Documentaries

[Bastet]

3 hours ago, GussieK said:

I am on a quest to get everyone on earth to watch the astounding documentary Rewind, on the PBS Independent Lens series. Is there a thread for that?

There's a thread for the Independent Lens series as a whole (not any individual threads for the films within it).

I recorded Rewind, but haven't yet watched it.

[EtheltoTillie]

10 minutes ago, Bastet said:

There's a thread for the Independent Lens series as a whole (not any individual threads for the films within it).

I recorded Rewind, but haven't yet watched it.

Thank you!  I will check it out.  Will be interested in what you think. 

Oh, I'm such a ditz, I had actually found that thread earlier and even posted something.  Please excuse!  Anyway, looks like no one was paying attention, so the more places it is mentioned the better.

Edited May 27, 2020 by GussieK

[suomi]

8 hours ago, GussieK said:

I am on a quest to get everyone on earth to watch the astounding documentary Rewind, on the PBS Independent Lens series. Is there a thread for that?  I haven’t found one. You can currently watch it on the PBS web site.

I'm glad I watched it at the PBS site because there were numerous characters and I could rewind to refresh parts of the story in my mind. I had to sit quietly and not so quietly for awhile when it was over, dealing with my thoughts. It will be available at PBS through June 10. 

Here are links to two articles, both contain spoilers and the second one includes a brief interview with Sasha.

Spoiler

https://itvs.org/about/pressroom/press-release/sasha-joseph-neulinger-s-rewind-premieres-on-independent-lens-monday-may-11-on-pbs-and-pbs-org

https://www.inquirer.com/entertainment/tv/rewind-sasha-neulinger-interview-sexual-abuse-documentary-pbs-20200508.html

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by suomi

[EtheltoTillie]

2 hours ago, suomi said:

I'm glad I watched it at the PBS site because there were numerous characters and I could rewind to refresh parts of the story in my mind. I had to sit quietly and not so quietly for awhile when it was over, dealing with my thoughts. It will be available at PBS through June 10. 

Here are links to two articles, both contain spoilers and the second one includes a brief interview with Sasha.

  Hide contents

https://itvs.org/about/pressroom/press-release/sasha-joseph-neulinger-s-rewind-premieres-on-independent-lens-monday-may-11-on-pbs-and-pbs-org

https://www.inquirer.com/entertainment/tv/rewind-sasha-neulinger-interview-sexual-abuse-documentary-pbs-20200508.html

 

Thanks for these amazing links.  Very good interview in the Inquirer. If you google you can find long ago coverage of the case in New York Magazine.  This was apparently a big story here in NYC, but I didn't hear about it at the time. 

Edited May 28, 2020 by GussieK

[Scarlett45]

Has anyone seen A Secret Love on Netflix?

[Irlandesa]

12 hours ago, Scarlett45 said:

Has anyone seen A Secret Love on Netflix?

I watched it.  I would say the focus is more on aging--how the women navigate how they spend their golden years, how their family wants them to spend it.  They do talk about their early years falling in love but more time is spent on whether or not they're going to stay in IL or go back to Canada to be near family members.

[Scarlett45]

7 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

I watched it.  I would say the focus is more on aging--how the women navigate how they spend their golden years, how their family wants them to spend it.  They do talk about their early years falling in love but more time is spent on whether or not they're going to stay in IL or go back to Canada to be near family members.

Yes I agree. I really liked it. 

[Trini]

13th documentary free on youtube; but I'm not sure for how long. I think it does a good job of showing how the USA got from the abolition of slavery to today's protests:

 

 

[kathyk2]

I loved the Netflix documentary Crip Camp. It's the story of a camp for disabled teens in upstate New York. The campers went on to lead the disability rights movement. This is history you won't learn in class.

[memememe76]

I thought 13th was good if exhausting. A lot of people were interviewed. This talking head format can tire me out. I also wonder why they basically stopped with the presidents GWB onward. 
 

As a Canadian, I was a bit uninterested in the governmental and institutional angle of racism and criminalization. I find what is happening so very uniquely American. We get the tv show Cops. Our news focuses on crime too. But our forms of racism take very different forms. Why? This documentary doesn’t really try to answer that. 

Racism and displacement exist everywhere but how it is formulated in the US is sooooo different. When one of the interviewees stated that 95% of elected prosecutor attorneys are white, I was less interested in that statistic but more about the fact that prosecutor attorneys are elected. 

[Kel Varnsen]

I realized that the Tubi streaming service has a bunch of documentaries on it (free with ads). Last night I watched All Things Must Pass about Tower Records (directed by Colin Hanks). It was good and while hindsight is 20/20 and I am also no business guy it seemed like that company was one bad decision after another that was just propped up by the crazy success of the music industry between the 60's and the 90's. Even if you ignore the internet it is amazing they lasted as long as they did, constantly ignoring the advice of the risk averse CFO and not realizing your customer base is getting older and already has the music they like, and there kids aren't anywhere near as big a population group. They even said they expanded into South America without doing any kind of due diligence and did most of their expansion on credit. Not to mention the company parties and other after hours activities were the kind of thing that would give an HR person at least a panic attack.

I also watched Man on Wire last week which was great, and a few weeks ago I watched Hype! about the Seattle music scene which I hadn't seen in years. It was still awesome too.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Kel Varnsen

[Bastet]

I watched #Anne Frank Parallel Stories when it popped up as a recommendation on Netflix last night, because I watch pretty much all (factual) Holocaust films that come my way and it features Helen Mirren (reading passages from Frank's diary).  But, oh dear, the hashtag is not just annoying in the title; part of the framing is some millennial silently traveling to various key locations in Frank's life and death, always posting photos to social media with painfully over-earnest reflections and hashtags for the world to solemnly nod along with.  Go away, random emo! 

The rest of the film intersperses (along with scholarly commentary providing historical background and drawing parallels between societal attitudes then and now) the thoughts written by Anne while in hiding with the present-day recollections of five Holocaust survivors who were around that same age when they were taken to the camps.  It's powerful testimony from a few of the remaining survivors, especially as they worry the world is already forgetting their stories. 

And while some may find Mirren overly theatrical in some of her readings, especially as juxtaposed with the survivors' accounts of their own adolescent experience, I think it works because she's not speaking as a contemporary looking back, she's speaking as a 14-year-old girl might have sounded in her own head when writing her feelings in real time.

So it's a good watch.  I just really can't stand the hashtag journey stuff (not to mention the fact I can barely make out the text of the social media posts on screen).  That probably means it's meant for a younger audience and - again with the worry this history is being lost at a time when it's so important to remember its lessons - I should just say whatever works. 

[Bastet]

For those who saw Audrie & Daisy and haven't yet seen the news elsewhere, tragically, now both girls are gone; Daisy Coleman committed suicide last night.  Her mom's announcement on Facebook breaks my heart: “She was my best friend and amazing daughter. I think she had to make make it seem like I could live without her. I can’t. I wish I could have taken the pain from her! She never recovered from what those boys did to her and it’s just not fair. My baby girl is gone.”

The number of people responsible for that young woman's death is staggering, and I doubt a single one of them (especially that morally repugnant sheriff) feels any shame over it.

[Shannon L.]

I don't know if I should open a new thread for this or not......

Robin Williams' final days detailed in touching trailer for new documentary Robin's Wish

 

 

On Demand:  Sept. 1st.

[Scarlett45]

I am watching Howard on Disney+, I am prepared to cry, which hasn’t happened yet but I did squeal at the footage of young Jodi Benson and Jerry Orbach!

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 7/5/2020 at 3:34 PM, Bastet said:

I watched #Anne Frank Parallel Stories when it popped up as a recommendation on Netflix last night, because I watch pretty much all (factual) Holocaust films that come my way

I finally watched Alain Renais's Night and Fog just last week.  I'd read enough about it to be duly warned, but still found it very disturbing.  I think that may end my career of watching Holocaust documentaries.

 

On 7/5/2020 at 3:34 PM, Bastet said:

I just really can't stand the hashtag journey stuff (not to mention the fact I can barely make out the text of the social media posts on screen). 

Damn, I hate it when there are texts or social media posts shown as part of a film.  Do they just not care that there are probably a whole lot of people who can't read it?  It's bad enough in a regular movie, but in a documentary, which is supposed to impart information??

 

On 6/13/2020 at 10:26 PM, memememe76 said:

Racism and displacement exist everywhere but how it is formulated in the US is sooooo different. When one of the interviewees stated that 95% of elected prosecutor attorneys are white, I was less interested in that statistic but more about the fact that prosecutor attorneys are elected. 

I'm not sure if you're clear on this, but it's only the head of the office who might be elected (e.g., a state's Attorney General, or a county's District Attorney).  All the other attorneys in the office, who are actually doing the prosecuting, are hired to work in the office.  (Although a DA might choose to prosecute a big flashy case himself, perhaps precisely because he's elected and wants the publicity.)

And actually, I don't know if all states elect their attorneys general and district attorneys, but I know that some do.

FYI, many jurisdictions elect judges, too.  For example, all judges in Texas are elected, from justices of the peace up to the Texas Supreme Court.  (Although the governor appoints justices to the Texas Supreme Court if a vacancy occurs.)

[andromeda331]

On 7/5/2020 at 3:34 PM, Bastet said:

I watched #Anne Frank Parallel Stories when it popped up as a recommendation on Netflix last night, because I watch pretty much all (factual) Holocaust films that come my way and it features Helen Mirren (reading passages from Frank's diary).  But, oh dear, the hashtag is not just annoying in the title; part of the framing is some millennial silently traveling to various key locations in Frank's life and death, always posting photos to social media with painfully over-earnest reflections and hashtags for the world to solemnly nod along with.  Go away, random emo! 

The rest of the film intersperses (along with scholarly commentary providing historical background and drawing parallels between societal attitudes then and now) the thoughts written by Anne while in hiding with the present-day recollections of five Holocaust survivors who were around that same age when they were taken to the camps.  It's powerful testimony from a few of the remaining survivors, especially as they worry the world is already forgetting their stories. 

And while some may find Mirren overly theatrical in some of her readings, especially as juxtaposed with the survivors' accounts of their own adolescent experience, I think it works because she's not speaking as a contemporary looking back, she's speaking as a 14-year-old girl might have sounded in her own head when writing her feelings in real time.

So it's a good watch.  I just really can't stand the hashtag journey stuff (not to mention the fact I can barely make out the text of the social media posts on screen).  That probably means it's meant for a younger audience and - again with the worry this history is being lost at a time when it's so important to remember its lessons - I should just say whatever works. 

I finally got around to watch it. I knew it would be emotional and it was. Mirren did a great job with her readings. Hearing the stories from the few remaining survivors were really good and really hard. It was well done. 

[Kel Varnsen]

I watched The Glamour and the Squalor on Tubi a couple of nights ago. It's about Seattle DJ Marco Collins who in the 90's worked for alt rock station KNDD and was the first DJ in the US to play Weezer, Beck and the Pearl Jam Vitalogy album (among other things). I could pick up KNDD from my home in BC as a teen so it was like reliving my youth. Plus it talked a lot about his background and personal issues and ended up being really good. Highly recommend for anyone who is into that era of music.

[Epeolatrix]

I really liked this doc, although yeah, some of that involves nostalgia. My Seattle friends and I were lying in wait for a good alternative station, some of the new DJs couldn’t handle local place names, and Lollapalooza was pronounced Lola Paloosa a significant amount of the time. I hated the grunge scene at the time because it overshadowed everything else and brought in hordes of people looking for the hot new trend, and it took years before I’d admit to liking any of the music. This makes a good double feature with the documentary “Hype!”.

[Kel Varnsen]

Hype! is also available on Tubi at least in Canada. I watched it last year and it still holds up really good. I am pretty sure the last time I saw it was shortly after it came out since I had it on VHS (although I am pretty sure I also saw it at the movie theatre at my university's student union).

[memememe76]

Netflix just released a new documentary called Found about three young Chinese-American women adopted by American families. Through an online genetic service, they find that they are each others’ cousins. They plan a trip to China, with a tour guide service that takes them to their orphanages, perhaps meeting the nannies that cared for them and maybe even their birth families. Emotionally heartbreaking but uplifting too. Loved it so much!

[Kel Varnsen]

A couple nights ago on Tubi I watched Bottled Up about the Dublin Texas version of Dr Pepper (which was made with cane sugar) and how corporate Dr Pepper basically shut them down for going beyond their bottler agreement. It was interesting but man did the corporate Dr Pepper take the worst possible option when it came to dealing with Dublin. They tried to sue them and then settled by buying out their territory and they don't make Dr Pepper anymore. And in the end the small company is trying to rebrand as an independent soft drink producer and the town is hurting from the loss of tourism. But I would think that if the main corp had just made Dublin Dr Pepper an official product with wider availability and the Dublin plant as home base for it that would have been a win win for everyone. Call it Dr Pepper Texas original or something and between hipsters and people who like old Americana type stuff you would have tons of customers.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Kel Varnsen

[Bastet]

I watched A Lion in the House on Netflix last night.  I love the late, great Julia Reichert's documentaries, and I'd heard about this one when it got so much acclaim at Sundance, and meant to watch it when it aired on PBS, but never did.  Nearly 20 years later, I finally saw it.  Filmed over six years (and edited over the course of a couple more) by Reichert and her husband Steven Bognar, in their first collaboration, it's about five pediatric cancer patients and their families at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.  At the time they were asked to do the film, Reichert's teenage daughter had just finished a year-long cancer treatment. 

While released in 2006, the production values look like 1986, but it's emotionally captivating, all nearly four hours of it (they filmed 525 hours of footage and the first rough cut was nearly 20 hours long). 

I got frustrated with a few of the parents, but appreciate that these families all really put themselves out there, and were candid looking back about the mistakes they regret.  Seeing what people will admit to the camera but not each other is interesting and intimate. 

The film did a good job - no surprise from Reichnert, but not something routinely talked about back then, and something she and Bognar realized as they filmed - showing that, while the hospital works diligently to reduce inequity in care based on parental ability to pay, there are still so many outside factors that create discrepancies.   

There are more deaths than survivals, so you've got to be in the right place emotionally to watch - it's truly heartbreaking - but it's worth a look if and when you are.  We really get to know these people - kids, families, and medical staff alike - and how they grapple with what's possible versus what's right.  There's an incredible moment when the medical team agrees a patient needs to be sent home for hospice care, and the doctor chokes up as he reads them a passage from The Plague by Albert Camus, in which a doctor who has watched children die prolonged, agonizing deaths, is told by a preacher that it passes human understanding, but perhaps we should love what we can't understand, and the doctor responds, "Until my dying day, I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture."

Watching the kids just being kids in the midst of their battle is profoundly uplifting; there's such a defiance in the innocence. 

[Kel Varnsen]

Just finished watching Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (on Tubi) and it was amazing. It was 4 hours long so I watched it over several days but it was such a good mix of interviews, live performances, music videos and historical footage. Definitely confirmed that Tom Petty was the coolest rock star ever.

A few interesting bits of information I learned from it: when Tom's house burned down (by arson) Annie Lennox replaced all his family's clothes and had new clothes sent to the hotel they were in.

George Harrison talked about how much he loved recording the Travelling Wilburys and how it was a much better and more collaborative experience than recording with "the other band".

They also talked about how when they recorded Damn the Torpedoes they wanted to focus on having a really strong drum sound. The interesting thing there is that they recorded it at Sound City studios. And I remember when I watched the Sound City documentary that Dave Grohl made it talked about how the main studio at Sound City gave a really strong drum sound.

[andromeda331]

6 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Just finished watching Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (on Tubi) and it was amazing. It was 4 hours long so I watched it over several days but it was such a good mix of interviews, live performances, music videos and historical footage. Definitely confirmed that Tom Petty was the coolest rock star ever.

A few interesting bits of information I learned from it: when Tom's house burned down (by arson) Annie Lennox replaced all his family's clothes and had new clothes sent to the hotel they were in.

George Harrison talked about how much he loved recording the Travelling Wilburys and how it was a much better and more collaborative experience than recording with "the other band".

They also talked about how when they recorded Damn the Torpedoes they wanted to focus on having a really strong drum sound. The interesting thing there is that they recorded it at Sound City studios. And I remember when I watched the Sound City documentary that Dave Grohl made it talked about how the main studio at Sound City gave a really strong drum sound.

That was really nice of Annie Lennox.

[Annber03]

9 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Just finished watching Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (on Tubi) and it was amazing. It was 4 hours long so I watched it over several days but it was such a good mix of interviews, live performances, music videos and historical footage. Definitely confirmed that Tom Petty was the coolest rock star ever.

A few interesting bits of information I learned from it: when Tom's house burned down (by arson) Annie Lennox replaced all his family's clothes and had new clothes sent to the hotel they were in.

George Harrison talked about how much he loved recording the Travelling Wilburys and how it was a much better and more collaborative experience than recording with "the other band".

They also talked about how when they recorded Damn the Torpedoes they wanted to focus on having a really strong drum sound. The interesting thing there is that they recorded it at Sound City studios. And I remember when I watched the Sound City documentary that Dave Grohl made it talked about how the main studio at Sound City gave a really strong drum sound.

I still really need to see this. I love Tom Petty's music, so it's nice to hear this documentary sounds like a worthwhile watch. Thanks for the overview :). 

Very cool story about Annie Lennox, too. Good on her. 

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, Annber03 said:

I still really need to see this. I love Tom Petty's music, so it's nice to hear this documentary sounds like a worthwhile watch. Thanks for the overview :). 

Very cool story about Annie Lennox, too. Good on her. 

It was really good. I also liked how even though Tom was the lead it talked about all the members of the band and gave them credit too. Mike Campbell is a super underrated guitar player.

The Annie Lennox story was cool. I never knew before but Dave Stewart from The Eurythmics co-wrote "Don't Come Around Here No More", so I guess that was Tom's connection there. Stevie Nicks also was in the movie and had some great stories.

[Annber03]

18 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The Annie Lennox story was cool. I never knew before but Dave Stewart from The Eurythmics co-wrote "Don't Come Around Here No More", so I guess that was Tom's connection there. Stevie Nicks also was in the movie and had some great stories.

I did know that about Stewart being involved with that song, but yeah, knowing his connection does explain Annie knowing them, too, for sure. 

And not surprised Stevie would be interviewed - I know she and Tom were really good friends. They always sounded great together on the duets they did. 

[Bastet]

Now that it has dawned on me a bunch of Showtime documentaries are available on Paramount+, I've been slowly working my way through the ones I remember wishing I had access to Showtime in order to see.

Last night I watched the Oscar-nominated Attica (2021), released 50 years after the largest prison rebellion in U.S. history.  My gods, it is infuriatingly good.  I knew the basics, but to see the footage of the massacre perpetrated against the inmates and hear survivors' descriptions of the horrors inflicted was downright harrowing.  Blanketing the yard with gas so no one could see, lying that no one would be hurt if they surrendered to the nearest officer, and then indiscriminately firing nearly 2000 rounds (at a group of people who had no guns of their own, mind you).  Firing as many racial slurs as bullets, calling "White Power!" in the aftermath, and wanting to go back in to finish more off.  In fact, keeping the torture going - survivors were forced to crawl through waste, stripped, sodomized with batons, and ultimately forced to run through broken glass to escape a gauntlet of club-swinging guards on the way back to their cells (and that's without getting into the specifics of what was done to the leaders* of the rebellion) - after the shooting stopped.

It is not for the faint of heart, but that's true of so many important films; I think anyone who's never heard much beyond the numbers (and especially anyone who's only ever heard it characterized as a "riot" or as Al Pacino's rallying cry in Dog Day Afternoon) should check it out.

Of all the times I yelled at someone through the TV, I think my most angry came when the guy who'd been Gov. Rockefeller's adviser at the time of the rebellion said, in present day, that sending in a bunch of corrections officers out for revenge and sleep-deprived troopers ill trained for such a situation, in a paramilitary offensive, was a terrible way to end things, that a reasonable mind should have stepped in and nudged law enforcement back to the negotiating table.  HELLO!  That is what members of the Observers Committee (who had become intermediaries in the negotiations) begged your boss to do -- come down there and show his support for the ongoing negotiation process -- and he wouldn't do it, because he wanted to cozy up to Nixon in order to enhance his own future presidential candidacy.

Second to that was probably at the archival news footage, in all its racist glory and repeating unchecked the Dept. of Corrections lie that the dead hostages had their throats slit (meaning they were killed by inmates), so hearty thanks to the medical examiner who said quite explicitly on camera the very next day a big fat no -- there are no slit throats, everyone died from large caliber gunshot wounds inflicted from a distance.  The hostages were killed by law enforcement, not inmates.

I wish there had been a segment on the myriad actions taken to cover up the officers' actions, but that would be very hard to summarize - it could be a sequel on its own, complete with a whistle-blowing prosecutor - and the focus on details was meant to be about what the inmates experienced over the course of the rebellion, including what was done to them to end it, not how those who did it to them made sure they escaped consequences, so I can't call it a flaw.

*One little thing I do think would been even better is to make clear those leaders, later targeted so viciously for retribution, risked the wrath of some of their fellow inmates by guiding a dozen injured guards, not just the guard who later died of his injuries (and whose death derailed negotiations) out to where they could receive medical attention.  The film details getting that one guard out, and includes footage of the guards held as hostages confirming they were being treated well (which, notably, is more than the inmates could ever say about those very guards), but that Quinn's rescue wasn't a fluke, that they got out all the injured officers they could (at risk to themselves), further speaks to the same thing that caused leaders to demand no others be hurt once the inmates had secured control of the yard:  There were myriad motivations and actions at play, some horrible, but for most among those who took point and set up the rules of engagement and negotiations, the primary purpose of the rebellion was to leverage the guards as hostages in their quest for basic human dignity, rather than to take violent revenge on those who'd deprived them of it.

Edited May 29 by Bastet

[Annber03]

@Bastet I am not familiar with this story, but your review of the documentary makes it sound absolutely fascinating (and horrifying). I'm going to have to make a point of checking this out at some point now. 

[Bastet]

Five years after its release, I finally (via Hulu) watched the documentary Ask Dr. Ruth.  It could have been better produced, but it's still a joy to watch because of its subject.  She is such an interesting woman!  I, of course, remember she was everywhere in the '80s, and how revolutionary it was for someone to talk about sex, especially female pleasure, in such straightforward detail, but I don't remember knowing anything about her personally, and don't even think I'd registered that she was orphaned by the Holocaust.

She grew up just outside of Frankfurt, Germany, and after her dad was taken away to a labor camp, he sent a postcard that she needed to go to Switzerland via the Kindertransport, so her mom and grandma took her to the station.  She never saw her family again.  As she says, her parents gave her life twice -- when she was born, and when they put her on that train.

The Jewish kids were basically used as slave labor at the orphanage, forced to cook and clean and take care of the Swiss kids.  The boys were allowed to go to high school in town, but the girls were only allowed to go to school through eighth grade.  So her boyfriend hid in her room each night to teach her what he'd learned that day.  She got into university (the Sorbonne) despite not having graduated high school because the school had a program where kids who'd been denied an education because of the war could take a test to see if they qualified for admission and she did.  She's fiercely intellectual, and committed to education as a means of connection to her late father, who constantly talked of its importance.

She kept a diary while at the orphanage, and kept every letter she received from her mom.  The film uses animation to accompany Dr. Ruth's reading of those entries and letters, and it's effective.  When it's been five years since the letters stopped, she writes about the near impossibility of holding out any hope.  During filming, she visits Yad Vashem and finally accesses the records to learn exactly when and where her parents were killed, something she'd never wanted to confront before.  There's a death date at Auschwitz for her dad, but her mom is listed as "disappeared", which disturbs her.

Sent to Palestine after the war was over, she was told she had to change her name (Karola) as it's too German; Ruth is her middle name, which she chose so that if anyone in her family survived, they could find her.  She wound up training as a sniper for the underground army!  And nearly lost both her legs in a bomb blast (and then tricked her handsome nurse into feeding her by hand by pretending she couldn't do it herself, heh).

She has been through so much trauma, and has accomplished so much in this amazing life by believing surviving that trauma gave her an obligation to "live large and make a dent in this world".  She certainly has, and is still doing it. 

The film does a great job of capturing how she is at once an international icon and everyone's Jewish grandma, making sure they eat.  And there's nice use of archival footage, including some yahoo trying to put her under citizen's arrest.

[andromeda331]

15 hours ago, Bastet said:

Five years after its release, I finally (via Hulu) watched the documentary Ask Dr. Ruth.  It could have been better produced, but it's still a joy to watch because of its subject.  She is such an interesting woman!  I, of course, remember she was everywhere in the '80s, and how revolutionary it was for someone to talk about sex, especially female pleasure, in such straightforward detail, but I don't remember knowing anything about her personally, and don't even think I'd registered that she was orphaned by the Holocaust.

She grew up just outside of Frankfurt, Germany, and after her dad was taken away to a labor camp, he sent a postcard that she needed to go to Switzerland via the Kindertransport, so her mom and grandma took her to the station.  She never saw her family again.  As she says, her parents gave her life twice -- when she was born, and when they put her on that train.

The Jewish kids were basically used as slave labor at the orphanage, forced to cook and clean and take care of the Swiss kids.  The boys were allowed to go to high school in town, but the girls were only allowed to go to school through eighth grade.  So her boyfriend hid in her room each night to teach her what he'd learned that day.  She got into university (the Sorbonne) despite not having graduated high school because the school had a program where kids who'd been denied an education because of the war could take a test to see if they qualified for admission and she did.  She's fiercely intellectual, and committed to education as a means of connection to her late father, who constantly talked of its importance.

She kept a diary while at the orphanage, and kept every letter she received from her mom.  The film uses animation to accompany Dr. Ruth's reading of those entries and letters, and it's effective.  When it's been five years since the letters stopped, she writes about the near impossibility of holding out any hope.  During filming, she visits Yad Vashem and finally accesses the records to learn exactly when and where her parents were killed, something she'd never wanted to confront before.  There's a death date at Auschwitz for her dad, but her mom is listed as "disappeared", which disturbs her.

Sent to Palestine after the war was over, she was told she had to change her name (Karola) as it's too German; Ruth is her middle name, which she chose so that if anyone in her family survived, they could find her.  She wound up training as a sniper for the underground army!  And nearly lost both her legs in a bomb blast (and then tricked her handsome nurse into feeding her by hand by pretending she couldn't do it herself, heh).

She has been through so much trauma, and has accomplished so much in this amazing life by believing surviving that trauma gave her an obligation to "live large and make a dent in this world".  She certainly has, and is still doing it. 

The film does a great job of capturing how she is at once an international icon and everyone's Jewish grandma, making sure they eat.  And there's nice use of archival footage, including some yahoo trying to put her under citizen's arrest.

Wow, I had no idea she went through all that. 

[Kel Varnsen]

Over the weekend I watched The Us Festival 1982: The US Generation Documentary. It was pretty cool. Most of what I knew about that festival came from that one line in a Simpsons episode. But that guy from Apple computer (Steve Wozniak) really spared no expense making what seemed like a pretty amazing music festival. It really seemed like he wanted to see an awesome rock concert, and instead of just paying bands to play for him, he paid them to put on a giant concert. Even though he lost millions doing it. It's annoying that other rich tech guys don't really try to do cool stuff like that. There was a cool story at the begining about how after the first brief meeting with the other festival organizers (who he didn't know) he wrote them a $2 million cheque to get them started.

Edited July 29 by Kel Varnsen

[Spartan Girl]

[Wiendish Fitch]

43 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Dammit, I wasn't planning on starting the day blubbering into my morning coffee!

Seriously, you bet I'll watch this as soon as it's available. I need a break from documentaries about scumbags. 

[Spartan Girl]

40 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Dammit, I wasn't planning on starting the day blubbering into my morning coffee!

Seriously, you bet I'll watch this as soon as it's available. I need a break from documentaries about scumbags. 

I looked to see if it’ll be at my Regal theater and it will be!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[Spartan Girl]

Saw Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story at Regal and dammit it was worth seeing it the theater. Oh man, just watching the old clips of Superman on the big screen was amazing.

It is a tough watch, though. I’m glad they showed his human side: the last movie he did before the accident was some movie where he played a paralyzed cop and he admitted in interviews while visiting rehab centers for the role that is first thought that he was glad he wasn’t really paralyzed…and of course he felt awful about that afterwards and wondered if the accident was karma, but come on, we can all admit it’s a natural first thought to have.

And hell, he did so much for the disabled community. Yes, it did touch on him getting crap from some disability groups that took offense to the idea of needing a “cure” but it did point out that him and Dana contributed a lot to caregiving advocacies as well, so they deserve credit for that too.

It did touch on how Christopher and Dana still struggled with what they lost. I cannot imagine how I’d feel if I couldn’t do the things I loved anymore. On the bright side, the accident did help strengthen his relationships with his older kids. Wasn’t expecting his ex (Matthew and Alex’s mom) to be a part of the documentary, but I’m glad they all still got along so well.

The memorial footage 😭😭😭😭. Robin Williams looked so broken up. Maybe Glenn Close is right and having Christopher around might have made a difference when Robin got his own diagnosis…

God, I still can’t believe Dana succumbed to cancer so quick. Poor Will lost both his parents in less than a year. Life really isn’t fair. But at least he and his siblings stuck together and are keeping up the good work.

I think you guys already know what the last shot in the movie is

 

Trust me when I tell you to go see this if it’s playing near you! Or rent it ASAP. As @Wiendish Fitchsaid, it really is nice to watch something about a true hero and not another scumbag.

Edited September 21 by Spartan Girl

[tearknee]

"some disability groups that took offense to the idea of needing a “cure”"

 

Those groups are just self-fetishising IMO. 

[andromeda331]

I always wondered how Will turned out. He already had so much to deal with as a kid but then to lose both parents while still a kid and less then a year a part. That really sucked.  

[andromeda331]

5 hours ago, tearknee said:

"some disability groups that took offense to the idea of needing a “cure”"

 

Those groups are just self-fetishising IMO. 

It's not. It's them being upset about being "cured" and "fixed". People with disabilites have always had people trying to "fix" them. As if there's something wrong with being deaf, blind, etc. They've always been treated like shit and having people trying to make them normal. Seeing people with disabilities as still people, individuals with love, laugh, having interests, dreams, etc has only been around for a couple decades. Before then they were treated like they weren't human, there was something wrong with them because they had a disability or didn't have a right to exist. They were treated like crap, or ignored, or hidden away, thrown into asylums, or people trying to force them to be normal. Not to mention sterlized. My cousin who was deaf grew up in the 70s and 80 I lost count of how many doctors and other "helpful" people with new ways to "fix" him so he will be normal or how many kids treated him like crap. We've come along ways but that was still only a couple decades ago. 

But when they hear about "cures" and people trying find cures. It's hard not to have a knee jerk reaction of what that meant in the past. I still have that knee jerk reaction. 

Cures are great. Advances are great. People trying to "fix" you isn't. People trying to make you their idea of "normal" isn't. 

One if not the biggest thing I think Reeves did was show people that someone disabled is still a person. They saw someone paralyzed from the neck down still living his life. He gave interviews. Still had a family. He was in commercials, helped to find cures, and so much more. He showed what someone paralyzed from the neck down could do and could still do. 

[Spartan Girl]

5 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

I always wondered how Will turned out. He already had so much to deal with as a kid but then to lose both parents while still a kid and less then a year a part. That really sucked.  

It was very hard for him, but he seems to have turned out to be a very fine man. 

[Palimelon]

Quote

But when they hear about "cures" and people trying find cures. It's hard not to have a knee jerk reaction of what that meant in the past. I still have that knee jerk reaction. 

Cures are great. Advances are great. People trying to "fix" you isn't. People trying to make you their idea of "normal" isn't. 

Yeah, but to be honest, and speaking for myself here, when all is said and done...if I suddenly was disabled in any way, as much as I would do my best to try and live with it and try to live my best life possible, I would be hoping and praying for a "cure". And actively supporting any charities I could that were looking for one. Granted, maybe the issue is we a need a better word than "cure".

[Mod-Tigerkatze]

Hi everyone, 

just letting you know that the posts about "Will & Harper" have been moved to the documentaries/Netflix category. (It kind of fits here and there but since it came to the moderator team's attention that a topic would be appreciated, we concluded to move it).

Happy chatting. 

 

[andromeda331]

Watching commercials of the Christopher Reeves documentary they show Robin Williams giving a speech praising Christopher for all he over came. It's hard not to cry at seeing Robin Williams and his speech.

[Spartan Girl]

9 hours ago, andromeda331 said:

Watching commercials of the Christopher Reeves documentary they show Robin Williams giving a speech praising Christopher for all he over came. It's hard not to cry at seeing Robin Williams and his speech.

The part of the documentary that showed Robin speaking at the memorial almost broke me. I had never seen Robin so choked up in real life.

Edited Yest. at 03:40 PM by Spartan Girl

[chediavolo]

10 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

The part of the documentary that showed Robin speaking at the memorial almost broke me. I had never seen Robin so choked up in real life.

Where is this streaming? 

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, Spartan Girl said:

The part of the documentary that showed Robin speaking at the memorial almost broke me. I had never seen Robin so choked up in real life.

Neither have I. It made me want to cry for Christopher Reeves and also for Robin, for the speech he gave and knowing that Robin later commits suicide.