
The Roaring Twenties is in New Orleans, not Vegas, and the characters populating its interior didn’t just wander in. It’s late 2016, and with the presidential election about to change the world, the pub serves as a fascinating microcosm of America’s fractured, browbeaten underbelly on the verge of self-destruction.
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Bill and Turner Ross’ boozy hangout movie captures the last raucous night at the Roaring Twenties, a grimy bar on the outskirts of the Vegas strip where various inebriated outcasts bury their sorrows in a blur of anger and poetic laments. “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets”Īt first glance, “Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets” unfolds as a brilliant work of cinéma vérité.

It doesn’t do that by being preachy or shrill, instead working from one key belief: It must have started somewhere, and Cohen and Shenk don’t stop until they find out exactly where.
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Through even-handed reporting and a series of emotional first-person accounts, “Athlete A” excavates one of modern sports’ most horrific abusers and systems. No such issues with the meticulous “Athlete A,” however, easily the pair’s best work yet. By its end, however, its revelations demand nothing short of the full-scale dismantling of every facet of USA Gymnastics.Ĭohen and Shenk, longtime documentary producers and directors, have previously tried to use personal stories to examine larger tragedies before, with mixed results.

“Athlete A” works as both a meticulous unpacking of the case against Nassar, as kicked off by the reporting of the IndyStar journalists who investigated it, and an emotional unburdening for his many victims.

Ostensibly focused on the case against convicted sex offender Larry Nassar - a longtime USAG doctor and convicted sex offender who was accused of abusing over 250 young gymnasts during his decades of employment by USAG and Michigan State - Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk’s documentary eventually blossoms into something much bigger. Tom Wolfe Documentary ‘Radical Wolfe’ Spotlights Journalism’s Master of the Universe - Watch the Trailer “Athlete A” “Athlete A” Courtesy of Melissa J. Anyone who cares about the future of democracy should see it. citizenship, the corruption involved in pushing back on fundamental rights, and what it takes to fix the equation. Abrams is a natural-born storyteller, and the movie uses her dynamic screen presence to turn “All In” into a galvanizing educational journey into the essence of U.S.

And it continues to capture the narrative as it unfolds, with the Georgia runoffs just around the corner. Instead, it’s a downright prophetic illustration of the way Abrams, furious by the way her Georgia gubernatorial bid was sunk by illegal efforts by her competition, fired up her base and pushed for an educated approach to the voting process that turned the state into the centerpiece of the presidential election. Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés’ illuminating documentary tracks Stacey Abrams’ battle against voter suppression with such precision that it may as well have been made in the aftermath of the 2020 election to explain how things turned out the way they did. “All In: The Fight for Democracy” doesn’t attempt to reinvent that formula instead, it’s a paragon of the form. A lot of movies about the political process tend to be reductive adventures in talking heads.
