My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women & Hip Hop

It was a short little thing that sort of found me as I was on the internet this morning. It was made mostly like any other hour long short doc you'd find on VH1 or BET (does MTV even still do those?). It had talking heads, some nicely composed interviews, some b-roll of the old times, some stills. All interviews connected together as one thought sort of thing..

Their lower thirds were like sideways almost 3D thirds and for the MCs it was tagged with a line from a song of theirs. Example:
Mecca
The Mecca gets a rush when the beats be very thick.

I thought it was interesting enough for what it was. They got some really important names for the thing. One thing I would have liked is I would have loved to see them go a little bit deeper into it. Explore a bit more into the history and implications of being a female MC. I would have liked for them to get deeper into the conflict of being a female MC who is respected, and yet still being a part of an institution that's inherently misogynistic to your people. Maybe someone can pull from this and do a feature highlighting something like that.

It was surprising to find out that the Grammys actually dropped the female MCs category from their awards. How depressing and sad is that?!

Catfish

I saw an advance screening of Catfish to fulfill today's documentary requirement.

I really thought it was well done. It was a pretty interesting look at how far we've come, filmmaking wise. I think most of it was done of these little handheld things and a digital camera. And it looked decent. The story built itself. That was lucky. And what a story it was.

I don't think I can talk about the actual movie. One thing I will say is that it's interesting take on or societies relationship with the internet in this facebook happy-days. I signed some thing before I went in that, I'm going to be honest, I didn't really read that throughly. Long story short, I'd recommend it.

Up Syndrome

I chose this one because my cousin has DS and he's an awesome little dude, so I was interested to see the degrees in which it affects others. I wanted to see what the future maybe was going to be like for my cousin, cause just like Rene, my cousin has trouble speaking. I found myself watching this and smiling a lot because I saw a lot of my cousin in Rene.

Totally low budget kind of thing. I think the Netlix description said he got the movie for the camera from an ebay sale. It starts with old home video footage with a descriptive narrative voiceover and then just goes off and lets Rene do his thing while Duane (his friend and director) follows him around and asks him questions.

This is a documentary in a way that it's just a document of someone's life. It really is just a portrait of his life at the moment. Literally. I think it goes though a year of Rene's life. He's following him around and seeing what he gets into. He goes to the Alamo. He celebrates the 4th of July. He goes bowling. I wonder how Duane went about organizing everything becuase it seemed to be just a hodgepodge of scenes, of him exploring life. I guess he just put it in a chronological order. One comment though, I wish he had cut it out with the additive dissolves.

As I watched, I was hoping more and more that the inevitable update at the end didn't tell me that Rene died at some point in time after the documentary was made (ten years ago). Especially on account of Rene's ominous last lines in the movie. I'm going to spoil it so no one has to go through that. He doesn't die.

Deliver Us From Evil

I watched this one on the recommendation of Niousha after I complained at work about all the downer documentaries I was watching. This one was even worse! It's an example of, like Dear Zachary, two hours of something that completely wrecks you, but then they try to do what they can to not let the ending be too depressing. It didn't work though. Marggy was watching with me this time, though, so it felt like less of a punishment to get through this one.

Religion is a super touchy issue. I'm not really one for organized religion in general and it was interesting to go into this with that perspective. Marggy and I argued about what it means to continue to be a part of an institution with such corruption within itself. To, as a person, choose this group. It's a tricky situation, I guess. What part of you can say I can't be a part of that because of what is happening within the church and what part is able to say that this is just happening as a small percentage of isolated events from a small percentage of the priests? We didn't really come to any conclusion on that, but it's just interesting to think about. The idea of being a part of a religion like that is totally foreign to me, so I don't know if I would even have the necessary tools to even begin to come to a conclusion.

One thing that surprised me about the doc first off was that the documentaries filmmakers let that dude just roam around that park as he talked about the fact that he was not attracted to adults, but rather children in bathing suits, in underwear, etc. I don't know if they were going for a kind of disturbing tone to his scenes with the children's playing in the background as he spoke of his crimes, but that I think was almost too much for me. Like, maybe just a little over the line and not really necessary. To see a convicted child molester stare at children in a park and talk about his past abuse of them. Yuck.

It was an interesting tool when they slowly relived what this doc is about. There was no opening teaser to explain, but as we got into it, it became clear. You could find this on tv and go into it not knowing what was going on and we don't really get that messages fully until about 10 minutes in. While watching more and more, I don't know how many times I rolled my eyes at this bullshit excuses and backtracking from the priests and bishops who knew what was going on.

One thing that became completely clear to me as I got into it was that Oliver O'Grady was completely a naccist. In a different way than Billy MItchell or Troy Duffy...who are both to a comical degree. This psycho was basically the most honest person thought this entire thing. I asked my sister, the researcher of all things anti-social personality disorder related, to give me teh signs for narcissism. Unlike wit sociopathy, they recognize the difference between right and wrong but they do it anyway because they want to. But like sociopaths, they can't feel empathy, so they can't feel for their victims. The victims' feelings don't matter that only feelings that matter are theirs. And the dude was smiling and smirking and being flippant throughout the whole thing! The part where he wrote the letter to all his victims because he wanted them to come and air their grievances? That was completely fucked up. Sorry for the language. But that was insane. The whole idea that he would agree to do this documentary is unimaginable. And completely narcissistic.

Over all, I think it was really nicely done. I didn't really like the shots of O'Grady walking places and sitting around because it seems like they were telling him to do that stuff and it seemed forced, but it was cut together well and the interview footage meshed well with the action.

Tales From The Script

To stay with the Hollywood theme, I decided to watch Tales from the Script. The first interviews were worrisome. The writer of Ghost, the writer of Angel Eyes, the writer of Mona Lisa Smile. Yikes. I don't care about these people's thoughts. Their scripts were not great. But I love behind the scenes of Hollywood kind of stories. Eventually they got people like William Goldman and Frank Darabont and the writer of Akeelah and the Bee, so it was all good.

They separated this one into different segments and used different scenes of movies to introduce each segment. It was mostly full of short b-roll with mostly talking heads cut together in such a way they the whole thing became a fluid thought. That sort of thing. It was funny that they segued from "I'd rather sell a bad script, cause that shows what a good agent I am" to the guy who wrote The Grudge. Aw. Embarrassing. It also contained those pauses that Dear Zachary had when ending a thought. I still find that to be a bit weird and awkward.

Very fitting that this doc about writers had some really great lines. "I decided to keep the smoke in my ass and not let it get to my head." But it's funny writing this with all these writers probably thinking they're pretty good at their jobs when really, lots of them aren't very good.

The guy who wrote Ghost, wrote Deep Impact and had a lunch, unknowingly, with the guy who made Armageddon. This dude basically took notes on how the Deep Impact dude's story was going to unfold and brought that to Armageddon. That seems like something you should be able to sue over. Especially in Hollywood.

I think that's a great doc to what ch for aspiring screenwriters. I'm not one, but I can really see the appeal and I like to be able to appreciate all the roles it takes to produce a film.

Fun facts: The writer of X-men is the writer of Watchmen is the writer of, wait for it, The Scorpion King. What the hell?! Stop that. The writer of Go is the writer of Big Fish is the writer of Corpse Bride. I mostly like those movies though, so that's okay. The writer of Bloodrayne is the writer of Go Fish is the writer of American Psycho is a lesbian and does a great (terrible) impression of Uwe Boll. And Last Action Hero was written by Zak Penn, rewritten by Shane Black and doctored again my William Goldman. All interviewed here.

Overnight

Shayla asked me to watch a documentary about education, and just by luck I found one of the only ones on instant watch about education and it was only an hour. This one was more like an expose you'd find on the new. I started it and it wasn't anything that I was interested in so I had to stop it and try something else.

So, I changed it up and started watching Paperclips. An education doc about a small town school in Tennessee educating its students about the Holocaust. Then that was super boring too (I guess I'll just wait for Waiting for Superman to come out), so I decided to to watch Overnight, the dissolution of Troy Duffy's career as it happens.

I really dug this one. It wasn't very polished, the editing wasn't great and the camera was definitely not awesome, but it really kept my attention. The ultimate Hollywood unsuccess story. And wow. He's a douche. An absolute abhorrent personality. I don't know who wins the terrible award, Billy Mitchell of The King of Kong, or this asshole here. Probably Duffy, though ("They put up a quarter of a million dollars, but that's chicken feed to them. And they're being so Jewish about it" -Troy Duffy.) At least Billy Mitchell was really just a caricature of an over the top human being.

It's crazy to think he was going to get that much control over a movie with no filmmaking experience and from working in a bar. How did the Weinstiens put this much trust in him? Just like they basically let Ben and Matt do Good Will Hunting the way they wanted when they were just nobodies. And it's funny how, even with Troy being horrible and the movie being, in my opinion super bad and incredibly overrated, I still wasn't sure if I actually wanted the whole thing to tank and blow up in all their faces. Troy deserved it, but the other guys didn't. Maybe because he's an actual real person, not a fictional evil villain. Even if he is a clinical narcissist.

This thing was clearly made by people who didn't care about making him look terrible. From the edits they make, to the way they cut Troy, he's just a tool form start to finish. Maybe that's the whole idea. He looks like a dick and nothing else.

This one had a lot of titles explaining what was going on. There was a lot of organized chaos. I liked that it seemed to kind of be like the sort of thing where they just shot the footage to have the footage, but later had to turn it into an actual movie. That's probably not what happened, but that's how it seemed because the footage was so sort of raw and sloppy and freehand. It's interesting because a lot times in a doc, it's hard to get the person you're following to act naturally, forget the camera and just behave the way they would regardless. What's funny about this is that I feel like this really was Troy Duffy at this time. And that is bad news for him. As we saw.

They caught some really great moments on camera. This is a great doc in that it's not manufactured action. The stuff just falls into place. The camera caught what it caught and that was enough. It's a day to day real life account of a story that's being documented as it happens. The car accident? Lucky stuff. And it's funny how we have the perspective of hindsight being 20/20. We know the future and this was just showing the inside look on how it happened. That's always fun to see. It was fun to finally hear the joke because I already knew the punchline.

Art & Copy

The opening maked it seem like it's going to be a discovery channel show focusing on ants building their hill. Different from the quirky cover of the DVD. When it gets into it, getting into the credit sequence with the superimposed titles and everything, you can tell this is going to be a pretty tight doc.

It's actually pretty funny that I watched this the day after watching Mad Men. I felt like I was doing after school homework to prepare myself for next week's episode. This one was about the ads we see everyday, where they come from, and who made them. Sort of. One of the comments for the IMDb page for this movie says "All copy, no art," and that's true. They talked to the copy writers about how they came up the slogans for the ads (I love NY, etc), but they didn't talk to the artists who brought them to life. That was a missing perspective I think.

It's an interesting take to begin it with the guys who put up the billboard sign, then segue into the guys (and gals) behind the signs. I don't know if I like it or not, but it was different. As I got into it, I think it became more distracting. It worked with the shots of the beautifully framed people on the street and sky/city/day shots, and it all added tonally to the film, but I'm still trying to figure out if that's actually what they were going for or if it was mostly used for b-roll to cut the interview footage around. Sometimes the footage was too on the nose (the long shot of the Steelers tattoo while talking about symbols and logos), and sometimes it's not on the nose enough. It's a strange dynamic.

It was very nicely shot. I loved the look and the tone, but I feel like, overall, something was sort of missing. Maybe there wasn't enough explored there and some of what they did explore didn't gel with the rest of the doc. I feel like it's similar to the b-roll from Si, Puedes. It's generic stuff and we needed to fit over the interviews and cut around. I feel like it wasn't full enough. There's so much to explore when it comes to advertising, but I feel like they just scratched the surface content-wise. But maybe it's my problem and I went into it expecting something else.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

I thought this one was going to be the type of documentary that contains mostly interview footage, archive footage, stuff from movies, and talking heads, but it actually had a plot that had some movement in it. I appreciated that.

One thing that was a bit jarring is that at about 10 minutes in, they start this after effects animation with a voice over explaining with the MPAA rating system is. It was completely unexpected and I know it had to be one of the aspects of the film that the film maker noticed wasn't really in the same tone as the rest of the film. It was a similar feeling to movies that start off with a voiceover, but then don't continue only to bring it back later on in the movie. Totally changed the tone. It was really weird. It was a cute animation, but it was just super out of nowhere.

But after that, it really got moving and was pretty interesting to watch. Pretty informative. There was nothing too mind blowing, just standard expose kind of stuff.

It didn't even occur to me to think about the fact that people have to rate these movies and NO ONE knows who these people are. Wow. And the way they went after the members of the ratings board with a private investigator was really kind of fun. The analogy they drew comparing the members of the MPAA ratings board with the secretive members CIA was interesting when you thought about the fact that this movie was basically them trying to out these members. An act that's completely reprehensible for the other corporation.

But after that, it really got moving and was pretty interesting to watch. It really helped to have the perspective of former raters to give us that inside look at the MPAA rating system. That really strengthened the story, I think. It's interesting when they show clips from the other side (Usually Jack Valenti spouting crap) and they use it in a way that's sort of facetious, where we know that they know what this person is saying is crap. But really....the MPAA is full of conservative Republicans, as if people didn't already know. The world/country is ruled by conservatives and that's kind of a bummer for movies involving same sex relationships, as this movie shows.

This movie gave me the opportunity to see a bunch of sex in a bunch of movies that I'd probably not otherwise ever watch. I have no interest in seeing The Cooler. Ever. But I've seen the sex from it. So that's weird.

Maxed Out

I chose Maxed Out because of its length, basically. I chose this one because after doing 6 in a row, I'm a little bit tired of being obligated to watch things, so I think I'm going to take the weekends off to give myself a little break.

I feel like this one was a bit awkwardly edited. Under Pressure is a good song to open with (if not a bit cliche), if only for the climax of the bridge. It's a really good song for that kind of crescendo of action, but they didn't use it for that, so that made it kind of awkward when the song cut off. I can see myself mentally editing this as I watch, which is kind of distracting.

It's interesting how no two docs are the same. This one has title screens to explain information where other docs might have someone say this onscreen as a talking head. This way is certainly easier. It's what we did with All The Hours (formally known as the hours), but there's something to be said for providing the information without that jarring change in speed.

I feel like each story is a little vignette within itself and I wish that everything connected a little bit more.

All that said, it was informative, which I'm sure was its intent.

The thing with debt is that at some point, it seems like you should have a high enough intelligence and enough foresight that you shouldn't get yourself into that situation, but that's so much easier said than done. And how easy and unpredictable is it to have a sick child, get sick yourself, have your spouse die, or leave you and lose that income.

Just yet another thing wrong with our country. How hard it is to get a credit card as an adult compared to the difficulty for a college student to get, say, 12, as one of the people in the documentary did. That's insane. Makes me sort of depressed about my own credit card debt. Like I'm part of the punch line of the huge joke on our lives.

And the funny thing about debt is that it's just credit. All money is just a credit. Even paper money is just proof that you're basically "good for it." The idea of money seems silly. Lets go back to the days of bartering like the Natives. That seems good to me.

The September Issue

Very slick. Even though it was made by A&E Indie Films, still feels like a Hollywood documentary, if that makes sense.

The fashion industry is a universe that I'm not familiar with and have no interest in becoming familiar with but, but similar to The King Of Kong, it's interesting to see how people who exist within different universes operate as though their universe is more important than everyone else's reality.

It's the kind of doc that seems so effortlessly edited you wonder, well how hard can it be cutting together all that footage into a comprehensive and comprehensible story.

As I watched, it was hard to see how do they knew what's good, what's bad and what's fabulous when fashions and trends change so much. I don't get it. But I don't think I'm necessarily meant to.

One thing that was strange to observe was the antiquated prejudice against any of the models of color. I don't think there was one in the whole thing.

Overall, I liked it. I like how the action naturally unfolded and even though I care nothing for fashion, it still held my attention. Still, my ending thought, as the printers went to work printing 840 pages of clothes, was "what a waste of trees." I guess that sums up my opinion of the industry as a whole.

Helvetica

The perfect remedy to my string of bummer docs so far. Kind of slow and different than what I've been watching, but enjoyable in its own right. No tears from anyone anywhere!

Unlike The Cove, and The King of Kong, in which even non-diehards in their respective subjects can find something to relate to or be interested in, I feel like Helvetica is sort of only for people who are at least a bit interested in typefaces. Otherwise, I can see how you can find it boring. Luckily (and boringly, I guess), I am.

It's amazing to think of how many day to day things use Helvetica. Tax forms, USPS, text on the US space shuttle, Staples, Target, Panasonic, Urban Outfitters, American Apparel, JCPenny, TNT, The Office, Run DMC, Sesame Street.

(Just realized that the default font for this blog is Helvetica)

The King Of Kong

I think that Billy Mitchell alone is great enough to warrent the ticket price...which was free in this situation, but you get what I'm saying. What a character. Really. I really do wonder what he thinks of himself. Obviously, he thinks very highly of himself and is very rarely told otherwise, but that dude means nothing in the real world. In a world that exists outside the orb of video game fanatics of the late 70s early 80s grown into adult men who maintain that fanaticism.

While this one was less "polished" than The Cove, the music use wasn't too great, it was way too slow in the beginning, I kind of hate the way it was cut and it relied too much on talking heads over silent b-roll for too long (in my opinion), it actually was pretty enjoyable and a bit suspenseful once it got going. And I guess it's nice to know that people can find their definition of coolness in all kinds of ways.

Also, no dolphins were killed in the process.

Dear Zachary

I was going to write this: I've heard nothing but good things and it was pretty good. Something edited in the era of MTV. A nice "document" of what seemed like a pretty great guy.

But I just finished it and that's not just what it is. It's a completely surreal heartbreaking documentary of terrible things happening to good people that morphs into an expose on the government and the judicial process. It's so painful to think that some people have to go through that much pain. I don't even think I can recommend it in good faith because while it was great, it kind of ruined the rest of my night.

That's kind of worrying me. Whether I'll be able to be a documentary editor. Usually, the purpose of docs (and why I like them so much) is they they can evoke such an emotional response from people. They're meant to do that. And because of that reason, these things are so damn depressing. Even if they end well, there's so much pain you have to trudge through to get to that point. At least of what I've watched so far. I need to watch a completely silly documentary next, I think. Or I might need to take a break from this...and I'm only 3 days in.

The Cove

I've heard it was hard to watch and it was pretty depressing. Sort of makes me feel like this world won't even last another 100 years. Sorry great grandkids.

Also, as a meat eater I feel guilty and hypocritical even caring about the whole thing. Which also sucks.

I guess that will be doc #1.