Andrea James

Matt Yoka

‘Whirlybird’ Review: An Absorbing Look at a Sky News Pioneer’s Unconventional Life

Jude Dry Jan 29, 2020 12:39 pm The Tur family tale, in which a plucky young couple fall in love and raise children to a soundtrack of manhunts and forest fires, is undeniably compelling and an obvious fit for the…

Sundance Film Review: ‘Whirlybird’ Soars Just As High As Its Subject

BY TONI GONZALES -January 30, 2020 The history of Los Angeles isn’t in a museum that you visit. No, it sits on thousands of videotapes in a U-haul storage unit. Or, it did until director Matt Yoka and his team came along to convert…

Sundance 2020: Whirlybird

Matt Yoka beautifully weaves in archival footage with contemporary interviews.  One can look at Whirlybird as a time capsule.  The film captures around 40 years or so in the industry.  When it comes to the news business, it’s about being in the…

Sundance 2020 reviews: Day 4

Scott Renshaw on January 27, 2020 The central subject is the founders of L.A. News Service, a breaking news operation that began by chasing police scanner calls at street level in the 1980s, before taking to the skies with helicopter footage that…

Sundance Review: Whirlybird Explores the Adrenaline-Fueled Aerial News Game

Matt Cipolla January 28, 2020 It’s curious to see something like Whirlybird in a time when traditional television use is 1.) on the decline and 2.) retroactively looked as a precursor to today’s voyeurism. Director Matt Yoka frames the archive footage almost…

Sundance 2020 Review: The Sky’s the Limit in Matt Yoka’s Profound “Whirlybird”

JANUARY 26, 2020 11:15 PM by STEPHEN SAITO As Tur relates this fascinating personal epiphany, “Whirlybird” is bound to leave one about television news gathering as well, as both Zoey and Marika consider throughout the years how they’ve become desensitized…

The LGBTQ Films of Sundance 2020

by Daniel Reynolds Many of the year’s best films — LGBTQ or otherwise — gain momentum at the Sundance Film Festival, the annual cinematic gathering in Park City, Utah. This year’s queer offerings are the strongest yet. Below, see the…

Director Matt Yoka, Whirlybird on The Sundance Reel

By BARB BRETZ & LESLIE THATCHER In this segment of The Sundance Reel, Leslie Thatcher and Barbara Bretz talk to the director of Whirlybird, Matt Yoka, U.S. Documentary Competion entry in the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. #kpcwsundancereel #Whirlybird #kpcwlistenlikealocal #sundance2020 https://www.kpcw.org/post/january-24-2020-director-matt-yoka-whirlybird#stream/0

Sundance ’20: Senior programmer David Courier on this year’s ones to watch

By Daniele Alcinii January 22, 2020 Were there any emerging documentary filmmakers whose work stood out to you? There are also a couple of standouts in the U.S. Doc Competition: Whirlybird is the first feature from Matt Yoka. That film is a period…