One of the most valuable lessons that most people learn in life is that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. That truism is at the center of the new Apple TV+ documentary “The Pirate of Prague,” premiering on Monday, Nov. 13. The doc tells the story of an uber-wealthy young man who swindled his equally affluent friends into giving him money for a project that never existed… then he disappeared. A pair of journalists start at the beginning and follow the trail until they find him. You can watch with a 7-Day Free Trial of Apple TV+.
How to Watch 'The Pirate of Prague' When: Monday, November 13, 2023 Where: Apple TV+ Stream: Watch with a 7-Day Free Trial of Apple TV+. 7-Day Free Trial$9.99+ / month apple.com About 'The Pirate of Prague'
“The Pirate of Prague” tells the story of the charming young Czech, Viktor Kožený, who...
How to Watch 'The Pirate of Prague' When: Monday, November 13, 2023 Where: Apple TV+ Stream: Watch with a 7-Day Free Trial of Apple TV+. 7-Day Free Trial$9.99+ / month apple.com About 'The Pirate of Prague'
“The Pirate of Prague” tells the story of the charming young Czech, Viktor Kožený, who...
- 11/13/2023
- by Matt Tamanini
- The Streamable
Exclusive: Apple is moving forward with more original podcasts.
The company, via its Apple TV+ service, is launching The Pirate of Prague. The eight-part series is hosted by journalist Joe Nocera with the help of investigative journalist Peter Elkind and tells the story of the charming young Czech, Viktor Kožený.
Kožený smooth-talked his super-wealthy Aspen neighbors and a Wall Street titan into investing huge sums of cash to snap up Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company, promising staggering returns. Sounds too good to be true, right?
It is the story of private jets, $20,000 dinners, and suitcases stuffed with cash. It’s also a tale about the collapse of communism, the free-for-all that followed, and the rise of the oligarchs. And it’s a story of plain-old human greed…of just how far the rich may go to get even richer.
Nocera and Elkind follow the trail, beginning in the Bahamas, where...
The company, via its Apple TV+ service, is launching The Pirate of Prague. The eight-part series is hosted by journalist Joe Nocera with the help of investigative journalist Peter Elkind and tells the story of the charming young Czech, Viktor Kožený.
Kožený smooth-talked his super-wealthy Aspen neighbors and a Wall Street titan into investing huge sums of cash to snap up Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company, promising staggering returns. Sounds too good to be true, right?
It is the story of private jets, $20,000 dinners, and suitcases stuffed with cash. It’s also a tale about the collapse of communism, the free-for-all that followed, and the rise of the oligarchs. And it’s a story of plain-old human greed…of just how far the rich may go to get even richer.
Nocera and Elkind follow the trail, beginning in the Bahamas, where...
- 11/6/2023
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
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50 fabulous documentary films, covering hard politics through to music, money and films that never were...
Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix, we’ve never had better access to documentaries. A whole new audience can discover that these real life stories are just as thrilling, entertaining, and incredible as the latest big-budget blockbuster. What’s more, they’re all true too. But with a new found glut of them comes the ever more impossible choice, what’s worth your time? Below is my pick of the 50 best modern feature length documentaries.
I’ve defined modern as being from 2000 onwards, which means some of the greatest documentaries ever made will not feature here. I’m looking at you Hoop Dreams.
50. McConkey (2013)
d. Rob Bruce, Scott Gaffney, Murray Wais, Steve Winter, David Zieff
Shane McConkey was an extreme skier and Base jumper who lived life on the edge, and very much to the full.
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50 fabulous documentary films, covering hard politics through to music, money and films that never were...
Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix, we’ve never had better access to documentaries. A whole new audience can discover that these real life stories are just as thrilling, entertaining, and incredible as the latest big-budget blockbuster. What’s more, they’re all true too. But with a new found glut of them comes the ever more impossible choice, what’s worth your time? Below is my pick of the 50 best modern feature length documentaries.
I’ve defined modern as being from 2000 onwards, which means some of the greatest documentaries ever made will not feature here. I’m looking at you Hoop Dreams.
50. McConkey (2013)
d. Rob Bruce, Scott Gaffney, Murray Wais, Steve Winter, David Zieff
Shane McConkey was an extreme skier and Base jumper who lived life on the edge, and very much to the full.
- 11/12/2015
- by simonbrew
- Den of Geek
The hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computers by North Korea at the end of 2014 over its movie, The Interview, that featured the graphic death of leader Kim Jong Un, continues to be one of the biggest stories of 2015. Fortune magazine features a long investigative report on the hacking in its July 1 issue (the first of three parts is online here), “Inside the Hack of the Century: What Really Happened. Why Sony Should Have Seen It Coming. And Why It Should Terrify Corporate America” by Peter Elkind. The article contains much new information. Here’s eight of the biggest revelations
read more...
read more...
- 6/25/2015
- by Andy Lewis
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Fortune Magazine released the first installment of a shocking and detailed look into the November 2014 cyber attack that crippled Sony Pictures on Thursday. Fortune’s Peter Elkind spent six months reporting on the story and interviewed more than 50 current and former Sony executives, cyber security experts, and law enforcement officials. It is entitled, “”Inside the Hack of the Century: What Really Happened. Why Sony Should Have Seen It Coming. And Why It Should Terrify Corporate America.” Scroll down for some of the most astonishing revelations found in the article: Also Read: Sony Hack: WikiLeaks Publishes 270,000 More Documents From Breach The Sony.
- 6/25/2015
- by Joe Otterson
- The Wrap
Sony brass might be licking their wounds today, or trying keep their blood from boiling, after reading Fortune’s new cover story about last year’s cyber attacks. The magazine published a lengthy piece by Peter Elkind — which includes material from private emails stolen and made public by cyber attackers –that surmises that Sony was so focused on cost cutting that it “failed to employ several basic safeguards” to protect its network and “didn’t put up much of a fight” once…...
- 6/25/2015
- Deadline
The names Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Andrew Fastow are not as prevalent in the media as they were in the last decade. These men, behind the success (such as it was) and severe failure of Enron, were eventually found guilty of fraud and other charges.
The 2005 documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is based on the book of the same name. Director Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, The Armstrong Lie) interviews the book's authors, journalist Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, along with journalists, political figures and former Enron employees. Peter Coyote (E.T., Erin Brockovich), who could narrate practically anything and lend it a certain credence, talks of the bravado and bluff in the history of the energy-trading company based in Houston.
These interviews and Coyote's narration speak to the shenanigans going down at the once-praised company. The "macho culture" at the business is described, corraborated...
The 2005 documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is based on the book of the same name. Director Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, The Armstrong Lie) interviews the book's authors, journalist Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, along with journalists, political figures and former Enron employees. Peter Coyote (E.T., Erin Brockovich), who could narrate practically anything and lend it a certain credence, talks of the bravado and bluff in the history of the energy-trading company based in Houston.
These interviews and Coyote's narration speak to the shenanigans going down at the once-praised company. The "macho culture" at the business is described, corraborated...
- 7/29/2014
- by Elizabeth Stoddard
- Slackerwood
"Dogtooth" (2009)
Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos
Released by Kino
"Enter the Void" (2010)
Directed by Gaspar Noé
Released by Mpi Home Video
Somehow it's fitting that two of last year's most dangerous films will be hitting DVD shelves the same week, both being favorites of the IFC.com staff. "Dogtooth," Lanthimos' much-debated Un Certain Regard winner from Cannes, concerns the lives of three culturally isolated children -- two daughters and a son, who range from mid-teens to early 20s -- fenced in by their parents' country home, who receive a reeducation when their lone connection to the outside world, a female security guard for their parents' business, introduces them to the joys of sex and Sylvester Stallone films. Meanwhile, "Irreversible" provocateur Noé's latest is a wildly ambitious 155-minute extravaganza set inside the mind of a drug dealer told from the first-person perspective. Nathaniel Brown and "Boardwalk Empire" star Paz de la Huerta...
Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos
Released by Kino
"Enter the Void" (2010)
Directed by Gaspar Noé
Released by Mpi Home Video
Somehow it's fitting that two of last year's most dangerous films will be hitting DVD shelves the same week, both being favorites of the IFC.com staff. "Dogtooth," Lanthimos' much-debated Un Certain Regard winner from Cannes, concerns the lives of three culturally isolated children -- two daughters and a son, who range from mid-teens to early 20s -- fenced in by their parents' country home, who receive a reeducation when their lone connection to the outside world, a female security guard for their parents' business, introduces them to the joys of sex and Sylvester Stallone films. Meanwhile, "Irreversible" provocateur Noé's latest is a wildly ambitious 155-minute extravaganza set inside the mind of a drug dealer told from the first-person perspective. Nathaniel Brown and "Boardwalk Empire" star Paz de la Huerta...
- 1/24/2011
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
"This year was kind of a fluke and a freak," Alex Gibney said of 2010, the first 11 months of which have seen the release of three of his documentaries -- "Casino Jack and the United States of Money," "My Trip to Al-Qaeda" and his portion of "Freakonomics" -- and will usher in another this week with "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer," an investigation into the New York governor whose triumphs as a public official were quickly erased by his private indiscretions. If that description of Gibney's latest sounds vague when nearly every American could recount some of the most sordid details of Spitzer's sex life by heart, it's because "Client 9" unfurls a narrative that barely resembles the one laid out by the mass media in their rush to make a star out of prostitute Ashley Dupré and a goat out of the man some predicted would become...
- 11/4/2010
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
ComingSoon.net has interviewed documentary director Alex Gibney more than a few times going back to his Oscar-nominated doc Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room five years ago, and 2010 has been a particularly busy year with the release of his Jack Abramoff doc Casino Jack and the United States of Money , the HBO film "My Trip to Al-Qaeda" and a segment for the doc anthology Freakonomics . The year culminates with the release of Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer , a look at the former New York Attorney General and Governor who ended his political career in scandal after being caught having dalliances with high-priced escorts. Working again with Peter Elkind, co-writer of the book on which Gibney's "Enron" movie was based, Gibney has assembled...
- 11/1/2010
- Comingsoon.net
Opening to the tune of "New York, New York" as sung by Cat Power, Alex Gibney's latest documentary, "Client 9: The Rise and fall of Eliot Spitzer," from Magnolia and A&E Indie Films, looks at the Eliot Spitzer scandal, which forced the New York governor to resign from office in 2008. What the filmmaker unearths is more than just a tale of hypocrisy and sex -- he also suggests that a shadowy Wall Street cabal of financial and political figures conspired to bring Spitzer down. Gibney talked with THR about how he got Spitzer to talk, his foray into the world of high-class call girls and where he believes the real scandal lies.
The Hollywood Reporter: When the story broke, did you immediately see it as the subject of a documentary?
Alex Gibney: Right after it happened, my jaw was on the floor like everybody else's. I was...
The Hollywood Reporter: When the story broke, did you immediately see it as the subject of a documentary?
Alex Gibney: Right after it happened, my jaw was on the floor like everybody else's. I was...
- 9/11/2010
- by By Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Reviewed at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival.
There's something unusually fitting about the way "Client 9" will advertise itself on the promise of Eliot Spitzer showing some recalcitrance or regret in his first major interview since resigning as the Governor of New York when in fact that's not what Alex Gibney's documentary is really about. Longtime supporters of Spitzer will likely know this in advance, having understood long ago that the same intellectualism that powered his crusade as a state attorney general to bring transparency to Wall Street would also render him nearly emotionless when trying to rationalize something personal.
As Gibney tries to pry in "Client 9," you'll hear Spitzer toss off comparisons to Icarus and boilerplate contrition, but what's far more telling is how the ex-governor can barely suppress a smile when talking about bringing down former Aig chairman Hank Greenberg or facing off with disgraced New York politician Joe Bruno.
There's something unusually fitting about the way "Client 9" will advertise itself on the promise of Eliot Spitzer showing some recalcitrance or regret in his first major interview since resigning as the Governor of New York when in fact that's not what Alex Gibney's documentary is really about. Longtime supporters of Spitzer will likely know this in advance, having understood long ago that the same intellectualism that powered his crusade as a state attorney general to bring transparency to Wall Street would also render him nearly emotionless when trying to rationalize something personal.
As Gibney tries to pry in "Client 9," you'll hear Spitzer toss off comparisons to Icarus and boilerplate contrition, but what's far more telling is how the ex-governor can barely suppress a smile when talking about bringing down former Aig chairman Hank Greenberg or facing off with disgraced New York politician Joe Bruno.
- 9/8/2010
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
As part of what has been unofficially labeled the Alex Gibney Film Festival, Tribeca unveiled the prolific Oscar-winner's officially untitled work-in-progress documentary about former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer Saturday night to a packed auditorium of lucky festival-goers (it was the only screening of the film as part of this event and therefore tickets were highly in-demand). Those who made it in were treated to a lengthy, in-depth and surprisingly sympathetic look at a fallen figure, and at many moments throughout the presentation the audience roared with laughter, often at the expense of those individuals interviewed onscreen.
Temporarily titled Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, the film details the shamed politician's career from Wall Street-wrangling Attorney General to reform-bent state leader. Focusing on the many enemies and wrong kinds of "friends" Spitzer made throughout his decade in office, Gibney, with help from author Peter Elkind, speculates on the connection between the two,...
Temporarily titled Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, the film details the shamed politician's career from Wall Street-wrangling Attorney General to reform-bent state leader. Focusing on the many enemies and wrong kinds of "friends" Spitzer made throughout his decade in office, Gibney, with help from author Peter Elkind, speculates on the connection between the two,...
- 4/26/2010
- by Christopher Campbell
- Cinematical
New York -- Alex Gibney took the wraps off his work-in-progress doc about former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Saturday night at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The untitled film, which includes several interviews the filmmaker conducted with Spitzer about midway during A&E Indie Films' two-year production process, offers a largely sympathetic though occasionally critical look at Spitzer's accomplishments -- as well as his downfall and the suspected forces behind it. Allies and enemies, including former New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, also are interviewed.
The project was one of the most warmly received titles available for acquisition during Tribeca's opening weekend. Several films have emerged from under the radar to attract buyer interest, including the polygamy doc "Sons of Perdition," the poetic drama "Lucky Life" and the Vietnamese actioner "Clash."
As is traditionally the case at Tribeca -- and increasingly the case even in hotter markets like Sundance,...
The untitled film, which includes several interviews the filmmaker conducted with Spitzer about midway during A&E Indie Films' two-year production process, offers a largely sympathetic though occasionally critical look at Spitzer's accomplishments -- as well as his downfall and the suspected forces behind it. Allies and enemies, including former New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, also are interviewed.
The project was one of the most warmly received titles available for acquisition during Tribeca's opening weekend. Several films have emerged from under the radar to attract buyer interest, including the polygamy doc "Sons of Perdition," the poetic drama "Lucky Life" and the Vietnamese actioner "Clash."
As is traditionally the case at Tribeca -- and increasingly the case even in hotter markets like Sundance,...
- 4/24/2010
- by By Gregg Goldstein
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It has been two years since Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace as Governor of New York amidst a prostitution scandal. Reports starting with the New York Times tallied up to $100,000 spent on high-priced call girls over a period of several years while in office, possibly using campaign funds to pay for his illegal liaisons.
Meanwhile, Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has been preparing a tell-all documentary chronicling the details of Spitzer’s resignation with the help of Peter Elkind, who researched and wrote a book about the former politician titled “Rough Justice” (due out next Tuesday, April 20). As if the sexy topic wasn’t enough to pique interest, Elkind and Gibney also worked together on the Oscar-nominated film Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
A rough cut of Gibney’s film premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 24 and includes footage from four separate interviews with Spitzer where he candidly discussed the fall.
Meanwhile, Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has been preparing a tell-all documentary chronicling the details of Spitzer’s resignation with the help of Peter Elkind, who researched and wrote a book about the former politician titled “Rough Justice” (due out next Tuesday, April 20). As if the sexy topic wasn’t enough to pique interest, Elkind and Gibney also worked together on the Oscar-nominated film Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
A rough cut of Gibney’s film premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 24 and includes footage from four separate interviews with Spitzer where he candidly discussed the fall.
- 4/16/2010
- by Jeff Leins
- newsinfilm.com
A new Alex Gibney directed tell-all documentary about the Elliot Spitzer sex scandal premieres April 24th at the Tribeca Film Festival. The story of the downfall of the New York governor is supposed to stir up headlines when its work in progress print gets a red carpet premiere. Gibney collaborated on the film project with Peter Elkind, who turned his research into the book Rough Justice to be published April 20 by the Penguin imprint Portfolio. (An excerpt breaks today in Fortune Magazine ... before call girl Ashley Dupre is skedded to bare all in Playboy Magazine.) Gibney and Elkind previously worked on Enron: The Smartest Guys [...]...
- 4/14/2010
- by MIKE FLEMING
- Deadline Hollywood
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