The Death-Drive: Volume XI, Issue 1: Spring 2026

This Spring 2026 issue of CCR includes three reviews of documentary series about dangerous professions watched on HBO Max from Editor Anna Faktorovich. The Dark Wizard portrays the dangerous overlay between fame, business and relationships in the worlds of free-solo climbing, near-rock gliding and other death-defying tricks. 100 Foot Wave offers an opportunity to study how wild spaces and adventures are commercialized, while organizers pretend to be seizing power to help fellow competitors. Moonshiners explores how Discovery manages to fake realistic scenes of extreme criminal vandalism, theft, illicit liquor production and a myriad of other illegal activities while calling this show a "documentary", and yet insisting depicted crimes are all fake. The reviews section also includes a review by the now regular contributor Jeremy Freeman about death and self-hate in Together. And Jason Holt's essay argues about the blindness trope in the popular portrayals of martial arts on the screen.