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Documentary Thread #2


Egg Shen

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On 2/1/2020 at 11:24 PM, wandshogun09 said:

I only just got around to watching the Dark Side of the Ring series a few weeks back. Nothing really earth shattering (apart from Cornette suddenly deciding he was the mastermind behind the Montreal screwjob) but enjoyed most of them. Does anyone know when the second series is supposed to be out? Sure I read there’s going to be episodes on the whole Benoit thing and the death of Dino Bravo. 

I saw this posted on another board and the second season is due to premiere on 24th March with a two hour special on Chris Benoit.

Other topics in the season are:

  • The murder of Dino Bravo
  • The 'Brawl for All' tournament
  • New Jack
  • David Schultz and the John Stossel incident
  • The death of Nancy Argentino
  • The career of the Road Warriors
  • Herb Abrams
  • Owen Hart's death during a live WWF PPV

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/dark-side-of-the-ring-season-2-premiere-date-chris-benoit-vice-1203521655/

The Bravo and Argentino stories are the ones I'm most interested in, followed by Abrams.  Schultz talked an awful lot about the Stossel incident in his RF shoot interview, and had some additional footage that they showed, so not sure how much new information will be gathered from this one. 

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Cheers for that Magnum. Looks good. The Bravo and Abrams ones also stand out to me. I know little bits and pieces about both but not in any great detail so they should be the most interesting for me. The Benoit, Owen, Schultz ones etc, will be covering a lot of old ground but I’ll watch them.

I think the Brawl for All one might be alright but I’ve always had a weird soft spot for that shitefest. I’ve probably heard most of the main guys involved’s versions of events in shoot interviews - from Bart Gunn to Dr Death, Bob Holly, Steve Blackman and so on. But it’s a subject I’ll probably always enjoy revisiting. Because I’m bizarre. 

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Yeh, my favourite episode of the first season was the Gino Hernandez one because it was the story i knew least about. Id imagine for someone watching this series with a passing interest in wrestling it's eye opening stuff.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've watched a couple of 30 for 30 documentaries over the past couple of days.

First up was Benji about Chicago high school basketball star Ben Wilson who was gunned down and killed in the street the day before the start of his senior season.  The story was very reminiscent of the documentary about Len Bias, another young basketball star, who had the world at his feet, lost his life (albeit under different circumstances) and ending up being a "What if..." case.  Wilson was considered the best high school basketball player in the country when he was killed.  What was unexpected is that we hear from one of the people who killed Wilson, Billy Moore, an almost "poster boy" now, if you will, for rehabilitation.  The official story is that Moore and another youth tried to rob Wilson, when he fought back Moore shot him and he subsequently died from his injuries.  Moore claims that wasn't the case at all; that an argument ensued when Wilson barged past him, he showed his gun, expecting Wilson to back off, however Wilson lunged at him and then he shot him in self-defense and that the confessions they signed was done under duress.  Unfortunately one of the only other people who knows the truth, Wilson's then girlfriend and the mother of his child, declined to be interviewed for the documentary and at the time backed up the official version of events.  The murder had a huge impact on the town, tens of thousands attending his funeral, although some of his closest friends thought it did turn into a bit of a circus.  The family ended up suing the hospital for neglect (the hospital settled out of court) as, had there not been delays, he would've survived, while his mother, like in Without Bias, went on to become a campaigner for what killed her son.

What I like about these documentaries are even when they're about a sport I'm not really that interested in, the story is so engrossing and captivating, which is absolutely the case here.

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On 3/13/2020 at 6:21 PM, Magnum Milano said:

I've watched a couple of 30 for 30 documentaries over the past couple of days.

...

What I like about these documentaries are even when they're about a sport I'm not really that interested in, the story is so engrossing and captivating, which is absolutely the case here.

Absolutely. I signed up to ESPN just to watch the XFL one but I've been making my way through them all from the beginning, and they're all absolutely fascinating in their own ways. Even when I rarely know the background story etc.

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50 minutes ago, Magnum Milano said:

BBC4 are showing the incredible OJ: Made in America documentary tonight and continuing Tuesday and Wednesday (one episode this evening then two on each of the following days).  If you've never seen this before, watch it!

It's an incredible piece of work. So amazingly detailed and paced, its access is really quite something. One of the best pieces of TV or cinema I've ever seen.

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3 hours ago, Magnum Milano said:

BBC4 are showing the incredible OJ: Made in America documentary tonight and continuing Tuesday and Wednesday (one episode this evening then two on each of the following days).  If you've never seen this before, watch it!

I saw it all in one block at a cinema screening with the director doing a Q&A.  Kept everyone's attention for the entire time. One thing that makes it even more interesting from a UK perspective is realising just what a big deal OJ was, which we never really got here.

The director was lovely - I asked about the American Crime Story series that came out at the same time, and how he felt about the timing and content. He avoided seeing it, but had heard it was also really good. He got the oscar a couple of days later.

As a companion piece, the American Crime Story series is interesting too - doesn't cover quite the same stuff, and goes more into some of the stories around the other people involved (like Marcia Clarke having topless holiday pictures published by the press). Between the two, it's an astonishing coverage.

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The Tiger King on Netflix is an entertaining few hours.  The main guy in it was on a Louis Theroux show a few years ago about private zoo’s in the states that feature dangerous animals.  The Tiger King himself is a.....personality shall we say with an incredibly complicated life.  Worth a gander at least.

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Bruce Lee and the Outlaw

Currently streaming on Mubi, this is about a Romanian version of Edgar Friendly who gave dozens of kids somewhere to sleep. Pretty difficult to watch, as expected, but extremely interesting and balanced. Not too long either, so an added bonus.

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Spielberg (Google Play / YouTube rental)

No surprises here for anyone who is even a passive follower of Steven Spielberg's films, but still really enjoyable listening to him and his collaborators and peers talk about his most notables. Disappointed there wasn't more about Minority Report but the lack of A.I., which is crap, redressed the balance.

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Watched Free Solo on Disney+ and was blown away. Such a mental thing to do and really breathtaking on a visual level. Alex Honnold isn't exactly the most endearing subject, but you get a lovely sense of the people around him and the magnitude of what he's doing in terms of his task and it's effects on his support network.

Followed that up with Breaking 2, which isn't about urban dancing and features no Electric Boogaloo but instead chronicles an attempt to break the 2 hour marathon. It was only 55 minutes or so and therefore doesn't really give you much of a look into its subjects or the science involved but was a breezy enough watch and reinforces, for any athletics fans that Eliud Kipchoge is just a fucking boss.

After that I realised that I've had The Dawn Wall sitting on a hard drive for over a year, so I banged that on. In terms of visuals it's not as good as Free Solo, but in terms of telling a compelling story with people you care about it, it's leaps ahead. You are absolutely invested in Tommy Caldwell from about 4 minutes in, and the story of his life and how the things he's gone through inform his relationship with this rockface makes for beautiful storytelling. Loved it.

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