Jump to content

Documentary Thread #2


Egg Shen

Recommended Posts

11 minutes ago, Scott Malbranque said:

Finding Jack Charlton reduced me to rubble last night.
The one moment that broke, hurt, filled and warmed my heart at once was after all the things he was shown on the laptop that he had no recollection of - from fishing, to the 1966 World Cup Final, to many Irish moments, family moments - he sees a clip of Paul McGrath, smiles warmly and says "Paul McGrath!"
It won't be a documentary I'll ever watch again (purely for self preservation purposes), but it's certainly one that's raise awareness within me personally and is going to have a serious impact on how I perceive that poxy scourge, dementia, from now on.
 

Mentioned it in the other football thread, but on BBC2 tonight. An outstanding film. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness (2021)

Netflix four-parter that I've watched over the past week.  While the subject matter is the David Berkovitz Son of Sam murders, the documentary is from the point of investigative journalist Maury Terry who believed that Berkovitz wasn't working alone.  In a sense it reminded me of the I'll Be Gone in the Dark doc about the Golden State Killer and Michelle McNamara's obsession with the case, Terry being every bit as obsessed over this one as she was with that.  The evidence did seem to point to more than one killer, but the NYPD were content that they had their man so didn't feel the need to investigate further.  Terry does have a fascination with trying to link the kills to a cult and I'm not convinced on that one, and even when he does finally interview Berkovitz himself you get the impression he was telling Terry what he wanted to hear,  I enjoyed this although a friend who has also been watching it found it hard going.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The King Of Swing said:

Sons of Sam started well enough imo but completely lost me in episode 3 and I gave up early in episode 4.

A longer version of the first episode would have been better than the shite it turned into after that.

Edited by DCW
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

I read an interview with the director where he said he wanted it to be a cautionary tale about someone falling down a rabbit hole and getting so stuck in their own idea that they believe it contrary to all other evidence, and how you'll start just believing that everything you see supports your theory.

If that was the intention, he did a fucking shit job of it, because up until maybe the last ten minutes the whole thing is entirely sympathetic to Terry's version of events and never really settles into "but the mad bastard got it wrong" at all. I imagine most people watching it with no knowledge of the case will come away with it thinking Terry was right, just like so many people left Tiger King thinking that Joe Exotic was a Proper Legend and not an abusive, vindictive, animal torturing little prick.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been watching some documentaries on Amazon Prime and stumbled on 'Don't Break Down: A film about Jawbreaker".

It's basically about an effort to get the members of 90's Punk/Emo trailblazers Jawbreaker to get together in a studio and listen to old master recordings and heal old wounds. 

I'm a big fan of their singer, Blake Schwarzenbach from his subsequent band, Jets to Brazil, but he comes across as a proper mardy prick, full of his own self importance.

It's an interesting film though and a tragically typical story of a band imploding because the mainstream wasn't ready for them and the punk scene wouldn't forgive them for trying to break big.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
7 hours ago, BrodyGraham said:

I've been watching some documentaries on Amazon Prime and stumbled on 'Don't Break Down: A film about Jawbreaker".

It's basically about an effort to get the members of 90's Punk/Emo trailblazers Jawbreaker to get together in a studio and listen to old master recordings and heal old wounds. 

I'm a big fan of their singer, Blake Schwarzenbach from his subsequent band, Jets to Brazil, but he comes across as a proper mardy prick, full of his own self importance.

It's an interesting film though and a tragically typical story of a band imploding because the mainstream wasn't ready for them and the punk scene wouldn't forgive them for trying to break big.

I suspect @SuperBacon will have some thoughts on this doc as a big Jawbreaker fan. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, mim731 said:

I suspect @SuperBacon will have some thoughts on this doc as a big Jawbreaker fan. 

I love them, but have always preferred Jets To Brazil also.

Fantastic documentary, and worth watching if you have the slightest affection for that kind of music.

 

7 hours ago, BrodyGraham said:

I'm a big fan of their singer, Blake Schwarzenbach from his subsequent band, Jets to Brazil, but he comes across as a proper mardy prick, full of his own self importance.

He always was. Nothing new.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I watched The American Dreamer last night.

Being a big fan of Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood/American New Wave, it's something I've wanted to see for ages. 

It was made while Hopper was in post-production on The Last Movie and you can tell he's knackered and indulging in a lot of things he shouldn't be. The documentary is good and interesting as a snapshot of time, but a lot of it feels very contrived. He's obviously playing up for the cameras and the filmmakers quite clearly manufactured some of the scenes to make it more 'interesting'. 

Some absolutely fantastic fashion and home furnishings on display, mind, and worth a watch overall I'd say (though maybe more for Hopper fans). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
13 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

I watched The American Dreamer last night.

Being a big fan of Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood/American New Wave, it's something I've wanted to see for ages. 

It was made while Hopper was in post-production on The Last Movie and you can tell he's knackered and indulging in a lot of things he shouldn't be. The documentary is good and interesting as a snapshot of time, but a lot of it feels very contrived. He's obviously playing up for the cameras and the filmmakers quite clearly manufactured some of the scenes to make it more 'interesting'. 

Some absolutely fantastic fashion and home furnishings on display, mind, and worth a watch overall I'd say (though maybe more for Hopper fans). 

I watched this a couple of years back and while I hated it, it is at least better than The Last Movie, which is utterly awful. Hopper was a terrible director, The Hot Spot aside.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I watched this a couple of years back and while I hated it, it is at least better than The Last Movie, which is utterly awful. Hopper was a terrible director, The Hot Spot aside.

I find Hopper really interesting, even if he is an arsehole and, yes, not a great filmmaker. 

Just his whole personality, from his early studio system days and being a mate of James Dean, his photography, the exiled years and so on. 

But yeah, I had hoped for a lot more out of The American Dreamer. Of his other films, Easy Rider is obviously iconic and very important to the era and I enjoyed Colors, though I haven't see it for years and years. 

The Hot Spot is great, and I liked bits of Catchfire/Backtrack, which I watched relatively recently. 

Have you seen Out of the Blue before? I had an imported DVD version of it a while back and was put off because it was panned and scanned and looked like it had been recorded with a potato. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
32 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

I find Hopper really interesting, even if he is an arsehole and, yes, not a great filmmaker. 

Just his whole personality, from his early studio system days and being a mate of James Dean, his photography, the exiled years and so on. 

But yeah, I had hoped for a lot more out of The American Dreamer. Of his other films, Easy Rider is obviously iconic and very important to the era and I enjoyed Colors, though I haven't see it for years and years. 

The Hot Spot is great, and I liked bits of Catchfire/Backtrack, which I watched relatively recently. 

Have you seen Out of the Blue before? I had an imported DVD version of it a while back and was put off because it was panned and scanned and looked like it had been recorded with a potato. 

Oh yeah, he was definitely a great personality, and a great actor when he was tuned in. I haven't seen Out of the Blue, no. The Hot Spot is a great neo-noir.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...