Documentary Help: "So Does Anyone Else Remember...?"

[hoosiermom]

Years ago HBO showed this about the OJ Simpson civil trial. It was from the perspective of one of the Jurors. (Hence the name "juror #5")Does anyone know where to find this? It was riveting and with all the new OJ stuff being shown recently, I would love to see this documentary again.

[formerlyfreedom]

Here is a spot to ask questions about documentaries you remember seeing in the past - "Does anyone else remember this?" or "Was this on HBO or another channel?" or "Where can I see this documentary?" or "What was this one called?"...

 

The questions do NOT have to be limited to HBO Documentaries and asking a question here does not mean the documentary in question won't get it's own topic. This seemed like a good starting place for the little questions that have been bugging us, and we think it could be helpful for more posters!

 

Please feel free to direct any other questions to me ( @saoirse ) via PM!

[CourtneyCourt]

Educating Peter! I loved it when it was on. I did some googling and saw there was a sequel. I'd love to watch it!

[LemonSoda]

Great topic! So many documentaries from/aired on HBO over the years haunt me, make me wonder where these people ended up.

The first HBO documentary I remember seeing was in the mid 80's about a woman named Suzy. She had AIDS. I think her son had it too. My memory is fuzzy on the specifics but I remember her. I remember a scene that showed her dancing years earlier. Seeing that in contrast with showing her sick, suffering was enough to sear in my ten year old mind that AIDS was very serious.

I remember a few different HBO O.J. Documentaries. The Juror one, one about his career, place in celebrity, society before the murders.

I'd love to see many of the America Undercover episodes again. Everything from the sad strippers to Dr Baden's autopsy.

Educating Peter! I'd love to see that again too.

[Mindymoo]

Autopsy with Dr. Baden was my jam! I can't find the episode where he performed the actual autopsy anywhere! My favorite was the one with the guy who had a pet cockatoo, and the pet cockatoo fought to the death for his owner during a home invasion. I will never forget that one.

[LemonSoda]

Mindy, those episodes are/was on HBO now. Oh I wish they would make more!

[Guest]

American Hollow was one of my all-time faves! They NEVER replay it but it is on YouTube. Think it first aired in 1999.

And needless to say, Living Dolls about Swan Brooner and her psycho mother on the pageant circuit will always be the greatest thing HBO has ever aired. I wish they would do a follow up or at least make it available in SOME format since its. It's not on HBO GO or YouTube.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Guest

[LemonSoda]

I loved Living Dolls too! I had forgotten it was an HBO documentary!

[funky-rat]

If you liked Living Dolls, there are two others, but they weren't HBO, so I hope I don't get anyone upset by mentioning them.

 

1)  Baby Beauty Queens - A&E

2)  Painted Babies and the follow-up Painted Babies At 17 - BBC

 

Both are very good.

[formerlyfreedom]

If you liked Living Dolls, there are two others, but they weren't HBO, so I hope I don't get anyone upset by mentioning them.

 

Nope, you won't upset anyone! We want everyone to feel free to talk about all the great documentaries they've seen in this topic! We realized that we needed a place to talk about documentaries that may not be HBO, but still should be shared. So ALL documentaries are fair game in this thread.

[funky-rat]

Ok.  Thanks!

 

Painted Babies has the advantage of a follow-up many years later, but Baby Beauty Queens really gets into the dirty part of pageants, where rigging and "who you know" matter most.

[Brooklynista]

Educating Peter! I loved it when it was on. I did some googling and saw there was a sequel. I'd love to watch it!

Graduating Peter was I dunno...sad? I was on the one hand glad to see the update on Peter but in the other I was sad to see how mucheap help Peter still needed in his day to day at 18. I know his mother had hopes that putting him in mainstream school would help advance him beyond where he was after graduation. One of the ending scenes was Peter still needing help tying his shoes. His parents were more advanced in age I'd love an update to see how they are now.

[Brooklynista]

Dope Sick Love.

Man, talking about loving hard. Those two junkies were so down for each other because they just couldn't not get high alone.

[ellenr33]

Living Dolls is on youtube guys!!!!

 

[Sheenieb]

No love for Hookers At The Point? I'm a little annoyed that it's not listed on HBO Go.

[LemonSoda]

Didn't Hunts Point ask HBO to stop airing it because they've cleaned up the area?

[Brooklynista]

Dope Sick Love.

Man, talking about loving hard. Those two junkies were so down for each other because they just could not get high alone.

[CherryMalotte]

Paycheck to Paycheck was a good one.  They ought to make members of Congress, the ones that don't want to increase the minimum wage, watch that.  

 

One I found especially harrowing was A Boy's Life by Rory Kennedy, about a troubled young kid in Mississippi.  I wanted to drive down and throttle the grandmother of that boy, even though she's probably mentally ill and it's irrational.  I hope he's doing good in his life now.  It seemed like by the end of the film when he was living with his mother he was much happier.

[candall]

I watched a string of HBO docs yesterday, on my regular HBO channel.  Susan Sontag, The Triangle Shirt Factory, Governor Ann Richards and Paycheck to Paycheck.

 

I'd seen a couple of them before, but I didn't realize Paycheck to Paycheck wasn't new.  That woman had an incredibly upbeat attitude--I was stressing out every time a kid coughed.  Also, God save us all from the nursing home.

 

While we're hogtying members of Congress, let's show them that Triangle Shirt Factory doc with the warning epilogue about the dangers of deregulation.

[WhitneyWhit]

I loved Living Dolls. What a colorful cast of characters. I came away from that documentary with so many questions. I hope Swan is doing okay.

I was 14 when I saw Living Dolls for the first time back in 1999 and was sort of traumatized by it. I never understood why my mom wouldn't let me enter any pageants, but I totally understood after seeing Living Dolls.

 

On the subject of Swan, she had a rough go at life. Her mom died not longer after the show aired, she then moved to Alaska to live with her dad, but he died, as of 2007, when this article was printed, she was living with her older sister.

http://jezebel.com/337184/swan-brooner-child-beauty-queen-not-so-merry-holiday-barbie

[Popples]

I was 14 when I saw Living Dolls for the first time back in 1999 and was sort of traumatized by it. I never understood why my mom wouldn't let me enter any pageants, but I totally understood after seeing Living Dolls.

 

I was almost the opposite, my mother wanted to put me in pageants, but didn't because they were too expensive. I don't understand why, because I wasn't that sort of child, I was more of a "stand on the stage and cry" type of girl. It reminds me of all the parents who say they put the kids in because it's an investment and they can get scholarships and bonds, but if they put the money they wasted on the pageants (hair, make-up, costumes, photos, etc.) in a box under their beds (let alone a savings account that could earn interest), they would come out so much further ahead. This point was really driven home when at the end the text said that Robin, Swan's mother, spent like over $70,000 on pageants, but the biggest cash prize Swan ever won was the $2500 at the end. The only people that could come ahead in that game were Michael and Shane; since they were coaches for so many contestants they were definitely in the black. Hell, one only had to look at that house to see that.

 

Living Dolls is one of my favorite documentaries, and I heard about Swan's life years ago, but I always wondered what happened to Leslie Butler. Michael and Shane seemed to be grooming her to go on to stuff like "Miss Teen USA" if not "Miss America/USA."

[Quilt Fairy]

On ‎12‎/‎28‎/‎2015 at 7:07 PM, CherryMalotte said:

One I found especially harrowing was A Boy's Life by Rory Kennedy, about a troubled young kid in Mississippi.  I wanted to drive down and throttle the grandmother of that boy, even though she's probably mentally ill and it's irrational.  I hope he's doing good in his life now.  It seemed like by the end of the film when he was living with his mother he was much happier.

This was one of the documentaries I was going to ask about when I peeked into this thread! Glad someone remembers it beside me. It was very disturbing. Any recommendations for how I can view it again?

There is another show I wanted to ask about that was in the same time period, about 10-12 years ago (Yikes!). It was a series of 3 episodes focusing on a group of high-school age teenagers in either the South or Appalachia. It was about their limited prospects for a good future life and how they were dealing with it. It was very bleak, some were living on SSI disability checks, doing drugs, etc. It might have been on PBS.  Anyone remember it?

[Epeolatrix]

Quote

It was a series of 3 episodes focusing on a group of high-school age teenagers in either the South or Appalachia.

Country Boys [a FRONTLINE special]? If this is it, you can watch the whole thing online on the PBS website.

"Country Boys is a 6-hour documentary film centered on Cody Perkins and Chris Johnson, two teenage boys from David, Kentucky. They attended the David School, a non-denominational alternative high school with a mission to serve underprivileged and struggling students. The film covers the 3-year period from 1999 to 2002 in which the boys' ages range from 15 to 18. It was directed by David Sutherland. It was a three-part edition of Frontline on PBS, with each part running for two hours, originally broadcast in January 2006. The focus of the film is Cody and Chris' struggles with the problems of growing up in a rural, relatively impoverished environment. In addition, both boys have unique challenges. Chris, growing up in a family without strong role models and parents who limit him in a variety of ways, struggles to motivate himself to do well in school and life. Cody deals with how to find acceptance among his peers and reconcile his Christianity with his alternative lifestyle." --Wikipedia

Edited June 8, 2016 by Violet Impulse
To add the 'watch now' link

[Princess Sparkle]

Does anyone remember Assault in the Ring from a few years ago?  It was about the Billy Collins Jr/Luis Resto boxing match where Luis Resto and his coach cheated with his gloves (I want to say he soaked his handwraps in plaster, and then removed the padding from the gloves).  In doing so, he damaged Billy Collins' face so badly that he could never box again, and he [Collins] committed suicide less than a year later.  The first part of the documentary is the director wanting to prove that Luis Resto didn't know the gloves were tampered with (something Luis Resto had maintained for years), but then he discovers a transcript where LR said he knew something happened with the gloves.  The rest of the documentary then mainly focuses Luis Resto admitting this to Billy Collins' family (at the time he died, he had a wife and young son) and asking for forgiveness.  There are some other threads in there as well, but those are the two main pieces.  I really enjoyed it - I'm not a big sports watcher, but I love sports documentaries - but unfortunately, this one doesn't appear to be available on their streaming service.

[Quilt Fairy]

On ‎6‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 10:48 AM, Violet Impulse said:

Country Boys [a FRONTLINE special]? If this is it, you can watch the whole thing online on the PBS website.

"Country Boys is a 6-hour documentary film centered on Cody Perkins and Chris Johnson, two teenage boys from David, Kentucky. They attended the David School, a non-denominational alternative high school with a mission to serve underprivileged and struggling students. The film covers the 3-year period from 1999 to 2002 in which the boys' ages range from 15 to 18. It was directed by David Sutherland. It was a three-part edition of Frontline on PBS, with each part running for two hours, originally broadcast in January 2006. The focus of the film is Cody and Chris' struggles with the problems of growing up in a rural, relatively impoverished environment. In addition, both boys have unique challenges. Chris, growing up in a family without strong role models and parents who limit him in a variety of ways, struggles to motivate himself to do well in school and life. Cody deals with how to find acceptance among his peers and reconcile his Christianity with his alternative lifestyle." --Wikipedia

Yes, that's it! Thanks, and I appreciate the link.

[Guest]

On 6/8/2016 at 0:22 PM, Princess Sparkle said:

Does anyone remember Assault in the Ring from a few years ago?  It was about the Billy Collins Jr/Luis Resto boxing match where Luis Resto and his coach cheated with his gloves (I want to say he soaked his handwraps in plaster, and then removed the padding from the gloves).  In doing so, he damaged Billy Collins' face so badly that he could never box again, and he [Collins] committed suicide less than a year later.  The first part of the documentary is the director wanting to prove that Luis Resto didn't know the gloves were tampered with (something Luis Resto had maintained for years), but then he discovers a transcript where LR said he knew something happened with the gloves.  The rest of the documentary then mainly focuses Luis Resto admitting this to Billy Collins' family (at the time he died, he had a wife and young son) and asking for forgiveness.  There are some other threads in there as well, but those are the two main pieces.  I really enjoyed it - I'm not a big sports watcher, but I love sports documentaries - but unfortunately, this one doesn't appear to be available on their streaming service.

Thanks for this! I saw this doc years ago and always thought it aired on ESPN and could never remember its name to find it again.

ETA: Found it on YouTube (ETA2: UGH! It's only a preview; I thought someone had uploaded the film):

Edited June 12, 2016 by Guest

[Quilt Fairy]

Can anyone recommend any of the current documentaries available on HBO, Showtime, etc.?  There're just too many to choose from these days.

[meep.meep]

On 6/20/2016 at 3:32 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

Can anyone recommend any of the current documentaries available on HBO, Showtime, etc.?  There're just too many to choose from these days.

I saw one on Showtime (I think) called Meet the Hitlers about people in the U.S. named Hitler.  Some of them are OK with it, others not so much.  They track down the final relatives of Adolph Hitler, descended from his brother Alois.  Part of it focuses on a couple who are neo Nazis and named their children after Nazis.  They order a birthday cake labelled "Happy Birthday Adolph Hitler" for their 4 year old son and all hell breaks loose.

I also saw an interesting Nine for 9 (like 30 for 30 but focused on women athletes) about a free diver who died attempting a world record.  Don't remember the title.

[Princess Sparkle]

38 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

I saw one on Showtime (I think) called Meet the Hitlers about people in the U.S. named Hitler.  Some of them are OK with it, others not so much.  They track down the final relatives of Adolph Hitler, descended from his brother Alois.  Part of it focuses on a couple who are neo Nazis and named their children after Nazis.  They order a birthday cake labelled "Happy Birthday Adolph Hitler" for their 4 year old son and all hell breaks loose.

I also saw an interesting Nine for 9 (like 30 for 30 but focused on women athletes) about a free diver who died attempting a world record.  Don't remember the title.

The Nine for IX one was called No Limits and it was excellent.  It's a shame that's one of the few ESPN documentaries not available on Netflix.

I'm going to take a look for Meet the Hitler's; that sounds fascinating.

[meep.meep]

Good luck.  I'm pretty sure it was on Showtime.  It definitely was not on HBO.

Why can't there be a general Documentaries forum?  There's this one for HBO, but there's no genre forum, like for sports.

[Princess Sparkle]

There's a documentaries thread in the movies forum (which I only know because I watch A LOT of documentaries).

[Epeolatrix]

Meet the Hitlers page on the Showtime website, from which you can stream the film (if you have Showtime). Otherwise, their site says you can rent/buy it from iTunes, Amazon, or Vimeo OnDemand,

[meep.meep]

There's an interesting HBO documentary called The Fence about the existing border fence in AZ and how effective it is.  Might be interesting viewing in light of our new President's fascination with building down there.  

[EtheltoTillie]

On December 5, 2015 at 2:44 PM, Sheenieb said:

No love for Hookers At The Point? I'm a little annoyed that it's not listed on HBO Go.

I am haunted by that show. Also another pair of docs about junkies from New Jersey that aired around the same time. At the beginning they showed them shoplifting from stores. Does anyone remember it?  

Edited February 19, 2017 by GussieK

[Guest]

Was that Life of Crime, @GussieK? That was from the early 90s or late 80s? They did a follow up in the late nineties, cleverly called Life of Crime 2. 

Heres a YT link:

There was also Dope Sick Love but those couples lived mostly in New York. My favorite was the girl whose dad brought them the ugliest leather jackets (he worked in the rag trade) I've ever seen. 

[EtheltoTillie]

1 minute ago, Giant Misfit said:

Was that Life of Crime, @GussieK? That was from the early 90s or late 80s? They did a follow up in the late nineties, cleverly called Life of Crime 2. 

Heres a YT link:

 

There was also Dope Sick Love but those couples lived mostly in New York. My favorite was the girl whose dad brought them the ugliest leather jackets (he worked in the rag trade) I've ever seen. 

OMG that's it! They started out stealing more than drug using, hence the tittle Life of Crime. Thank you, Misfit. I usually see you over at the court shows. I just found this forum today. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, GussieK said:

I usually see you over at the court shows.

That means we both have good taste in programming. :) 

[funky-rat]

On ‎8‎/‎2‎/‎2016 at 3:44 PM, meep.meep said:

I saw one on Showtime (I think) called Meet the Hitlers about people in the U.S. named Hitler.  Some of them are OK with it, others not so much.  They track down the final relatives of Adolph Hitler, descended from his brother Alois.  Part of it focuses on a couple who are neo Nazis and named their children after Nazis.  They order a birthday cake labelled "Happy Birthday Adolph Hitler" for their 4 year old son and all hell breaks loose.

I also saw an interesting Nine for 9 (like 30 for 30 but focused on women athletes) about a free diver who died attempting a world record.  Don't remember the title.

The "Happy Birthday" people don't live terribly far from me (about 2 hours).  I thought it was hilarious when his attempt to drum up sympathy by taking it to the media backfired on him, and he lost his kids (not sure if he ever got them back), and when it came out that he was leaving a whole lot out of his story.  That area is right across the border from New Jersey, but there are a ton of things nearby him.  His decision to cross over to NJ to a largely ethnic area was no coincidence.  He was looking to start trouble.  I was disappointed when a store agreed to make the cake for him. 

[Guest]

On 5/8/2017 at 11:45 AM, funky-rat said:

The "Happy Birthday" people don't live terribly far from me (about 2 hours). 

Confession: I started a Google alert those people once the story broke because they're a special kind of crazy (and also don't live terribly far from me either). Nothing in over a year -- when Heath Campbell (the father of Adolf Hitler Campbell) was arrested for assaulting his fiancee (because of course he found another woman to date him). 

I kind of irked me they chose to include him in that documentary. He chose the name Hitler (and Eva Braun and Aryan Nation) for his child/ren because he's a scumbag -- whereas the other people in the doc really had no say in the matter.

[funky-rat]

1 hour ago, Giant Misfit said:

Confession: I started a Google alert those people once the story broke because they're a special kind of crazy (and also don't live terribly far from me either). Nothing in over a year -- when Heath Campbell (the father of Adolf Hitler Campbell) was arrested for assaulting his fiancee (because of course he found another woman to date him). 

I kind of irked me they chose to include him in that documentary. He chose the name Hitler (and Eva Braun and Aryan Nation) for his child/ren because he's a scumbag -- whereas the other people in the doc really had no say in the matter.

Yeah, they were extremely scummy.  Name your kid Honzlynn Aryan Nation Campbell, and then say you're being unfairly persecuted because you're not a Neo-Nazi, but just very proud of your German heritage.  Jackass please. I'm 3/4 German.  I have family going back to some of the original Pennsylvania Dutch.  If it walks like a Neo-Nazi and talks like a Neo-Nazi......  I just hope his kids can have a normal upbringing with someone who can undo the damage already done.

I also have little patience for anything Neo-Nazi because my other 1/4 is Russian Jew.

[iwasish]

Does anyone remember an HBO doc about a young boy with cancer, I think it was in his mouth or jaw? He wrote a book about his experience for kids to read and the pictures in the book were used as sort of Chapter Titles in the documentary. He wanted to give other kids that had cancer an idea of what treatment was like. He said he wanted to be  Doctor when he grew up, he wouldn't wear doctors clothes though, he would wear street clothes so the kids would think he was cool and not be scared.  He had at least one younger brother and his parents that went thru it with him.  The mom would take him for treatments and the dad stayed home and watched the other son (it was a long trip and they were gone several days at a time I think.

I  think his prognosis was pretty good at the end. I'd love to know what happened to him.

[funky-rat]

Yes - I remember that.  But darned if I could find any trace of it when I looked.

18 hours ago, iwasish said:

Does anyone remember an HBO doc about a young boy with cancer, I think it was in his mouth or jaw? He wrote a book about his experience for kids to read and the pictures in the book were used as sort of Chapter Titles in the documentary. He wanted to give other kids that had cancer an idea of what treatment was like. He said he wanted to be  Doctor when he grew up, he wouldn't wear doctors clothes though, he would wear street clothes so the kids would think he was cool and not be scared.  He had at least one younger brother and his parents that went thru it with him.  The mom would take him for treatments and the dad stayed home and watched the other son (it was a long trip and they were gone several days at a time I think.

I  think his prognosis was pretty good at the end. I'd love to know what happened to him.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

On 12/5/2015 at 2:44 PM, Sheenieb said:

No love for Hookers At The Point? I'm a little annoyed that it's not listed on HBO Go.

I know these quotes are from forever ago but just discovered this topic with the forum reorganization.

Hookers at the Point is on Youtube or at least was when I watched it along with many of the other old HBO documentaries. Still wonder what all the hookers are up to today.

On 2/19/2017 at 7:30 AM, GussieK said:

I am haunted by that show. Also another pair of docs about junkies from New Jersey that aired around the same time. At the beginning they showed them shoplifting from stores. Does anyone remember it?  

Life of Crime is a great documentary. I am 100% convinced it inspired the creators of Trailer Park Boys.

Surprised nobody has mentioned the drug documentaries -- Black Tar Heroin, High on Crack Street, and Small Town Ecstasy. Tracey from Black Tar Heroin has been clean for about 20 years now and she now does drug abuse outreach and harm reduction education and has written a book. Alice is also clean and is now some sort of semi well known adult entertainer under the name of Malice McMunn and has a very different look with a mohawk and tattoos. She looks amazing for her age! According to Tracey, Jessica transitioned to a man, and both he and Oreo are clean but both prefer to live a quiet life.

I think Small Town Ecstasy has to be my favorite of the three though and definitely the most underrated of them. It's such a unique and bizarre story.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 2/12/2019 at 12:09 AM, BuyMoreAndSave said:

I know these quotes are from forever ago but just discovered this topic with the forum reorganization.

Hookers at the Point is on Youtube or at least was when I watched it along with many of the other old HBO documentaries. Still wonder what all the hookers are up to today.

Life of Crime is a great documentary. I am 100% convinced it inspired the creators of Trailer Park Boys.

Surprised nobody has mentioned the drug documentaries -- Black Tar Heroin, High on Crack Street, and Small Town Ecstasy. Tracey from Black Tar Heroin has been clean for about 20 years now and she now does drug abuse outreach and harm reduction education and has written a book. Alice is also clean and is now some sort of semi well known adult entertainer under the name of Malice McMunn and has a very different look with a mohawk and tattoos. She looks amazing for her age! According to Tracey, Jessica transitioned to a man, and both he and Oreo are clean but both prefer to live a quiet life.

I think Small Town Ecstasy has to be my favorite of the three though and definitely the most underrated of them. It's such a unique and bizarre story.

Just spotting this now.  Thanks for the mention of these.  I have never heard of Trailer Park Boys and will check it out.  I also have not seen Small Town Ecstasy. 

[BuyMoreAndSave]

1 hour ago, GussieK said:

Just spotting this now.  Thanks for the mention of these.  I have never heard of Trailer Park Boys and will check it out.  I also have not seen Small Town Ecstasy. 

Trailer Park Boys isn't a documentary, it's a comedy show. But the style of it has a lot of similarities to Life of Crime.

[BookWoman56]

On 11/23/2015 at 2:55 AM, LemonSoda said:

Great topic! So many documentaries from/aired on HBO over the years haunt me, make me wonder where these people ended up.

The first HBO documentary I remember seeing was in the mid 80's about a woman named Suzy. She had AIDS. I think her son had it too. My memory is fuzzy on the specifics but I remember her. I remember a scene that showed her dancing years earlier. Seeing that in contrast with showing her sick, suffering was enough to sear in my ten year old mind that AIDS was very serious.

I was much older than ten when I saw this documentary, but it was one that has stuck with me. It's called Suzi's Story, and it was produced in Australia, I believe. I've never been able to find a copy of it online. Suzi was American and some kind of dancer/performer but had moved to Australia when she met her husband, who was from Australia. She and her husband had a son. Among the many gut-wrenching scenes in that documentary is when she reveals her first thoughts when she got the diagnosis: "Oh, god, I've killed my baby." Her son contracted the disease before his birth, and he later died also. I can't find any references to it right now, but I remember reading that  his case resulted in some legal battles in Australia, with his father fighting for the right to send his son to a public school, at a time when schools were essentially telling parents of HIV-positive kids that they were not allowed in schools. 

The scene you described of her dancing was very moving, as well. For most of the documentary, the images were of Suzi in the last stages of AIDS, weak, shaky, and often bedridden. That clip of her dancing while she was full of life, joy, and good health was difficult to watch, but the documentary as a whole made the disease seem real in a way that other news stories had not, in the sense that she was not a celebrity but simply someone who had unprotected sex at a time when most women in developed countries thought oral contraceptives were all they needed to protect themselves against pregnancy, and any STD one might get was not serious. 

[BookWoman56]

On 11/24/2015 at 6:19 AM, Giant Misfit said:

And needless to say, Living Dolls about Swan Brooner and her psycho mother on the pageant circuit will always be the greatest thing HBO has ever aired. I wish they would do a follow up or at least make it available in SOME format since its. It's not on HBO GO or YouTube.

Those pageant parents scare the hell out of me. I saw this documentary a year or two after I had witnessed firsthand the BSC nonsense that goes on in those pageants. I was involved in putting together some training sessions for work that were held at a local hotel here in TX, where this nonsense is very popular, and had to be on site there for about 3 weeks. During that time, a children's beauty pageant was going on, that lasted 2-3 days. (I don't think the pageant itself was that long, but the parents and kids were on site early to rehearse and so forth. The ages were maybe 3 through 14 or 15.) 

I will never forget being out in the hall overlooking an open area adjacent to where the rehearsals were going on, when this mother began screaming at her daughter, who could not possibly have been older than 5 or 6. The mother yelled at the girl that she wasn't being "sexy" enough to win the competition and she needed to look sexier and more flirtatious so the judges would give her high points. And of course the mother bitched about how much she had paid for the daughter's costume, the travel expenses, and what a sacrifice she was making for this daughter, who wasn't appreciative enough to give the pageant her best effort. And of course anyone with half a brain could figure out that it wasn't the daughter who was asking her parents to be in these fucking pageants; it was the mom trying to relive her glory days of when she was young and attractive. The scariest part: Nobody involved with the pageant reacted as if this was abnormal or horrifically bad parenting. It was just kind of like, oh, what we poor parents have to put up with, with these ungrateful kids that we're spending so much money on. 

So when I saw the documentary a few years later, it was like a bad flashback. Those moms that want to recreate their own moments of being the center of attention for being pretty need to quit doing so vicariously through their kids. It just makes me angry that they're perfectly okay with brainwashing young girls that all that matters is if you're pretty and sexy. Because yeah, those characteristics are going to last forever and give you a great life. I don't deny that there are women who've made careers out of being attractive, with marginal acting skills or finding some rich idiot who's looking for a trophy wife, but FFS, the vast majority of these pageant kids are not going to go that route. 

[LemonSoda]

21 minutes ago, BookWoman56 said:

I was much older than ten when I saw this documentary, but it was one that has stuck with me. It's called Suzi's Story, and it was produced in Australia, I believe. I've never been able to find a copy of it online. Suzi was American and some kind of dancer/performer but had moved to Australia when she met her husband, who was from Australia. She and her husband had a son. Among the many gut-wrenching scenes in that documentary is when she reveals her first thoughts when she got the diagnosis: "Oh, god, I've killed my baby." Her son contracted the disease before his birth, and he later died also. I can't find any references to it right now, but I remember reading that  his case resulted in some legal battles in Australia, with his father fighting for the right to send his son to a public school, at a time when schools were essentially telling parents of HIV-positive kids that they were not allowed in schools. 

The scene you described of her dancing was very moving, as well. For most of the documentary, the images were of Suzi in the last stages of AIDS, weak, shaky, and often bedridden. That clip of her dancing while she was full of life, joy, and good health was difficult to watch, but the documentary as a whole made the disease seem real in a way that other news stories had not, in the sense that she was not a celebrity but simply someone who had unprotected sex at a time when most women in developed countries thought oral contraceptives were all they needed to protect themselves against pregnancy, and any STD one might get was not serious. 

Thank you for such a beautifully written response! I'm glad someone else remembers this! So much of the content went over my head at the time due to my age. All I really remember is what I posted. The contrast between the beautiful dancer full of life and the very weak sick woman has always stayed with me. 

Years ago when HBO still has forums on their site, I posted about it asking if anyone remembered it. A woman from Australia responded that there was a follow up to the film. I'd love to see it! 

To think of how far we've come on the issue of HIV, AIDS and medical advancements since then! I thought of Suzi when watching the AmFar documentary. 

[BookWoman56]

4 minutes ago, LemonSoda said:

Years ago when HBO still has forums on their site, I posted about it asking if anyone remembered it. A woman from Australia responded that there was a follow up to the film. I'd love to see it! 

I believe the follow-up documentary was about the son, and his father (plus maybe some other members of the father's family) caring for the son after Suzi's death. I'm sure it's inspiring, but I'm not really sure I want to watch a documentary about the son knowing that he succumbed to the disease. There's a brief article about Suzi on Wikipedia, but not much new information. 

[heatherchandler]

On 2/11/2019 at 11:09 PM, BuyMoreAndSave said:

I know these quotes are from forever ago but just discovered this topic with the forum reorganization.

Hookers at the Point is on Youtube or at least was when I watched it along with many of the other old HBO documentaries. Still wonder what all the hookers are up to today.

Life of Crime is a great documentary. I am 100% convinced it inspired the creators of Trailer Park Boys.

Surprised nobody has mentioned the drug documentaries -- Black Tar Heroin, High on Crack Street, and Small Town Ecstasy. Tracey from Black Tar Heroin has been clean for about 20 years now and she now does drug abuse outreach and harm reduction education and has written a book. Alice is also clean and is now some sort of semi well known adult entertainer under the name of Malice McMunn and has a very different look with a mohawk and tattoos. She looks amazing for her age! According to Tracey, Jessica transitioned to a man, and both he and Oreo are clean but both prefer to live a quiet life.

I think Small Town Ecstasy has to be my favorite of the three though and definitely the most underrated of them. It's such a unique and bizarre story.

Life of Crime - Is that the one where they get the receipt for laundry detergent and then try to "return" it to the store?  Where can I watch it again?

Small Town Ecstacy - Is that the one with the dad who started to use ecstacy and then turned into an embarrassing raver?