Tag: Documentary

When I first heard about Aquarela, I knew I had to see it, because I knew a lot of people wouldn’t go out of their way to see it and what’s the damn purpose of my site if I don’t go and see it?

It’s a documentary, and I try to champion documentaries on here. It is about water. And that is about it.

This is not a documentary talking about climate change. It doesn’t have scientists explaining things over beautiful footage. It doesn’t have an overarching story of people doing things in the water. It is more or less just footage of water, or its frozen version ice, just doing its thing. We have /some/ talking, which comes with subtitles, but that is few and far between. Because the humans are not meant to be the star, but the water is.

Now, this film was done with incredibly detailed cameras. It was filmed at the insanely high 96 frames per second. If you remember all the Hobbit fiasco, some of those films were shown at 48 frames per second, and it rubbed plenty of people the wrong way. But because this is nature, seeing it in a higher frame rate seems like a fantastic idea just to get all hard on nature.

I can’t tell you what level I saw the movie at, but I assume I saw it at 48fps, so not as good as the filmmakers intended.

Oh, and because this movie is Denmark in nature, it also features a lot of metal music. In fact the composer was the main member of Apocalyptica, a Finnish cello metal band. You’ve probably heard their covers of Metallica or some Christmas stuff.

It’s Water, folks, water.

Okay, now yes, there are actual problems with this documentary. Not including the over hour wait to see it due to having the wrong codes. For 90 minutes, I think around 45-50 minutes of it are about ice and glaciers. That is half the movie! About ice!

And it had some great shots. In fact, the best part of the movie is in the beginning. Just so you know, a person dies in the first 20 or 30 minutes. We don’t see their body, but we see what causes it, we see the attempt at a rescue, and we see reactions of his friends. It is the highlight due to being a tragedy. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie does not hold up.

One of the main problems with the film is of scale. We eventually are on the ocean, with two people on a boat, and for way long we get footage of them, I dunno, turning dials and cranks on their boat. No dialogue, no reason for what they are doing, just cranks cranks and waves. And we see very big impressive waves! Or tiny ones. I don’t know, because the scale is really damn hard to tell.

Eventually we also see some hurricane disasters, and river things, but they have way less time than the other two parts. And also during this part is this very strange out of focus cave scene, and it takes FOREVER to get through with no real reason for its purpose.

It feels like this documentary has too much filler and didn’t get enough diversity in its extreme water scenes.

It also doesn’t have enough metal music. I think it brings in metal only three times, maybe four, during the movie. And that is great. This whole thing should just have gone for extreme footage and metal. That would have made it more entertaining, like a concert film with water extreme visuals. But the metal is too few and far between.

Overall, it is pretty to look at, but its unevenness with its structure and focus, its lack of scale, and lack of party, means almost no one will care about this documentary.

2 out of 4.

When people are murdered, there is a small time frame where police can accurately attempt to gather crime scene evidence. Blood samples, footprints, fingerprints, whatever. For missing kids, they usually say the first 48 hours are the most important for finding them, and that is true for murderers as well.

In 2008, for the case of 13 year old Aarushi Talwar, it may have made all of the difference. She was found murdered in her own room in the morning by her parents. They are an upper caste family in India. Wealthy enough to have servants who come to their house to clean, and one who even lives in the house. And he was missing.

So clearly it was probably the servant, who then ran. Why did he do it? No clue. But rumors could run rampant.

Unfortunately, the next day he was found murdered as well. Except he was on the roof of their home (that no one checked on day one). The door was locked, it definitely wasn’t a suicide, and now we have two murders that they have no idea how to explain. They were behind closed doors (the title!) that were locked, with no forced entry points. Did one of the two let someone in who became violent? How could the parents not have heard? And of course, seriously, was it just one of the parents?

I mean, it could have been her, I wasn’t there.

The idea of honor killings is prevelent enough in India to be a thing people latch onto. Like, if those two were in a relationship, did the dad kill them for destroying their honor? We don’t want to assume things about these dead people, but these are the stories the media picked up.

Basically, the media is in two languages, Hindi and English. The English media tended to report stories indicating the parents did it, the Hindi media tended to report stories indicating other servants did it. The caste warfare system was real. More importantly, the idea of media influence is very, very real.

From day one, the crime scene was basically ruined do to extra guests. Everything the police did was heavily reported by the media, who would stand by in groups of 20+, trying to get anything out of witnesses, the police. Everything was scrutinized and judged and yelled about. They directly made the initial solving of anything almost impossible, and stayed as a thorn in everyone’s side demanding answers and making all practical normal procedures fall out the window.

This is a case that was passed around across various groups, different levels of police and different groups in those groups. Because of screw ups, weird results, or not following all leads. It is a messy situation, and thanks to appeals, yes, we still have no official killer on record 11 years later.

It is a really interesting story, but one I think could have used a bit less detail. 2hr40min felt two long for this two-parter (which some time ago was a 4 parter apparently?). It was very much unbiased in that I couldn’t even lean a direction to tell you who I’d believe after all the evidence.

It also still noted the struggle of the caste system, since the media made the whole thing to be about the 13 year old girl, and practically never said the name of the servant who was also killed.

I think the length and the constant switching between English/Hindi, which made it hard for me to focus, is what ruined the overall level of this documentary for me. It has a good story, about the nature of media and crime scenes, but it was also bogged down and muddled.

2 out of 4.

Eye catching titles means you will definitely acknowledge its existence.

Hail Satan? is about the founding of The Satanic Temple (in 2013) and what the group has set out to accomplish in the years that follow. First and most importantly, The Satanic Temple is different than the Church of Satan. The Church of Satan has existed since the 60’s, but doesn’t really believe in Satan. Mostly atheist members doing stuff for fun, no sacrifices, some magic.

The Satanic Temple is also non-theistic in nature and not running around believing in Satan. However, their goals are social in nature. They are actively fighting for equality, for the separation of church and state, believe in education and freedom. Not radical causes, just thinks set up in our Constitution and amendments, mostly.

They are called The Satanic Temple though for buzz reasons. It gets articles printed, it drives the point home, and sure, there use the imagery because it frankly looks cool.

Horns are optional.

Did you know people still protest things like this? Just the showing of the documentary in Houston at the Alamo Drafthouse had some Christian protesters against this documentary that they have not seen, on title alone.

Except for everyone that matters, this church isn’t a real church. They are doing it to make a point and we all agree on it and its awesome. They don’t think religion should play a part in politics. And to make this obvious, they try and put their religious imagery up when Christian imagery is allowed to make it more obvious for everyone. If the ten commandments get a statue outside of a court house, then they should be able to as well. If they aren’t allowed, they will sue.

Now, putting up their statue would be rad. But they ideally would not want every group to get to have a statue, but no groups at all, so that it can remain separate. And again, this is what people are protesting about stopping for dumb reasons.

The Satantic Temple just wants people to use their brains and follow the laws set out in our constitution, and protect freedoms. And they do it in a fun way.

Now this documentary highlights some of their work and their founding, but overall, it is a rather regular documentary at the end of it. Nothing too eye catching or illuminating by the end. It didn’t change me in any way. It just felt neat. An okay documentary that would be more important for someone who has never heard of this movement before.

2 out of 4.

Sometimes a court case comes along that captures the attention of America, either because of how terrible it is, or how silly it is. OJ was the case of the century in the 1900’s. We had the Hot Coffee case that the media ran away with and influenced the public about, without going into the real details surrounding the case. We have courtroom drama shows, courtroom drama movies.

We love the law, but we we love it when people break the law and do bad things to have this drama.

I Love You, Now Die looks at a recent case of which you most definitely heard about and have a strong reaction to. Two teens, one dead boy. Suicide. And on his phone, dozens of text messages for him to kill himself from his girlfriend, including maybe telling him to get back into his truck which was how he eventually went out, when he was having second thoughts.

Have you heard it? I bet you have. And from that, we were all thinking the same thing. “That Bitch!”

However, media blurbs and unresearched news might be the real story here.

That’s the woman who you are calling a bitch.

The 24/7 news media cycle is constantly going, constantly searching for clicks and ad revenue, because the newspaper is dying. So anything to get people to click your site is great, anything juicy or disturbing. And yes, the facts about this case are disturbing. The outcome of the death is disturbing.

But what about the history? What about the years before that July 12th, 2014 moment? What is the greater context?

This documentary is in 2 parts, overall over two hours long. The first part goes over the case against Michelle Carter, what was argued in court, the texts, and all of that. The second part focuses on the defense, using the same evidence, the same laws, to argue something very different. And of course the second part includes verdicts, reasoning, and the appeals.

And you know what? This documentary reminded me about Hot Coffee. I went into Hot Coffee thinking one thing, and left with a new opinion. Documentaries that can effectually change your opinions are a magical lamp of desire. Most of the time, I either watch because I agree, or disagree and hate it the whole time.

In attempts to remain unbiased, they didn’t have a voiceover reading texts, adding inflections or sarcasm or anything. So there is a lot of reading of the text messages between Carter and the boyfriend and other people involved.

The only reason I am not giving it a 4/4 is because in their attempts to stay unbiased, they got really biased at parts. During some of the text exchanges, they had somewhat scary background images. The faces of the couples distorted, with lots of distortion and strange background music. It made those aspects feel clearly a lot more “evil” versus the more generic backgrounds used throughout most of it.

This documentary does such an amazing job of showing both sides equally and fairly, it is a bit sad to see it mess up a few times on those details.

Either way, this is an important documentary, and one that reminds us to check things out and not just take a shitty news article for face value.

3 out of 4.

When I was a young Maiden, my mother had spoken to me. When I was a young Maiden, She told me be weary of the sea.

None of that is true, but it is similar to the plot of Moana. But unlike Moana, Maiden is a documentary and a true story of women power and conquering the oceans like many men before them. More importantly, it is a story about Tracy Edwards, the most bad ass sailor lady you will have ever heard about.

You see, in virtually most sports and specialized professions, they were generally for men only for some time. War, soccer, football, baseball, sailing, being a CEO, being King, you name it. Women have had the short straw. And in every one of these events, one woman had to be the first to break the mold eventually.

The mold to be broken? The Whitbread Round the World yacht race that was held every three years. It would take over half a year to complete, broken into various legs with the groups on the water for over a month at a time. A very expensive voyage, with a lot of obvious peril as well. Tracy wanted to sail around the world and be on a crew! And these men crews weren’t having it, even if she was talented. Eventually she landed on a crew as the Cook, got some experience, but no respect.

So she said screw all these asshole men. I’m gonna make my own crew! And I’m gonna have only women on board to prove we can still be successful!

And, you know, that’s why we have the documentary.

No one believed in the ladies of course. No, they aren’t strong enough, or experienced enough, or what have you. They were a media buzz for years before the race, in trying to secure funding, in repairing a boat, in finding a crew. But of course most people just made fun of them in the media and other teams.

But Tracy put together a team of ladies with various sailing experiences. They practiced as much as they could and they had a plan to work together. And most importantly, they had trust.

Now surely you can just look up the 1989 race and find out how they did, but if you don’t know the results along the way then the documentary will be that much more thrilling. There is a surprising amount of footage, both before, earlier in her life, leading up the race, and during the race that has been put together for this documentary.

What the documentary struggles with is the finer details. I had to look up way too much about the Whitbread Race, and it is clearly a good documentary to give better explanations for it. They were inconsistent when giving details about the various legs of the race. The first few they showed global lines, talked distance and the struggles. And then suddenly one leg had none of that, and I had no idea where they were heading or how long they would be out on the ocean. It just seemed silly to almost have all of the details and exclude information later on.

This documentary is very powerful and inspirational however. It is great timing for it to come out, both 30 years after the fact, and in such a troubling time of vying for equal rights and me too movements. It was inspiring then, and it is inspiring now.

3 out of 4.

I want my youngest daughter to go into gymnastics soon in her life. One reason? It looks fun. Who doesn’t want to be able to do flips like a goddamn wizard? And two, I wanted to be in gymnastics when I was a kid and didn’t get to, so you know, living through your kids and all not.

And knowing all of this, I definitely was aware of the USA Gymnastics scandal by the end of the trial. The ending moments (which if you didn’t hear, I won’t spoil and tell you right now) made really big news. It felt just, it felt like closure for dozens of women, and it was a powerful moment.

But for this documentary, At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal, it goes over the whole story. From the beginning in the 80’s and 90’s, to how many people must have turned a blind eye. Into how Larry Nassar even got to a point where he could be around kids.

Yeah, tell him he is a fuckface! Unfortunately for the world, Nassar was apparently good at his job as a sports scientist/doctor. He did know stretches and ways to prevent injuries. He was always seen as the good cop at practice. The main coach would yell at the players, make them try harder, fight through the pain. Nassar would be the savior, who would take the kids into the room to fix their bruises, sprains, and pride.

He got so sure of himself and his methods, he was able to sexually assualt girls in his medical room with parents also in the room. Sure this would be behind a sheet or cloth or something, but this helped normalize it for his victims and make them less likely to speak out.

It is fantastic that eventually he got what he deserved, although he probably deserved a lot more. I am happy that over 200 people were able to speak out against him, and that hopefully those who heard reports and did nothing can also be looked at. I am happy he had to sit there and hear the stories against him.

What I am not happy at is how goddamn long it took to happen. How many reports he was able to skip by, meaning dozens and dozens more girls had to have their lives ruined and innocence destroyed.

I still want my youngest daughter to go to gymnastics. This sort of documentary should be a light of hope. “They got the bad guy!” while also unfortunately making me weary of the fact that predators exist in the most and least likely of places. This is a story of good eventually winning, but at such a cost it should make even a regular law abiding citizen question if they are doing what they can to protect those around them.

4 out of 4.

Welcome to a Movie Roundup! A movie roundup features a few films that I didn’t feel like making full reviews for, but needed to get basic reviews out there for completionist reasons. It also helps me deal with my backlog. It may have a theme, and today’s theme is Documentaries 2018 (Part 1)! Basically, the documentaries I watched and didn’t yet write about, and need to really review, or else.

Being on a movie round up doesn’t mean a movie is inherently bad, or good, or meh. I can feature any rating on here! So don’t assume the worst! I will also just post the reviews in alphabetical order.

Documentaries 2018 Part 1

The Bleeding Edge

The Bleeding Edge is a Netflix medical documentary, and one I assumed was targeted towards Women. You know, because of bleeding.

And sure it isn’t about periods, but it is definitely geared towards women in some aspect, as two of the three technologies would only go into women. Long story short, there are a lot of “cutting edge” technologies out there that can save lives, be put into people, to solve problems. You know, like the pacemaker. However, the medical technology field is the least overseen of the official fields, unlike food and drugs. Anyone can get their device approved, especially if you just say its the same as a previously approved device, but one change. You can daisy chain approvals, and get to a point where what you are claiming was approved, was only approved from something else now discontinued for not working.

That is scary, people can get hurt, watch what you put in your body, and check the testing. That is what this documentary teaches, which is fine, but I can’t fully explain its science. I will assume dozens of real people testimony about other side effects should be heard, and this documentary gives them a voice, it is just a bit boring.

2 out of 4.

Death of a Nation

Look who it is. Dinesh D’Souza, this fucker. This guy who breaks the law, gets pardoned by Trump, and keeps making these documentaries.

I wanted to watch this one in the theaters and review right away, but still, I knew how it would be, and knew how angry I would be, and didn’t want to give it any more money. So I yes, waited, until I could see it for free, and then blast it, and here is the blasting.

A lot of this documentary is saying the same things he has said in past documentaries. No one gives a shit about Thomas Jefferson and it isn’t relevant to now. The past is not now, and right now Republicans are racist and shitty. Very simple. He badly tries to tear down Democrats and there is nothing new in this documentary at all. He isn’t even trying, he just needs his documentary every 2 years to take from Republicans, to give it back to Republicans. Hard pass.

0 out of 4.

Fahrenheit 11/9

Speaking of political documentaries, we have Fahrenheit 11/9, a sequel or sort. I will say the title is very clever, since it is about the election, and that happened on 11/9. Fantastic work on titles, Michael Moore.

A lot of people don’t like him and that is fair. He is brash and in your face and annoying. But this is not just an inverse of the previous documentary. Like one that only Liberals will like or anything. It is definitely in its sort of own path, and plenty of liberals won’t like it, either. Moore does a better job of shitting on current Democratic leadership and practices over the last decade than D’Souza has in his last few movies. There are real truths here and they are important and useful for us to move forward.

Overall again, not a great piece of work, but it is better, and highlights some interesting aspects of the Flint water crisis as well.

2 out of 4.

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind

I think that this is one of the first movies I watched that started my giant backlog of things to review. I saw it, couldn’t figure out how to write about it, and it just sat there on my list, forever, waiting and waiting, and then other films joined it, and here we are today.

Robin Williams is fucking amazing. Everyone knows it, or should know it, and if they like him they should see it. It gives a nice life arc, the darkest times, the better times, his family, and so on. And it goes over his passing, the aftermath, and some of the reasons why it occurred. It made me realize some of the friendships he had with some other big names that I never knew, and they tell some touching anecdotes. I watched it, I loved it, and surprisingly it didn’t make me cry.

It still feels odd as a documentary, and was never close to being as impactful as something like RBG and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?. Which is odd, because as a viewer, I would say I actually had a relationship with Williams unlike the other two, but still couldn’t get as engrossed in this documentary on his life.

3 out of 4.

Shirkers

There are documentaries, and then there is Shirkers. Shirkers is weird, and haunting. It draws you in, while seemingly being about nothing.

I had no idea why it hypnotized me when it seemed that it was about the making of an independent movie far away, like, how could it be good? Why should I care? And at the end, it is still hard to answer that question, even when you find out who the documentary actually ends up being about. The amount of footage of the film is incredible, and it seems like the type of movie I definitely would not have enjoyed.

And yet, I could not look away. The only suggestion for a documentary like Shirkers is to just watch the documentary. Give it a try. See it. If it doesn’t look good after about 10 minutes, then bail, but really any information on it outside of what I gave is just something to be discovered.

3 out of 4.

Overall, there are lots of documentaries out there that I have seen this year, and more that I have (because this is just part 1). But I put some of the bigger names in this one, because I am ashamed they didn’t have reviews already. Not that part 2, or 3 will be bad, but hey, they will come out soon enough.

Being a prodigy can be a blessing and a curse. Being a prodigy means that sure, you have talent in something, something that is notable enough for people to care about. And they have to be really good at it, earlier than most other people are doing those same talents.

Being a prodigy means you can get fame from just being good at an early age, even if you are never the best. Because you are young, you are special, and people will take note. This can lead to later opportunities in your life as well, just from publicity and inherent fame.

And then there are the bad sides. By being a prodigy, people will talk about privilege. They will talk about being a gimmick and maybe even attack you for not being the best. “Sure, they can tap dance at one, but I’ve seen better!” And then there is the aspect of not living up to your own name. If you are seen as a wunderkind and eventually struggle or don’t reach the next step, you will be seen as a failure, a false prophet, and everything may leave you. There is a ton of pressure to keep going strong and they can get burned out. And if they don’t reach the levels people said they would, they can become depressed and lead into a tailspin.

That’s why I can take solace in my own mediocrity.

And the documentary Chef Flynn is about a kid who just really wanted to be a fancy chef, and put his whole young life into it.

You can tell he is a chef from his outfit.

Flynn grew up like a lot of kids, with separated parents, some siblings, and generally enough food to eat. His mom was a small time director/actress and so she spent a lot of time with cameras and filming her own family. And what she didn’t spend a lot of time doing is cooking varied meals. A lot of ordering in, and a lot of easy meals for dinner, and she was struggling. So Flynn at a young age knew he needed to help and wanted to work on the food aspects.

And work he did. He started getting really fancy with his food making, going into huge specialties, trying and experimenting and caring about plating. This grew into his own kitchen at home, to his small in home restaurant for friends and family, to bigger and bigger opportunities. And as already discussed, with bigger opportunities comes bigger scorn. For every magazine article or cover, comes anger and meanie butt heads.

This documentary is a lot more on that. On a young man dealing with the stresses of the worlds placed on him, and his attempts to overcome it, while maintaining some good relationship with his family.

Sure, it shows how he got to this point, and at the time of the end of the documentary, he was an adult. Living on his own, trying to start a restaurant and doing it now without his mom’s help.

Chef Flynn is an interesting tale about a cool kid and his mom, but it isn’t going to be a life changing documentary. It could maybe inspire someone to go out and chase their own dreams, but this didn’t seem to be the point. This documentary is overall just a fluff piece. And yes, it is interesting, but probably best watched by people who enjoy cooking or young people being successful. Or you know, a nice documentary to potentially cheer you up.

2 out of 4.

I love me some game shows. LOVE. When I had game show network, I would always make that my channel of choice while I worked around the house, or played video games, or tried to sleep. A good show to help stimulate my mind, fill me with useless trivia, whatever. I stopped caring about GSN of course when it just turned into the Steve Harvey Family Feud channel, instead of…well, anything else.

Game Shows have various levels of entertainment for me. The ones that involve being smarter, or clever, they are great. The ones with more blind luck can just go to hell. I never want to see Deal or No Deal. A show like that has no value added to the watcher, who just…watches. Nothing to answer, nothing to do.

So The Price is Right is an okay show to watch. It is very straight forward, the watcher can make their own guesses of course, feel accomplished every once in awhile and go about their day. It is also full of flashy lights and happy people so it is nice. Some people take game shows to an extreme. They find one, they watch it, become experts. And you can do that with something like The Price is Right! They reuse items all the time for their showcase.

And one time, the unthinkable happened. A contestant, in the final showcase, guessed the exact price of their showcase. It is so large and unexpected, but they knew if it happened, that the contestant would win both prizes. It had never been done in decades, and it did within the last decade finally. Was this guy an expert? A lucky old man? Did he cheat? Or did he have a secret weapon he didn’t know he had? This is the story that Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much wanted to answer.

Seems like a good secret weapon should be hairier.

Meet Theodore Slauson. He did not get the perfect bid on the showcase. The picture of him on the show was forever ago. But he was known for watching it a lot, studying the prices, and being an amazing audience member. It took him over ten times of visiting the show before finally being picked, and it was like a dream come true. His downfall was that dreaded wheel, which is hard to smart your way through. He was getting well known for knowing the exact prices of things and yelling them out consistently in the audience. And he helped plenty of people he just met win the show.

It is a fun story for him, and how he eventually got someone to win two showcases. Now the man who won those showcases didn’t acknowledge Theodore. He gave his own bullshit responses in interviews, but the footage is clear that Theodore yelled it out and they have tracked his career enough to know it was definitely the voice the man heard before giving his answer.

And you know what? This is a neat story with a lot of history behind it. But as even a game show enthusiest, I was left a bit bored. It didn’t have the same thrill that Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal had going for it. This felt good, wholesome, and completely average. A story that could have probably been told in a half hour special with the same amount of fan fare. Easily forgettable and a bit neat.

2 out of 4.

What would you do with $54 Million? Would you buy a lot of cars? Would you waste it quickly and go back to your poverty stricken self? Would you cure world hunger? I don’t know if you can with that much, but would you anyways?

Or would you buy a bunch of horses and go to shows and shit?

Well, if that last one sounds good, then I got a documentary for you.

All The Queen’s Horses is not about a queen, and not really about horses. It is about a Rita Crundwell, a former resident of Dixon, Illinois, the city where Ronald Reagan was born! Yeah! A relatively small town, with a small form of government. The people who ran the government had other jobs as well and they shared a lot of responsibilities.

Crundwell was basically their main treasurer. She helped put funds in the right accounts to pay for things. And for decades she did this job. Their town was losing money, and they had to get loans from other areas, but they were doing their best. Even if they were 4-6 million in the hole each year.

And then one fateful day, an assistant found a bank account that no one else had known about. And in this bank account there were several checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars. She got the mayor to look at it, they contacted the FBI, and the race was on to see where this money was coming from and how much of it is actually missing.

Of course, we know what happened. Crundwell took it! A lot of it! For over a decade! About $54 million in all! And she spent it mostly on horses! Horses!

Horses!

I mean hey, people like Horses. I get it. I like things. I like movies. I like games. I don’t think I’d spend that much on any of my hobbies, but how the hell do I know that, I don’t have that kind of money.

To be fair, she had this hobby as a kid, showing some horses. And she just went to be really good at it. And really rich, to buy the best breeds to win more awards to make them worth even more. Her trophy room was huge. She wasn’t just a buyer of talent, she still knew how to work at it and make them win too.

And she knew how to rip off the town she lived in most of her life for millions, eventually getting caught and thrown in jail for forever.

This documentary goes over the whole story. The discovery, the evidence, the trial, the town freaking out, and the after math. After math? Yeah, who is to blame and why did she steal so much without people knowing? Why was a nearby city the first to really figure it out?

And we get to hear about how bad their system was set up including their auditors and banks.

Either way. This documentary was really straightforward. It didn’t offer any overarching theme of american disparity. It just wanted to tell the story and update on how it happened. It did just what it wanted to. It was mildly entertaining and I learned a little bit about the topic.

Nothing to great or groundbreaking. Not something terrible. Just totally okay.

2 out of 4.