Werner Herzog brings his dour brand of whimsy to LO AND BEHOLD, REVERIES OF THE CONNECTED WORLD, his consideration of cyberspace. The result is a thought-provoking piece that brings up little-known issues and implications, placing them side by side with the more conventional topics of security and dependence. Indeed, the most arresting moment in the… Read More »
ZERO DAYS — Alex Gibney, Eric Chien & Liam O’Murchu
Liam O’Murchu was the first person at Symantec to see the STUXnet code, and, as he told me when we talked on May 11, 2016, red flags went off about the elegant coding and suspicious dearth of bugs. I was interviewing him along with his colleague, Eric Chien and with Alex Gibney, the documentarian who… Read More »
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL
MIDNIGHT SPECIAL is a film that plays with its audience’s sense of normality. Beginning in the conventional and slowly, almost imperceptibly, moving us from the quotidian drama of a kidnapped child and a father’s unconditional love, into a boldly unconventional consideration of that elusive point where science and spirituality merge. There is nothing predictable here,… Read More »
Laura Poitras Meets CITIZENFOUR
Laura Poitras was hoarse the day I interviewed her for CITIZENFOUR. Her remarkable eye-witness documentary about Edward Snowden leaking NSA secrets to the press resulted in everyone wanting to talk to her. When we spoke, though, her dedication to bringing the truth to light was intact. I started by asking what it was like to… Read More »