Quick Hits: Documentary

Documentary Theater 

I have a love hate relationship with documentaries. Some can be really good and some can be about as fun as a teeth pulling. I can already see the backs straightening and people getting all hacked off thinking that I don’t respect the genre. I do. Some of the most impressive films I’ve seen have been documentaries. What I hate are movies that decide to show me how stupid I am and that I am such a sucker for believing the company line. Yes, I am a sucker and I don’t spend my day trying to get someone because they are being shady. In fact, I assume most people are shady and don’t care if Michael Moore points it out. The truth about the 1 percenters is that they really don’t care about us in the real world and anything you do to try to stop them, doesn’t affect them, it affects the dock workers and bank employees who face your wrath for going to work. So for the most part, I don’t go in for a documentary and when I do I am a bit of a sports/serial killer type of documentary guy. There are a few sports docs (both excellent) and a movie doc (interesting but challenging). Every once and a while, I get in the mood and I find some that fit my sensibilities or are on a subject I am intrigued by. These are their stories...chung chung.

Blackfish

 

Blackfish is the story of Tilikum, the largest killer whale currently in captivity. Tilikum lives and works at SeaWorld: Orlando and in his time in captivity has been responsible for the death of 3 people. Captured as a baby, Tilikum has, in his time in captivity, killed 3 people. This documentary is trying to tell the story of why. I always loved the killer whale shows at Marine World and I never gave much thought to the lives these creatures live. My eyes, they have been opened. You see the video of how they captured Tilikum, the environment he was kept in as a young whale being tortured by trainers and his fellow Orcas, and finally the story of the different trainers who all ended up dead. The filmmaker does not blame Tilikum and in fact shows the culpability of SeaWorld in the deaths. Killer Whales are wild creatures with brains comparable to our own. They have a sense of self, of pain, of lonliness. I can understand that. If I were kidnapped from my mother, kept with people who beat me and fed me sparingly, locked in a dark environment which was barely bigger than I was, and  then was forced to perform for a bunch of people, I might lose my shit every once and a while too. Blackfish is a sad tale, not only because 3 people lost their lives but because Tilikum the whale deserves better from us...the “more evolved” species. - In Theaters

Mr. Unhappy Sez: A documentary everyone should see. Not only about animal rights but the corporate entity that allows people to be put in danger for the all mighty dollar.

Hot Coffee

 

I remember when I was a kid and a woman sued McDonald’s for spilling coffee on herself and I thought “How can she do that? It isn’t McDonald’s fault that you are stupid.” Hot Coffee is a documentary which goes in depth about the story behind that case and frivolous lawsuits in general. What you learn is that the woman only wanted her medical bills covered. That she simply tried to add creamer to her coffee while parked. Also you see how frivolous lawsuits may have been a great catchphrase to win election but that most of them were legitimate lawsuits and that now with new tort reform laws, we have weakened our own right to litigation and protected billionaire companies. I can’t say that I agree with all of what Hot Coffee wanted to say but I learned a few valuable lessons and I was shown that what I thought I knew was completely wrong. As my high scholl math teacher Dr. Donovan said once. It is worse to think you know than to not know at all. - On Netflix Instant Watch

Mr. Unhappy sez: Worth a look. It will make you angry and maybe disgust you a bit (I didn’t need to see grandma’s burned vijayjay) but it makes you think a little too.

Knuckleball

 

 

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of the knuckleball in baseball. You see so few pitchers that attempt to throw it but those who do it well can have a career that last into their fifties. This movie focuses on Tim Wakefield and R.A. Dickey, the most current pitchers to successfully use the pitch. I always wanted to learn the knuckler as a little leaguer. That pitch would blow people’s minds. You don’t actually throw it with your knuckles. You push the ball so it has no spin. As it floats towards home plate at a blistering 65 miles per hour (some can throw it harder) the wind and airflow affects the ball to a point where the ball seems to dance and dive away from the hitter. If you don’t throw it correctly it is about as effective as a batting practice fastball...which is to say not very effective. The film follows Wakefield through his final year pitching and Dickey through a year when he was just becoming the pitcher he is now. It is a bit frustrating at times because you don’t get a lot of history on the pitch but you do see the bond between pitchers that throw the knuckler and how frustrating the pitch can be for hitters, pitchers, and the managers that coach them. - On Netflix Instant Watch

Mr. Unhappy sez: I wish I could’ve been a knuckle baller... a little bit taller and somewhat a little more athletically inclined...er.

The Marinovich Project

 

 

In 1991, a quarterback out of USC, Todd Marinovich was drafted by the Los Angeles Raiders. A few years later, he was out of the league. He was JaMarcus Russell before JaMarcus Russell probably could throw the football. Trained since birth by his father to be the perfect quarterback, Todd eventually rebelled against his father’s training and fell into trouble with drugs and alcohol. This is a story about what can happen if you push your children to chase your own athletic dreams. Todd’s father was a Raider whose career was cut a little short and then began to mold his son in his image. Todd was tall and lanky, perfect for a Quarterback. He had a great delivery, the athletic ability to be a star and the desire for none of it. What you see here is a guy who desperately didn’t want to let his father down. Todd Marinovich was a can’t miss prospect who missed. If you watch this documentary, you know why. - On Netflix Instant Watch

Mr. Unhappy sez: For every Tiger Woods or Tim Lincecum, there are a hundred parents who push their kids to succeed in sports and have to watch them fail. It’s a great watch for a father.

Best Worst Movie

 

I’ve heard a lot of movies called the worst movie ever made. Plan 9 from Outer Space is considered classically the worst. The Room has come on in recent years and I can’t argue based on the few scenes I’ve seen. Another one is Manos: Hands of Fate and I am eager to se it just so I can add it atop my own personal list. I’ve made a habit of seeing bad movies and in the case of Troll 2, I will forgo my need to see it. I saw enough in this documentary which tries to explain how they make  people who set out with the intent of make a good movie, end up make one of the worst ever. First task is hire a dentist as your lead actor. For all their good intentions there is a kind of ineptness that permeates Troll 2...which oddly doesn’t have troll in it. It is an intriguing rabbit hole to fall down and you begin to meet the cast of odd characters that comprised the actors in this movie. By the end, you understand where things went sideways. The actors all had good intentions but just couldn't act. The script had interesting ideas but no way to execute them. It is the story of a movie crashing and burning and then being reborn as a cult classic. This documentary is worth seeing just to follow the journey into just a horrible horrible movie. - On Netflix Instant Watch

Mr. Unhappy sez: An awful movie, inside a truly good one. For the record, the worst movie I’ve seen is Battlefield: Earth. THAT movie had no excuse.

When Mr. Unhappy was young...

I'd like to make like the fresh prince and take a moment and have you sit right there while I tell you the story of a boy named Skippy.  When I was in college, I wrote an essay about the experience I had, going to the movies on my own. I've been writing again and have not been feeling very bloggy so I thought maybe you folks will like this brief interlude. It doesn't involve a movie exactly but there is a lot of truth in it. Now I pulled up to the theater around 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabbie, yo homes smell you later...and so on.... Now the adventure of a young Mr. Unhappy, an anti-social pornstar if ever you saw one, at the movies... I call this... 

 Skippy, the Two Toed Wonder Child and other observations from the movie theater.

There are sticky cola stained floors littered with the trash of the others who came before us. The teenage male who feebly attempts to grope his girlfriend with that cliché yawning-arm-around-the-girl maneuver. The fat lady with the ten foot high hat who sits in front of you. The ushers running throughout the R-Rated theaters to rid them of the scourge of underage viewers. There is meaningless trivia decorating the screen with questions about Kevin Costner’s first movie (Sizzle Beach USA) and old people mumbling under their breaths about the way things were back when movies were boring and women were clothed. No wonder old people are so bitter. There was no porn in their days. I'd go out of my mind without a the ability to grope Mr. Happy to the fine breasts of Linnea Quigley in Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-O-Rama. Which brings me to the final group. Those like me, the loners and the losers watching the loving, groping, teenagers in admiration and jealousy. This is the movie going experience.

I sit in the back of the theaters when I go to the movies, not because I want to watch the many kids aching for a release of their sexual frustration (some of who will release it in their mother’s station wagon later that night) but because I don’t want to bother people. I have heard the snickers of  “Look at his head. Jesus, I am never going to see around that thing.”  So I sit in the back. No one to sit behind me and observe the size of my head which, for the record, is not all that large Miss I-can’t-fit-in-my-seat-so-I’ll-make-fun-of-the-loser-in-front-of-me. Maybe if we took a little better care of our own lives and stopped concerning ourselves with other people’s problems we could evolve a little faster and close the arm rests on our seats. 

I stake my seat in the back and permanently plant my feet on the superglue like cola stained floors and begin to read the trivia questions, view the “memorable moments” that aren’t that memorable and finally learn that “The English Patient” was the best picture last year. When I bored of the screen, I look over at the unpregnant pregnant woman who  screams something about her husband being swallowed by her man-eating thigh. Like this is my problem or something but  I look around anyway for the jaws of life but only see an usher standing there, his pants growing a large wet spot, and unable to move or help the obese whale in the seat in front of me. So being the humanitarian I am, I leap from my chair, grabbing the usher’s flashlight and begin to pry her leg up as she screams in pain. Finally her husband is on the floor next to me, covered in sweat and looking like a new born baby. I have saved another life at the movies even though the lady is now beating me on my head with her purse. So I pull my hand out from under the thigh and look down at the man who smiles. I help him up wondering what happened to the flashlight and nod my head to his wife who continues to beat me with her purse for making her spill her popcorn. All good deeds get punished...
 

I return to my seat without being thanked and being cursed at by the pee-stained usher for losing his flashlight. Tuning him out I look back to the screen where a cartoon tells me not to talk during the movie. Unfortunately the guy three rows up is too wrapped up in his conversation to notice the sign. Besides everyone has to be interested in what his little Skippy did this morning. Apparently he watched MTV for three hours, grabbed his crotch and did the cutest Michael Jackson imitation. Then he moonwalked across the floor, which is tough for Skippy to do because Skippy only has two toes. When he reached the TV, he screamed at the top of his lungs then put in his favorite Snuggle bears cartoon and laughed himself silly.   I can’t speak for the rest of the theater but I could  have cared less. Finally I look back at the screen as the lights dim and the screen lights up. I sit upright in my chair and sink the cushion into my back. Ahh finally relaxation.
 

SHARP DRIVING PAIN! 

My butt goes numb, my leg is pins and needles and I suddenly realize my hand is being used as sexual device by the horny teenager to my left. Apparently two hands groping his girlfriend aren’t enough. Not like I care, best grope I’ve had in my life. I begin to move, trying to alleviate the pressure on my ass and the woman I've been drafted to grope screams. Next thing I know, I’m flying out of my seat and some pimply faced circus midget is slapping me around for groping his girlfriend. Fists are flying quickly and the woman is screaming for me not to kill her “lover man.” Since I hadn’t thrown a punch nor did I intend to, I couldn’t see her point. Multiple “Shut-up you morons” from the people in the theater end the scuffle quickly and I, at the request of the impish boyfriend and the pee-stained usher, agree to relocate to the front of the theater.
    

I looked up to the screen, my neck now craning back to the fourth row so I can see and  that Captain Genius in the back is still yammering away about Skippy, his two toed wonder child and how he can do the perfect impression of a seal. Behind him, the whale of a woman is now contentedly eating her new bucket of popcorn while her husband’s legs jerk spasmodically as his upper half has been engulfed by her thigh again. I look for the usher who has mysteriously changed his pants and a fresh stain is growing. The pimply faced midget in the back still paws at his girlfriend who acts rather disinterested without my hand there to help him(I knew I was good.)  I remind myself that these are not my problems and I relax to watch my movie. Ahhh, relaxation, a movie and then, the whispers. “God, look at his head. Jesus, I’ll never be able to see around that.”