Documentaries- whatchoo got?

[Travo 15]

Turn Every Page - The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb. It's available on Criterion Channel, which offers a free trial.

 

It's about Robert Caro, one of the best biographers of all-time, and his long-time editor, Scott Gottlieb, who has edited a ton of classic books. Caro wrote The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson. I had not read any of the books when I watched the documentary. Now I'm reading The Power Broker.

[The Ace of Aces 5,175]

Listen to the 99% Invisible podcast series they're currently doing on Power Broker. It's excellent. @Travo

[Travo 15]

4 hours ago, The Ace of Aces said:

Listen to the 99% Invisible podcast series they're currently doing on Power Broker. It's excellent. @Travo

I have listened to the first episode, which is as far as I am in the book so far and enjoyed it. It was cool that they were able to get Caro on the pod.

[Bevo&Pevo 5,120]

On 5/28/2024 at 1:00 PM, miguelito said:

^Sorry to post without commenting on that, but I don't like typing on my phone.

My wife and I watched this one last night, and enjoyed it.  It takes you through 1 year of the Blue Angels, with the crew training, then going on tour, selecting next year's pilots (Naval Aviators), and wrapping up the season.  They do 60+ shows in 30+ cities from March to September or so. 

There are plenty of amazing shots from the ground, from the Angels themselves, and from other aircraft, all in HD.  They filmed this in IMAX, and you'll want your surround sound on.

The flight physician was cute.

X2 on the Doc.  I never realized some of the formations were within 18" or less from each other.  Dayum.

[Ted Lange 16,082]

The first episode of Renfaire was pretty boring, I'll likely stick with it for at least a couple more though.

[Biff Tannen 45,661]

On 6/7/2024 at 10:06 AM, Travo said:

Turn Every Page - The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb. It's available on Criterion Channel, which offers a free trial.

 

It's about Robert Caro, one of the best biographers of all-time, and his long-time editor, Scott Gottlieb, who has edited a ton of classic books. Caro wrote The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson. I had not read any of the books when I watched the documentary. Now I'm reading The Power Broker.

I started The Power Broker like two years ago. I’m about 300 pages in. It’s a slog. 

[Texzilla588 769]

The first episode of Renfaire was pretty boring, I'll likely stick with it for at least a couple more though.

I didn’t realize these were still a thing, much less huge money makers. It’s interesting that these fairs tend to mix the renaissance with Elizabethan, Vikings, dark ages, and Middle Ages all together.

[rage-a-holic 4,370]

6 minutes ago, Texzilla588 said:

I didn’t realize these were still a thing, much less huge money makers. It’s interesting that these fairs tend to mix the renaissance with Elizabethan, Vikings, dark ages, and Middle Ages all together.

and steampunk burlesque dancing. 

[Texzilla588 769]

Spaceship Earth is from a couple years ago on max about Biosphere 2 in 1991. It was the last big science deal done before the internet which might have garnered a different result. Turned into a nutjob disaster. 8 folks locked up for 2 years.

[RPM 26,315]

Definitely checking this one out. I was stationed in Seattle in the late 70's. Rainier was cheap and got the job done. The Lone Star of the Northwest. We consumed mass quantities. Their commercials were genius. They even had Mickey Fuckin' Rooney as spokesman (got him for $500 and a station wagon). They were the little ad agency that rivaled SNL.

 

Edited June 10 by RPM

[Steamboat1874 4,048]

This one of the best and has great music too.

 

[BonzoMontreaux 1,036]

Definitely checking this one out. I was stationed in Seattle in the late 70's. Rainier was cheap and got the job done. The Lone Star of the Northwest. We consumed mass quantities. Their commercials were genius. They even had Mickey Fuckin' Rooney as spokesman (got him for $500 and a station wagon). They were the little ad agency that rivaled SNL.
 

Drank lots of Vitamin R during a summer stay up there.

[BillyGoatHill 4,312]

10 hours ago, RPM said:

Definitely checking this one out. I was stationed in Seattle in the late 70's. Rainier was cheap and got the job done. The Lone Star of the Northwest. We consumed mass quantities. Their commercials were genius. They even had Mickey Fuckin' Rooney as spokesman (got him for $500 and a station wagon). They were the little ad agency that rivaled SNL.

 

I was stationed there in the 80's (then stayed another 22 years), great ads and a good party beer like you and @BonzoMontreaux have stated. 

Their ads were great, with the motorcycle one topping them off IMO.

[Deej 76,750]

On 6/9/2024 at 4:45 PM, Texzilla588 said:

I didn’t realize these were still a thing, much less huge money makers. It’s interesting that these fairs tend to mix the renaissance with Elizabethan, Vikings, dark ages, and Middle Ages all together.

And Star Trek.

[Travo 15]

On 6/9/2024 at 12:48 PM, Biff Tannen said:

I started The Power Broker like two years ago. I’m about 300 pages in. It’s a slog. 

I could see that for sure. I'm on a reading schedule (80-100 pages every two weeks), reading it with my mom and my sisters. 

[RPM 26,315]

 

[SizzleChest 8,283]

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-grab-documentary-film-review-2024

Quote

Instead of a feature-length movie, "The Grab," a 106-minute documentary about shady land deals and global food insecurity, often resembles an overstuffed pilot for an over-ambitious new series. The movie’s creators start by making specific connections and anecdotes, mostly focusing on the sale and seizure of land in Zambia and other African countries. Then, they elaborate with unfocused speculation that’s either too vague or dissimilar to neatly fit into their otherwise believable presentation.

Both an overstimulated multimedia lecture and an anxiety-stoking conspiracy thriller, “The Grab” urges viewers to follow the money, look at the big picture, and so on. The movie’s talking points are synopsized and partly dramatized by a team of investigative journalists led by award-winning reporter Nate Halverson and with support from the Center for Investigative Reporting. 

Halverson introduces the movie’s thesis—multiple world powers, including the American government, are buying massive amounts of arable land to secure food and water for themselves and their people—and then connects way too many dots using a combination of talking head interviews, archival news reports, and a generic mix of hidden, closed-circuit, and drone camera footage. 

“The Grab” begins as a story about a journalist (Halverson) who discovers and soon frets about the security of “The Trove,” a cache of thousands of classified documents concerning notorious mercenary Erik Prince. The movie ends with a half-placating, half-alarming call to action implicating several world governments and capitalism, then praises a couple of social-justice-minded organizations and individuals for restoring their clients’ land and water rights. 

Halverson often proves to be a charismatic and well-spoken narrator, so it’s no surprise that the most convincing parts of “The Grab” concern The Trove and Halverson’s work to understand and explain its implications. It’s also hard to nod along and wring one’s hands at the same time, even if everything does seem to be somewhat connected. 

In The Trove’s glut of private correspondence, Halverson locates a series of communications that links Prince, founder of the notorious private military organization Blackwater, to a series of land deals in Africa, particularly in Zambia. Along with the Chinese-funded Frontier Services Group, Prince has been associated with the seizure and defense of land from its native owners. 

The contents of The Trove are presumed to be too hot to handle. For example, during an aborted 2021 trip to Zambia, Halverson and his fellow journalists were mysteriously detained by airport security, who confiscated the journalists’ passports. Turns out that they had all been declared enemies of the Zambian state, though it’s unclear exactly why. They’re told that their press passes were issued “improperly,” but that seems like an excuse to protect the interests of wealthy corporate landowners. 

That dizzying speculation tracks, and so do many of the talking points Halverson and his colleagues bring up. There are still not enough specific details to tie down so many wide-cast nets, especially not when topics of discussion include bread basket Americans who unwittingly paid for their dispossession; hapless Zambian farmers who are bullied off their land by armed Blackwater-esque soldiers; and Somali fishermen, who became modern-day sea pirates after their local waters were drained of fish. 

There are also too-brief mentions of stuff like experimental/futuristic-sounding Chinese jet packs and invisibility cloaks—in case some CEOs need to flee when local residents inevitably try to reclaim their land—as well as the heavily implied suggestion that Erik Prince and his associates either are or were working with the United Arab Emirates and specifically Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his associates. It’s still often hard to agree when one talking head interviewee says, “In order to tell this story, you have to tell it on a global scale—it’s all connected.” 

Rather than focus on three or four specific organizations, individuals, or countries, “The Grab” veers from one sensational and/or unsettling talking point to the next. Maybe they could have addressed the likelihood of some of their scarier quotes, like what are the odds that Smithfield Foods, which was acquired by a Chinese company, would stop exporting meat, thereby creating what one interviewee calls “global Armageddon”? It’d also be nice to know more about what happened with Erik Prince in Zambia, or what Simon Mann, an ex-military mercenary, means when he says he knows that Prince is invested in African land because “he’s a friend of mine.” Some follow-up questions could’ve been enlightening, you know? 

“The Grab” ends with Halverson and his team shutting the outer gates to the Center of Investigative Reporting’s Emeryville, California headquarters. Apparently, it’s now up to us, the viewers, to decide what we believe. A longer or more episodic version of “The Grab” might have been able to accommodate tangents about pirates and jetpacks; this version of “The Grab” doesn’t even have an unhappy ending.   

 

[BillyGoatHill 4,312]

Today is National PTSD Awareness day.... this is available on youtube.

 

 

[shadow_operative2.0 15,941]

For the 48 Hours/Dateline fans, I’ve been watching this lately.

Deadly Waters With Captain Lee

Saturdays on Oxygen at 8, replays plenty. Obviously all water crimes. 

[Texzilla588 769]

Documentary? I don’t know what to make sometimes of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch but wife loves Travis Taylor and if the shits real they’re experiencing, it’s fucking insane, and if it’s fake, it’s some crazy shit Hollywood hasn’t figured out yet.

[atomheartbevo 89,618]

So when this aired back in the 80s and 90s, it was a current news show.

Now it’s a documentary that spans hundreds of hours and over 400 shows. Some of the people interviewed or doing product demos went on to huge things, but many didn’t.  Many of the companies mentioned are long since gone. I cannot get enough of it.  

The Computer Chronicles.  They released many of them to Archive.org/YouTube, and many are captured from the original studio tapes so the quality can be better than you’d expect   

https://www.youtube.com/@ComputerChroniclesYT/videos

[seven 1,367]

LA92 is available for free on YouTube. It's one of the most powerful docs I've seen. Watch it when you have some time. 

 

[Macanudo 12,974]

The Blue Angels doc is kind of cheesy overall but it's still jets going fast and doing stupid things.  Plus, Doc would get it.  

[atomheartbevo 89,618]

1 hour ago, Macanudo said:

The Blue Angels doc is kind of cheesy overall but it's still jets going fast and doing stupid things.  Plus, Doc would get it.  

Best seen in IMAX

[Paul Wesley 3,278]

On 6/10/2024 at 9:56 AM, Steamboat1874 said:

This one of the best and has great music too.

 

Great TM story about Foreman's sparring partner, who shows up a lot in that movie:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-shot-not-heard-round-the-world/

[TexasGary 833]

Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes

Wow was she hot back in the day.  These are actual audio tapes of her doing an interview for a book.

 

 

[shadow_operative2.0 15,941]

There’s a series called American Godfathers: The Five Families starting at 7 tonight on History. We’ll see if it’s worth a shit. 

[shadow_operative2.0 15,941]

First episode was pretty good, but you better have the FF button for commercials.

I will keep watching. 

[Bevo&Pevo 5,120]

This was fairly entertaining. 

Connor Stalions Addresses Sign-Stealing Allegations in 'Untold' Doc - Netflix Tudum

 

[Celery Man 20,929]

Last Stop Larrimah on HBO Max is entertaining and worth a watch. Premise - there’s a tiny town on a road through the Australian outback, population of 11 people with a pub and a meat pie shop and that’s it. One night, the owner of the pub disappears, and the police begin to suspect murder.

 

honestly I want another one like this. This is one of those documentaries maybe a bit in the vein of King of Kong or Hands on a Hardbody where it’s character driven weirdo drama.