Documenteers: The Documentary Podcast

We continue making up the homework we skipped in 2018, by using February to watch some critically hailed documentaries we missed last year. Just in time for the unwatchable Academy Awards. I would watch the Oscars, but i'll probably be busy punching myself in the balls. Get your tissues handy because we got a worthy doc that deserves to be seen. It's a Hulu original by director Bing Liu called "Minding the Gap". Rockford, Illinois doesn't have much going on for it these days. Except for Cheap Trick and all those guitars Rick Nielsen has been hoarding. Three working class kids with similar backgrounds have to grow up, and some are better at it than others. It's a beautiful skate video that becomes a symposium on cross-generational cycles of violence. Some don't make it out ok. How much can Eldridge and Bob possibly deflect? More than you know. Apologies to Stuart. Keep on Doccin'®

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Holy smokes. This might be our most "mature" episode yet. Bob is hosting, so "mature" might be a strong word. For this week's "Shorties" episode, Bob and Angela discuss Alice Russell's unashamed 2015 short documentary "Men Buy Sex". We hear the stories of three men purchasing sex from women, and see three women lip-sync the stories. Men's voices, women's mouths. Y'all wanna get raw? Wanna raw it down and consider the nuances of gender roles in our society regarding the oldest profession? Watch this oddly refreshing short documentary on Vimeo over here: https://vimeo.com/203760525 . This doc was released as a part of a "Women's Voices Now" online film exhibition. You can see plenty more films by women directors by following links through the video. In the meantime, let's get you comfortable. Is there anything you would like us to do for you? I'll do anything for some Gummy Bears, and I mean ANYTHING. Seriously...ANYTHING. Keep on Doccin'®

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All February long we're gonna hit up some acclaimed docs we missed in 2018. Every week this month leads up to the Academy Awards where only one category matters, BEST DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR. Will we be watching it? Uh, no. I'm sure we got better things to do. We will just check our phones the next day. They (the Russians) called 2018 "The Year of the Documentary", and one big doc hit of last year was Julie Cohen and Betsy West's ode to the great dissenter, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. We're finally getting to the geriatric exercise video known as "RBG". Ruth's storied and influential career has snowballed into pop-culture super-stardom. She's even compared to the late great Notorious B.I.G., a rapper who spoke often about "toting guns" and "getting that dick sucked". They're both from Brooklyn. Also, Ruth's initials rhyme with B.I.G. and she also happens to be notorious. So I guess it's fine and it doesn't really have to be about sucking dicks or anything. Man, these episode descriptions are getting weird. You can watch this on Hulu. Keep on Doccin'®

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Easily one of the oldest films we will ever discuss on the Documenteers. Maybe you caught this 1895 classic in some historical discussion regarding the history of film or technology. The Lumière Brothers made a lot of very brief films if only to test out the limits of motion pictures in its infancy. One of their more famous films featured a passenger train pulling into a train station in southeast France in this Lumière classic, "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat". Watch it here: https://youtu.be/1dgLEDdFddk . It's less than a minute long. It's got a song with a beat you can shake your ass to. There are no words, but if sound in film did exist at that time you would probably hear the Lumière brothers chanting "Va te faire foutre, Thomas Edison." Bob and Angela discuss this very early motion picture marvel with little to no knowledge of life in late 19th century France. Continuez sur Doccin'®

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Hello documentary lovers. Notice something different about this episode? Yep. It's NOT marked "EXPLICIT". All the sailors and bikers can take a break, because this is the Documenteers episode FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY! Bob Sham's six-year-old cousin Lexi stops by to deftly tackle one of the most prolific, kid-friendly, nature documentaries around. Luc Jacquet's 2005 film "March of the Penguins" and it's narrated by some guy named...what is it? Marvin Fortnite, or something? If you play any other Documenteers episode for a child you're probably going to get that child taken away from you by the proper authorities. This episode is different. THIS EPISODE WILL NOT RESULT IN YOU LOSING CUSTODY OF YOUR CHILD! You can go get all the kids and parents and grandparents in the house and make them listen to this episode. You can even play this for kids you don't know. Just play it on your smart-phone, out loud and in public. If people start to complain, just yell back "Relax! This is a family friendly episode of the Documenteers podcast! The best documentary themed podcast in the universe, and it's also very funny! There's just not enough podcasts out there of people trying to be funny and I just thought this show was refreshing! The main host sometimes puts in too many clips, though! Also, he barely knows what he's talking about! Actually, now that i've heard this episode several times, I think maybe Lexi should be the main host! Some of the other hosts I like a lot, but I don't know why Bob has to be on every episode! Regardless, this particular episode is very wholesome and we should all enjoy it! It was nice meeting you and Keep on Doccin'!®"

For year two of the Documenteers we promise to dig more into the history of documentaries. You will see more of the classics popping up, and this film pre-dates the term "documentary". We discuss the genre-defining 1922 anthropological silent docu-drama, "Nanook of the North" by Robert J. Flaherty. This grainy golden age wonder was revelatory and successful in its time, but are things what they seem? What is true? What is a lie? The layers of deception move beyond the film and infect Bob Sham and Stuart's discussion. Also, some corrections: It's "Joe Flaherty" who played the dad on "Freaks and Geeks" and IMDB doesn't have a comment sections anymore. For the rest of how we're wrong about everything, listen on to the episode. This film can be viewed for nada on YouTube. Learn how to build an igloo! Don't steal our "Blutter" idea! Keep on Doccin'®

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A special surprise in this our most relevant episode to date. Just last week HULU and Netflix began having it out with competing FYRE festival themed documentaries. They’ve been slinging mud about it and what it is and isn't in each one is quite intriguing indeed. The Documenteers take Chris Smith’s “Fyre” and Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason’s “Fyre Fraud” and slam them together until there is only one true victor. You remember the FYRE festival thing, right? Easily entranced trustafarians took some model-laced social media bait and shelled out more money than the average american makes in a year to attend a high-end music festival repped by future celebrity Big Brother cast-member Ja Rule, and a spoiled compulsive con-artist by the name of Billy MacFarland. This festival was supposed to feature Blink182 for some reason. What it featured instead was sweaty cheese, FEMA tents, Pigs (which is cool actually), a Monsoon and the sweet sweet tears of twenty-somethings who are not used to not getting what they want. Stuart and Bob Sham got together for a live session. Recorded in segments that also features an EXCLUSIVE dinner session at one of the most DECADENT restaurants in town. This episode will probably compel you to go to www.documenteerspodcast.com to Paypal us tens of thousands of dollars. Fuck that. Hundreds of Thousands! MILLIONS! This episode is so lit you’ll blow somebody to get bottled water out of customs. You’ll have to watch these flicks and listen to the episode to get that one. In the meantime, we fight FYRE with FYRE! Keep on Doccin’®

If you've been listening to the Documenteers for a bit, then you know Bob and Angela and some of the other hosts say "Apparently" too much. When that happens a clip of a child's voice from an infamous viral video pops up on the show. Apparently, this Shorties episode is when we finally discuss the time Noah Ritter took over the WNEP-TV microphones at a Pennsylvania county fair and said "Apparently" no less than a dozen times. Apparently, it was a huge hit. Apparently, this is technically considered a short documentary. Apparently, the boundaries that qualify as a short documentary are very thin on this podcast. What next? Charlie Bit Me? Apparently, yeah. Apparently, we will one day do an episode on "Charlie Bit Me" and it will be great. In the meantime let's pay homage to Noah Ritter. A Documenteers legend. You can watch the WNEP-TV short here: https://youtu.be/rz5TGN7eUcM . Apparently. Keep on Apparently®

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Hit the court, fools! 30 for 30s are back! Drew and Bob are now far enough into the 30 for 30s to notice a pattern. This is our second "gone too soon" athlete story regarding the tragedy of Hank Gathers, but it's also about Paul Westhead and his run and gun coaching style called "The System". We discussed Bill Couturie's "Guru of Go", and we cannot wait to get deeper into these 30 for 30s because there are way too many. Also, we bring back the controversial and genius "pre-emptive ads". Last time Bob didn't realize Jared Fogle got locked up for some bad things, and Subway and Angela got pretty upset with him. Fortunately for society, and revolutionary marketing strategies, Bob has fixed it all. It's gonna be A SLAM DUNK! ((waits for applause...........receives none.)) Apologies to William Shakespeare. Keep on Doccin'®

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Lou Reed is renowned for his awkward interviews, but this interview with a very untested Niklas Källner for Swedish National Television is cringe-worthy in a way even Lou Reed didn't expect. In fact, it kind of seems like Lou is trying to be nice. At least as nice as Lou Reed can be. Which is just mildly snotty, really. Rest In Peace, Lou. Niklas shares his embarrassing experience in his short Swedish documentary "Lou Reed - Lowest From of Life" and Stuart and Bob are along for the cringe-inducing ride. Niklas even inspires us to tell our own embarrassing tales. Watch the whole story with subtitles right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNxG7JnO1oA . Watch it until you can't stand it any more more. See what I did there? A Velvet Underground pun. You know what, you're right. It wasn't good and i'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. Keep on Doccin'®

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