Documentary Thread #2

[Really Big Shoe]

There's a fun ESPN 30 for 30 short called Bring Back SungWoo who's a South Korean baseball fan that brought good luck to the Kansas City Royals. 

[Egg Shen]

most of the 30 for 30 shorts are worth watching. They are on the ESPN website for free.

[Onyx2]

Surprised to see no mentions yet for Jim & Andy on Netflix. Watched it last night and it's disturbing yet kind-of enlightening at the same time. Jim Carrey was clearly transformed by the film and never came out the other side. He seems blissfully happy, yet the stuff coming out of his mouth is crackers.

And what a tool he was on set. It looked like Lawler was going to legit kill him. He said as much on his podcast. Am I being worked? I don't know but he sure looked mad.

It's definitely worth a watch.

[ColinBollocks]

I've heard some of the stories from the film for years, so it was finally nice to see a lot of footage. I wasn't too sure if Carrey was doing a Kaufman bit, or his whole "it doesn't matter" speeches are him trying to cope with the seedy wrongful death lawsuit.

A "Stone Cold" podcast with Lawler goes into a bit more detail about his relationship with Carrey throughout. Apparently Carrey sent him a box of vinyl records featuring wrestlers, as an apology.

The parts where in-character Carrey was talking to the Kaufman family was proper surreal, though.

Edited November 24, 2017 by ColinBollocks

[BomberPat]

I liked it, but came away with the feeling that it wasn't all it could have been. While I like the decision to basically let Jim Carrey's craziness speak for itself, it came close to feeling a bit of a hagiography in places, and that it lacked focus - it felt more like Jim Carrey piecing together the documentary made at the time, rather than the insight into his state of mind and creative process that I expected.

It might have been nice to have input from a few more people now rather than just in archive footage, and I think it missed a trick by not exploring the comparisons between Carrey and Kaufman more - you had this crazy triple-layer of characters where Jim Carrey is playing Andy Kaufman playing Tony Clifton, but they never really explored that, never really explained that what Carrey was doing in his portrayal of Kaufman was effectively a mirror of Kaufman's own approach, or a distortion of it.

He came across like an absolute tosser in the stuff with Lawler, though. That was the bit where it felt most like it was just an insecure man-child playing at being his hero, rather than this alleged genius character actor. Just chasing Lawler around his trailer doing a shit impression of Kaufman's "Memphis, Tennessee" promo. Back to that weird muddling of characters, you had people saying to him that Lawler and Kaufman were friends in real life, and him (as "Andy") refusing to believe it - so, what, who are you playing now? You're not playing Andy Kaufman any more, you're playing the character he was playing in Memphis?

 

[Thunderplex]

Possibly the weirdest thing I have ever seen.  Carrey’s ego shows no bounds in the slightest.  To have the gall to pretend to be a girls dad and “speak in his voice” just sent me cold.  The other relative interactions were creepy as hell too.  Lawler, who is more than used to dealing with unusual characters in improvisational situations just looks flummoxed.

[Astro Hollywood]

He might play it like he's outgrown labels to float around the cosmos, but everything I've seen of Carrey over the last 6 months suggests a man who is deeply, deeply depressed.

[SuperBacon]

3 hours ago, Astro Hollywood said:

He might play it like he's outgrown labels to float around the cosmos, but everything I've seen of Carrey over the last 6 months suggests a man who is deeply, deeply depressed.

This. Everything I've seen of him (including this) screams of someone who needs help and support. His behaviour strongly echoes someone I knew who ended up in a tragic situation.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

Jim Carrey has talked about being depressed for years, he was even going to write a book about it at some point over a decade ago but I don' think it came to fruition.

[dopper]

Paul Giamatti is one of my favourite actors, so I was hesitant to see him involved in this after reading that the cast & crew were all going along with and tolerating this method actor shite.

I was relieved to see Giamatti was barely in it, which makes me think he probably wasn’t playing along. He’s sat rolling his eyes in the background of a few shots and only speaks on camera once.

[ColinBollocks]

11 hours ago, Astro Hollywood said:

He might play it like he's outgrown labels to float around the cosmos, but everything I've seen of Carrey over the last 6 months suggests a man who is deeply, deeply depressed.

Indeed. His career as an A-list film star seems to be pretty much over and, obviously, he's currently getting accused of playing a major part in his ex killing herself, which has revealed all manner of seedy details about his private life. Not really a good time to be Jim Carrey.

[Jazzy G]

I've just watched the first part of more 4's history of spying with David Jason. Really interesting and it looks like Sir David's having a great time as well. I'm looking forward to the second part, anyway.

[rubbafish]

I put this in the film thread as I didn't know this one existed but one of, if not THE, best things I have seen this year is 'Forever Pure'. I can not recommend it enough.

 

[NoUseforaUsername]

The Thin Blue Line was rather revolutionary and ahead of its time. You can see its influence in a lot of later documentaries.

You couldn't script characters this interesting, the culprit and the man wrongfully imprisoned.

Not a big fan of docs but I was engrossed with that one so I reckon it'd be an unanimous like here.

[Egg Shen]

16 hours ago, rubbafish said:

I put this in the film thread as I didn't know this one existed but one of, if not THE, best things I have seen this year is 'Forever Pure'. I can not recommend it enough.

 

nice heads up, ill check that.