Episodic True Crime Documentaries

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flyonthewall2983
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Episodic True Crime Documentaries

#1 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sat Feb 08, 2020 4:39 pm

The first episode of McMillions premiered this week on HBO. I'll probably finish it through out of pure curiosity but I can't say any of the people interviewed charmed my socks off.

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barryconvex
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Re: Untitled McDonald's Monopoly Film (Ben Affleck, 202?)

#2 Post by barryconvex » Sun Feb 09, 2020 2:20 am

You can say that again, that one FBI agent-the guy who volunteered to undercover-should never be allowed anywhere near a camera. Giving a guy like that an audience just confirms to him that his stories are interesting, his jokes are funny and his dental work is top notch.

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Kracker
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Re: Untitled McDonald's Monopoly Film (Ben Affleck, 202?)

#3 Post by Kracker » Sun Feb 09, 2020 9:42 am

Really disappointed that these career FBI agents and prosecutors aren’t charming TV personalities.

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Re: Untitled McDonald's Monopoly Film (Ben Affleck, 202?)

#4 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Feb 10, 2020 8:14 pm

Overall I'm really not sure telling this story in such a long-drawn out way is a good idea, or better yet told in weekly installments instead of the streaming approach of dropping it all at once.

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Kracker
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Re: Untitled McDonald's Monopoly Film (Ben Affleck, 202?)

#5 Post by Kracker » Tue Feb 11, 2020 9:38 am

Yeah I’m not enjoying the week-to-week but it’s HBO and keeping subscribers is their broadcast model.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Untitled McDonald's Monopoly Film (Ben Affleck, 202?)

#6 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Feb 11, 2020 12:19 pm

Documentary filmmaking has never been so indulgent. Two I've watched recently (Don't F**k With Cats and Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez) should have been about an hour shorter, each - if not more.

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tenia
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Re: McMillions

#7 Post by tenia » Tue Feb 11, 2020 1:51 pm

I've watched the first two eps of Cats and it's indeed incredibly overlong. I understand how they wanted to recreate how this strange small story turned into a much bigger one, but it just doesnt work.
Especially when you actually remember the original story, which made me retrospectively laugh about the whole marketing promotion around the TV show, which made me expect for a moment something completely different, only to make me realise halfway through the first ep "oh no, that's just about this guy ?"

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cdnchris
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Re: McMillions

#8 Post by cdnchris » Tue Feb 11, 2020 2:53 pm

I love this type of shit but this McMillions show is frustrating as hell. The FBI guy is a douche-bag that thinks he's a riot, for sure, but I have to admit I find that aspect of the show entertaining in more of a meta way (when people defend him it reminds me of that Documentary Now! spoof of Thin Blue Line where the police are all talking up Hader's character and what a riot he is, and of course he is the real murderer). But the structure is making the whole thing needlessly convoluted and complicated for no reason other than to drag it out and throw in some "what a twist, right!?" moments. I'll finish it, but this should have been a gripping, fascinating, and fun (yeah, fun!) look at the fraud, and it's more frustrating than anything because it feels like all the episodes are doing are building up to a cliffhanger to end the episode on for an hour with 15-minutes' worth of material.

The "Cats" one on Netflix sorta suffered the same thing, but I still think it worked for the most part as the internet sleuthing aspect was at least interesting. I knew where it was going to go (man, when Canadians do fucked up shit, we apparently really do some fucked up shit), and it was amusing hearing that one guy pronounce Etobicoke, but at least the journey there wasn't all that frustrating, and if I remember it was only a few episodes. It feels like they're going to be dragging this one out!

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mfunk9786
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Re: McMillions

#9 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Feb 11, 2020 2:59 pm

tenia wrote:
Tue Feb 11, 2020 1:51 pm
I've watched the first two eps of Cats and it's indeed incredibly overlong. I understand how they wanted to recreate how this strange small story turned into a much bigger one, but it just doesnt work.
Especially when you actually remember the original story, which made me retrospectively laugh about the whole marketing promotion around the TV show, which made me expect for a moment something completely different, only to make me realise halfway through the first ep "oh no, that's just about this guy ?"
I found a lot of it fascinating, but was left wondering, among other things, why Magnotta's mother was useful to the story and why we were led down so many dead ends about things it was obvious Magnotta was lying about. One too many "so and so said - log on and look at this!" moments too. A lot of tightening could have been done that would have improved the overall impact.

Also, I understand completely why certain things from the videos weren't shown, but why does the documentary show footage of dead kittens without much of a warning but not even describe what happens to the dog at the end of the Jun Lin video, opting instead to just show people try to describe it and weep? An unusual decision that was seemingly made for impact instead of for delivering information on the crimes to the viewer. Would have liked to have seen a more ultimately seen a more unflinching documentary filmmaker take on this story.

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Re: Episodic True Crime Documentaries

#10 Post by Murdoch » Tue Feb 11, 2020 4:20 pm

I tried to get into the Netflix Hernandez documentary, but when the criminal investigations are all wrapped up in episode 2, it's hard to muster up much interest for the psychology of Hernandez and his sexuality. Admittedly I didn't make it through episode 3, but the whole series was desperately in need of trimming. I don't think listening to Hernandez and his wife's jail calls for the fifth time did anything except pad out the running time.

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