Documentary Thread #2

[Rossman]

Spent the week watching the two seasons of the Sunderland documentary. What a mess of a club. All the facilities are there to be successful but they keep putting it into the hands of the wrong people. The passion is there but not productivity, repeating the same mistakes. First season, January transfer window, their top scorer left. Second season, January transfer window, their top scorer left. It balls'ed them up for the 2nd half of the seasons.

Really don't understand why they would buy a Cryochamber and never use it. Teams use them in the Premier League to speed up recovery time. Especially as they had a small squad and couldn't afford a lot of injuries.

If they want to get out of League 1, they need a manager who knows the division and has had past success at it. Although he lost in the play-offs and the EFL Cup final. I think Jack Ross did quite well, especially as he's a young manager, never managed in England or League 1 before and had his best player sold in the middle of the campaign.

I see the owner is now trying to sell the club, more instability. The fans seem to create a double edge sword for the club. They pack out the stadium and keep the club running but also expect to have a large voice in how it's run. The only way they will be happy is if, a large consortium of fans bought it and ran the club how they wanted. Then when it goes tits up, they can blame themselves.

[SuperBacon]

Kaiser! The Greatest Footballer To Never Play Football (Prime)

A cracking documentary about Carlos 'Kaiser' who 'played' for Brazil's top clubs, and a smattering of others. Except he didn't pay at all, was absolutely shit and he never made it onto the pitch at all. No interest in football needed, as it's such a good story and a fascinating subject matter.

Fear City: New York vs The Mafia (Netflix)

Disappointing, and really boring in places. Also, features way too much Rudy Giuliani. Is only 3 episodes though, so small mercies.

Home Game (Netflix)

Only watched two episodes so far, but they have both been crackers. First one was about Calcio Storico, which is basically a cross between rugby, bare knuckled boxing and wrestling...with a football. It is brutal, and some of the men in this are just beyond massive. 

And the second one was about Congolese wrestling, or "Catch Fetiche" which is a cross between wrestling and voodoo. Really interesting, and something I was not aware of at all.

[Egg Shen]

ohh didnt realise Home Game covered Congolese Wrestling, i'll check that out. One of that sports top stars has moved over into MMA recently.

[wordsfromlee]

I got reminded about Jon Ronson's documentary on Stanley Kubrick's personal archive called 'Stanley Kubrick's Boxes'. Well worth a watch if you're a fan of the man or the art film making.

 

[SuperBacon]

Last Chance U Series 5

Still the best sports documentary series around for me, and this time we're relocated to Oakland and Laney College off the back of a surprise State Championship.

Superb as always, and whilst it doesn't hit the dramatic heights of the first two series (not necessarily a bad thing), it does introduce us to my favourite coach over the 5 series, John Beam, 40 years deep in the coaching game. Just a top dude.

That's it for Last Chance U football though, but coming soon....Last Chance U Basketball series babyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

Anelka: Misunderstood

It's OK. Decent if you have enough of a passing interest in him, but massively skirts over some of his more controversial moments. 

[DavidB6937]

1 hour ago, SuperBacon said:

Last Chance U Series 5

Still the best sports documentary series around for me, and this time we're relocated to Oakland and Laney College off the back of a surprise State Championship.

Superb as always, and whilst it doesn't hit the dramatic heights of the first two series (not necessarily a bad thing), it does introduce us to my favourite coach over the 5 series, John Beam, 40 years deep in the coaching game. Just a top dude.

That's it for Last Chance U football though, but coming soon....Last Chance U Basketball series babyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

I haven't watched any since the 2nd season. Keep meaning to catch up.

Or I could just watch those again for Brittany.

[Cod Eye]

58 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

I haven't watched any since the 2nd season. Keep meaning to catch up.

Or I could just watch those again for Brittany.

It was never the same after they moved somewhere Miss Wagner wasn't. I could have fell in love with that woman!

[DEF]

Everything - The Real Thing Story - BBC iPlayer 

Really enjoyed this. It's a great documentary about a time and band I really didn't know alot about. I mean everyone knows You and Me are Everything but I really had no idea how big a band they were. It almost feels like they were slightly erased from pop culture or at least they have been in my own limited experience. But they have done tons of cool stuff.

It's a great look at their history but also 70s black British culture which again I haven't really been exposed to all that much. I've seen a bunch on 70s/80s black American culture but its interesting to hear about what it was like in Liverpool from a black persons perspective. Good stuff.

[Thunderplex]

10 hours ago, DEF said:

Everything - The Real Thing Story - BBC iPlayer 

Really enjoyed this. It's a great documentary about a time and band I really didn't know alot about. I mean everyone knows You and Me are Everything but I really had no idea how big a band they were. It almost feels like they were slightly erased from pop culture or at least they have been in my own limited experience. But they have done tons of cool stuff.

It's a great look at their history but also 70s black British culture which again I haven't really been exposed to all that much. I've seen a bunch on 70s/80s black American culture but its interesting to hear about what it was like in Liverpool from a black persons perspective. Good stuff.

Watched this last night.  Had no idea they were a bunch of avoiders before hand, thought they were part of Motown.  Cracking doc.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

Showbiz Kids, Bill S Preston's new documentary on kid actors.

I thought it was going to be a probing look at the dark side of child fame but it was more like a light overview of the history and every aspect of child celebrity (including the darker stuff). 

Even if it it doesn't dig particularly deep it's interesting because it covers so much. They show Elliott's audition for E.T which is amazing. I really enjoyed the stuff about the child stars of the silent era, toddlers working their arses off making dozens of rough slapstick comedies, wild.

[SuperBacon]

17 hours ago, DEF said:

Everything - The Real Thing Story - BBC iPlayer 

Really enjoyed this. It's a great documentary about a time and band I really didn't know alot about. I mean everyone knows You and Me are Everything but I really had no idea how big a band they were. It almost feels like they were slightly erased from pop culture or at least they have been in my own limited experience. But they have done tons of cool stuff.

It's a great look at their history but also 70s black British culture which again I haven't really been exposed to all that much. I've seen a bunch on 70s/80s black American culture but its interesting to hear about what it was like in Liverpool from a black persons perspective. Good stuff.

You might like this as well, https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000l426/rodney-ps-jazz-funk hosted by the don Rodney P, and focusing on the British jazz-funk scene of the 70s and 80s. Not my usual cup of tea music wise, but it's interesting as a fan of hip hop, to see how these scenes emerged in Britain at the time, and Rodney is one of my all time favourite people.

His one on grime is excellent as well. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bmq2tq/beats-bass-bars-the-story-of-grime as is this on pirate radio https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b096k6g1/the-last-pirates-britains-rebel-djs but sadly, his hip hop based one has been taken off the iPlayer. 

[Lenin]

On 8/6/2020 at 2:10 PM, SuperBacon said:

Anelka: Misunderstood

It's OK. Decent if you have enough of a passing interest in him, but massively skirts over some of his more controversial moments. 

I agree - i watched this earlier in the week and I was disappointed. I think I'm still getting over the fact that The Last Dance has ruined sporting documentaries for the foreseeable future for me - we really were spoiled by it!

However, Anelka: Misunderstood really has very little substance to it. Obviously, it was made using predominantly (EPL) archive footage to piece together his story and consequently there's nothing telling caught on camera. There are no intimate moments where you get a sense of the man behind the headlines. 

Left wondering what the point of it was as it sheds light/advances nothing about him or his career.

[RedRooster]

On 7/18/2020 at 4:11 PM, Frankie Crisp said:

Free Solo is on National Geographic at 7pm, for anyone who’s not caught it yet (or wants to re-watch it). It’s breathtaking stuff.

This is genuinely the best recommendation I’ve ever taken from the UKFF. It’s as visually stunning as it is nail-biting. It’s absolutely brilliant, I’m so glad I watched it.

If you have Disney Plus you can watch it there, stuff Hamilton.

[Frankie Crisp]

18 hours ago, RedRooster said:

This is genuinely the best recommendation I’ve ever taken from the UKFF. It’s as visually stunning as it is nail-biting. It’s absolutely brilliant, I’m so glad I watched it.

If you have Disney Plus you can watch it there, stuff Hamilton.

It’s incredible, isn't it? I was lucky enough to go to Yosemite last year and on the way there, the bus driver put The Dawn Wall on for us to watch.

It was intended to get us all excited and it did. It gripped me during the drive and I’d definitely recommend it now you’ve got a taste (it’s a bit hokey in parts), but the driver told us to watch Free Solo at home because we wouldn't appreciate it on a bus telly. He was right. That mad bastard had me on my backside watching it for the first time.

Definitely one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen; glad you thought the same!

[RedRooster]

9 hours ago, Frankie Crisp said:

It’s incredible, isn't it? I was lucky enough to go to Yosemite last year and on the way there, the bus driver put The Dawn Wall on for us to watch.

It was intended to get us all excited and it did. It gripped me during the drive and I’d definitely recommend it now you’ve got a taste (it’s a bit hokey in parts), but the driver told us to watch Free Solo at home because we wouldn't appreciate it on a bus telly. He was right. That mad bastard had me on my backside watching it for the first time.

Definitely one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen; glad you thought the same!

I’m conscious of spoiling the documentary for others so I’ll be careful about what I say here, but I found Alex Honnold’s personal life and inability to care about the consequences of his decisions almost as gripping as the actual climb, the documentary has so many layers to it and the last thing I expected was for this film to focus just as much on the potential heartbreaking consequences of the desire to achieve as it was the prospect of attaining the goal itself. It’s phenomenal storytelling.

It’s also the most visually stunning documentary I’ve ever seen and it’s not even close. I’d love to have seen it on a cinema screen, although I reckon I would have ended up with severe vertigo!