“There’s something I have to tell you:” As an 18-year-old undergraduate at Harvard, Ted Hall was recruited to help Robert Oppenheimer and his team develop a weapon that would alter the course of human history. When the Atomic Bomb was detonated twice the following year, over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hall did not share in his colleagues’ enthusiasm for the Manhattan Project. Due to his fears that the United States, having a monopoly over an ineffably destructive power, would cause a nuclear catastrophe, he relayed the bomb’s secrets to the Soviet Union.

Continue reading ‘A Compassionate Spy’ Trailer: Steve James’ New Doc Details A Physicist Who Shared Nuclear Secrets With The Soviet Union at The Playlist.

As a child growing up in the United States, you’re taught that betraying the country is a terrible act, punishable by death. Every morning, in most public schools, you’re forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which overtly puts your patriotism at the forefront of the day’s events. Sure, this is a bit of hive-mind indoctrination, but it’s an accepted way of life. With that in mind, director Steve James has an uphill battle ahead of him as his audiences watch “A Compassionate Spy,” a documentary that not only asks you to listen to the defense of someone who betrayed the United States during World War II by feeding information to the Russians but also implores you to understand his actions and believe that treason can sometimes be the correct solution.

Continue reading ‘A Compassionate Spy’ Review: Steve James’ Doc Is A Compelling Defense Of Treason & A Portrait Of Absolute Love [Venice] at The Playlist.

Steve James’ latest masterpiece—and despite his creative modesty, the man has many, from “Hoop Dreams” to “The Interrupters” and other interrogations of America and what we expect from her—takes a massive subject and breaks it down into fractal pieces. Those discrete bits, made up not so much from Subjects and Themes but from the people who his camera frames in a quiet kind of curiosity, are then assembled together into “City So Real,” an expansive five-part portrait of Chicago tussling with its purpose, identity, and future in the new millennium.

Continue reading ‘City So Real’ Is A Complicated, Loving Ode To Chicago [Review] at The Playlist.

It would be hard to imagine any corporate institution that is more loathed at the moment than banks. Particularly following the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, which saw the economy nearly cratered, the government issuing a $700 billion bailout to prevent the collapse of banks, fines levied, but no executives jailed, there is a general feeling that Wall Street got away with financial murder. And this makes it all the more curious and fascinating that Steve James’ latest documentary, “Abacus: Small Enough To Jail,” spins a David and Goliath story where the one carrying the slingshot is a bank.

Continue reading A Bank Becomes The Underdog In Steve James’ ‘Abacus: Small Enough To Jail’ [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Continue reading Watch: 75-Minute Talk With Oscar Contending Documentary Directors Mike Myers, Steve James & More at The Playlist.

The Month 'Pulp Fiction' Broke: Ranking The Films Of October 1994

Continue reading The Month ‘Pulp Fiction’ Broke: Ranking The Films Of October 1994 at The Playlist.

Continue reading Sundance Review: Roger Ebert Doc ‘Life Itself’ A Profoundly Moving Story About One Of Cinema’s Greatest Superheroes at The Playlist.

25 Movies That Defined The Sundance Film Festival

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10 Notable Filmmakers Who Work In Both Documentary & Fiction

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Watch: 5 Movies Roger Ebert Championed Including 'Do The Right Thing,' 'Hoop Dreams,' 'Monster' & More

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Continue reading Director Steven James Says In Production Doc On Roger Ebert Produced By Martin Scorsese Will Be Completed at The Playlist.

Sundance: Fox Searchlight Lands 'The Way, Way Back' In Big Deal, 'Austenland' Winds Up At Sony

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Continue reading Martin Scorsese & ‘Hoop Dreams’ Helmer Steve James Team For Documentary Based On Roger Ebert’s Memoirs at The Playlist.

Continue reading Watch: First Trailer For ‘Hoop Dreams’ & ‘The Interrupters’ Helmer Steve James’ Sports Doc ‘Head Games’ at The Playlist.

Continue reading ‘Hoop Dreams’ & ‘The Interrupters’ Director Steve James Tackles ‘Generation Food’ Next at The Playlist.

DGA Doc Nominees Give Some Love To 'The Interrupters'; Martin Scorsese, James Marsh & More Tipped

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