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.