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ALL PURPOSE DOCUMENTARY THREAD


hammerva

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Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal

This is one of those documentaries where half of it is re-enactments but in this case Matthew Modine is playing the main character (Rick Singer)

From the folks who did the Fyre documentary

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Is the reason why HBO is creating these massive part documentary series is because of the lack of actual movies being in the theatres?    I mean I thought they would have learned from the Vow that you can make a 6 part series into 3 just as easy.

 

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4 minutes ago, hammerva said:

Is the reason why HBO is creating these massive part documentary series is because of the lack of actual movies being in the theatres?    I mean I thought they would have learned from the Vow that you can make a 6 part series into 3 just as easy.

I think The Vow is an anomaly.  It had its heart in the right place, but the pacing was horrible.  The pacing also felt off in the documentary that HBO did about the Slender Man attempted murder case in Wisconsin and that was only two hours.

The two hour documentary HBO did on the history of cybewarfare, The Perfect Weapon, could've been a bit longer, but then it might've been filled with too much technobabble for the average viewer.  I was transfixed because that's the shit I do for a living.

As to the why, documentaries are far cheaper to produce than original television.  Everyone's making them to fill out their schedules and queues.

 

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On 2/16/2021 at 11:53 AM, J.T. said:

The Takeshi 6ix9ine documentary debuting soon on Showtime Networks entitled SuperVillain:  The Making of Takeshi 6ix9ine looks fascinating in a very morbid way.

Funny, he came up in the Hip Hop Uncovered series on FX (which might as well go in this thread too). Ice T's quote about him was something to the extent of "I would prefer he didn't even come up in discussion."

That show definitely helped me out with some of the new generation rappers. There's already multiple dead guys who I haven't heard a verse of out there. Out of the main cast of characters (and these people are definitely characters in the personality sense) I think I liked Trick Trick the best. The "No Fly Zone" he instituted (a system where you had to contact him first to have a show in Detroit, effectively shutting out Rick Ross as a test case) was a hilarious combination of 'death to poseurs' (TM Sadus) mentality, common sense, and practically extortion. Also, his comments on Rodney King and Trayvon Martin were blunt as fuck and I'm sure the exact things POC think every time this shit happens. 

EDIT: To tie it into the length discussion, for six episodes at I think over an hour apiece it felt like it flew by. Maybe that's because of extensive commercials and me flying right over them on the DVR. 

Edited by Curt McGirt
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Where's My Roy Cohn? is something someone who you well know the name of uttered when under the pressure of the law. It is also the title of a film, a portrait of possibly one of the most vile human beings I can think of, and certainly one of the worst in the United States, which is a hard hard accusation to make in comparison to other contestants. The pure evil that emanates from the man's eyes in stock footage is so glaring, his hypocrisy and distaste for any empathy towards his fellow man so strong, that my knee-jerk reaction is to scream in rage and contempt. His link to the current lack of any sanity in this country is direct and damning. It is also terrifying.

Roger Stone was under this man's wing and doesn't even have anything good to say. He, of all people, actually tells the truth. What does that say about a person?

Edited by Curt McGirt
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On 1/4/2021 at 8:54 PM, hammerva said:

Granted there has probably been a ton of documentaries on this subject but it does look pretty good

 

Brilliant piece. I've never seen all these dots connected quite so beautifully, clearly and powerfully. 

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Just because I like to do this every year - here are the documentaries that were nominated for this year's Oscars (some of these have clearly been brought up before)

COLLECTIVE

In 2015, a fire at Bucharest’s Colectiv club leaves 27 dead and 180 injured. Soon, more burn victims begin dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life-threatening. Then a doctor blows the whistle to a team of investigative journalists. One revelation leads to another as the journalists start to uncover vast health care fraud. When a new health minister is appointed, he offers unprecedented access to his efforts to reform the corrupt system but also to the obstacles he faces. Following journalists, whistle-blowers, burn victims, and government officials, Collective is an uncompromising look at the impact of investigative journalism at its best.

Availability - For rent from pretty much every streaming service but not "on" any streaming service at the moment

 

CRIP CAMP: A DISABILITY REVOLUTION

 

On the heels of Woodstock, a group of teen campers are inspired to join the fight for disability civil rights. This spirited look at grassroots activism is executive produced by President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution premiers March 25th.

Availability - Netflix

 

THE MOLE AGENT

When a family grows concerned for their mother's wellbeing in a retirement home, private investigator Romulo hires Sergio to become a new resident and act as a mole inside the home. Sergio struggles to balance his assignment with his increasing involvement in the lives of other residents. Stream The Mole Agent, directed by Maite Alberdi, from the PBS documentary series POV

Availability - Hulu (Yes I am amused that you watch a PBS doc via Hulu). Also on Hoopla

 

MY OCTOPUS TEACHER

A filmmaker forges an unusual friendship with an octopus living in a South African kelp forest, learning as the animal shares the mysteries of her world.

Availability - Netflix

 

TIME

Fox Rich is a fighter. The entrepreneur, abolitionist and mother of six boys has spent the last two decades campaigning for the release of her husband, Rob G. Rich, who is serving a 60-year sentence for a robbery they both committed in the early 90s in a moment of desperation. Combining the video diaries Fox has recorded for Rob over the years with intimate glimpses of her present-day life, director Garrett Bradley paints a mesmerizing portrait of the resilience and radical love necessary to prevail over the endless separations of the country’s prison-industrial complex.

Availability - Amazon Prime

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Watched "The Last Blockbuster" documentary on Netflix.  It is one of those documentaries that features a ton of comedians so it is more about the funny and less on the detail.  But it was interesting to see how the store in Bend Oregon is still going on.    I couldn't figure out how she was making any money on this since she had to buy all the candies and drinks wholesale and even goes to Walmart and Target to get the most recent DVDs .  But seeing people from all over the country making travels to this one place because of money is maybe how they are still doing it.   The scene of Doug Benson traveling to the Blockbuster for a visit was pretty cool .   The other fascinating thing is that because it is a Blockbuster they have completely antiquated systems.   So if something goes down they have to use the parts from old desktops to fix.   

Didn't know that Netflix offered to join with Blockbuster and turned them down which has to be considered an all time blunder.   Although they blame the crash of 2008 on their demise more than Netflix and other services. 

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The Last Cruise

Using intimate footage recorded by passengers and crew, The Last Cruise is a first-person account of the nightmare that transpired aboard the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship, which set sail from Japan on the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The HBO original documentary The Last Cruise premieres March 30 on HBOMax.
 

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3 hours ago, hammerva said:

Watched "The Last Blockbuster" documentary on Netflix.  It is one of those documentaries that features a ton of comedians so it is more about the funny and less on the detail.  But it was interesting to see how the store in Bend Oregon is still going on.    I couldn't figure out how she was making any money on this since she had to buy all the candies and drinks wholesale and even goes to Walmart and Target to get the most recent DVDs .  But seeing people from all over the country making travels to this one place because of money is maybe how they are still doing it.   The scene of Doug Benson traveling to the Blockbuster for a visit was pretty cool .   The other fascinating thing is that because it is a Blockbuster they have completely antiquated systems.   So if something goes down they have to use the parts from old desktops to fix.   

Didn't know that Netflix offered to join with Blockbuster and turned them down which has to be considered an all time blunder.   Although they blame the crash of 2008 on their demise more than Netflix and other services. 

I watched this last night! First as someone who worked at a Blockbuster from 1993 to 1996, I don't have the same fond memories as everyone in this doc. I really saw the worst in people when I worked there, the way people would react to having to pay a few bucks for late fees, not having the movie they wanted or not renting enough movies for a Bonus Box was sad, I was called anti-Semitic slurs(I'm not Jewish but olive skinned) on multiple occasions and had to call the cops a few times due to customers making a scene over something trivial. Then there was the management chain of command, my first store manager was cool and ok with us college kids doing school work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, his replacement was a major league asshole who would only work morning/afternoon shifts, then the regional and district managers were a parade of mediocre white men who were out of touch with what type of business they were involved in, they were always baffled at our massive video game rental numbers. The store I worked at made me an Assistant Manager when I was friggin 19! They would have Assistant Managers close on Friday or Saturday nights and we'd have over $10,000 in cash at the end of the night, sure we were in a suburb without that much crime but that's a lot of cash, we had no security cameras, no security guard with that much cash around, no drop safe kind of thing like 7-11, just a safe with a push button lock and our wits to thwart being murdered by a robber. Also no armored car picked up the money, we had to drive it to the bank ourselves.

I have a cousin who lives in Bend and also owns some AirBnB's, it's pretty much a year round tourist destination, I can see them just getting by with the meager profit they make on rentals($3.99 for new releases), selling the old rental discs, sales of snacks, and Last Blockbuster merch.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/3/2021 at 7:33 AM, J.T. said:

Q:  Into the Storm

A six-part HBO docu-series attempting to make sense of the batshit insane QAnon conspiracy theory.

Yeah, so I'm watching this.  I know what the big reveal for the final episode is (the identity of Q), and it's kind of obvious by episode 2 who it is.  But holy god, are these guys all the most punchable people on the planet.  

But I think the biggest discovery (for me) and tragedy (for the Q people), is it appears all of this... ALL OF THIS... is a fight over how 8chan was run. ?  

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Watching the supporters on the first couple parts and kind of wondered if this is what people think internet wrestling fans are.  I mean we love to weave a web to get to what they want but seriously it is like Q was built to replicate the meme of Charlie from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia show with the map

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If you really want to creeped out, watched the first 2 parts of the John Wayne Gacy documentary on Peacock.  Complete with an interview from Gacy in 1992 I think explaining his side of things.  Had no idea how much influence he kind of had in the area.  And seriously the warning signs are a mile long 

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I forced myself to finish the final two episodes of HBO's Q doc, if you're interested in weirdos who live overseas to skirt US laws then it's the doc for you! To me it really missed the point, it doesn't matter who Q is/was or the feud between the 8chan people, 99 percent of the people who got sucked into the Q thing did so via Facebook, YouTube or Twitter not 4chan or 8chan and that's what should have been examined, they profited off it it way more than codemonkey and his dad and they basically used to same arguments for not removing that content those two did. If there was no Q the same people who pushed Q would have pushed another blood libel conspiracy and what happened the past few years would have still happened, just under a different catchy name.

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7 hours ago, Mister TV said:

I forced myself to finish the final two episodes of HBO's Q doc, if you're interested in weirdos who live overseas to skirt US laws then it's the doc for you! To me it really missed the point, it doesn't matter who Q is/was or the feud between the 8chan people, 99 percent of the people who got sucked into the Q thing did so via Facebook, YouTube or Twitter not 4chan or 8chan and that's what should have been examined, they profited off it it way more than codemonkey and his dad and they basically used to same arguments for not removing that content those two did. If there was no Q the same people who pushed Q would have pushed another blood libel conspiracy and what happened the past few years would have still happened, just under a different catchy name.

I think there may be value in showing normies what absolute losers and creeps are at the center of this thing that's warped so many people's minds. The criticism that there's a broader approach to take to the subject matter is valid, but clearly Cullen was taking a "sunlight is the disinfectant" approach to some of the major figures surrounding the 8chan and the Q drops, for better or worse. Hopefully some else makes that other documentary that doesn't get so bogged down in the gross, petty drama of Fred vs the Watkins family. 

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