Documenteers: The Documentary Podcast

This month’s theme is WOMEN IN CRISIS and crisis is coming in a variety of ways. Sometimes women can go insane and maybe they need to be admitted to a facility but maybe they don’t really need to be in that facility? Perhaps it’s all just a trauma response because she might have a stalker. What kind of crisis is this? An insanity crisis or a stalker crisis? Maybe both? We’re discussing Steven Soderbergh’s somewhat covert 2018 thriller “UNSANE” starring Claire Foy, Jay Pharaoh and and Joshua Leonard. The whole thing is filmed on iPhone because why not? Steve is just out here Soderberghing. We get into the details so you should go watch it if you’re a mood for a mental mystery thriller with a heaping dose of medical care criticism. Who can’t relate? There’s a lot of terrible things you might be able to relate to in this movie.

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Our OG podcast “Documenteers”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/documenteers-the-documentary-podcast/id1321652249

Soundcloud feed: https://soundcloud.com/documenteers

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/culturewrought

For some extra movie content this month we’re doing extra drops of the Best Picture nominees we missed leading up to the 2024 Academy Awards. It’s the first awards show we will sit and watch in decades. It’s been decades because this kind of award show stuff is boring as shit. The Golden Globes? I’ve never watched more than 5 minutes of that stuff. Movies are great but we take the circle jerking with a grain of salt. I mean, at least 40 percent of the people in this business are monsters and that’s a very polite estimate. But, we’re heading towards a year of MOVIEHUMPERS and maybe we should talk about the biggest award ceremony in film. It’s fun to gripe at a show sometimes and one year a guy walked onto stage and slapped another guy. We need more of that energy at the Oscars from a variety of people. Catty glances are fun too. Today we discuss a pleasant and well cast Best Picture nominee in Cord Jefferson’s feature film debut. The comedy “AMERICAN FICTION” stars Jeffrey Wright, John Ortiz, Issa Rae and Sterling K. Brown. It’s about artistic struggle, cultural expectations and the troubles of family. A funny movie with solid characters that stands alongside “The Holdovers” as another Oscar nominee about a grumpy professor.

American Fiction’s Oscar Nominations are:

Best Picture

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Best Adapted Screenplay

Best Music / Original Score

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Our OG podcast “Documenteers”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/documenteers-the-documentary-podcast/id1321652249

Soundcloud feed: https://soundcloud.com/documenteers

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All February we’re discussing movies about WOMEN IN CRISIS and we find ourselves in some strange Swedish territory. A mansion with very red interiors and sad women in white. In this big house a woman suffers from cancer and her sisters, one frigid and the other the opposite, must come to terms with their familial relationships and their own mental state. Then you have Anna, whose bosom is ready for the weary. Will the poor suffering Agnes part from her troubled sisters or does she need to hang on just a little bit more? She will love her sisters even if she has to cross a threshold of mortality to do so. We’re speaking on our very first Ingmar Bergman for the show with his 1972 film “CRIES AND WHISPERS” and there’s some great tips on how to avoid consummating with your husband. Oh, look! It would appear that a Bergman Youtube has the movie if you would like to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rxJyl-twOM

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Contact us here: [email protected]

Hear us on podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6o6PSNJFGXJeENgqtPY4h7

Our OG podcast “Documenteers”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/documenteers-the-documentary-podcast/id1321652249

Soundcloud feed: https://soundcloud.com/documenteers

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/culturewrought

3 Women (1977) by Bob Sham & Friends

New month, new theme. For February we will be watching and discussing the dramatic plight of women in certain film. Be is physical, mental, existential or spiritual we will be discussing WOMEN IN CRISIS all month. Things might get intense for our dramatic leads and why not start with our third Anime feature discussion so far with Satoshi Kon’s classic and influential “PERFECT BLUE” from 1997? A pop idol turned actress has her reality discombobulated after diving into a fan site devoted to herself after she learns about this crazy new thing called The Internet. Her past and her performances are also starting to blur together as a strange man seems to be everywhere in her life. Who is Mima? Is she real? A psychedelic thriller an early parable of the modern age of communication. It’s easy to see why Kon’s cult classic manages to remain relevant. Oh shit here’s a dailymotion link for the movie: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8h56a7

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IT’S OSCAR SEASON FOLKS and there’s a bitter buzz in the air about who got nominated and who didn’t but our side theme this month has us watching the remainder of the best picture nominees that we have yet to discuss. We talk about some rather forced cultural commentary surrounding the Barbie nominations and what exactly that commentary means. Then we get into one of this year’s THIRSTIEST movies nominated by the Academy and it seems like proper Oscar bait from, maybe, 25 years ago. It seems like the ultra dramatic side universe of Bradley Cooper directing himself is just getting started and what a nice little terrarium Mr. Cooper has built for himself. It’s called “MAESTRO” and it stars Bradley Cooper & Carey Mulligan. Cooper plays the American Composer, Leonard Bernstein, and examines the relationship between the homosexual Leonard and his beard/wife, Felicia Montealegre with so much concentration and minimal emotional resonance. This movie makes Barbie seem restrained. Truly.

Maestro’s Oscar Nominations are:

Best Picture

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Original Screenplay

Best Cinematography

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Best Sound

It’s a good bet that this year will be a very dreary year. We’re trucking on into it so why not spend the year talking about no less than a dozen Lars von Trier movies? All throughout the year, mostly every month and maybe a few twice a month, we will be talking about a dozen movies by the Unsane Dane himself. A polarizing man. Controversial. His movies? Heavily contemplated, quite scrutinized and often beloved. Everyone might have a von Trier movie they are partial too. What keeps Charlotte Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgård coming back? We’ll find out soon enough but there’s no more obvious a place to start off the YEAR OF VON TRIER than with his 1984 film debut and the first of the “EUROPE TRILOGY” (he likes trilogies). We’re discussing Von Trier’s drowned dystopian noir “THE ELEMENT OF CRIME”. Fisher is missing some memories of a previous police case so a hypnotist in Cairo drags him back to his experience hunting a serial killer with the help of an old mentor’s book. Interesting visuals, excellent shots and as muddy as the world it displays. Let’s get this year of von Trier drear popped off right!

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Our OG podcast “Documenteers”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/documenteers-the-documentary-podcast/id1321652249

Soundcloud feed: https://soundcloud.com/documenteers

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/culturewrought

PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS (AKA DENZEL MONTH) has been a hell of a time and it’s been fun to examine the lives of such cornerstone actors in Paul Robeson and Denzel Washington. Those two men seem very different in personality but for this final edition of our theme, Denzel takes on a role that might be the closest to Robeson’s preferred type. A struggling, hardworking, family man trying to make ends meet in a medical emergency. It was a hit during a time when random dramas seemed to be seen, though not much of it gets said even in context of the Denzel oeuvre and broader film culture. A very direct critique of the U.S. medical system in Nick Cassavetes’s absolutely dripping melodrama from 2002, “JOHN Q.”. Denzel is the obvious everyman who successfully holds his own dramatic weight. It also stars Kimberly Elise, James Woods, Anne Heche (RIP), Robert Duvall and Ray Fuckin’ Liotta. We miss you Ray. The people finally get a little propaganda in this far from perfect story that occasionally brushes up against “ridiculous”. Charming family dynamic with a few good dramatic moments and maybe a little misdirected in its cleanliness through the home stretch. Nonetheless, we can all relate to dealing with our shitty medical system. So long January’s theme.

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Sadly, our five film examination of the legendary Paul Robeson for this month’s theme of PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS end here. But we go out on Paul’s personal pick for his favorite looking back on his unique career. We’re talking about the struggle and heroisms of miners in Wales and the singing stranger that came along to make their choir better and soothe the struggle. We’re talking about the 1940 British film “THE PROUD VALLEY” starring Paul Robeson as “David Goliath” and co-starring Edward Chapman, Edward Rigby and Simon Lack. Them Welsh boys got it rough and shit might have to get….ORGANIZED! Well, London needs that coal to fight Hitler so can the Cymry posse and their new baritone buddy safely get these mines going? Hear us tell of it or just watch it here first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyNWpRY5lH8 RIP to the man, Paul Robeson, a man beyond his time at any time.

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It’s the last full week of our PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS theme and we end it with Edward Zwick’s dripping military melodrama “COURAGE UNDER FIRE” from 1996. Denzel Washington plays a veteran military fellow who accidentally blasted his own men during the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. The government puts a bow on it and sticks him in a desk job. Now he has to review for a posthumous Medal of Honor candidate AND OH MY GOD THE NOMINEE IS A GIIIIIIIIIRL!!!!!!!! Did they inoculate her for cooties!? Cooties are very serious! Almost as serious as this movie. Anyway, Captain Karen is played by Meg Ryan who is also southern. Captain Karen is southern, I mean. Meg Ryan is from Connecticut. She gets to be the “Tex” in this military movie and she commands this whole troop. But what in the name of Uncle Sam’s beard lice happened out there? Also starring a gaunt Matt Damon and a sad Lou Diamond Phillips. What happened to Captain Karen? Hear us tell it.

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Our OG podcast “Documenteers”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/documenteers-the-documentary-podcast/id1321652249

Soundcloud feed: https://soundcloud.com/documenteers

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/culturewrought