Elevate Difference

Reviews of HBO Documentary Films

Every F---ing Day of My Life

Stark, appalling, and heartbreaking are all words that came to mind when I viewed Every F---ing Day of My Life. Every F---king Day of My Life depicts a woman’s last four days of freedom before being sentenced to ten years in prison for murdering her brutally abusive husband.

The Jazz Baroness

It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set. - William Somerset Maugham The preceding quote could very well be used to describe the Baroness Pannonica ("Nica") Rothschild de Koenigswarter’s attitude toward her decidedly eccentric lifestyle. The Baroness is the subject of The Jazz Baroness, which premieres tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT on HBO2.

Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags

It has become cliche to tell the story of an American going from rags to riches based on their own impassioned journey using a unique and personal form of ingenuity and hard work, but we may be on the path toward establishing a new and unfortunate conventional wisdom that says it is just as common to go from rags to riches and then back to rags once again. It is this new economic reality that Schmatta: From Rags to Riches to Rags explores in ways that are both haunting and saddening.

I'ma Be Me

In her first HBO comedy special since 2006's Sick & Tired, Wanda Sykes’ I'ma Be Me promises from the outset that she is "not holding anything back." This is a promise she works assiduously to keep throughout the show.

Which Way Home

Which Way Home opens like many other films: reeds blowing in the wind, calming yet somehow unsettling music, a body being fished out of the water. If one were judging only from the opening scene, the documentary could have easily been mistaken for a gangster movie or a romance.

Boy Interrupted

When I was fifteen years old, I tried to commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. I had been taking an experimental prescription acne medication called Accutane, which caused my hormonal ups and downs to feel a thousand times more severe than they really were. In May of 2001, I downed thirty-two pills in my school's bathroom and, following medical treatment, was sent to a juvenile mental institution for a short period of time. Miraculously, the cloudiness I felt in every aspect of my life was eliminated once I realized I had hit rock bottom.

Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech

"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire Tonight at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) you should turn the channel to HBO to watch the television debut of Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, a documentary about the evolution of freedom of speech in America. At eighty minutes, this film by Emmy Award-winning director Liz Garbus packs an intellectual and emotional punch that is sure to stimulate conversation amongst its viewers, whatever their political leanings.
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