Tag: Documentary

When I heard that American Crime Story was announced, I assumed I would just ignore it. It seemed like it just wanted to sound similar to American Horror Story and who cares after that. Well, I am glad I watched Season 1, The People vs O.J. Simpson, because it was phenomenial television, I learned a lot, and I am happy to see it won so many awards.

And my watching of ACS was just one of the reasons I was trying to ignore O.J.: Made In America. One, why would I watch a documentary series that I just saw play out with actors? It would feel repetitive. Two, I haven’t watched really any of the 30 for 30 movies, let alone a special that lasted almost 8 hours. Three, I have too many movies to watch, and a few shows, so this would take the place of almost four films. Gah!

And then I found out that despite it being in my eyes a TV series, it fits all the criteria for Oscars documentary. It premiered at Sundance (all of it!), it was in theaters in NY and LA (all of it!), and fuck, it will probably be nominated, so I probably just need to bite the damn bullet, and watch this documentary. Of course I decided to do it over five days, allowing myself to just do one at a time, but it was still a major time commitment, and as you can see, I still didn’t even give it a 4 out of 4!

Can’t win ’em all OJ.

With a documentary I still cannot say a whole lot. With this “series” we get to see more than ACS gave us, which was just from murder to end of a trial. A whole hour and a half were focused on O.J. Simpson during his college and NFL career. WHY he became a big name. The next 90 minutes focused on his post NFL career, into acting, commercials, and being a celebrity, along with meeting his wife Nicole and the abuse in their relationship.

Parts 3 and 4 deal mostly with the trial, the death, the lead up, the bigger events, and the final part deals with the results, the after math, another civil law suit, and the events that actually eventually put OJ in jail.

A wild and long ride if anything, and hell, I did learn a lot. The first two parts became the most important for me, given what I knew about the trials from pop culture and current events. The whole thing was mostly laid against racism in LA at the time, to show how the communities reacted and felt about the police at the time and WHY he was acquitted in the end. Hell, we got testimony from a few of the jury members too, a nice behind the scenes look.

But the last fifth took a huge toll on my patience. It seemed to drag. And yeah, I didn’t know that he was in jail now or why he was arrested, but the build up to that moment took so long and felt so damn confusing. I had very little idea what was actually happening, as it was being told from so many different point of views.

This is an extremely in depth (obviously) and important documentary, and can teach you a lot about the world dealing with just one case. But maybe it was too long. Maybe it wasn’t even long enough, and that would explain my confusion at the end. Regardless, it is worth the time for those who want to put the time in. And getting to see comments from Marcia Clark was also a fantastic add on.

Did you read my review of Detropia? No? Of course not. And don’t worry, it wasn’t the best review.

Because when I wrote that review, my heart wasn’t into it. Into the film or the writing. It just was there. I watched it a month ago, saddened, because I was hoping to see a new documentary that caught my eye instead. Audrie & Daisy. Just something I found by googling new documentaries on Netflix, except I was a month early. Argh, but the topic was interesting to me!

What is the topic? Well, sexual assault of course!

Oh, erm. Technically not the topic to get very excited for, but given certain documentaries recently like The Hunting Ground and The Invisible War, they tend to hit hard and be really well made.

Audrie & Daisy is a documentary trying to slow it down a bit. We aren’t going to talk about a dozen different stories, just mainly two stories. Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman, two girls who were both in high school with unfortunately very different results.

One again, a documentary where I have to basically just use the poster/cover because everything else would be boring.

I won’t tell you the details, but yes, things don’t end well. Like, at all. First of course there is rape involved. Not really a good start to any story. Alcohol was involved, they were both underage and consent could not be given in their conditions, but people took advantage of them.

They also decided to not just hide their case either. They went public about it, to the cops, and their lives were practically ruined because of it. Online harassment, friends harassment, people calling them names in school because the boys involved were athletes. The police not believing them, working slowly, or not giving correct results maybe because a boy is related to a politician. You know, the usual terrible stuff.

And guess what? This documentary will make you feel bad and make you feel angry. Angry at a whole lot of people, but also angry that women everywhere have to put up with this sort of stuff if they want to bring up transgressions against them.

Again, keeping it vague so you can find out the whole story, but it is worth a watch and the details will piss you off. Even when people serve time, it isn’t enough and too late.

My only issue with the documentary as a whole is that by making it about two people, yes we got very good details on their case and yes we got how they were “related,” but it feels like it is just missing more. More statistics, more talk with people who are experts, just something. I need more than people just talking about terrible events and offering temporary solutions to make it a truly great documentary.

But it is worthy of a watch, and being straight on Netflix, everyone will have an opportunity to see it before awards season.

Werner Herzog is kind of a big deal.

If you aren’t familiar with his name, you have probably heard of some of his work. He directed Grizzly Man, Into The Abyss, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, among many many many documentaries. He has been around for awhile and puts out some high quality work.

So I was ecstatic to be given a screening of his latest documentary. And half of my excitement came from the name itself. Lo And Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. Shit that is powerful. I don’t even know what it is about but I was right there with him.

It turns out this is Herzog’s attempt to tackle this crazy newfangled thing called “The Internet” and no, not the inner netting used to line swim trunks for a comforting snugness. No, the regular Internet we all use and love to read reviews on this website.

Of course he starts quickly with how the internet came about and thus, how our movie title came about. Apparently the first message sent from a computer to another computer was in fact, Lo and Behold, a great message for what they knew at the time meant something great.

But history schmistory, where are we at now?

Monks on twitter, yeah, that makes sense.

And without going into extreme detail, we then get to look at people who have revolutionized the simplicity of the internet and gone on to do great things. The people who are attempting to do better things. The people who are changing the world every day.

But also the negative aspects of the internet, sort of how fast a photo can spread, but not the lame way kids try to do it. In regards to graphic dead photos, because dead people have no rights (yay America!)!

And honestly, this is not the type of documentary one can really talk that much about. They are just stories about the extremes and future of the internet. Honestly, based on the description, I thought this documentary would be something completely different. I thought it would involve how small village communities in Asia and Africa had become connected, and how the internet is changing everything.

It covers some of that, but not in as much sexy detail as I would have liked. And sure, some of these people and stories I have already heard, as a denizen of the internet myself. And eventually I might have paid a bit less attention, but only for a bit, as they jump around enough to new topics to keep my interest.

This is a pretty good documentary and highlights a lot of aspects of the internet that people probably don’t know. Is it as good as his other works? No, of course not. But it is still high quality and worthy of at least one viewing.

For those avid readers of Gorgon Reviews, you might think this documentary sounds familiar. Well, first of all, thank you to the three of you. Second of all, you are thinking about Schooled: The Price of College Sports, which was about the exploitation of college athletes for profit.

This is The Business of Amateurs, which is about the exploitation of college athletes for profit and other reasons!

Now obviously this is a subject I am already immensely passionate about it. I have gotten into arguments about it in real life. I have even read a book on the subject, which is a big commitment for me. There is no good reason for people to be brought to colleges, controlled 100% of their time, make the college millions, while not earning a livable wage, getting educated, or being able to have other jobs or use their success for their gain.

And yeah, The Business of Amateurs is another documentary about the subject. But like I said, it is different. It is more than just the moral reasons why people shouldn’t be exploited that way. They go into some science. And the documentary is written, directed, and narrated by Bob DeMars, a former college football player, so it is also a bit more personal.

Looking closely at the cover, I found myself a little bit moved.

Remember the movie Concussion? The film that was supposed to shake the NFL and bring the truth, but was extremely watered down, if not well acted? Well, this documentary goes a lot into health as well.

We have players who are not making money, who have to practice daily for hours, play in games, hitting their head over and over again. The majority of them are not going to the NFL, will not be making big bucks, and they are potentially setting themselves up for brain damage, depression, and a young death.

Couple that with scholarships that can be taken away if you are injured, and you got a system that cares not at all for the athletes that show up. They drop you as soon as you are hurt, and won’t help you when you have bigger problems in the future for work you did for them.

But I don’t want to get too specific into all of the details.

This documentary has a lot of interesting information and I don’t want to go over all of it. I clearly loved it, but it had some minor issues. It is very clearly an amateur film (about amateurs!), some scenes aren’t well polished, some just scream out indie. This is only important in that other scenes are very well, so the disconnect is felt as it goes back and forth.

Additionally, the documentary doesn’t talk about sports outside of Football and Basketball, the big money earners. We get to hear about how some real life athletes outside of the top two are affected after their education, but they don’t go into how those programs are funded and how they could survive if the players earned some damn income relative to the income they bring in. It was more noticeable thanks to going to the NCAA museum where they showed many sports, but again, didn’t really talk about them.

Either way, this is another documentary, and many more people, explaining why the current system is fucked up, and maybe, eventually, more people will realize it.

I didn’t want to watch Detropia. I wanted to watch a different documentary that sounded depressing and sad and anger inducing, but it wasn’t available. So Detropia was my number two documentary choice, because based on the subject, sure, it is a bit depressing. Fingers crossed I get the other documentary by the end of this year.

Detropia is a Detroit + Dystopia (or Utopia, both work, but let’s go with the D theme). That is because Detroit got royally fucked. With the economic crash (which you can learn a lot more with the movie The Big Short), in 2007 and 2008, a lot of shit started to hit the fan. One of those fan hits came from the auto industry which was a big part of the Detroit economy. But don’t worry! Much like the bank industries, a bailout was received from the company to save the auto industry and the economy.

Except there was a few stipulations. Like, changing the minimum wage for upcoming hires despite the union and laying off a lot of workers. And when a lot of people become unemployed, a lot of bills go unpaid. When a lot of mortgages go unpaid (also part of this crisis), people move and leave areas. Detroit lost a lot of people, off the top of my head, maybe half of their populations.

Buildings were abandoned and the city became bankrupt. And shit, things just got worse.

Apparently these asshats from The Purge movies showed up.

The documentary ends up examining just a few different lives. A guy who owns a struggling night club hang out spot, just down the road from an auto plant. A guy who is the local president of the auto workers union. And a girl who is a video blogger or something. We also get highlights of a few performance artists, and people who moved to the city just to do bigger art projects. There are also some town hall meetings and discussion about what to do about the failing city, struggling neighborhoods and lack of funds.

And you know what else? There is no narrator. There are no flashes to experts to explain details. There is the occasional text on the screen, but other than that, the story of Detropia is just about people. People telling their real stories and showing their real struggles.

It is definitely a fascinating and current subject to highlight, but at the same time, I wanted more. I want to know a lot more people affected, those people struggling to survive, those who had to leave, those in the government, who knows.

The documentary highlights a shitty thing happening, but it doesn’t try to provide answers, predict the future or anything. It just seems like an incomplete film. (Yes, Detroit is still in shambles so that part isn’t conclusive. And no, documentaries do not have to fix their issues). It just seemed like a strange ending and didn’t leave me with a lot to take from it.

At most, this could serve as a stepping off point for those who literally know nothing about Detroit’s current struggles. But it doesn’t go over all of the cities struggles. For instance, the Detroit Red Wings were unable to sign Stamkos, will they ever get an elite goal scorer ever again?

I haven’t talked a long time about the last spirit awards. You know, the independent film awards that takes place the day before the Oscars? Where most of the winners are actually movies up for Oscars as well?

I tried to watch a lot of them, but after the awards, yeah, I cared less. But I really wanted to see (T)error, one of the films up for Best Documentary. Title wise, it looked interesting, but I just had no way of seeing it. Thankfully, end of June Netflix added it to its roster. And yes, it took me a whole month still to watch and review it, but that is because I was hit with an influx of documentaries in theaters that sent me screeners.

Needless to say, when I finally made time to watch it, I was very excited. I didn’t even try to write another review during it. Hell, I didn’t even multi task and watch the Olympics during it. Just me and a documentary, full screen, subtitles up just in case, ready.

And also, just to be clear, about 20 minutes into it, I thought about stopping it for the night and reading instead. But I will get into that with more detail later.

Just what is (T)error about? Well the filmmakers were friends with Saeed Torres, and eventually, they found out that one of his jobs was actually as an FBI informant. He was a Muslim in real life and was very devout, but he also infiltrated specific Muslim sects in America when they needed him, to get information on suspected terrorists. Well, Saeed was thinking about finally stopping this job, he was tired of it. So sure, he let them film his perceived last “mission” and he didn’t tell the FBI he was going to do it.

This isn’t the face of terrorism, this is just a troll on the internet. Come on, FBI.

The man above is Khalifah al-Akili, American born, raised Protestant, and later turned Muslim and got really into it. Sure, he might have gotten a bit to into the Jihad side of it. He had a lot of books on guerrilla warfare, military tactics, and more, but was he a terrorist? Was he going to attack America?

That is what Saeed, or Shariff (his undercover name) had to find out. That meant moving into his community, going to his mosque, befriending him, and yeah, eventually finding out how serious he was about the whole thing. While the FBI prodded Saeed along, making him ask more and more invasive questions while also making harsher and more direct suggestions to Khalifah.

And well, I won’t go into any more of it. Because things started to get really crazy. Or upsetting. And shocking. And it went to 11 and at that point, yes, then I could no longer look away.

Like I suggested early, the documentary started off slow. And yes, it was one of my biggest issues with it and enough to knock it a point down the rating. It started out excited, but got bored with the early aspects of him heading to find Khalifah, with his past history, etc. But god damn did it get really good. Like, really really good. Like, more people should see this damn documentary.

We got shady government actions and more folks. If you are one of the people who binged Making a Murderer, you would love this documentary as well. It goes places I didn’t think possible, while maintaining its credibility as non involved documentary people. Sort of.

And yet, I almost stopped it earlier on to go read.

“Welcome to It’s a Nutty, Nutty, Nutty World. We’re just nuts about nuts. Crunch nuts with your lunch. Buy them by the bunch. Send them to friends far away to munch.” That is by far my favorite quote from the TV show Daria, and technically, no, it has nothing to do with this documentary.

Because Nuts! isn’t about the kind that you eat as a light snack. Oh no, no, no. We’re talking about testicles. And I am not just talking about human testicles either. That documentary wouldn’t be ballsy enough. No, we are talking about human testicles and goat testicles. Goat testicles that built and industry and caused one man in the early 1900’s to rise above his citizen status and become a master. A master of what? Well, of testicles I guess. But also, technology and electioneering.

But I am getting ahead of myself. John Romulus Brinkley is a self appointed genius and sort of hero of this sort of true biographical documentary. He was raised poor and lived a meager existence, but one day he found himself in Milford, Kansas to start a new life. He opened a decent sized small town clinic, paid well and made everyone healthy and happy.

Then he also experimented with goat testicles. He had the idea to put male goat testicle glands into a human male testicle as a way of curing impotence. And guess what? Guess what? Are you guessing? Apparently that shit worked.

Because the Noble Goat is the healthiest of all mammals and a strong sex drive, just doing a nice transplant can help a man impregnant ladies! And don’t worry, the babies are all human, not strange hybrids. This is where he got his rise to fame.

Of course, absolutely no one in the medical community believed him. They called him a quack, a fraud, a faker, and wanted him to stop. But John Brinkley is a man who was ten foot tall and nothing was going to break his stride.

Or his stare into our souls.

Now, obviously Brinkley is quite an interesting character. But he kept doing the nut stuff. He also invested money in a giant radio antennae, which ended up being one of the biggest in the country at that point. So he also became a big name in the radio. Soon he had the precursor to the FCC also on his door, with the doctors, getting him to stop. So he then decided to run for Governor of the state, after all, people liked him. And he might have won too as a write in candidate, but there was some sketchy stuff there.

Eventually he moved to Texas, changed his radio tower to be a big one in Mexico to avoid US regulations, and developed a formula from goat testicles to cure impotence to not spend so much time in surgery. That’s right, this man, this genius, did so many things and none of you have ever heard about him.

And that is another reason why this documentary is so fascinating. Using archival footage when necessary, and animation at other times, we get to look into the life of a self proclaimed scientific hero, who dabbled successfully in many other aspects of life. The animation with real-ish dialogue from court room scenes and more are fascinating to witness and the voice work really brings out the personality of the characters. The real life historians who are familiar with Brinkley are also featured throughout to give his glimpses into his life.

Overall, this documentary is just so well crafted. Every scene, beginning to end, fully committed to this man’s story and to teach the viewer about someone unique in American history. So many documentaries exist on already incredibly famous people, teaching us only a few useful new facts and claiming to be the best. This is a story that most people would have never heard and actually accomplishes its point to inform the viewer. I loved it. I loved the way it was presented, I loved the topic man, and I loved how it unfolded.

I’m just nuts, about Nuts!

As a reminder, we have no age limit when it comes to Documentaries at Gorgon Reviews. They can be old as fuck and I might want to review them for my website. And some times, instead of a documentary, I will review a foreign film on a Thursday, just to keep things interesting.

In the case of The Ambassador, well, it isn’t super old, but it is 2011. Half a decade ago! But hey, it also happens to be a foreign documentary. That’s a double whammy here. I watched it with subtitles. Sometimes they spoke English, sometimes not English, but I read the whole dang thing. The reason I am watching The Ambassador is because I bought it blindly at a sale. It was a $3 Blu-Ray, so my deal alarms went off and I just snatched it up. If I didn’t watch it right away to review, that $3 value would have evaporated into thin air as the movie entered my DVD Case, most likely never to be seen again.

Shit, that just got dark. Hopefully The Ambassador is a cheery documentary about nice things and happy thoughts!

The Ambassador is about a real live journalist, Mads Brügger, from Denmark. I don’t know if he was famous before this documentary, I don’t know if he became famous after this documentary. But he wanted to talk about corruption in Africa and blood diamonds. He wanted to do some of that investigative journalism, putting his own butt on the line to tell the story. And tell the story he did! With hidden and visible cameras.

First thing I need to make clear is that Brügger is a man who was born in Denmark and lived there hist whole life. Sure he has traveled, but he is Danish through and through. Repetition of this fact is important, because to expose corrupt government officials, Brügger is going to become a political ambassador. Not from Denmark, but from Liberia, an African country, with his goal to become the Ambassador to the Central African Republic. A really ballsy goal. And a strange one.

This feels like a movie with that plot line. I already can’t believe this super white guy can do any of this.

But he blends in so naturally with the natives.

So how does any of this work out? Well, first, if you are stupidly wealthy and European, there are people who want to talk to you. You can pay an absurd amount of money to become an ambassador or consul of a poor struggling nation. The funds you pay go to the nation (And the people who broker the deal) and they have openings that need to be filled. Now of course, if you become a representative of a country, you can not just go and do illegal things. That will make them mad at you and bad things will happen.

But this is corruption we are talking about! Of course people will do bad things. But his idea is to go to the Central African Republic (CAR), pretend to want to set up a match making factory, but instead secretly get into the diamond business. Once he gets involved with diamond people, he can get uncut, unlicensed diamonds, sneak them out of the country to wherever he wants, and take them home. It isn’t easy, CAR is a dangerous country with government issues. But it isn’t super hard either. A lot of people are willing to help him out, because it means they can make money on the side as well.

And honestly, money is the greatest way to get things to go your way.

Needless to say, some of the things Brügger are able to do end up being quite shocking. By the end I was surprised. I was more surprised that this thing was even released, because certainly it will make government agents at various places around the world quite pissed off. And some rich people as well.

I am watching this film five years after the fact though. I don’t know if this documentary led to any change about anything. It is still crazy that just anyone (with money) could do something like that and gain some diplomatic immunity.

My biggest problem with this documentary though is that it is incredibly hard to really follow, especially early on. They talk to a whole lot of people, some of which are important, some of which are not. Names are hard to remember, which part of the process is happening gets confusing and it is just a struggle to keep up. I figured out most of it by the end…kind of. But man, I was lost constantly. I was scared to even write this review, wondering what I would say when I had to descrbe the movie.

The answer was keep it vague, stall in the beginning, and talk about how insane of an idea this was in the first place. Brügger could have been killed. He could be dead right now for all I know. But Journalism is sexy and sometimes you gotta take some risks.

It is actually really hard to find documentaries on subjects that truly interest you. There are just so many waves of documentaries on subjects you already have heard before, celebrities and nature that it is hard to find something not talked about so often. Something new.

I watched The Mask You Live In because just days before I found out about the documentary, I was briefly discussing with my wife the culture of masculinity. How many studies had been conducted on what forced masculinity by parents and peers does to a boy and how to fix those sorts of issues. I went to a seminar in college (of course) on the topic, found it interesting, but didn’t remember a lot about it. I remember they were giving away free non-alcoholic beer (because it was about masculinity) and that is it. Mostly because I never had alcoholic beer so I thought it’d be funny, and sure enough, it tasted terrible.

The Mask You Live in description basically talked about our narrow definition of masculinity, how it hurts men, boys growing up, and thus, society, and what we can do to change it. That is topical, especially with all of the recent mass shootings in America, which of course were all basically committed by men. Clearly there are issues here and any outlet that is willing to discuss it should be heard, so I wanted to learn from the documentary myself and pass on any important messages I could gather.

And you know, review it fairly. Just because it is important subject matter doesn’t mean it is well done.

We’re just saying this is an important conversation. Man to man. Mono y mono. Dude bro to dude bro.

The actual line of thought it somewhat hard to follow in this documentary. It does flow from related subject to related subject, but it doesn’t always do a good job during the transition. You are talking about video games and then suddenly porn the next second and it felt jarring each time.

In addition to that complaint, there isn’t really like one narrator or guiding voice throughout the documentary. We hear literally dozens of people talking, from kids to prisoners to teachers to people who have received doctorates in various subjects. But outside of the Doctors it is unclear of who any of these people are or why they have a part in the documentary. For the most part it is just to tell their own personal stories, about growing up or abuse or hiding their insecurities, but still it hops around through so many people without focusing on a specific message that it is easy to get lost.

All of that being said, the messages in this documentary are very important. You might not be able to really get all of it, but the parts that are easy to understand and are emphasized can hopefully stick with you. A documentary for the most part SHOULD feel important in some way, to some people. And thankfully, The Mask You Live In is something that can affect every male viewer and most of the female viewers as well.

I looked up the director, a woman!, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who is mostly a small part actress. This is her second directed documentary, the first being Miss Representation in 2011. It deals with the opposite-ish problem, about women not being represented well in media or positions of power and how it can damage a young girls mind. It sounds fantastic and it is quickly moving up my must see in the near future list.

I don’t agree with everything said in The Mask You Live In. And like all documentaries with research, I wish it would include the source of the statistics it shows and there are a lot of statistics showed. But it is clearly presented in a mostly non-biased light. Full of personal anecdotes and science to back it up.

Mexico loves its wrestling leagues. I mean, they love them more than 1980’s-90’s America loved Wrestling, which was a large amount. Sold out shows multiple days a week, celebrities with larger than life roles to play, schools, you name it.

Lucha Mexico is, for what I can tell, the first documentary to examine the life of these Mexican wrestles, their rise to fame, their daily lives, their training and more.

They also jump right into it. They introduce us to wrestlers like Shocker, 1000% Amazing (translated), Blue Demon Jr. (son of the famous Blue Demon), Strongman, El Gitano, Kemonito (the CMLL mascot), a guy named Fabian, and some lady wrestlers like Faby Apache and Sexy Star.

You may ask yourself, who the fuck cares? Good question. Besides a shit ton of people in Mexico, wrestling is still a big deal in parts of the world. Japan loves them, subsets of America love them, and so on. And there is no reason why we should only have one type of wrestler famous here. Why not the people with big personalities in Mexico as well?

Especially when you get to see them behind the mask.

Kemonito is so cute though.

Just kidding, we still don’t get to see them behind the mask. For those who don the mask, that has to become their lives. Blue Demon Jr. wears the mask for 18 hours a day, the other 6 is when he sleeps. Part of the persona is the mystique behind it, and technically with a mask they can have a life away from the ring. Blue Demon Jr. is probably just the extreme there being the son of a huge movie star/wrestling celebrity.

But not everyone wears a mask! Only like half the people have masks. Some people just revel in the celebrity like a normal American wrestler.

And honestly, overall, by about 2/3 of the way through I totally lost my interest. There are only so many people they can gradually introduce to us before I get a bit overwhelmed. At the same time, some people they introduced us to got a few minutes of time then never talked about again.

The stars of this film are basically Shocker, Strongman, and El Gitano. Blue Demon Jr. has a small and interesting segment, but not a whole lot. The ladies are introduced, Faby (who might have been the best female wrestler in the world at the time it was filmed?) gave some story but not enough. I don’t know really why her relationship with her husband ended, and Sexy Star was given a quick story and then again ignored.

I am not just upset either that Kemontio, clearly the best wrestler ever, wasn’t the main focus. He had his one and done segment and then it was over.

I guess what I am really saying is that the people they made this documentary about didn’t have enough charisma to carry most of the documentary. Either more variety or given more depth to the other wrestlers in this picture and I would have been more excited throughout the documentary.