A coup-de-maître of documentary filmmaking capturing with tonal heterogeneity, cinematic transcendentalism, & journalistic breadth the behind-the-scenes of the once-in-a-century’s dynasty of Michael Jordan and the ’90’s Chicago Bulls. 9.2/10.
[category:drama/documentary/sports,date:2020-03-01,rate:9,type:tvshows]
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Category: Documentary
Emanuel (2019)
A heartbreaking documentary on one of the darkest & most ghastly acts of violence ever in U.S. history and its effects on a small Charleston church-community, EML is powerful, poignant poetry analyzing faith in the face of unspeakable tragedy. 9.1/10.
[category:drama/documentary,date:2019-06-20,rate:8,type:movies]
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Self-Discovery for Social Survival
An avant-garde surfing doc with the most stunning ocean cinematography ever put to film against a masterpiece jazzy sample-fueled soundtrack innovatively created post-experientially, SDFSS is a psychedelic love-letter to sports-euphoria. 8.5/10.
[category:drama/experimental/documentary/musicals/sports,date:2019-04-20,rate:8.5,type:movies]
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HBO’s Chernobyl (2019)
Masterfully paced, effectively sinister, and gently cinematographed, HBO melds an elegant (though not fully capitalized in dystopian potential) slow-simmering human-centric physics-true revisualization of the infamous nuclear tragedy. 9/10.
[category:drama/documentary/periodhistorical,date:2019-11-20,rate:9,type:tvshows]
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The Assassination of Gianni Versace: An American Crime Story
Extravagant in operatic, Greek-tragedy like scoring and scale, powerful in top-notch Emmy-caliber performances spearheaded by Darren Criss, stunning in cinematography, & intriguing in plot structure + multi-layered symbolism. 9.7/10.
[category:drama/documentary/periodhistorical/crime-films/lgbtq-minority,date:2018-11-20,rate:9.7,type:tvshows]
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Dear Suburbia (2012)
An avant-garde juxtaposition of vast expanses vs. suburbia; extemporization vs. cyclicism; freedom vs. desk-job 9-5’s, Kai Neville’s sophomore pirouette into the rhapsody of wanderlust is a hypnotic love-letter to our existential crisis. 8.7/10.
[category:all-time-favorites/drama/experimental/documentary,date:2012-04-10,rate:8.7,type:movies]
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Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Ensorcelling in found-footage vignettes intimately yet ambitiously aiming to paint racial experience through a single county’s events, with painstaking attention to detail/compositional technique stylistically pushing cinematic boundaries. 7.1/10.
[category:drama/found-footage/documentary/lgbtq-minority,date:2018-02-27,rate:7.1,type:movies]
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Free Solo (2018)
A climactic, spine-tingling documentary as sleek as the mountains it ascends with surgical precision and acrophobic suspense, Free Solo magnificently illustrates the indomitability of human spirit (& most jaw-dropping athletic feat in history). 9.4/10.
[category:drama/documentary/sports/experimental,date:2019-02-27,rate:8.7,type:movies]
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AHS: Roanoke
A sublime colonial hauntable premise & backwoods NC location setting turn up the macabric atmosphere after the problematic Hotel; with dark tone, unique narrative structure, simplicity in old-world scares, & – of course – paradox of Pigman. 8.1/10.
[category:horror/periodhistorical/documentary,date:2016-04-07,rate:8.1,type:tvshows]
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Netflix’s Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019)
Serviceably eerie with nice vintage touches in soundtrack and visuals with intense attention to detail in doc-accuracy, although superficial & discordantly/bizarrely irony-laced in tone & interviews with an anything-but-humorous subject. 6/10.
[category:drama/documentary/horror,date:2019-09-15,rate:6,type:tvshows]
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