The History of Concrete review – John Wilson’s first movie is an absurd triumph

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Sundance film festival: the documentarian’s feature debut, essentially an extended episode of his HBO series, turns an exploration of concrete into a meditation on change For those in the know, the release of the Sundance film festival lineup last December contained one perfect, tantalizing log line, for a documentary plainly called The History of Concrete: “After attending a workshop on how to write and sell a Hallmark movie, filmmaker John Wilson tries to use the same formula to sell a documentary about concrete.” Wilson, a film-maker from the Nathan Fielder school of meandering, bone-dry observational comedy, is a master of the modern documentary-essay-memoir, with an uncanny eye for the idiosyncratic, unintentionally hilarious and disturbing vignettes hiding in plain sight. Over three near-perfect seasons, his peerless HBO series How To With John Wilson , executive-produced by Fielder, spun spoofs of practical guides (“How to Cook the Perfect Risotto”) into profound meditations...
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Judy Blume Forever review – inspiring portrait of a fearless author

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As the author’s teen novels continue to aggravate the far right, this illuminating documentary spotlights her incredible career

What’s most astonishing about Judy Blume isn’t that her books keep selling 50 years after they burst onto the kids lit scene, but that they are no less potent than they were back then. With candid depictions of topics like menstruation, bullying and teen sex that is pleasurable rather than the fulcrum of a morality tale, Blume’s books still dominate summer camp cabins and school libraries daring enough not to ban them.

Deenie, a stunning 1973 novel about a girl whose scoliosis impinges on her mother’s dreams for her daughter’s modeling career, is the current favorite among the under-12 residents of this reviewer’s household. The same title, which also addresses masturbation with striking candor, aroused members of the far right. In a fabulous scene in Judy Blume Forever, Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok’s documentary about the iconic writer, Blume is seen on the television show Crossfire sparring with conservative commentator Pat Buchanan in the early 1980s. The petite mother of two doesn’t lose her composure in the face of her critic’s prurient hang-ups. “Did you read the whole book or just the highlighted parts?” she asks in the warm tone of a cocktail party host offering hors d’oeuvres.

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