Taika Waititi is a Grammy winner now! That was a bit unexpected! The filmmaker and actor is not a musician, though he has done some music-adjacent work, such as his involvement with The Flight of the Conchords. But on Sunday, during the run of pre-show awards, he accepted the trophy for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, for his 2019 Holocaust comedy-drama Jojo Rabbit. And he was as surprised to get one as everyone else.
Waititi gave his acceptance speech very remotely — from a trailer on the set of Thor: Love and Thunder, which started filming in Sydney, Australia earlier this year. It began with some technical glitches, but once everything was cleared up he was quick to go into charming jokey mode.
“I guess they’re just giving Grammys to anyone now! I’ll take it, thank you,” Waititi said. He then tried to talk about Jojo Rabbit, which earned him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay over a year ago, in a much different time. “What can I say? It was so long ago, I can barely remember anything about making that movie — but it seems like it’s never going to go away, and I’m happy about that.” Then he said he was “going back to work now.”
The win may be a shock, but it does mean something big: Waititi is one half of the way towards EGOT power. So put him on TV and on Broadway and let’s get this done.
Popstar and actress Jennifer Lopez has reportedly broken up with Major League Baseball player Alex Rodriguez, according to Page Six. The gossip site’s sources say that the former couple has canceled their wedding as Rodriguez prepares for spring training and Lopez shoots her next movie — ironically titled Shotgun Wedding. The former couple previously postponed the wedding twice, apparently got things back on track, but ultimately decided that a split was for the best. They originally announced their engagement in 2019, after dating for two years.
J-Lo told Access Hollywood about the postponements in December, telling the show, “We had to cancel the wedding because of COVID, because of the quarantine. And we actually did it twice, which people don’t know.”
At the time, she said the goal was to “wait it out,” insisting “everything’s cool and it’ll happen when the time is right. I feel like it’s not a huge priority to go and have a big wedding right now, that’s not what life is about.” Page Six posits that the breaking point was a rumor of infidelity between Rodriguez and reality-show star Madison LeCroy. LeCroy appears on Bravo’s Southern Charm.
Lopez, meanwhile, has been shooting Shotgun Wedding in the Dominican Republic. The film has undergone some controversy of its own after previous lead Armie Hammer was replaced in the wake of a scandal involving some untoward text messages.
Streaming video is the best thing that’s ever happened to documentaries. People who would never have paid for a ticket to a theatrical nonfiction film are now, thanks to Netflix’s robust selection, scarfing down the stuff by the barrel. But where to start among the masses? Here are 25 of the best documentaries on Netflix right now to get you going, covering a variety of themes and real stories.
Even if you’ve already witnessed the madness of this real-life horror story over on Hulu, you should see it again on Netflix. Hulu’s Fyre Fraud feels like more of a thinkpiece directed at the millennials who were suckered into buying tickets to a luxurious music fest on a secluded island in the Bahamas. Netflix’s Fyre does a better job of placing you in the action, giving you a real feel for the chaos and an understanding of how so many people could’ve been roped into this doomed venture.
Beyoncé’s history-making Coachella performance was enough to temporarily rename the music festival Beychella last year, and now fans who couldn’t afford to see Queen Bee perform live get a backstage pass to the show with this doc. Are there killer performances, musical mash-ups, and dance routines? Sure. But what really makes this music doc stand-out besides the talent of its star is the intimate look fans are given into Beyoncé’s personal life, from her surprise pregnancy to her struggle to get in shape before the event and all the in-between madness and heartbreak.
To understand the enigma that was the Trump campaign, one must first understand the man behind the historic presidential run. Roger Stone is a well-connected lobbyist, a Republican political trickster responsible for the campaigns of former presidents like Richard Nixon and Ronal Reagan. He’s well-versed in navigating morally-murky waters to help his horse win the race, and we see him do just that in this doc, which follows the mogul over a five-year period as he crafts Trump’s winning-campaign.
One of the strangest, most tragic sports stories in history is that of professional wrestler Dave Schulz and his friend, John du Pont. Du Pont was heir to the multi-million dollar Du Pont family fortune and used his inheritance to fund a professional wrestling team with the hopes of competing in the Olympics and other prestigious sports events. Mark Schulz was a wrestler struggling to get out of the shadow of his older brother’s more promising career. The two were roped into du Pont’s scheme, training wrestlers for him, but the partnership quickly soured and led to du Pont murdering Dave Schultz before barricading himself in his family compound to avoid arrest. It’s chilling, bizarre, and all the more riveting because of it.
Another sports doc, this one about a rag-tag group of baseball players in Oregon, feels decidedly more fun than its wrestling counterpart. The doc follows the Portland Mavericks, a defunct minor league baseball owned by actor Bing Russell that played for five seasons in the Class A-Short Season Northwest League. Kurt Russell, Bing’s son, also played on the team and served as its vice president. The film charts the Maverick’s origins, from underdogs to anti-establishment heroes.
Compiled from rare home videos from Christopher “Biggie” Wallace’s best friend, Damion “D-Roc” Butler, this revealing doc gives fans a different look at the iconic rapper. Sean “Diddy” Combs and Biggie’s mom also give interviews, detailing parts of Biggie’s life we didn’t know about, but the most compelling footage comes from D-Roc’s amateur videos. These clips give us an unfiltered look at a man who would become a legend.
This 2016 documentary from Ava DuVernay won an Emmy and was nominated for an Oscar during awards season two years ago. The film chronicles the justice system’s abuses against black people, making a case for institutionalized racism being a problem in America that’s only emboldened by the prison cycle. DuVernay boldly explores how prisons and detention centers are making a profit off of free prison labor, most of it done by black men which begs the question, is slavery really dead?
Let’s be honest, Taylor Swift could’ve delivered a glossy, stylized, superficial doc about her life to promote her latest album, and her rabid fanbase would’ve eaten it up. Instead, the pop star took a risk and gave filmmakers no-holds-barred access to her personal and professional life, offering up intimate interviews with herself and her family, detailing difficult struggles with body dysmorphia and eating disorders, allowing cameras inside her sexual assault trial, revealing her mother’s cancer diagnosis, and unearthing home video footage of her youth to create a fuller picture of herself. It’s a film that reveals the human underneath the icon. It’s bold, brutally honest, and some of Swift’s best work yet.
Few environmental warrior films do more for the cause than Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Coral. The doc rounds up a team of scientists, photographers, and divers from around the world to draw attention to an environmental crisis we’ve never seen before — the vanishing of the world’s coral reefs. It works on two levels: By giving us an underwater adventure that attempts to shed light on the mysteries of the deep and highlighting a problem we can see with our own eyes. There’s no denying this one, no looking away, and Orlowski’s crew takes full advantage of that.
’90s crime nostalgia is alive and well in this pseudo-doc from director Kitty Green. Everyone knows how tiny pageant queen JonBenet Ramsey died — bludgeoned to death in the basement of her family home — so Green is less interested in rehashing the investigation into the little girl’s death and more interested in reenacting her life and final moments. To do this, she enlists actors from the area where the family lived, all hoping to play JonBenet or her parents in an upcoming production. Over the course of the film, these thespians are forced to confront the reality of the Ramsey family’s situation which in turn helps viewers to take a look under the surface of this tabloid trauma.
This timely doc gives us a look at the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal that rocked the world of gymnastics just two years ago from the point of view of reporters at the Indianapolis Star in charge of exposing it. A cover-up spanning two decades and involving higher-ups at both US Gymnastics and Michigan State where Nassar served as a physician and professor, this revealing investigation into a sinister culture that’s hidden behind the success of its top female athletes makes you rethink everything you thought about the Olympic dream.
his marks the first documentary to come from Netflix’s high-profile producing deal with Barack and Michelle Obama. The film takes a hard look at what happened to a General Motors plant in Ohio when it was closed down during the 2008 financial crisis, causing 2,000 workers to lose their jobs and destroying the small town of Moraine, Ohio. Things only get more complicated when a Chinese billionaire comes to town to transform the plant into a glass-making facility, promising thousands of new jobs before cultural divides threaten to derail the whole thing. It’s a fascinating view of consumerism, the American workforce, culture clashes, and how people can connect with each other despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
In 1992, Sandi Tan, along with her friends, made Singapore’s first indie film. She wrote and starred in it, a project called Shirkers, her two girlfriends produced and edited it, and a man named George Cardona directed. Cardona vanished one day, taking all the film materials with him, and propelling Tan on a decades-long journey to find the truth. It’s an engrossing study in betrayal and the dangers of collaboration, and it works mostly because Tan approaches it from a true-crime mystery angle, stripping it of any nostalgia that might tint her lense.
This gripping documentary confronts some hard truths about religion: its power to unite and its power to divide. Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady follow three members of New York’s notoriously insular Hasidic community as they try to break free from their religion while holding onto their families and sense of belonging.
Bryan Fogel’s Academy Award-winning documentary Icarus wasn’t supposed to involve Russians and doping scandal and cover-ups. Fortunately for Fogel, when the filmmaker decided to test his mettle by competing in one of the toughest cycling competitions in the world and chose to dope to help his chances, he ended up meeting Russian scientist, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of Russia’s national anti-doping laboratory. The result is this nearly 90-minute film that chronicles Russia’s extensive history with doping and Rodchenkov’s fight for his life after he blows the whistle on the country’s bad practices.
It seems as though we’re all now more aware than ever of how utterly screwed any of us can be in an instant if the system places us in its crosshairs for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and not behaving in a way perceived to be “normal” in the immediate aftermath. Recent true crime documentaries like The Staircase, Making a Murderer and Serial have certainly played a part in illuminating this frightening and unfortunate slice of reality. We can now add Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn’s Amanda Knox to that list. Prepare to be terrified and infuriated as the filmmakers detail how an overzealous Italian prosecutor and a global tabloid press thirsty for a sensational story joined forces to wreck a young woman’s life, largely for their own benefit. As Daily Mail journalist Nick Pisa freely admits on camera — without any trace of remorse or shame — about his work covering the case, “A murder always gets people going… And we have here this beautiful, picturesque hilltop town in the middle of Italy. It was a particularly gruesome murder; throat slit, semi-naked, blood everywhere. I mean, what more do you want in a story?”
Netflix delivers another worthy installment in the true crime series with this truly bizarre tale of a naive, church-going family and the man who preyed upon them. The Brobergs lived in a small town in Idaho with their three young daughters when they met Robert Berchtold, a seemingly-nice family man who doted on the girls, in particular, a 12-year-old Jan Broberg. Over time, Berchtold began grooming Jan and manipulating her parents, engaging in sexual acts with both her father and mother to cause a rift in the family before kidnapping her and brainwashing her into compliance. This saga went on for years and as strange as it sounds, nothing can prepare you for hearing the first-hand account of how this sociopath destroyed this loving family.
This documentary features never-before-seen footage of Jim Carrey in character as Andy Kaufman on the set of his 1999 film Man on the Moon. Directed by Chris Smith, the film shows Carrey, who was a celebrated comedic actor at the time, going method for his dramatic role as the brilliant on-stage comedian. There’s plenty of behind-the-scenes drama on this one, including Carrey’s backstage antics while shooting the movie, but what’s really interesting about the film is watching the actor’s thorough process and how he’s approached his colorful careers.
We live in a world connected with most of our interactions happening online. It’s great but, as this doc shows, it’s also terrifying. Terrifying because the way our data changes hands so quickly and indiscriminately — as long as companies shell out the cash for it — skirts all kinds of privacy laws and moral boundaries. This doc, told from the perspective of a journalist attempting to get his search data, the enormous fight with big tech to do it, and how his journey connects to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that may have influenced multiple elections in the States and abroad, is full of fascinating information and shocking tell-alls that could bring this whole internet empire down if people finally decide to start listening.
This political doc made its way from Sundance to Netflix and we couldn’t think of a better time to watch it than leading up to the 2020 election. It follows the grassroots campaign of the right’s favorite punching bag, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, showcasing her charisma and approachability while also diving into more intimate parts of her life, like her relationship with her late father. It’s a feel-good story from Capitol Hill and really, we need more of that.
The film that turned the tide of public opinion on Sea World and convinced Pixar to change the ending of Finding Dory, Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s animal rights muckraker is more than just 83 minutes of theme=park shaming. In telling the story of Tillikum, the psychologically damaged orca who spent his life in captivity and was involved in the deaths of three people, the movie is an elegy for the freedoms that marine creatures like him were once able to enjoy. Is there an ethical way to view creatures like Tillikum up close and personal, and if so, should we trust a private company to deliver it to us?
Clocking in at 24 minutes, the Oscar-nominated Extremis really would only work as a short, as its subject matter is almost unbearably heavy. Following terminal patients, their families, and their doctors, the tearjerker zeros in on the decision that many people are forced to make: whether to end a life or keep struggling to hold on. Netflix’s first foray into short documentary, it’s raw insight that can be rough for anyone who has been in similar shoes or spent any time facing dire choices in a hospital.
The alternately revolutionary and dispiriting saga of a combative, unapologetic and astoundingly gifted soul singer, Liz Garbus’s doc is a powerful rendering of the struggles Nina Simone faced throughout her career: the ways she became trapped in downward spirals, first of spousal abuse and then of bipolar disorder; and of her desperate, all-consuming urge to affect change on the country during the Civil Rights era. What happened? Watch for yourself.
We’re not sure why watching human beings dangling thousands of feet in the air with no safety net or cable cord to tether them to Earth is so irresistible, but it is, and this doc about free climber Tommy Caldwell and climbing partner Kevin Jorgeson might be Netflix’s most bingeable adventure flick. The two men attempt to scale the impossible 3000ft Dawn Wall of El Capitan, the Everest for free climbers, and if you can stomach over an hour of near-fatal slips, trips, and falls, this is the doc for you.
Warning: Netflix’s The Bleeding Edge will seriously piss you off. It might also make you swear off doctors for the rest of your life. The film is a deep dive into the medical device industry and the dangers that lurk there for unassuming patients. Like the pharmaceutical industry, there are few laws regulating the creation and implementation of medical devices — think everything from birth control to orthopedic instruments — and the doc shows how this is negatively affecting millions of Americans every year from the women unknowingly sterilized by an IUD device to a doctor whose own ortho-device slowly poisoned him. It’s a frustrating watch, but a necessary one.
When Eddie Huang’s directorial debut, Boogie, was announced, much attention was given to the presence of one of its stars: the late Brooklyn drill rapper Pop Smoke, in his own posthumous acting debut. While it was at one point considered unusual for rappers to jump into acting — especially before they ever had an album to their name — in recent years, it’s become much more common for a new and rising star to already have their hands in many different arts to ensure that at least one of them pays off. From Vince Staples in Dope to Cardi B in Fast 9 to Quavo in Wash Me In The River, more actors than ever are pursuing side careers in film.
The question on everyone’s minds, then, was whether or not Pop Smoke’s acting chops lived up to the billing. In the film, he portrays the title character’s rival hooper, as Boogie (Taylor Takahashi, also in his debut), a first-generation Chinese-American basketball player, transfers to a new school in the hopes of drumming up interest from a college program that can get him closer to the NBA. Of course, Boogie’s life is complicated; his estranged parents battle each other over his path to pro hoops and he becomes interested in a girl at his new school, all while butting heads with his coach over his role on the team.
From a pure “movie” standpoint, Boogie shows all the hallmarks of a debut directorial effort from Huang. While the foundation of the story is solid and the performances are for the most part superb, there are probably a few too many plot threads that need tying off by the film’s conclusion, many of which are pretty cliched. The dialogue suffers from “trying to be hip,” and it’s also unintentionally funny, possibly at times that aren’t meant to be — but that’s also probably a result of its New York shooting locations. There’s one moment in which a bystander can be heard reacting to Boogie’s dialogue with his love interest as he tries to explain the friction of balancing 5,000 years of cultural history with second-class citizen status.
Also — and this part just might be due to my proximity to the game — but I found myself a little bit frustrated with the basketball culture as presented. What little gameplay is seen is serviceable at best (with odd dialogue that doesn’t seem to suit the action on-screen), but while the behind-the-scenes workings of recruiting, scholarships, and overseas offers read true-to-life, there is astonishingly little context presented for any of it. If someone were completely unversed in how this stuff works, they’d be confused — even worse, for someone who is well-versed, it’s even more confusing.
When the choice is posed between skipping one year of NCAA eligibility to play for the Shanghai Sharks or walking on at Georgetown in the hopes of securing an NBA berth, I found myself flabbergasted that the former route seemed to preclude the latter outcome when several players have already been successful at it (more so than the traditional route of playing for a few years at a ranked school). It feels almost like advocating for the exploitative practices of the NCAA, while simultaneously dumping on non-US leagues — where US-born players often thrive and Jeremy Lin, who the film name-checks early on, went in the process of mounting his NBA comeback.
But Pop Smoke’s character appears relatively early and looms over the proceedings, giving the Brooklyn rapper plenty of opportunities to shine. He makes the most of them, stealing nearly every scene he’s in and giving off a magnetic aura that pulls the viewer in. He snarls on the court and smirks in the protagonist’s face, his husky growl dousing every line in sizzling New York authenticity. His performance made me wish that the love story had been cut in the interest of cultivating the two players’ rivalry — for the most part, we mostly hear about how Monk being the best player in the city, and rarely do the two actually share the screen in the first two-thirds of the runtime.
When they do, however, the screen lights up and the electricity is palpable. I found myself doing that two-panel meme of the guy playing the video game all laid-back until the score gets close. I scooted forward on my couch, leaning in to soak in the aura of tension. Much of this aura is given off by Takahashi, but the majority of it is Pop Smoke, who practically vibrates off the screen. It’s probably presumptuous to make a comparison to Tupac in Above The Rim… but that’s exactly what I’m going to do because even if the comparison isn’t apples to apples, the clementine that is Pop Smoke sure looks like a Tupac orange that just hasn’t grown up yet.
While the film makes little effort to flesh out the character — outside of repeated mentions of how badly Boogie needs to beat Monk — Pop Smoke does plenty of that work himself. He gives Monk a cocky, borderline brutish demeanor, but he holds back from pure thuggery. Monk is a New York classic, a trash talker who does whatever it takes to get into his opponent’s head and throw them off their game. And as infuriating as that can be — both on the court and in real life — Pop is a charismatic enough personality to not only pull it off but also to make viewers like his character almost as much as Boogie.
The one real drawback is that Pop’s performance is dragged down the same way the movie is; through unsure editing and amateurish writing. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the quick cuts during Pop’s on-court play make it clear he had way more talent on the mic than with a ball. Also, he’s alternatively listed on Google as either 5’5″ or 5’11”, which means those dunks are either being performed by a body double or on an eight-foot rim. He may have had plenty of potential as a future actor but a J. Cole-esque hoop dream pursuit was definitely out of the question.
Ultimately, Pop Smoke shining in his debut role the world winds up mostly highlighting — once again — how truly tragic his untimely demise remains. It seems certain now that he would have continued to grow in stature — his posthumous debut album, Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon was one of 2020’s most-streamed projects and demonstrated how truly versatile he could be — and collect further roles as charismatic villains and possibly even roguish heroes. Even in the limited screentime that the movie allows, he becomes the center of every scene he’s in — that is the very definition of star power. Unfortunately, the world will instead continue to miss out on the growth and charm of Pop Smoke, who by every indication here, had all the making of a bonafide movie star.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, T.I. will not be returning to his role as the title character’s sidekick in the third Ant-Man film, Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. In the original 2015 Ant-Man and its 2018 sequel, T.I. plays Dave, a member of Ant-Man Scott Lang’s heist crew, providing comic relief alongside Michael Peña’s Luis and David Dastmalchian as Kurt.
The news arrives after a New York Times report confirming that a lawyer has reached out to law enforcement officials in California and Georgia urging criminal investigations into multiple allegations of sexual assault against T.I. and his wife, Tiny. 11 women represented by Tyrone A. Blackburn claim that the couple used drugs to encourage them to have sexual encounters. It’s currently unknown whether T.I.’s removal from the Ant-Man 3 cast is a result of the accusations against him and the Reporter notes that the film is still in development, so changes could be made in the future. The film does not have a release date.
However, MTV Entertainment’s production of T.I. and Tiny’s Vh1 show T.I. & Tiny: Friends & Family Hustle has been suspended following the allegations, with a spokesperson telling Deadline, “Given the serious nature of the allegations, we have decided to suspend production in order to gather more information.”
A remake of the cult classic 2004 Mean Girls may be on its way, but Megan Thee Stallion has offered her own spin on the iconic film. Appearing in a promotion video for Coach’s Fall 2021 collection, Megan takes on the role of Regina George, who was originally played by Rachel McAdams.
The commercial is a spoof on the scene where Regina George’s character is introduced to the protagonist, Cady Heron (played by Lindsay Lohan). In the segment, a few members of her high school’s student body shares a ridiculous rumor they heard about George, like that her “hair is insured for $10,000.”
Megan’s commercial is a playful take on the original scene, recreating the script with several contemporary comedians. The script reads:
“Megan Thee Stallion is flawless. One time, she locked eyes with Medusa and all the snakes unionized. Each of her dogs has its own bedroom and country home in France. Shakespeare wrote five sonnets about her. Yeah, she wasn’t alive yet but… he knew. I heard her favorite movie is an anime based on her own life and it won best picture. Her nails are so long that she accidentally gouged my eye out and it was awesome. I heard that she was walking down the street and a guy saw her and crashed his car. It was so fetch. Or, not fetch… it was awesome. She’s perfect.”
Watch Coach’s promotional video with Megan Thee Stallion and see the original Mean Girls clip above.
Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Idris Elba is best known for his acting work, but he’s also well-established in the music world. He performed at Coachella in 2019, he co-starred in a Stormzy video later that year, and also in 2019, he dropped a mixtape. In recent times, he’s been working on music and it looks like he has a Megan Thee Stallion collaboration on the way.
In an interview with CapitalFM’s The All-New Capital Weekender (as Billboard notes), Elba revealed he has a track with Meg and Davido on the way: “I’m putting out quite a bit of music, man. I’ve been really focused in coming out of last year into this year, trying to put more music out, so expect more. I’ve got a tune with Frankie Wah coming, I think it’s gonna be good. […] I got a sneaky tune with Meg Thee Stallion and Davido, shout out to the fanatics.”
He also added that he hopes to get on a track with his Cats co-star Taylor Swift, saying, “I’ve known Taylor a few years. People see the album sales, the awards. What they don’t see is the hard work. She is an incredibly hard-working person, she isn’t resting on her achievements. To perform live with her would be fun and hopefully we can make that happen.”
Watch Elba talk about his upcoming projects below.
Questlove, The Roots’ drummer and bandleader on The Tonight Show, cut his teeth as a director earlier this year with his Summer Of Soul documentary and now, he’s been given the opportunity to use that experience to pay homage to one of music’s great pioneers and legends. Quest is set to direct a documentary about funk icon Sly Stone, exploring his work with Sly And The Family Stone and recent fight for royalties on his old music. The film also counts Common as an executive producer but doesn’t have a title or release date yet.
“It goes beyond saying that Sly’s creative legacy is in my DNA,” Questlove explained in a statement. “It’s a Black musician’s blueprint. To be given the honor to explore his history and legacy is beyond a dream for me.”
