Documentary Challenge



**It's finally here! The Documentary Challenge is happening on Trash Epics and it's happening in June. So, get ready to learn something.

I'm going to go with the original rules set by challenge founder, AlcoholicNinja. Or at least what I can remember.

Any Documentary is worth 1 point.

A Documentary containing dark subject matter is worth 2 points

A Documentary about anything involving The Horror genre is worth 3 Points. And yes, I realize this isn't the Horror Board but thems the original rules.

First time viewings will get you an extra point

For any fans of Audio commentary tracks from dvds/blu-rays, those are basically Documentaries and should count as such and should fall under the same point system. Although no FTV point for those.

And even though Mockumentaries aren't Documentaries, we'll go ahead and count them in case there's anyone around here who is a fan of them.

We'll go with a 40 minute minimum.

Oh, and anyone caught using the term "Doco" for any reason in the month of June will be disqualified and possibly banned.

Suggestions? Recs? This is the discussion thread.**

California is dumb as fuck

We all know how crooked Hollywood is, especially with the Weinstein scandal going on now, but those liberal fucktards^yahoos are making laws that'll really make you scratch your head. A few days ago, they announced that they'll arrest you if you call a transgendered person by the wrong pronoun, and now... if you knowingly have AIDS and fuck someone and give them AIDS... it's a slap on the wrist (as opposed to the previous 8 year prison sentence).

Apparently, Ben Affleck and John Travolta knew about the Weinstein shennanigans and acted as his "enforcers" to intimidate others into keeping quiet. Now, Affleck has feigned disgust in Weinstein's behavior, and Rose McGowan (a victim of Harvey's sexual abuse) called him out on it. Goddamn hypocrites...



If I ever get the chance to go there, I'll run the other way. I really wouldn't mind if America just got rid of that ridiculous state. It ain't doing the rest of us any favors...

Ready To Rumble: A WCW Fuck Up



Back in 1999, I doubt anyone would have considered the possibility of a WCW movie to be a bad idea. After temporarily dethroning the WWF as the top Wrestling organization, 1999 was extremely unkind to WCW, as their approach to the Monday Night War only served to tap them out creatively and nearly financially as well. A recently red hot WCW had become old news seemingly over night, while the WWF was experiencing an explosion in popularity like no other. Somebody needed to come up with an idea to get eyes back on WCW, and fast. Eric Bischoff, the man who had led WCW into the promised land and back, had an idea in the Summer of '99. Not a bad one by any means. Pro Wrestling, as a whole, was still huge, so, at the time, a WCW movie sounded totally reasonable. This could be just what they need to get back in the race. And if it turns out not to be, they won't be any worse off, right? Sorry. This is WCW, friends. What can go wrong, will go wrong!

And naturally, the first thing to go wrong is the firing of Eric Bischoff, who had been the only person in the company who offered something resembling leadership, so, any influence he may have had on this film was thrown out the window. The next thing to go wrong? Who knows, but let's just say it was the hiring of David Arquette for the lead role. I'm not particularly crazy about his sidekick, Scott Caan, either, but that David Arquette is the worst.

Get this: Ready To Rumble includes such Wrestlers as Sting, Sid Vicious, Goldberg, Perry Saturn, Bam Bam Bigelow, Booker T, Curt Hennig, Rey Mysterio Jr, and Konnan. With a cameo by Randy Savage, which was the highlight for me. Not to mention a random appearance by a nobody named John Cena. All that and what we get is fucking Oliver Platt vs. Diamond Dallas Page? DDP wasn't bad, and Platt was hilarious in The Big C, later on, but is this really you guy's attempt at putting WCW back on the right track? Is this what's supposed to get everyone's eyes off Stone Cold And The Rock?

So, the first thing you need to know about Ready To Rumble is that it can't decide if it wants to portray Wrestling as fake or real. At least that's what the premise implies. WCW World Heavyweight Champion, Jimmy King, gets screwed out of the title for realz by Dallas Page and cronies. A turn of events set up by CEO, Titus Sinclair, who wants to get rid of King. So, yeah. Wrestling is kinda real sometimes, I guess. Complete and utter retards, Sean and Gordie, are livid. Regardless of how Wrestling is or isn't portrayed in this movie, these longtime friends think it's 100% legit, and in this one case, I suppose they're right. Having no lives, these knuckle-dragging man-children end up tracking down their now-M.I.A. favorite wrestler and motivating him to get back to doing what he does best and stick it to Page and Sinclair, even though he doesn't work for the company any more. And even after finding out their hero is a drunken, dishonest pile of shit, they don't quit on him. So, on top of being retards, Sean and Gordie are massive marks.

How else are we supposed to take this? Sean and Gordie are clearly a portrayal of your average Wrestling fan. Is this how WCW saw their own fanbase? It certainly seems that way. Is this the reason Ready To Rumble failed? Well, it might have been if this movie had one, single thing going for it. A comedy which fits in nicely with the likes of Scary Movie, American Pie and Dude, Where's My Car?, which wouldn't be such a bad thing if it wasn't, by far, the worst of the bunch. Recycled jokes from movies like Mallrats, cameos from guys like "The Sherminator", and PG-13 poopy jokes, puts this at least three rungs below all the other sorry ass comedies from the era. All I can say is Poor Martin Landau!

On a depressing note, this movie's portrayal of WCW actually seemed far more interesting than the real thing, once this garbage was released. In a last-ditch effort to milk all they could from this situation, WCW actually brought in David Arquette and put the WCW World Title on him for a short time, sending the message that even a shitty, unfunny actor is better than any big-name Wrestler. Did it help the movie? Well, it eventually made half it's budget back. So, possibly. Did this at least help WCW at all? Well, less than a year later, they wouldn't exist anymore, so, there's that. Yes. Ready To Rumble was a waste of time, a waste of money, a waste of talent, and seemingly a middle finger to those who were meant to take interest in it. Because of course it was. After all. This was a WCW project. 1/10

I think this is interesting

You guys, this has nothing to do with anything, I just think it's interesting. If you click on this page, look at the little cluster of republics numbered 13, 21, 12, 16, 18, 3, roughly located in the left half of the map. That area is northish of the Caspian Sea in the real world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republics_of_Russia

All those "republics" (totally surrounded, dominated, run, owned, oppressed, etc by Russia) are almost like a whole other Europe, which is never in the news. Isn't that interesting?!? In the (Western) Europe we all are familiar with, most traditional languages are classified as either Romance, Germanic, or Celtic. In this other Europe that I'm talking about right now the languages are more closely related to Finnish, Hungarian, or Turkish. It really is another "Europe," or at least another part of Europe, because it is mostly to the west of the Ural mountains, I think.

Isn't that interesting? There are other republics, and "federal subjects" of Russia, within or along the edges of Russia, which seem to be administered in various different ways according to Russian law (and by the whims of the local oligarchs, I'm sure). Some of them, especially Chechnya, have been in the news over the years. Actually, that whole area, with all the little republics along the Russian border with former Soviet Georgia, has been in the news now and then over the years, because the Caucasus in general is very violent, and always has some terrorist activity going on... like, remember the Beslan slaughter of school children in 2004? ...... Tuva, near Mongolia, was in the news too, when a Richard Feynman book called Tuva or Bust was published a few years back.

But anyway, that little cluster of republics that I was just talking about up above is almost never in the news at all. In fact, I would say it never is. Can any of you guys think of a time when you have heard about Mordovia, Chuvashia, Mari El, Udmurtia, or Bashkortostan in the news?? Maybe you have read about them on your own, at some time in your life, but have you ever seen them in the news? Sorry, this has nothing to do with anything, I just think it's interesting.

Upgrade 2018 was pretty damn cool

Here's another Blumhouse movie. They're the lead distributors of mainstream horror/exploitation these days, and sometimes, they do all right. Upgrade stars Logan Marshall Green in an actual starring role. This guy usually plays bit parts like in Prometheus and Spiderman Homecoming, but they finally gave him more to work with, and he nails it.

He plays a quadriplegic who gets "upgraded" with a spinal chip as he searches for his wife's killer, and the rest is just cool fight scenes as he does his thing. Now, if you've watched the trailer, you can pick this movie apart beat for beat. I still enjoyed it though, because it had some cool, violent sci-fi shennanigans, but it wasn't CGI shit.

It kinda reminded me of Black Mirror in a way, because they do these kind of plots all the time. This was a bit more hardcore though.

Good shit. A fun ride.

Things with Commentary

I'm talking about the 1989 Canadian piece of trash known as "Things". I watched the commentary, looking for insight, and here's what I can say about that...

The commentary is labeled as having director Andrew Jordan and star Barry J. Gillis. When the movie starts, you can tell that there are a lot more people there. It's like a party, and they seem quick to get to drinking.

There's a lady on the track that never saw the movie at the time of the recording, and she just kinda rags on the movie the whole time. Eventually, she hates it so much, she leaves, and Barry J. Gillis leaves the commentary to deal with her. Perhaps she was his gf at the time?

Eventually, Barry comes back. He seemed to laugh at LOT throughout the thing. Everyone involved seems to have fond memories of making their self-proclaimed "worst movie ever". Even worse than Plan 9, they say.

They make fun of the one guy's boobs a lot, they talk about how important that porn star was for their marketing, and by the end of it, I think they were all pretty drunk.

It's mostly like watching a home movie with friends and relatives, and they laugh about all the stupid shit. I still don't know what they were thinking at the time of making the movie. I'm going to guess that they weren't thinking.

While you do get some insight on the movie, it's still never enough. Things. A horrifying experience that will rip apart your soul.

What movies did you watch or buy this week? (6/3)

I've had so little time lately but I did watch a few the past week.

The Maze
Kidnapped
Don't Touch My Daughter

Audio Commentary Tracks

This is my easiest way of earning points for the June challenge. While everyone else will be on summer vacation, we'll all be learning for the month, but I'm fine with that. I've still got a lot of dvds of my favorite horror movies, and I've probably forgotten most every commentary I've listened to at this point, so they're all fresh for a revisit.

What are some good audio commentary tracks on dvds? Hopefully, I might have one of these discs so I can listen. I think I need to start the challenge off with Things commentary. Will there be any insight to the madness of that movie? Have I listened to that commentary already? The world may never know.

Also, I think gimmicky commentaries can be great. I love how Spinal Tap does a commentary for their movie, in character. It's like a whole new movie.

Fave commentaries?
Who sounds bored, who sounds enthused? Cuz some of these can be boring as fuck.

Horror Period Piece Recs

I'm really into period piece movies right now. Anyone have any recs? Doesn't have to specifically be horror. Thriller and drama would be good also.

Jesus Franco

Hard person to work out
He's made a couple of decent films, and a few average films (so hes not completely incompetent)
but most are just plain crap. Watched one last night https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209458/ Vampire Blues (1999)
The closest film to it is 'Hip Hop Locos(•)' It is impossible to make a film this bad unless
A/ you do it on purpose
B/ you're an imbecile

So what is it, is he just taking the piss, or did he just hit his head back in the 60s?

(•) Its actually worse than hip hop loco's as thats a film by a single dude, Vampire Blues had a crew of ppl working on it!

EDIT:


Jesus has discovered you can actually alter a pictures hue's, like he discovered back in the 1960s that one can zoom in and out with a camera.
Of course being Jesus he decided not to use it for the occasional florish, hes changing the colors for like 45 minutes out of the 90minute runtime.
Even a 8 yr old would go, hmmm perhaps I'm overusing this effect a bit too much