Author Topic: DOCember 2017  (Read 18092 times)

pixote

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #30 on: December 03, 2017, 01:48:57 PM »
Voyeur (2017)

Hmm, doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but I'm almost still curious to check it out now because your reaction seems so highly specific and individual, and I'd wonder if any hint of that would play into my own reaction.

pixote
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jdc

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #31 on: December 03, 2017, 05:36:38 PM »
I started it yesterday but turned it off after 15 mins. Bondo confirmed to me it was the correct choice
"Beer. Now there's a temporary solution."  Homer S.
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FLYmeatwad

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #32 on: December 03, 2017, 06:18:44 PM »
I almost watched that. Even though I generally don't care a ton for docs, I have watched two thus far in DOCember.

Betting On Zero I thought was alright, the thing is that years ago I had a bunch of people from high school posting about Herbalife. One of them now owns a juice bar with his wife and was on stage at some local conference a year or two ago, I guess. The coolest part about this documentary was towards the beginning when they had a professor from TCNJ on, that was nuts! But yeah, in terms of craft it didn't seem incredibly spectacular, and I went in knowing little about Herbalife aside from being pretty sure that it was a pyramid scheme, so it just reinforced that. May come as a shock, but I'm very anti-pyramid scheme. Anyway, could have used more of the guy from TCNJ. It was also unsettling that so many people lost so much, but the one white guy who got fleeced and invested heavily just opened a bunch of vape shops.

Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated was fun to watch as a Demi fan, and even though it only brushed up against portions of her Disney career there was a lot more to her story that I found compelling. Her new album is really good, and though I'm not sure there's anything special about this (the opening is nice though, her in the studio trying to get the perfect take) it's also really good because it has so much Demi Lovato.

smirnoff

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #33 on: December 03, 2017, 11:57:24 PM »
Betting On Zero

I went in knowing little about Herbalife aside from being pretty sure that it was a pyramid scheme, so it just reinforced that.

That's something I like about the doc... even once you're sure it's a pyramid scheme it's still interesting to learn their insidious methods.... and seeing the data that really tears them apart. Also, watching them have those conferences I was struck with how much it resembled clips of Scientology events. I don't know if that says more about Herbalife or Scientology. :))

oldkid

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #34 on: December 04, 2017, 03:28:43 AM »
Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond, Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton

This is a chronicle of Jim Carrey's descent into extreme method acting, performing one of the most extreme artists, Andy Kaufman, during the filming of the film Man in the Moon.  I figured I would see Jim Carrey acting like an "asshole" to use the producer's term, but what I didn't expect is how affecting this film would be.

Frankly, Andy Kaufman died too soon and many of his friends and family treated Jim manifesting Andy as the extreme comics second coming, an opportunity to connect with him in a way they weren't able to when he was alive.  It was quite touching, as well as being extraordinarily weird.  But weird was Kaufman's specialty.

In a sense, this is the Hearts of Darkness of comedy, showing how a production heads into insanity.  It would be hilarious if I were seeing a fictional narrative of it, but as it is, I wonder if I am just encouraging Carrey to try this again.  I hope he doesn't.  It's not worth it.

The documentary is fascinating and at times moving.

4/5
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

DarkeningHumour

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #35 on: December 04, 2017, 10:35:41 AM »
Mea Maxima Culpa
Alex Gibney (2012)


If it came out tomorrow that McDonald's restaurant managers had been molesting and raping their employees throughout the world under the protection of their headquarters scores would find themselves in jail in a matter of weeks, including the top brass, and the company could realistically collapse. If the doctors of Médecins sans Frontières systematically abused their patients the NGO would likely not survive the accusations and the ensuing prosecutions, for all the good it does in the world. If the president of a Rome-based international bank was indirectly responsible for thousands of children being molested, at home and abroad, he would go to jail, no matter how powerful or how rich the bank.

When they write the moral history of democracy they will not conclude that our greatest sin was pride, or racism, or bloodlust, or cruelty. They shall write instead that our failing was apathy. Apathy in the face of horror and pain. Apathy for the sake of our comfort, for the preservation of our selfish interests and certainties. We ignore massacres as long as they happen far away. We elect racists as long as we belong to the majority. We disregard police brutality as long as we are not the ones being brutalised. We are content with women's place and treatment in society, as long as we're men.

The crimes are so much easier to ignore when they have allegedly been perpetrated by those we like, too. That comedian cannot be a deviant, he's so funny. My political candidate would not have groped those children, he believes the same things I do. There is no way headmaster touched those kids, he's a priest.

There is perhaps no race of people in the world we protect as much as we do priests. The Church doesn't even have to lift a finger. The victims rarely dare come forward, their parents tell them to shut up if they do and the police ignore them. Their communities shun them and they get death threats. I can almost understand the Church protecting its own and keeping matters under wraps. It is in the nature of systems to perpetuate. The attitude of the people towards these scandals however, is testament to our moral mediocrity as a species.

Catholics worldwide pretend nothing is happened or has happened every day of their lives, every time they go to church, every time a child is raped somewhere, and the church covers it up. We certainly don't need more evidence at this point to know the problem is endemic ; there were scandals coming out regularly when I wasn't even ten. Gibney's documentary's best quality is how it is able to shift scale, to move from individual cases to the global scope of the problem and the Church's treatment of it. It denounces the priests who rape, the bishops who protect them, the archbishops who back them up and the popes how do nothing at all about all of it - which doesn't stop many people from calling some of them the best pope of their lifetimes, because they didn't say homosexuals would go to hell.

Syria is far away. Police brutality is a complex issue that involves changing minds and attitudes. Jailing paedophiles should be a non issue. Criticising the church should not be controversial. But apathy is too powerful a force. Not just the apathy to do something and change the world. The apathy to change oneself and examine one's beliefs and allegiances.

Priests belong to a club of men who were born in the previous century and live in the one before that. They protect their riches and privileges and those of their club. They wield immense wealth and influence. They don't need our help. We will still give it to them.

8/10
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1SO

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #36 on: December 04, 2017, 05:37:45 PM »
Pearl Jam Twenty (2011)
* * 1/2
Much like the trajectory of the band itself, I found this doc initially fascinating but as time rolled on Cameron Crowe was doing everything he could to maintain Pearl Jam's relevance. I realized how little I knew about Seattle's grunge scene and the fast rise of the band. I would trade the last 45 minutes for 45 more minutes with Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Nirvana and Temple of the Dog. I want more stories about the songs and don't need a montage of fans telling me how devoted they've stayed. Unfortunately, the most damning proof is the difference in Pearl Jam's stage shows from beginning to end as they go from fireballs of talent to musicians dragged off their couch to host fan sing-a-longs to their famous hits.

FLYmeatwad

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #37 on: December 05, 2017, 06:24:16 PM »
11/8/16 played at PFF this year and I skipped it because I tend to stray from docs at the festival, even though I saw that James last year I did skip VARDA!!! this one, but this has probably been the best DOCember thing I've watched so far. It reminds you how sobering things are, and while I didn't see the original film about the Obama election, I imagine this is what happens when you make a documentary and then something happens to completely shift the focus or you discover something you hadn't set out to document. Hard to say with so many directors involved, but still impressive for the sobering feeling it does capture. Something like this would work better as a series, don't even think a James or Wiseman runtime would give it all the room it needs, but given the limitations (obviously you can't have a single director and also film a single day all across the country) there's a lot to like here.

Bondo

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #38 on: December 05, 2017, 09:02:27 PM »
Finally got the index caught up. I've been in trial (my first as a paralegal) for the past week and a half and have been working 10-12 hour days. Lots of holiday coming up to get my DOCember viewings back on track.

smirnoff

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Re: DOCember 2017
« Reply #39 on: December 05, 2017, 10:39:52 PM »
Finally got the index caught up. I've been in trial (my first as a paralegal) for the past week and a half and have been working 10-12 hour days.

Dude, I hope you start sharing your exciting legal war stories.

 

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