Yeah, I knew about his crimes but not all the courtroom shenanigans. Fascinating stuff.

Ps. At risk of thread derail, I watched the Staircase a couple of weeks back. Do people who have seen it think he is innocent or guilty?

My initial reaction to The Staircase was that the evidence was sketchy. The prosecution's case essentially came down to "gee that's a lot of blood, she must've been murdered... and the husband must've done it because he's a bisexual weirdo." Which is not to say I think he's innocent, it means I don't think he was proven guilty.

I remember reading some article a year or two ago with some allegations that the guy and the female producer of the documentary were banging, which would have some obvious implications for potential bias in how the documentary was edited.

Science Fair

This is about a bunch of smartypants kids competing in an international science fair. The most interesting part for me was the kid who was really into AI so he wrote a program to make rap songs. Clearly a smart kid with talent and a specific interest. The problem was he gets bored in school and doesn't care about it, so his grades aren't that good, thus he got rejected from all the colleges he applied to. School is such bull****.

3/5

Free Solo

Thanks to KCT for the heads up, I've been waiting for this. I kinda wish they'd spent more time talking about his training and planning and less time with the romcom oh noes the gf is crying relationship stuff. Like how much does he train with that finger pullup bar thingy, does he lift, does he do cardio? What's all the terminology in his notebook? Only climbers would understand wtf he's saying.

But it's still a good watch because of the obvious ZOMGGG HE COULD DIE!!!11

4/5

And of course we don’t get free solo on Amazon Prime in Canada!

****ing awful copyright bs.

A friend told me it's on torrent sites.

Spoiler alert re: The Staircase should you plan to watch this, which I recommend. With that being said...

I found the owl theory the most plausible. Help me, it doesn't really come up in the doc? It's been a while since I watched this.

What definitely is in the doc are the post mortem photographs of her skull; you can see clearly what looks like some bird of prey's claws. But it was never considered by the prosecution in the initial trial and perhaps neither in the re-trail(s).

Still a fascinating case and doc. And I think no one knows what happened other than if he did it.


I found the editing of the end of the first season a bit unfortunate. When I was watching this on Arte absolute ages ago I was under the impression that he admitted to his guilt in court right after hearing his guilty verdict.

3801 Lancaster: An American Tragedy

Just wow. I had never even heard of this case (just google Kermit Gosnell) and I can’t believe I never had, as I follow true crime pretty intensely.

I don’t really know what to think about it’s role in the abortion/anti-abortion arguments and while I have no time for pro-lifers I think it’s super interesting that quite possibly the nation’s left-leaning media kept mum on this because of its potential implications for the argument against abortion.

Anyways, the doc itself it just ok; the end where they try to tie it into some other potential malpractice at a Planned Parenthood really ruined the doc for me, but it’s worth watching for any true crime fan, parts are absolutey horrifying and the guy sounds like a ridiculously smart complete sociopath

The Wild And Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia

All I have to say is I'm glad I'm not from West Virginia.

3/5

Wasted: The Story Of Food Waste

An expose on how much perfectly good food gets wasted (spoiler alert: a lot). Narrated by Anthony Bourdain.

3/5

Watched the Bundy Tapes in one sitting while grinding. Dude was fascinating and after reading his Wikia right after, he was even more ****ed up than what they showed. They didn't even mention he was a necrophiliac, not that I recall at least. dude went back to the rotting bodies of his victims and had sex with them. sooo ****ed up. What amazes me the most is that even after doing these ****ed up things he'd still be very easy to talk to, like a completely different person. I imagined that a person that did the things he did would be unable to even have a short conversation without showing sings of being a complete monster.

Yeah, I had no intention of watching The Bundy Tapes, but I was bored and put it on. Knocked it out in 1 shot!! I knew a little here and there but didn't realize how much I didn't know. Can't wait for the movie coming out soon!

As you probably can infer from my avatar, I've seen this.

My brother has talked to Jesco on the phone.

If you're in the mood to get creeped out and depressed, I have two recs:

Leaving Neverland

Two men recount their stories of being sexually abused by Michael Jackson as children.

Surviving R. Kelly

This is a series on A&E. Several women and parents talk about their experiences with R. Kelly and his abuse/creepiness.

Watched freesolo... wasn't completely blown away.
What he does is completely amazing, but the movie was only soso... especially the final assent which seemed compressed and unduly edited.

I think my friend Elliot Roe (who coaches MMA fighters and some top Poker pros including sessions with 2017 sell main champ) could help this guy... but then he'd probably be a worse climber because he would have more life balance and more humanity.

I thought I was the only person who wasn’t completely blown away by it.

I’m a huge fan of any type of outdoor documentary and a climber myself, just could not wait for it....got tickets for opening night.....and left completely unimpressed.

The accomplishment itself stands alone obv but as for the doc itself, the only thing I really liked was it gave me the chance to play armchair shrink for a guy I find rly interesting.

I much preferred Meru.

The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley

This is about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. Not bad, but the constant super close up shots of Holmes got really annoying. Zooming in on a pic of someone's face over and over again does not create drama or add to the story, it's just annoying.

3/5

Behind the Curve on Netflix.

Looks at the Flat Earth Movement. Both funny and a bit depressing. They keep spending loads of money on scientific equipment to prove their point, but their experiments just prove the earth round. It's a bit sad as they basically say no amount of evidence will change their minds as they like feeling part of a community.

The scary part is they're teaching their kids it, and those kind of ideas tie into more worrying ''scientific theories' such as climate change denial and antivaxing.

About the Chapecoense tragedy.

Watched this a bit ago, and thought they did a really good job of editing it to contrast the points being made by the scientists about the psychological draw of things like flat earth with the behavior of the flat earthers.

I felt like it did a great job getting to the heart of the matter which really isn't flat earth (or climate denial, or anti-vax, etc.) but rather the need to belong and be validated. It was lighthearted enough that we could laugh at Mark Sergeant and the dude paying $20,000 for a gyroscope only to realize the earth was indeed round (and then summarily ignore it), but serious enough that it spoke to the dangerous of allowing this stuff to show up in classrooms or be given anything nearing "equal time".

I totally agree in regards to all the close up shots. I'm sure Holmes loved it. She certainly had a narcissistic personality. She hires a top notch photographer to take over 200 photos of her in different poses and places for magazine covers.

She looks somewhat like an albino or a goth person with that milky white skin offset with the black turtlenecks & red lipstick. But I guess the character that works best for her and her looks would be a female Dracula - let me suck your blood/money until its dry.

She obviously wanted to be put in a Silicon Valley All Star museum to be compared to Gates, Jobs, the Google guys, etc. so badly that she figured she could either con her way in or just hire a bunch of top notch biology/chemistry & other scientists & throw them in a secret lab with NDA's and tell them to make a small machine that could do impossible things with a drop of blood.

I thought the makers of this doc (one whom was Alex Gibney I think who seems to be involved in several good documentaries lately with one on Scientology that was good - what a nutcase scam that is) made a good point when they said when she was on the carpet she thought of herself as a Goddess as well as many of her followers.

And she had powerful connections she deceived that could give her protection from regulators (& Trump has lifted regulations so the big Fracking interests & similar big corporations like Dow and Monsanto can again just throw endless tons of a brew of nasty chemicals into all sorts of water & I think I read that only 3% of the water on Earth is freshwater).

And boy she could get her followers worked up. I thought it was hilarious when they played Can't Touch This by M.C. Hammer as she tells her followers that they had some good news from the FDA which in reality was a tiny drop in a bucket she could never fill.

But when she was on the tile (being the labs where the experts in these types of technologies were working), she had no idea or smarts in any of this (& eventually when the bright people realized what was going on, they saw that what Holmes was telling investors was total bull****, and they starting leaving the sinking ship).

This is getting too long so I'll just mention one other thing that was interesting. Former Secretary of State George Shultz bought Elizabeth Holmes Bull****....hook, line, & sinker (makes u wonder if any other country pulled the wool over his eyes when he was SOS).

And his grandson who worked for Theranos realized the whole thing was a scam and helped the Wall Street Journal reporter who broke the story it was a scam. And then Holmes who hired big time lawyers including David Boies to scare and intimidate anybody who told the truth about Theranos.

His grandson's name was Tyler & he went to his grandfathers house to meet some of Holmes attorneys (and George still believed in Holmes). Then u see George S. in a deposition (I think he was 94 or 95, but he still seemed mentally healthy) says he never thought Holmes tried to con him & he still believed in her.

Then in another (or the same) deposition when asked about the lawyers from Theranos who came that day - he said they were animals, then corrected himself & said they were Wild Animals who were verbally assaulting his grandson.

When the house of cards finally crumbled & it became obvious Holmes had just scammed a bunch of people for their money & whatever else she needed them for. And G. Shultz finally realized his grandson was right which was a good thing. And when the ship was almost all the way under the sea - she fired her boyfriend & Theranos CEO named Sunny.

And if she could keep the scam going - I don't think she would have had a problem of boxing his car in on a toll road & having a bunch of mob guys rise up in the toll booths with machine guns and riddle him with bullets.

A few excellent documentaries. I watch a lot of them. I don't know if anybody has mentioned these so far.

Searching For Sugarman

Blackfish

Gleason


I wont mention what these are about - but I think that if anybody who reads this post has seen any of them - they will agree - and maybe explain a bit in regards to what they are about.

Searching For Sugar Man is worth watching for the music; he wrote some great songs.
But as a documentary, I didn't like it much as it was building up a story line (The Search) that wasn't true to the facts from what I've read.
Also I didn't feel the cinematography really and there was a woman in the theatre with me who was rocking out to the songs like she's at an actual bloody gig. Annoying experience.

I've never understood the appeal for watching films together with a whole bunch of strangers who might (and will) exhibit the most annoying and obnoxious behaviours at any given time, thus ruining the experience for me. I've held this opinion even before the internet made it trivial to watch anything I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want, etc. I just waited for VHS, (later DVD) releases. If I really, really wanted to watch something NOW... OK, I bit the bullet and watched it with obnoxious strangers. More often than not regretting my greed for not waiting for home video release anyway.

But nowadays? No way.

I liked Sugar Man for the nice feelgood story. Reading afterwards that most of it was made up didn't really change that. It's still a nice feelgood story. A fictitious one, alright. But that doesn't bother me too much.

Cinema is worth it to me for the screen and sound. But Cologne isn't exactly short on annoying douchebags and the like so I don't go that often anymore.

I still enjoy having a range of documentaries, for example, that are shown here and maybe 3 other German places. Aforementioned nightmare of a co-watcher actually took place in one of those small alternative cinemas which employ like 5 people that I'm generally really happy about them sticking around.

In principle I'm very pro small businesses in our huge shopping malls, franchised conglomerates world. For example, I cook real, actual food out of real, actual ingredients (from the local farmers market if possible), which so few people seem to be doing these days, opting instead for the quick pre-packaged frozen meals or Mackie Ds poison "food". I maintain my own sourdoughs to bake my own bread instead of eating that supermarket (or franchised "bakery") ****e, etc.

Unfortunately however, small movie theatres are still full of obnoxious ****s. So I'm going to have to nope out of supporting them.

Saw it many years ago - liked the music - & the story, but it doesn't surprise me that u found out much of it was made up.

I think that society and culture at large - u do some real research and find out most/many things are not what they seem to be because someone has an agenda & always the number one investigative tool....follow the money.

Yea - so many movies that are based on real stories seem to just have a piece of the real story. I have read about so many of them "based on a real story". One of them I found funny was Dallas Buyers Club (which I liked).

When reading the trivia section at iMDB one of the trivia items is this:

The "Rayon" and "Eve" characters did not exist in real life.

So two of the top 3 characters were just made up. And Jared Leto won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for a character (Rayon) that did not exist. And I think Jennifer Garner was up for best supporting for Eve who did not exist.

Still like to hear if anybody saw either of these documentaries.....Gleason or Blackfish.

I have seen them - but not researched either. Although I think both of these are about as true as they get.

If anybody saw either - what did you think of them.