Atomic Fangirl

“…even though I’d never really imagined making a true crime documentary, working in documentary [filmmaking] these days, true crime kinda got this gravitational pull.”

Story: Charlie Shackleton is a documentary filmmaker on a mission; to do a documentary on a true crime novel he’d had his eye on for a while. But when he doesn’t get the rights to the novel? He does the next best thing; he makes a documentary about making documentaries, and by extension, the true crime genre itself.

Genre I’d put it in: Squashed Documentaries Turned Into Different Documentaries
Release Date: 2025 (festival/limited), 2026 (DVD and Blue-ray )
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: Based on the director Charlie Shackleton’s unrealized documentary, based on the nonfiction book “The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up: The Silenced Badge” by Lyndon Lafferty

Gotta say: I love true crime. Well, kinda. One of my major concentrations in undergrad was criminology, and I’m a huge horror movie nerd. So basically, I love a story that both digs into the darker depths of humanity while ultimately proving that justice can prevail. Sometimes though, true crime digs into stories where justice not only doesn’t prevail, it’s actively mocked. In Project, Shackleford takes a book about an unsolved crime, fails at being allowed to adapt it, and then leaves us with the idea that perhaps not everything can be neatly tied up with a bow. This might be the most meta documentary I’ve ever seen.

“Alright. So what am I looking at?”

Story: Director Josef Gatti deconstructs ten “inner workings of nature”, looking at our mundane world in ways that spotlight the makeup of our universe.

Genre I’d put it in: Science Documentaries You Actually Want To Watch
Release Date: 2026 
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: A feature length documentary based on the TV series of the same name.

Gotta say: I have to come clean with y’all. There are some times when I don’t want to write a review for a film I’ve watched. Perhaps it’s left little impression on me. Perhaps I’ve got too much to say for good or ill, and don’t feel like submitting a dissertation. But for Phenomena, I’m absolutely delighted to be behind my keyboard. This film’s focus on the beauty of life, the universe, and everything had me enraptured. And I want to tell you about it. Because you need to seek this one out. This documentary feels like the coolest episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy mixed with 60s counterculture filmmaking whipped into a fluffy but substantial treat for your eyes and brain. Hell, just the film’s poster made me stop and really gaze into it. (I want that poster please. I’ll beg if I have to. Or I can just stare at this review’s image. That works too.)