I'm not typically a fan of docuseries over the original format. But these two docs caught my attention recently.
About to start the Duggar one because those Quiverfull people are fucking bonkers. The Hillsong one I’ll probably pass on because the only people I’ll have sympathy for are the sexual abuse victims. I’m pretty sure that there are more cults in Australia than there all mammals.
What's funny is that the Duggars don't consider themselves Quiverfull people, which makes zero sense. I learned a lot more than I expected from this doc (Especially the TLC/Discovery stuff). But I am still left with a few questions surrounding specific family members. The Hillsong doc was interesting because I knew nothing about that world besides that Carl Lentz was connected to Bieber.
The Huckabees make a lot of appearances in this doc. I'm not shocked that Mike and Jim Bob are buddies.
I watched both and neither did anything to dispel my opinion of christians and overly religious people in general
Im calling it right now that Harlan Crow has been funding Quiverfull families that don’t have reality TV money keeping them from starving to death. There probably aren’t very many families with surnames that aren’t Walton in Arkansas that would be able to afford a family with 19 children.
Spoiler: Spoiler on the Duggar doc The fact that Jim Bob and Michelle made upwards of 850k a season from TLC and didn't think to share that money with their children is pretty fucking telling, considering his upbringing. I kind of think TLC/Discovery comes out looking pretty clean in this situation when they absolutely shouldn't. Also, something is up with the friend and wife, who had a daughter date Josh Duggar when they were teens.
Cable tv channels that still retain the same name they used from back when their programs aligned with the specific subject the channel was devoted to has gone from being quirky to annoying. It would probably be good for all of them to change their names at the same time to something more appropriate. The Learning Channel should go with The Platforming and Funding Domestic Terror Channel.
I'm about halfway through the 2nd episode of Dugger doc and for the first time in my life I genuinely thought "Where the hell was the trigger warning for this?!?!"
I really think this is a must watch documentary. I've posted about it before, but was just thinking about how much I liked it again today.
“Eldorado: everything the nazis hate” was really well done and I’m glad I watched it “A glittery nightclub in 1920s Berlin becomes a haven for LGBTQ+ communities. Historians explore the freedoms that were lost amid Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the loss of a crucial queer histories.”
I'm finishing the 2nd ep of this documentary on Hulu, and I don't think I've ever seen a "villain" of a documentary turn itself so flat on it's head. Carl Lentz comes on there and completely neuters any kind of disdain you come in wanting to have for him. Maybe he's a sociopath, but he comes off as apologetic, remorseful, and real. Also, dude knew the documentary was there to run his name through the mud, and he still was available to be interviewed and answering the world's toughest questions in a very straightforward manner. After the 2nd episode you kind of leave thinking the whole thing is ho hum. It's nothing like I expected to feel after watching. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if most people kind of lose interest after that.
if you’re a fan of Andy Kaufman or rasslin’…both funny and sad….Andy Kaufman vs. The King of Memphis….
Finally got around to watching the Last Waltz about The Band and directed by Scorsese. Kind of a Thanksgiving tradition for some and I finally partook this year. Mad the version I watched had Neil Young’s cocaine booger edited
I was told I need to start this "Love Has Won" docuseries. Appears to be very normal. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14832124/
I think I'm gonna watch this about Julius Caesar. He came. He saw. He conquered. The tale of an ambitious power-grab that turned to tyranny. How Julius Caesar dismantled five centuries of ancient Roman democracy in just 16 years. via torrance or BBC 2 if you have access.
I’ve watched a ton of these cult docs. You can see how most of them form. Lots of lost people looking for purpose get sucked in by a charismatic leader. Except there was nothing charismatic about her. She was just an alcoholic that screamed at everyone lol.
Escaping Twin Flames on Netflix is also good and arguably more fucked up than the Mother God doc. The guy made them watch The Vow and write papers on how he wasn’t like Keith Reinere and definitely not a cult leader.
I felt really bad for the hippie looking dude in the Heaven’s Gate Documentary. His experience helped me realize that MAGA or QAnon people that do somehow escape the cult mindset need to be treated with extreme kindness.
Legit made me laugh at loud at points and had me wondering if it was actually a mocumentary (similar to the Netflix dick graffiti) because of this stupidity. Highly recommend.
There is a predecessor with the same format but it’s about the rise of the Nazi’s. I am beyond exhausted with any kind of popular history program that is about the Nazis but a friend of mine that has a knack for knowing books, shows and movies that I like strongly recommended I watch it and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. The format of having historians that are one of if not the top expert on a particular historical figure being their conduit is entertaining. It’s an enormous improvement over the style Netflix has used where they mesh interviews with historians with something that is supposed to look like a standard show or movie set during a specific historical period but with cheap sets and not so great acting. The newer style still has dramatizations but they don’t have lines so the bad acting and cringeworthy attempts at Shakespearean sounding dialogue are thankfully absent. I’ve watched the first episode and the former conservative MP Rory Stewart who might be the most decent person to ever willingly label themselves as a Tory is the conduit for Cato. They both had very similar political career trajectories so you also get insights that you would never hear on a standard history documentary.
You Are What You Eat on Netflix isn't bad. Typical "mass produced food is killing everybody" type show, but they mix it up by doing a large study with identical twins. Good if you need any New Year's resolutions diet motivation
For All Mankind is one of the best 'documentaries' I've seen. Overlays a bunch of interviews with Apollo astronauts over some genuinely amazing footage from the missions. It's mostly about how the missions made them feel and changed them personally. Highly recommend. More of a collage than a documentary, but it uses nothing but archival footage.
7 parter all on YouTube. Only uses archived BBC footage of 1985-1999 Russia. Pretty wild to see the fall of Soviet Union to almost democracy until that crashed as well. Basically shows how we got to Putin. Pretty insane footage.
They introduce one of the followers with a clip of him saying he took a lot of psychedelics when he was young. Pretty funny