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Documentary Thread #2


Egg Shen

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Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade (2007)

A companion piece to the ‘King of Kong’ documentary.  Back in 1982, at the height of video arcades, Life Magazine did a piece bringing together the best video game players in the country, this documentary catches up with some of these men roughly twenty five years later.  Twin Galaxies and Walter Day, just like in King of Kong, are the backbone, Twin Galaxies having hosted the 1982 Video Game World Championships.  Naturally, Billy Mitchell features, and while still a tad arrogant he surprisingly doesn’t come off anywhere near as bad here as he did in King of Kong,  the accolade of prize prat belonging to ‘Mr. Awesome’ Roy Shildt.  Less than two years after the shoot, arcades started shutting up shop, the fame of the likes of Ben Gold, Darren Olsen etc. fleeting.  All have moved on in their lives, bar Leo Daniels who is still living like a teenager, although with one of them still living with his parents but having spent $300K on erotic art, another having a mail order bride in Mexico who doesn’t even speak English and another sleeping on the floor surrounded by vintage arcade machines and sharing his house with all manner of tarantulas, there is a sense of them being made fun of.  Tons of old, vintage footage and a fascinating look at this period of time.

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The Three Deaths of Marisela Escobedo (Netflix)

It struck me that the best two documentaries of the year are Mexican - this and Midnight Family. This one had two pieces of footage in it that will haunt me forever and they should everyone else. A difficult one to stomach, especially for anyone who has daughters or younger sisters, but also a principled and great piece of work. It's disappointing that Netflix haven't championed it like they do with their English language documentaries.

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Tales of the Grim Sleeper (2015)

I called time on this after an hour, with 45 minutes still to go.  A 2015 Nick Broomfield documentary about the 'Grim Sleeper', U.S. serial killer Lonnie Franklin, so named because of the belief he stopped killing for over a decade only to start again.  There's a story here to be told, however Broomfield wasn't up to it.  The entire documentary, that I watched, just seems to be Broomfield driving around the area where Franklin lived looking for people to speak to.  Rinse repeat.  I never thought I would find a documentary about a serial killer boring, Broomfield managed it though!

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Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb (Netflix)

Ahh this was a really relaxing and interesting watch, absolutely ideal for a quiet day off work. No talking heads or voiceovers, just lots of really dedicated people going about their work and translating their enthusiasm across perfectly. Can't see anyone disliking this even if you don't really care about ancient Egypt.

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The Comedy Store ( Showtime )

About half way through the 1st episode of 5 and this seems like it's going to be great, got all the big names as talking heads so far ( Letterman,Leno,Jim Carrey, Rock etc etc )

Just thought I'd put this post as I had no idea of it till this afternoon after watching an episode of the Bad Friends podcast

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The Vow - NowTV

9 part documentary about the Nxivm sex cult that Alison Mack was in. Utterly mental. It goes into detail of what happened and how Nxivm used self help to create a horrific pyramid of abuse. It has crazy amount of footage from the actual place because Keith Raniere (the cults master) had his people document absolutely everything. It's really interesting but it's way way too long. If you are interested I would skip eps 6 and 7 as it really rehashs a lot of stuff.

Seduced: Inside The Nxivm Sex Cult - StarsPlay/Amazon

This one started the week after The Vow finished but is from the perspective of one of the indoctrinated slaves. Much more palatable 4 episodes in length and I think because of that it's the better of the two. Having said that I'd recommend watching The Vow first. 

Both are fascinating and you won't get the full picture watching one or the other. Some of the stuff this guy says in front of hundreds of people cheering him is absolutely unfathomable. 

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