but essential.
The Pretender is one of those films that can quietly capture your heart and, if you let it, take a small piece of who you are with it. This is a short review.
About seven years ago, a friend of mine, Jim Toscano, reached out to me to share news of a documentary he had been working on titled The Pretender. Alongside his videographer and editor, Danny Gianino, Jim had spent a couple of years shaping the film and was preparing to release it to the public. In the final days before publication, he invited a small group of people to watch the film and provide notes. I was fortunate to be one of them.
The film opens with Mike Kunda as he prepares for a Rocky impersonation night. Watching him slip into the cadence, posture, and voice of Rocky Balboa, originally portrayed by Sylvester Stallone, struck a deeply familiar chord. As a kid, I wanted to be Rocky, too. I trained, shadowboxed, put on the gear, and imagined myself as the hero of my own story. The difference is that Mike carried that childhood dream into adulthood and chose to live it out publicly.
Over the course of fifty-five minutes, The Pretender unfolds Mike’s life story and reveals why he found refuge in the identity of Rocky Balboa. As a child, he was bullied. In his professional life, he struggled to connect. There is a lingering sense that he often felt isolated from the world around him. Yet when he steps into this character, something shifts. Through Rocky, Mike connects with people. That emotional logic made complete sense to me. His struggles were struggles I recognized.
Jim Toscano and Danny Gianino do an excellent job of weaving interviews with observational moments from Mike’s life. As an editor myself, having cut my share of full-length documentaries, I understand how difficult it can be to balance forward momentum while also honoring the depth of previously shot material. The film finds that balance. Paired with original music that subtly echoes the thematic spirit of the Rocky films, the experience becomes immersive and surprisingly easy to get lost in.
If you have time on a Saturday night, I highly recommend watching it. The Pretender is currently available on YouTube under Gravitas Documentaries, and it is well worth your time.
Doc This Reviews gives it an 8.1 out of 10.
Plot: When Mike Kunda saw the movie Rocky at age eleven, his life was changed forever. What began as simple fandom became an obsession, one that forty years later continues to shape his identity in ways he could never have imagined.
Directed by Jim Toscano
Characters: Starring Mike Kunda, Sue Kunda, and Mike Kunda Sr.
