Tag: Documentary

Here at Gorgon Reviews, we like to break the mold. We like to consider ourselves on the cutting edge of reviews. The only thing we are really lacking is those press credentials. But that is not what we are talking about.

No! Instead, we are just going to look into genre-defying films. Yes, on Documentary Thursday of all days.

Charlie Victor Romeo is about plane crashes. Straight up. Not a fun topic for anyone. Everyone should know what a black box is. It records whatever goes on in the cockpit, creating an audio record in case shit hits the fan.

Charlie Victor Romeo, in a nutshell, is six different blackbox recordings before six different airplane accidents/incidents.

Black boxes. White pilots. Who’d have thought there’d be no grey area in a cockpit.

Obviously, you have to be in the right mood to want to watch a movie like this. Now, it isn’t just the actual blackbox recordings. This is a documentary, not some audiobook. But when it comes to the genre defying characteristics, this is a theatrical documentary.

This is why we have some actors. A few people at a time recreate what the cockpit might have felt like during these moments, with the exact same conversation as it went down/almost went down and that is the entirety of it. It makes sense that this started out as a play, a pretty intense one at that. And then it became used for pilots in training! And then this movie.

It might help them discuss decision making, or whatever.

But assuming you are in the right mood for a movie like this, I would say overall it is still just okay. Some of the situations were good and tense. Some felt too long, maybe too boring, or just too confusing terminology wise. Some were a good length, intense, and great. It varies. But some might love its overall simplicity.

But hey, because it is acted, here are our actors! Sam Zuckerman, Debbie Troche, Nora Woolley, Patrick Daniels, Robert Berger, Noel Dinneen, and Irving Gregory!

Either way, this guy is on Netflix, and probably not leaving any time soon.

Drugs! Have I tackled any documentaries about drugs in any way on my website yet? Looks like I haven’t.

Me and drugs have an interesting relationship. Or at least a lack of one. I don’t understand them, have no desire to do them, yet also, don’t care if other people do them. I know the basic things. Like pot. Pot is definitely less dangerous than smoking and alcohol, and I support people’s right to do those things. I am the kind of guy who thinks people should be able to do whatever they want, for the most part, as long as it doesn’t endanger others.

The Culture High is about that, but at the same time, way way way more.

Like. Literally everything. The documentary is at 2 hours length, and it has so much dang information in it. It isn’t just about marijuana, and its health benefits or lack thereof. No, it is about the entire drug industry, pharmaceutical to the war on drugs. It is about for profit prisons and incarceration rates. It even touched on the Kids for Cash thing. It is about lobbying groups and bribing politicians to follow corporate interests. It is about how sweet the Internet is and how the government would rather it be controlled.

I mean. Shit. It is probably secretly about your mother as well.

It is apparently also about my fifth grade science project.

Did I mention this was about everything? Because holy shit, it got around and I really want to emphasize this point. I can’t even begin to talk about all the people they had talking. From news correspondents, to people who have earned PhDs, to Joe Rogan, to everyone in between.

Despite all the great info, most of which I have seen before in documentaries focused solely to one topic, it felt like the documentary overall seemed to lack focus because of it. The flow was off. I kind of forgot every once in awhile that this was about marijuana legality in America!

This is the type of documentary that would be good for someone’s first ever documentary if they had no idea some of the shady shit that went down in America. But for me, it could have had a stronger focus. I technically don’t care if pot gets legalized or not. Like I already said, I am all for rights.

But my main con is that it just smells super damn terrible. Makes me almost vomit.

Febreeze yourself, please.

Presented by Zach Galifianakis? Well, ain’t that just fancy! He is an Executive Producer, so who knows what that means. Maybe he helped come up with the idea. Maybe he provided all the funds to release this documentary. Maybe he just bought it from some film festival.

Either way, Craigslist Joe is not about Zach Galifianakis. It is about Joseph Garner, some dude who wants to run an experiment. He gets a lot of free things off of Craigslist, and noticed a lot free services or well. So, with the economy like it is, he wanted to see if he could live off the kindness of strangers on Craigslist for a month, while also traveling across the United States.

And apparently it is pretty easy, the traveling part. Rideshares is a tab on Craigslist, and people offer rides sometimes for cash, sometimes for free, sometimes just to switch on and off the driving responsibility. So that was actually really easy.

His goal was to start in Cali, and get to the other side and back in thirty days. He also is doing this during December, the most giving and caring of months, so that is going for him.

It only took him five hours to look this homeless.

Also he got to have a phone, laptop/charger, and a camera man of course. No money. He would only go do activities / events that were advertised on Craigslist. As for avoiding homelessness, he would only ask for places to stay either on Craigslist itself or through the events that he went too. So while on this, he got to try a lot of things as well. Free intro classes, open houses, volunteer stuff, you name it. It was probably a very humbling experience.

But at the same time, observation changes everything. If you wanted to recreate this, you would probably fail. You know why? Because you don’t have a camera dude following you around. Of course people are going to be more generous, more willing to let him crash on his couch, if he has a dude filming it for the experiment documentary. This lets people know he is safe and lets them look really good.

And this kills the documentary for me. Was this is a good idea? Sure, why not. It would be better if he had just saved all emails, phone calls, etc with people though and went alone. That would be the real test. Having it all recorded as it went down made this a feel good hug fest advertisement for Craigslist, when in reality, it would be really easy to do if you had his same initial resources.

Ugh. Partially why I don’t buy the movie Bully. I have to assume kids were egged on to perform for the camera to pick on the kids being followed around. They can’t make a whole crew invisible.

Again, great idea. But bad idea to make it a documentary.

I came upon The Invisible War by accident. Just dashing through the Documentaries on Netflix.

But hey, I didn’t know when I watched it that it was nominated for Best Documentary. This is just a bonus!

I have been pretty bad at watching any of the movies nominated for the Best Documentary, let alone the winners. So this really was a nice surprise. I also now have to just remember to check the large list the next time I am hurting for a movie.

The Invisible War is about an uncomfortable subject. Rape and Sexual assault in the United States military.

It starts off with a happy message. Yay! Women in the Armed Forces! Equality and all! But based on the reports, the military is still almost entirely a boy’s game despite the decades.

There are pros and cons on going to war with actual invisible beings.
Con: You can’t see them.
Pro: You can spray fire your AK for a real reason finally.

Let’s start by saying, the beginning of this movie is rough. It starts with one woman telling her story of her own assault/rape case and how nothing was done about it. Then they throw in like, a dozen or more people telling various parts of their stories, all similar, all terrible. They immediately make you in a really shitty feeling mood and it was uncomfortable to watch.

But it doesn’t stop there. It examines why this happens. It examines how the the military treats problems from within, how it treats those that have left it, and what changes need to be done to fix it all.

And in all honesty, it is very powerful, hard to watch, and important documentary. It is one of those that might actually be able to make a difference in the world. Just give it a chance, unless it brings up past bad things in your life. Then you will probably already know about this one.

And it also made me want to go back and watch A Few Good Men. Or finally watch that JAG show.

Watch out, this is one of those creepy documentaries. I have watched a couple of these before, most relevant is Killer Legends. It talked about four urban legends, where they came from, the truth behind them, the real trials, and movies that they inspired.

It was fantastic and a bit scary.

Cropsey is very similar, but instead of four, we are given the full length to talk about just one. This Cropsey story is something that may have spread lots of places, but was focused mainly in New York and the Staten Island area. This was your standard tale. Don’t play alone in the woods as a kid, or Cropsey will grab you, especially if you are naughty, and you won’t be seen again.

But this Staten Island area also had an abandoned mental facility. That was still there. That was reported on by Geraldo Fucking Rivera, so you know it is serious. It was shut down. That building plus some tunnels in the area were said to be home to some homeless and leftover mental people.

And hey, there was also missing kids!

The most famous story was Jennifer, a girl with Down syndrome, who went missing in 1987. The whole community came together to find the missing girl, with their only facts pointing to Andre Rand, an older homeless man who used to be a janitor at the mental institution and was kind of awkward.

We assume they searched out of the goodness of the heart. No other reason.

So, a lot of people didn’t trust him, and because he was reported being with the girl, a witch hunt began. He was put on trial and of course found guilty. However, there was more than just that girl missing. There were quite a few missing children from that area, and four were notable in that the Law people figured that maybe Rand had something to do with them too.

And with that, we get rushed into modern day. A trial, a re-opening of Rand’s case, and seeing if they can incorporate evidence for a few other disappearing kids. Murder or who knows what. Maybe they can find out where the fuck they are or why they are gone or anything?

Because rumors are rampant. Cults, satanists, sadistic people with disabilities, who knows.

And I think the trial stuff is where this documentary starts to lose it. Early on it was exciting and scary. When they go into theories, it is a lot more interesting. The truth seems a lot less exciting, especially when we realize how little we know. I was a bit disappointed with the ending of the documentary.

Maybe I just wanted it to be a bit more creepier. Yeah, probably.

I am probably just angry with a lack of answers and am left with implied reality. But that is on me. It is an interesting documentary, just one that seemed to flicker out by the end.

Sooo, slavery.

Wait no, not slavery. Just baby trafficking. Woo!

Wait no, this is bad. Kids for Cash!? What an attention grabbing title! And no, it isn’t about parents having babies just to get those tax benefits or child support.

This is far more serious. This takes place in Pennsylvania, not cold and desolate Ireland. It involves a couple of judges who received monetary kickbacks from a children’s private correctional facility. Yep, people in power putting kids in juvie, and getting cash from the company. Pretty damn scummy.

And to be fair, this is only the most famous and well known case, which was relatively recent. It is argued that things like this have been occurring for some time. It doesn’t help that our country has elected judges in the first place, as John Oliver recently brought up.

Specifically, Judge Ciavarella sent HUNDREDS of youth to this place. Sometimes for minor offenses that most wouldn’t ever assume would go to any trial. They would be normal things a school would handle. But Columbine/Zero Tolerance policies take and ignore any pretenses and treat everyone the same: terribly.

Which is why parents treated the judge terribly in retrospect.

Who’s that lady? (Whooooo’s that laddddy?) Well, she went viral yelling at him on live TV or something. Check out the video. Her son committed suicide partially due to his time in Juvie for an un-important offense.

But here is the best part of the documentary. It is unbiased as fuck. Guess who they have as an interviewee. Guess. Come on.

That’s right. Motherfuckin’ Judge Ciavarella. They interview him at his house, during the trial, and get his side of all the events before the sentencing occurred. They don’t immediately contradict him or call him names or anything stupid, either. They give a real honest to goodness attempt to be impartial and let him explain everything.

Do we buy it? No. He is clearly a dumb ass who knew he was doing wrong. But he was that kind of dumb ass before he got paid for it too.

Kids For Cash is most likely just the top of the unlawful judge iceberg. We have for profit prisons and judges who accept donations/bribes from lawyers. Nothing is sacred, the law is scary, and I am staying indoors.

Four out of five! Four out of five! I am getting so close. As an update in my attempts to watch all five of the documentaries nominated for Best Oscar, my other three have been Virunga, Citizenfour, and Finding Vivian Maier. That is because I never watch these things, I always watch shitty food documentaries and other crap. BUT HERE I AM WITH FOUR OF THE FIVE.

Man. Only one thing can beat this feeling. Like, an unlimited stack of pancakes. Or all five. But also pancakes. We will see. I don’t think I can make it.

Now we have Last Days In Vietnam! PBS put it on their website for free for a few days just so people like me can watch it. Was awfully kind of them. And the title isn’t vague at all. I instantly know what it is about. The last days in Vietnam! For America!

Here are people pushing freedom over into Vietnam.

I don’t want to get into a history lesson, but after Nixon ceremoniously left the office, Vietnam was in shambles. North Korea was fucking things up, South Korea was in trouble. Next thing you knew, America wanted out, but at the same time, a giant North Korea army was marching down and nothing could stand in its way! The USA had to evacuate, but at the same time, didn’t want to let everyone get slaughtered. There were attempts to get people to safety, to America, to wait until the army was right up on the capital gates.

Things were hectic, things were scary, and thankfully it wasn’t too long ago for everyone to be dead. A lot of major players, both in Vietnam and at home, are featured in this documentary to tell the stories. We have stories from Soldiers to Citizens, from Henry Kissinger to refugee. Overall it paints a pretty decent picture of what went down. A subject, I can freely admit I wasn’t super knowledgeable about before this documentary.

But also. I don’t feel super knowledgeable about it after the fact either. It is a strange feeling. I was listening and loving the information. But all of it seems to have gone in one ear and out the other. It is probably just a me situation, and not the same for everyone. But this is my review, not yours, so get your own website, jerks.

Either way. Good information, but at the same time, I guess it feels like something that they used to show on the History channel. You know, before the incident.

Welcome to my third interview going over the Oscar Nominations for Best Documentary! The first two I looked at were Virunga and Citizenfour, and now to continue my “random order” with Finding Vivian Maier.

I don’t know who this lady is, but I have heard she is missing and they made a documentary about it. Sort of like Finding Bigfoot. I don’t just say that because Vivian was a tall woman either.

The story starts with a guy, John Maloof, our narrator and co-director, being an auction hound. He buys random junk hoping to find treasure, and he ended up buying a large lot of unknown stuff which features a lot of undeveloped photographs. When he gave them the old lookie-loo, he found them to be pretty darn good. Classic old black and white pictures. But who is she? Where is she? Why did her work go unnoticed?

I mean. She is right there. How hard could she be to find?

John is able to get Vivian’s work in galleries and it makes people go crazy. They love it and they love the mystery. Well, it turns out that Vivian was a socially awkward nanny. So he was able to find a lot of people she worked for, parents or kids, find old friends, landlord, and piece together her entire life, until she eventually died.

And what a life she had! She did…well. I obviously won’t tell you. The discovery/journey is the whole point. Can see her highs, her lows, her quirks, and her troubled times.

And despite the silly subject, about a passion/hobby/type of career I don’t even care a lot, I loved this documentary. It was so creative, it told a great story, so many people were interviewed and her life through her camera and social awkwardness is now super available for everyone to enjoy. It probably would have pissed her off too, knowing that. But hey, shut up. I am enjoying the shit out Vivian, even if I don’t super love her photography.

A great documentary, not as great as Citizenfour, but still great.

If you are just catching up, I am attempting to hit all the documentaries nominated for the Oscars. Something I have never really attempted before (and still haven’t done for any year). Last week I did Virunga, courtesy of Netflix.

Today I review Citizenfour, courtesy of the NSA. This is not to be confused with Citizen Koch, also from 2014, which was too muddled to make a good point.

No, this one is about a different man who has affected the world, Edward Snowden. More importantly, it is about him BEFORE and after he affected the world. If you can’t remember, Edward Snowden is the whistle blower who gave out tons of information of illegal activity that the NSA was doing, namely spying on its own citizens.

Whereas documentaries spy on people with their knowledge.

How did it get the information before? Well, Snowden realized this was a big deal, so he contacted Glenn Greenwald through encrypted means. He wanted to give him information. He also knew this information was so important, that they began filming the decision in Hong Kong, before the information officially became leaked.

So what does this documentary offer? Watching a man make one of the biggest life changing decisions of his life. You also get to see how much effort went in to protecting him and the journalists involved. How much time was spent being paranoid (for good reasons) and time to make sure their routes to the airport, to embassies, and all would not end with him getting put in jail.

It was pretty intense. And in fact, at times it felt a lot like a thriller. Which is pretty amazing for a documentary.

Like him or hate him (you SHOULD like him, by the way), Snowden was one of the biggest news stories over the last year, and did a lot to help world see what kind of fucked up things our government was doing.

Basically, he is basically a tech-Jesus. And this is the story of how it all went down, along with other information that you might not know about some of the shit the government did. Very informative, very intense.

It is a hard goal, but I figure I should also check out the best documentary nominees. I was really hoping that I would have seen a few of them before they were nominated, but apparently the ones I thought looked interesting weren’t good enough.

I really should have seen Virunga, because it was a Netflix documentary and has been made available for awhile. My bad. Either way, I can totally get these documentaries done ahead of time, I think.

Virunga! It is about the Congo! The only stuff I know about the Congo are from the movie, Congo, and apparently it grossly misrepresents what is going on over there.

Kind of. Because there is a big military presence ever. And there are definitely gorillas, which is really the point of this documentary in the first place.

Well, the love between a man and his gorilla.

Virunga is a national park in Congo. The gorilla there only lives there and is being hunted. They want to protect them and the land from being messed up like the rest of the Congo. But also, we have an oil company there who wants to determine if there is oil under the large lake and in the area. They aren’t allowed to drill there or extract anything, but they just want to “see”.

Apparently they might be doing more than that, too. Secret meetings, bribes, and mercenaries and fighters. Oh boy.

Virunga at points plays out like an action movie, as they had people recording the events happening right before people would get attacked or fights would break out. It was definitely a bit scary and intense. I was also really impressed by all the moving parts. A lot of different sources of information, from park rangers, to journalists, to everyone in between. They really branched out with their work.

I think what is best about this documentary is that it is set in the NOW. This type of stuff is happening, here are recent events, and we should be outraged about it. I would be, but I can’t muster it up. But I know I should be which is even more important. Great source of information coming from many different angles, and not very biased. Nice.