Tag: Documentary

Is this the real life? Or is this just fantasy?

That is the question that you have to wonder sometimes with Documentaries. One of the reasons why I distrust them. How much was naturally caught on camera and how much was set up? I have a hard time believing that Bully was actual bullying, for that reason.

Paper Heart intends to be a bit gray, though.

We are told that this documentary is an idea made by Charlene Yi, who claims that she has never been in love and doubt she ever will be. So she wants to go around, asking people their opinion on love, from her friends (Seth Rogen, Demetri Martin, Martin Starr, and more) to people who have good stories around America. She also goes and talks to the quick wedding people in Las Vegas, tries on a Bridal gown, and more!

Oh, and she also falls in love during this documentary.

Love. Or something like that.

Good timing huh? She meets Michael Cera, yes, that Michael Cera. He is awkward, but he likes her and tries to get her to go out on a date and eventually succeeds. Jake Johnson, who goes by Nick in this documentary helps out of course because Cera is his bud. Once their relationship starts to progress, Nick decides it needs to be a part of the documentary too, because it fits the theme.

But is this a real romance, or is this whole thing just a super awkward and realistic mockumentary?

I would say while watching it, it is pretty hard to say. I of course looked it up afterward to figure out if it was all true, all fake, or somewhere in between. I won’t tell you what, because you can look it up yourself yo.

What I can say is that everything about this at least felt real. The stories that couples told about their love were very cute, despite the awkward puppet show during them. Everything felt genuine, and it made me feel kind of sappy.

When I bought this movie, I didn’t even know it was a documentary until I saw a trailer for like, a year later. But I like what I saw in this film, even if I have a hard time explaining just what it is.

3 out of 4.

Željko Ivanek.
Xander Berkeley.
Craig Fairbrass.
Bruce Davison.

These are all names that you may have seen before, but probably don’t recognize in big amounts. If you clicked their links and saw their pictures, you might recognize their face, but find that you can’t quite picture what you have seen them in before.

Timothy Omundson.
Mark Rolston.
Wade Williams.
J. C. MacKenzie.

Are you getting it now? These guys are those guys. Those character actor guys. The ones that make you go, oh yeah, That Guy…Who Was In That Thing.

These are the working actors, who don’t make million dollar blockbusters, and then can live at home with their family or months off not a worry in the world. These are the actors who aren’t doing it for the money, because their pay certainly isn’t a lot (unless they are a long running TV show maybe). These are the ones who love to act, who will do most any role, and sometimes even have to live paycheck to paycheck. These are the guys not going to be winning awards down the red carpet anytime soon. Nope. They can probably only get Emmys. Well that is not true, one of these guys was nominated for a Tony, but I forgot who.

It was one of these sixteen guys. Yeah. One of them.

Robert Joy.
Stanley Kamel.
Rick Worthy.
Paul Guilfoyle.

This documentary interviews all of these sixteen individuals and splices them together to tell a sort of story. We learn why they wanted to be an actor, what they were before acting, how their parents took the news, what their first big break was, what their favorite memories were, their regrets, the process into getting onto a new television show, what they have been doing lately, their interactions with fans when they have that “Oh shit, you are famous” moment, and their thoughts on fellow actors.

And that is about it.

Gregory Itzin.
W. Morgan Sheppard.
Zach Grenier.
Matt Malloy.

Honestly, early on, I was excited about this film. What a fun concept!

Then I got bored. Like, a third of the way in, I was already done. It seems like a good idea, to let us get to know these guys, and some of the stories were interesting. But I stopped caring pretty quickly. I don’t know if it is just the straight them talking format, and nothing else (because that is true), or what. But man. It turned into a snoozefest. I think it is only 80 minutes long, but it felt really really long.

Maybe the problem is that I just only knew like, half of these guys from things, and the rest felt like scrubs? Let’s go with that.

Either way. This documentary could have been a lot better.

1 out of 4.

Sometimes life really sucks.

That is the case for Shane Crone. Shane is a gay man, and he has been wronged by the world, and this is a documentary to show what happened in his life.

I know for a fact I have read the story that happens in Bridegroom before, at least a year ago. It was a sad tale, and I didn’t know that it was the main plot of this movie.

Basically, Shane was in love. He was in a relationship with Thomas Bridegroom for about six years before a tragedy took his life. An unforeseen accident, that for all purposes should not have happened.

But what happened after was even more unseen and, well I won’t say more unfortunate, but still really bad.

I won’t harp on a lot of the details, but long story short: Thomas’ parents did not approve of his lifestyle, despite the fact that he was with Shane for six years. Because they couldn’t get married, Shane had no say in what happened to Thomas post death and was cut out of his life in more than just the one way. He could not see him in the hospital, he could not lay claim to any of their combined things, and he was threatened by members of the family in order to keep him away from the funeral, which he also had no say in.

And that sucks. Like a lot. Like I couldn’t imagine anything like that happening. There are some bad people out there at all.

But on the flip side…there is no good reason for this to be made into a full documentary. Because all it does it spend most of the time talking about their relationship and the good times they had together, then the last act of tragedy and bad things happening. It didn’t delve into government regulations or laws, or even demand change. It just told the story of a relationship that ended and had a lot of bad things happen to it.

I know why they talked so long about the relationship, but really, most of it didn’t matter. This feels like it would have just made more sense as a euology for Tom, and not a film meant to make people emotional. Because honestly, I thought the documentary did just an overall poor job of telling the story and making me feel anything. Sure, it could be because I heard the story before, but having all of that build up didn’t enhance the experience, it just made me more apathetic.

On its own, this documentary doesn’t say much and isn’t too important. I again think it sucks that it happened, and hey, everyone should be married. Will this movie help change laws? Maybe. But it isn’t made effectively to help try and do that. This would have worked a lot better if it was cut in half, and the bad parts were given more screen time, in my opinion. But at 80 minutes, it even feels too long.

Not every bad event needs a movie. I am worried the director of the movie came by and wanted to do this just to make a quick buck, outside of just being crushed by the story. It seems a bit forced, and I just didn’t like it.

1 out of 4.

I have no idea where I first heard about Stories We Tell. But it totally happened sometime in the last 0-2 years. I think. It was either something I read, or a friend’s post on facebook, or a trailer. Shit I really don’t remember. Which is funny, because this documentary is about memories not being infallible.

Sarah Polley is an actress that really no one cares about. She had a major role in Go, but since then its been mostly random stuff. She has made a project to honor her mother, maybe. She has gathered all of her older siblings, her dad, her parents friends, and others to just tell the complete story of their mother, as they remember it.

The film on IMDB is described as “A film that excavates layers of myth and memory to find the elusive truth at the core of a family of storytellers.” We are told that basically their stories will show that not everyone has the complete story, that some people have contradicting thoughts about what happened and the only way to really know is to hear every single angle.

Angle means different person, not where the person is talking from in relation to where you are sitting.

But then I watch it.

And uhh, their stories really aren’t that different. A lot of people mentioning different things, but they are all really similar, so the stark differences we were promised don’t really come up.

I mean, this is no Rashomon, the first movie to have an incident occur, and people retelling it all have different memories, til we find out the truth is somewhere in between. It is now a pretty famous plot device. So we would hope for big differences in order for the time to be worth it.

What inspired this video was that she had heard rumors her whole life that her dad wasn’t her real dad. Surprise, it was true. The real dad knew he was the father, but he didn’t tell people. So that guy had part of the story that others were unaware of. A secret love. Maybe. The last line of the film makes us wonder if it was really that good of a love.

But here is the issue I have. Sure nothing crazy happens overall, this is real life. It is an issue a “Character” in the documentary brings up. People are talking for hours about her mom. This movie is less than two hours long. Sarah herself has to pick and choose what memories get told, leaving still an unstructured half truth of her mother, which is not what she set out to do. It is the exact same thing our mind/memories do, but at an editing table.

I just demand the 60 hour version, is all.

2 out of 4.

Bad Grandpa, Bad Grandpa, Bad Grandpa…

Well, it is presented by Jackass, and I can say I have never seen one of those movies in full, or the TV show, just random skits before that people have gone out of their way to show me. And this music video by Andrew W.K.

I literally have no desire to see people hurt them selves and do stupid things for amusement. Like, none. I am not high brow at all, not in the slightest, it just doesn’t seem appealing to me.

But this movie is different. So much different.

Like, this kid, who was the best part of Fun Size.

The “plot” of the movie is that Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) is old, his wife just died, and he is stoked. Too bad his only daughter is going to prison, and her son, Billy (Jackson Nicholl), needs someone to watch him and take him to visit his daddy in Raleigh, NC.

But Irving lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. That is far away. Fuck all that noise.

Well he does it anyways, and that is the backbone for this roadtrip film, which has the main goal of just doing ridiculous things and providing shock value to real people and our enjoyment.

And some stunts too.

Or fabricated little girl pageants in Raleigh just to confuse and bewilder people.

In case you can’t wait for the ending, I am giving this a 2 out of 4 for a few reasons.

Yes, it is at times entertaining. Some of the stunts/interactions are really creative. Nice moments. But a lot of the time they feel too far in between, or the joke takes too long to set up (so instead we are just given a lot of diatribe between Johnny Knoxville pretending to be a mean old man.

Speaking of that, this may be the only time I say this in a review but…

This movie has too much plot.

To be more entertaining, we need more skits, more hilarious interactions between real people and the actors. We have a lot of scenes just between Knoxville and Nicoll who in the car talking. And it is all bullshit, all stuff we would expect to see in a real movie, that feels just completely unnecessary in this film.

Similarly, because a lot of these scenes are so detailed, like the pageant, and that machine that crashes through a store window. That wasn’t just random, other people had to be in on it. So some of those other people are in the shots too, doing reactions as if its real, but you know they know its about to happen.

So to recap, this movie would have been a lot more entertaining overall if they just made more of it be real skits and less plot, and reduced the number of people who knew what was going to happen. Here is one thing I learned from the movie: The Guardians of the Children, a bikers gang, is incredibly fucking awesome, and they really believe in their cause.

2 out of 4.

Aw yeah, technically my first review of a stand up special ever.

Why this one? Why now? Well, I don’t plan on reviewing stand up specials pretty often. Not only because they mostly just appear on Comedy Central/HBO first, or some guys website for $5. No. They are just strange to review. I don’t know if I can measure my laughing amount on a scale too easily. In fact, most of these I do laugh throughout, except the occasional odd one out. It would be too difficult.

So why this one? Well, Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain was given a theatrical run, not in my area, but it still got one damn it, and I didn’t get to see it. Like a bitter ex, I have waited for it to finally come out on DVD just so I could review it for this website.

That tight clothing got even tighter when the fire came out.

Turns out the Trailer was very misleading for what this movie was about. It shows he went on a world tour, got into shenanigans, and did comedy. Like most concert films, all of the performances/material are actually taken from one show, and yes, that show is usually Madison Square Garden. But in between songs/performances, we normally get to see the performers doing fun stuff around the world. Not in this film.

I’d say about the first 15 minutes or so started off with a skit, and then went into travel the world mode, where we saw him for a few minutes, do zany things around the world. Then the next 60 minutes is his stand up routine presumably uncut, all in one go without any breaks, then the film ends with some more running around in the credits. That is it.

So basically, it is just another stand up special. There is very little not stand up special, and I don’t get to see what the trailer is about 50% of. So those scenes in the trailer? Most of them appear in the dang credits, so as the movie was ending I was more confused than anything.

As for Kevin Hart‘s stand up, sure it was funny. Most of this hour was dedicated to really long stories about his fame and overreactions. Some hit hard, some missed. Oh well. After it is over, I can only really remember a few that I truly laughed at, but for a comedy special, having those moments is still gold and still worth it.

I am just disappointed there is nothing really unique about this whole affair, despite being in theaters, and the misleading trailer.

2 out of 4.

So, Generation Iron came to town, so I had to watch it in theaters. My first question was, what in the fuck is Generation Iron? Basically, it is a sequel to Pumping Iron, a documentary that came out in the late 70s to introduce the world more to the idea of bodybuilding and Mr. Olympia.

The purpose of this one? I guess to remind us that Mr. Olympia and bodybuilding are still a thing, and they want attention, damn it.

Unless they are dressing up like ninjas, then they do not want to be seen.

The year, 2011, and Phil Heath has just won the Mr. Olympia contest, his first ever. In fact, he won with a perfect score. Could he be the next big deal?

Well, he thinks so, he is a cocky son of a bitch, who talks about perfection, and just trying to beat himself at this point.

This film details the lives of several current big name body builders who hope to take the title, and who are going through many different paths to achieve that goal. A lot of names, could list them all, but I just want to note Kai Greene, who looks way too friendly to be a body builder, and Dennis Wolf, who is the real life incarnation of Rainier Wolfcastle.

The film talks about it all. Science, training regiments, heart, why they get so bronzed up before a competition, and steroids. Yes, even steroids. They don’t avoid the subject, they talk about it straight on…just…uneasily.

Also a lot of guest stars. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Busta Rhymes, Michael Jai White, and awkwardly narrated by Mickey Rourke. Why awkward? Well, because he didn’t really add much to to it. Just said some stuff, usually poetic, every once in awhile. Kind of creeped me out.

Then it of course goes into the 2012 Mr. Olympia contest, showing us how its all done, and yeah. Movie! Woo weights!

If they knew how to fight, they could kick all of our asses.

Again, documentaries are kind of strange to review, but here is my attempt. This movie gave a really good view of bodybuilding from what felt a neutral stand point. Despite Phil being the winner, they didn’t attempt to show him in a positive light, they let him be himself (and he is apparently an egotistical asshole. Alright, maybe they hate him and it was cut that way?). We got to see the good and bad of lots of contenders, who come from many different backgrounds and abilities. I loved its neutrality on all the issues, and the fact that they even brought up steroids. Made me happy.

I am not a fan of these competitions, because they are just so damn biased, they don’t make much sense to me. Why do all the champions win so many times in a row? Probably because the judges are just making shit up and basing it off of who has won before and who should win now. That is my guess. Kind of hard to ignore. No real way to do a blind taste test.

In general, the Mr. Olympia show looks like shit. Especially in 2012, when there is no suspense as to who will win. Why? Because they will call certain competitors back out to get second look, but only if they are the top overall people. If they suck, they don’t want to see you again. They just give extra time to the people who they like, so again, no real suspense, seems pointless to me. They should give everyone equal time, more fair.

But eh. It is an okay movie. I think it was too long, had some boring stretches, and I forgot the difference between a few people. Phil wins 2012, which is not a spoiler, because the 2013 competition has already happened when this came out in theaters. That is three in a row for Phil. They should really get this out quicker, its already old and awkward. Can’t be too hard to polish up a documentary.

2 out of 4.

A lot of buzz over the documentary Blackfish. What have I heard? So many people who have seen this documentary have swore off ever going to Sea World again for the rest of their life.

Shit, a film attacking Sea World? This might be interesting. Or sad. Crap, it is probably going to be sad.

I don’t really know what to do for pictures here. Here is an Orca!

The TL;DR version, Blackfish looks at Sea World and two other sea themed areas, and their track records with the Killer Whale. They never really call them Orcas at all, always Killer Whale. Probably intentional.

Now, I figured this would clearly be about the mistreating of these Orcas in captivity, bad conditions, whatever. Turns out, no, it is about the Orcas hurting humans and Sea World not giving a shit. Oh okay, less powerful subject. After all, I am fairly confident I will go throughout my life without getting eaten by an Orca. I will just not try to train them or hang out with them in the wild. I ain’t trying to get fed to water mammals.

This is basically the story of Tilikum, a famous Sea World male Orca. He was captured young, went to a place called Sea Land with two bigger females who pushed him around when he was in shitty conditions at night. Cramped quarters. Eventually he lashed out at an employee, Sea Land was shut down, and he was sold to Sea World.

He then attacked more people, killing them, including a case in 2010 that is still being fought in the courts. The courts rules that Sea World can no longer let trainers play on or with Orcas, but must always be behind a barrier of some sort, which Sea World is trying to fight. They claim that it is all trailer error, not aggressive animals. This documentary claims otherwise.

They are not saying Orcas are normally aggressive, as no human has been a victim in the wild (probably because they live all fucking cold climates where no humans live), but they are only aggressive because of being trapped in tanks, and not getting rewards too often for good behavior.

Ah. So that is the documentary. Multiple trainers have lost their lives, and some have had close calls. The documentary also pointed out that over 50% of Orcas that Sea World currently own are the result of the spawn of Tilikum, and that is bad. I think that is most of the movie.

Yep, still drawing a blank. TWO ORCAS.

You know what sucks? Dying to animal. We should be on top of the food chain. We lose it a bit when we enter the water though.

Know what sucks more? Your company then blaming you for your own death, and not the animal. Shit, if a dog bites someone, unfortunately, they might get put down. But if a whale does it, then it is apparently okay.

But do we need a whole documentary telling us the Sea World executives are assholes? Not really. This film is less than 90 minutes, with lots of testimonials from former employees, or people who were there when victims lost their lives, and that was disturbing to hear. But the movie just made me dislike Orcas more so than Sea World, really. Maybe we can give them bigger environments to live in?

I am definitely not anti-zoo, because the zoos where animals are in small cages really don’t exist anymore. They give them natural habitats and they increase public awareness of these animals, and are great educational tools. So is Sea World in that regard. I don’t think people should be dying if they get assigned Orca duty though. So the court made them stop, end of story, we should be good, right? Seems almost like it is unnecessary now, because the court already ruled against Sea World. This documentary literally brings up a problem, and also has it solved by the end, so I really don’t understand the point.

The point that they should be freed? Maybe. But I don’t trust you documentary. The fact that over half of the Orcas are now the spawn of Tilikum means jack shit. Aggression is not something attached to genes and passed on to children, so the point is really mute.

Hey Sea World. Don’t let your employees die. Treat your stuff a little better. No I am not boycotting. If I move to Texas, you know damn well I am going to get my seal on.

2 out of 4.

I definitely picked up Room 237 on a whim. The cover looked interesting. I was guessing it was an indie romp or some sort of hippie horror film. All of those hexagons yo. Who knows what was going on there?

Maybe indie hippie horror? Who knows.

Well, I was wrong. Room 237 is a documentary. A documentary about a movie. What movie? The Shining, of course. There are a lot of theories about this movie, it turns out, and I am about to watch a documentary going over a lot of them…

…

Yay!…

Ah, now I understand the hexagons.

Alright, so the whole movie is basically dialogue, spliced over mostly scenes from The Shining. Either randomish scenes, or scenes directly being talked about, with helpful arrows and slow motion when necessary. There are other scenes from Kubrick films too, and then a few random ass ones, but mostly The Shining. That makes sense.

The people talking? We don’t see any of them. Just hear their voices. Who are they? Mostly all random fans of The Shining, with their own forms of analysis and what they got and saw out of the film. Some of them might be actual “film experts,” hard to say, since we are just flashed their name and given their words.

So you are probably wondering what theories they had, yeah? Well, I won’t spend any time explaining them, but here are some thoughts!

The Shining is about the Slaughter of the American Indians. It is about the Holocaust. It is about sexual demons and desires, and their attractions to humans. It is about ghosts that love watching us. Someone made a map of the hotel based on the movie, and found many fake/impossible hallways/windows. That of course means something. There are parts that would generally be considered continuity error, but not in this film, because Kubrick. It could be about a minotaur and his lair. It is about the past…which past? All the past. Or its about how the moon landing was fake.

What?! Okay, that theory I have heard before, and a lot of those clues are pretty exciting.

One guy watched the movie twice at the same time. Once in forward, other in complete reverse, right on top of each other. He found apparently a lot of interesting scenes that mean a lot more, but come on. A man can’t design a movie like that.

Forward and backwards image. Pretty haunting, sure. But intentional? Ehh…

By now I bet you looked at the rating. You might be wondering why.

Well, just like I gave The Gatekeepers a low review, this one has horrible horrible horrible production quality. We don’t learn anything about the people talking, so we never get really any qualifications unless they decide to tell us. They switch between some talkers, or talkers come back later, but they expect us to remember what they said earlier in the film and who they are, without even getting to see them? JUST their voice? Shit, that is worse than The Gatekeepers.

The other main issue? It is boring as fuck. I tried to stay interested early on, but then eventually you get people with bigger axes to grind, who want to talk about everything, but none of it is in a really constructive way. Like, cool, a chair is missing between scenes. It is on purpose? Fine. Then they don’t tell me what they think it means? I can only hear the same shit so much. This movie is 100 minutes and it is insanely boring.

The same clips over and over and over again. Only hearing voices. It sure does make me feel like a dull boy…

0 out of 4.

Since 2009, we have been blessed as a culture and as a nation to receive a summer concert movie every year. In 3D, no less!

At first we were given the Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a single song I have ever heard from them, so I never even considered watching it. This one confuses me the most.

Then we were given Kenny Chesney: Summer In 3D, which is the only country artist to be given this treatment. I guess they were experimenting early on.

In 2011, we received the mac daddy of concert movies, as they kicked it up a notch with Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. If anything, we learned a valuable life lesson from his title alone.

In 2012, I can honestly say we were given the best 3D Concert movie yet, Katy Perry: Part Of Me. I laughed, I cried, I was entertained. I even became more of a fan.

Now, in the year the Mayans could not predict, we are given One Direction: This Is Us, a foreign band who I really don’t know anything about. From my research, these concert movies have been getting better and better each year, so I expect this one to make the most noise and win all of the awards.

They are in order of most important to least important.“Oh my god, a boy!” These are not the words I expected to hear when I entered the theater a few minutes before the movie began. What I saw was one entire row full of middle school girls. They quickly informed me that they didn’t know each other, and were all fans who just met. There was also one mom sitting behind them already asleep.

“Hey, who is YOUR favorite?!” Well, crap, I am not at all prepared for this! I make up a lie, and try to go back to blending in, but that is practically impossible. It ended up being 19 middle school girls, 1 mom, and a neck beard movie reviewer.  Apparently I was not the target demographic?

“Hey, you don’t care if we scream and yell during the movie right?”

Go ahead. Go crazy.

3D has really made leaps and bounds since Avatar, but little did I know that they would go to these lengths to improve the overall concert experience. From what I can tell, they decided to put a row of screaming middle school girls in every 3D showing of One Direction: This Is Us. What better way to enjoy the songs, than with a gaggle of girls singing and screaming every time a member of the band removes his shirt? What I really wonder is how they are going to include this feature with the eventual Blu-Ray 3D release?

Actual shot from the movie. No one is shirtless, for your dissatisfaction. One Direction is made up of five boys from the United Kingdom, who all auditioned for The X-Factor, and they decided to put them into a boy band! Plucked by Simon Cowell personally, Niall, Zayn, Harry, Liam, and Louis became an overnight sensation that rocked their island, then the world. They didn’t win The X-Factor, but that didn’t matter.

In this movie you get to hear a big selection of their catalog performed live and on stage for your enjoyment, while also hearing a few numbers acoustically while they practice. I will note, the 3D used during these concerts were incredibly well done, and high quality. You also get to see them with their families from their small home towns, superimposed with them wandering Europe, Asia, and more.

One Direction: This Is Us is definitely not the best 3D Summer Concert movie I have found, just the second best. Katy Perry made me cry, after all. Given the screaming girl fan base, I don’t see this movie bombing in any way, as it probably only took $10 million to make. As the great Drake once said, as long as the outcome is income, na’mean?

To answer your question little girl, I guess my favorite One Directioner is Zayn. He clearly has the most talent singing wise. I would follow that up with Niall, just because I feel bad for him. He has a strange name, doesn’t get to sing as much, and is (probably) the only one that can play guitar. Poor Niall.

Now if you will excuse me, I need to go back to youtubing all of their songs.

 

2 out of 4.