May 2025 Documentary review 10-pack: John and Yoko, the Log Lady, a brother's mystery, Goofy, drummers, social media evils and more

Capsule reviews of ten recently released documentary features.

Image: Magnolia Pictures

Happy May, and welcome to my monthly capsule review roundup of new documentary films. This month, I review films about a legendary rock couple, a dearly departed cult TV star, the search for a long-lost brother, A Goofy Movie, rock’s best drummers, the history of funk music, the “evils” of social media, a basketball player’s post-October 7 story, a side character in one of the best documentaries of the century, and the "(possible) rediscovery of a long-lost sister.

One to One: John & Yoko

You might have thought there was nothing new left to say about John Lennon, Yoko Ono, or the two of them, but this documentary, directed by Kevin MacDonald and Sam Rice-Edwards, finds a way.

Assembled from about a year of archival footage, in the lead-up to the “One to One” concert in New York in 1972, the film is structured very similarly to one of last year’s best music documentaries, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

Whole documentaries have already been made about other periods of John and Yoko’s life, in other parts of the ‘70s, but this one is the best of them.

Out briefly in theaters in April, including an IMAX run, One to One is not streaming yet.

I Know Catherine, The Log Lady

This doc, directed by Richard Green, is a wonderful feature-length tribute to Catherine Coulson, the actress best known as The Log Lady on Twin Peaks, and for other David Lynch projects. The film covers other parts of Coulson’s life and career that you probably didn’t know about, including her theater career and numerous romances, with everyone from Jack Nance to her ill-fated marriage to a rabbi.

We hear from a lot of her famous friends, including the late David Lynch, and my recent interviewee Michael Horse. Most movingly, it covers when Coulson, battling end-stage cancer, fought to film some segments for Twin Peaks: The Return, in what would be her final performance.

I loved watching the film, but found it a bit longer than it needed to be. I got the sense that the filmmakers just couldn’t bear to leave out some of the material.

I Know Catherine has been getting road show screenings in recent weeks, although no streaming or VOD plan has been announced.

Jimmy in Saigon

This is a wonderful investigative documentary, about family secrets, and a brother trying to get to know the late brother who he never knew.

Director Peter McDowell spent several years investigating the story of his much older brother James, who died in Vietnam in the 1970s. No, he wasn’t killed in the war — although he did serve — but rather wound up dead at age 24 later, when he returned to Vietnam as a civilian.

Traveling to Vietnam and elsewhere, Peter looks to investigate how his brother died, but the film is really about his coming to terms with how Jimmy lived. Peter is gay, and suspects that Jimmy was too, although he likely had a very different experience in a different decade.

It ends with a beautiful animated sequence, as well as a musical cue that’s a wonderful callback to earlier on.

Jimmy In Saigon opened in New York late last month, and hits VOD on May 13.

Not Just a Goof

This is a Disney+ documentary of the making of the 1995 cartoon A Goofy Movie, one that’s a bit more enjoyable and less self-aggrandizing than most Disney making-of films. The 1990s child stars Jenna von Oy (Six from Blossom!) and Kellie Martin (from Life Goes On!) did voice parts.

Donald Glover’s show Atlanta did a fantastic, episode-long riff on A Goofy Movie, implying that it was a Putney Swope-like moment in which a Black man was put in charge of Disney and envisioned the 1995 Goof Troop spinoff as “the Blackest movie of all time.”

The real version has the benefit of some compelling archival footage, but it’s not as interesting as the fake version.

Count Me In

This is a documentary about drummers and the drumming profession. Most of its running time is taken up by drummers declaring that “That popular drummer from the huge band from the past? That guy was awesome.”

It’s not quite as in-depth as as it probably could have been, although it must have been damned expensive to clear all that music.

However, it made me think: What drummer in rock history would have the best documentary made about them? Neil Peart has to be #1, and Rick Allen a solid #2. Maybe Keith Moon? Pete Best probably has some things to say.

Count Me In is streaming on VOD.

Can’t Look Away

I haven’t tended to like most anti-social media documentaries, even when I agree with most of what they have to say. They tend to lapse into fearmongering.

But Can’t Look Away might be the worst one yet. Laying the pathos on extremely thick, it’s a propaganda film on behalf of a specific piece of legislation that’s likely to do great harm if it's passed.

Directed by Matthew O'Neill and Perri Peltz and available now on the documentary platform Jolt, the film makes the case that social media platforms, especially Facebook and Snapchat, haven’t done enough to stop bad things on the platform, from bullying to drug deals.

Therefore, the solution is to pass the Kids Online Safety Act and repeal Section 230. The film’s heroes are a group of lawyers who are trying to sue the platforms, and some of the most loathsome current members of Congress (Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and Lindsey Graham, all shown delivering obnoxious, grandstanding speeches in Senate hearings).

I’m no defender of the social media platforms. Facebook does a great deal of evil in the world, as anyone who has read the Careless People book can attest. TikTok and Snapchat aren’t exactly great actors either, although I’m not sure why X — which felt the need to bring Nazis onto everyone’s For You page — is let off the hook.

That said, what this film is arguing for is full-on censorship, and the sort of thing that would do nothing less than ruin the Internet.

If someone got bullied on Facebook, I think maybe you should blame the people who did the bullying, rather than the platform where it happened. If someone died of a drug overdose, as a result of a drug deal that was arranged on Snapchat, I’m not sure why that’s Snapchat’s fault.

We Want the Funk

This is an outstanding music doc, directed by the very prolific Stanley Nelson and Nicole London, which landed on PBS in early April and remains available on the PBS app.

The film touches on Sly and the Family Stone, and this works as a companion piece to Questlove’s documentary earlier this year, and Questlove is even in it. And there’s also, of course, quite a bit of George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic.

I’m biased, but I also loved the part about how Minneapolis, thanks to Prince, became an unlikely funk hotbed.

Rebound: A Year Of Triumph And Tragedy At Yeshiva University Basketball

Added to the list of post-October 7 documentaries is this one, with a unique angle: It follows how the aftermath of the attacks affected the men’s basketball team at Yeshiva University.

Ryan Turell, who led college basketball in scoring a couple of years ago, played at YU, and the team has become something of a phenomenon. And while YU, of course, had no incampments, dealing with life after the attacks was certainly different there than at most universities.

Streaming on the Fox Nation streaming service, this compelling film is full of NFL owners. Bob Kraft, a prominent benefactor of Jewish sports around the world, appears. Josh Harris is interviewed too, sharing how happy he was to see YU’s basketball team win; glad to know the owner of the Sixers is getting to watch at least one winning basketball team. And we can see that a building on campus is named for Vikings owner Zygi Wilf.

I don’t want to be the guy who says, “Actually, the filmmakers should have made a completely different movie.” But it was in the news recently that Yeshiva University started an LGBTQ club, and a lot of other people freaked out about it. I want to see a documentary about that, although it probably wouldn’t be on Fox Nation.

Arcades and Love Songs: The Ballad of Walter Day

This is a spinoff of the great 2007 doc The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, about two guys fighting over the Donkey Kong world record. It’s one of the best kind of docs, exploring the world of an extremely specific subculture, filled with obsessed oddballs.

Directed by Ed Cunningham, this film focuses on Walter Day, the “referee” in the first documentary, and his pivot away from the gaming world and towards a career as a singer/songwriter.

It’s not quite on the level of King of Kong, which is truly an all-timer, but Walter is still an engaging protagonist, and we learn that he’s been motivated for decades by a woman who got away from him (that might sound creepy, but it’s actually charming.)

Arcades and Love Songs has been playing in various cities, there’s no word on streaming plans.

The Gullspång Miracle

This Swedish documentary, a Tribeca debut two years ago, is finally surfacing now. It’s wild story, in the tradition of Three Identical Strangers, about a pair of sisters who meet a woman who may be their older sister, who they believed to be long dead.

Directed by Maria Fredriksson, it’s a fascinating premise, but unfortunately it’s told in the most convoluted, confusing, and hard-to-follow fashion imaginable.

It’s streaming on Prime Video.