I "Liked It" The Square: The last part of a documentary weekend

Of all the documentaries I watched over the weekend, I certainly did not expect to enjoy The Square the least. Of course I use the word enjoy loosely. How could one enjoy a documentary of an uprising that led to another uprising, that led to another, and ends with . . . well, not nothing, but just doesn't really end at all. There’s no resolution, which of course is not anyone’s fault; things are still going on in Egypt, and it ends with a bit of info at the end telling of what happened to the people we have been following, but still nothing happens.

            I think one reason that I did not enjoy The Square as much as say, Strongman, is that Strongman is about a man and his life, his future, his present; while The Square is about an event, an even that may still be going on, sure, but still it’s an event, and if the filmmakers wanted to follow it and show us the event, then why stop when they did? Why not stick with it? I understand that the uprising in Egypt could go on for years now, and the filmmakers couldn't follow all of that, but still in their previous film Control Room, they seemed to cover a war in the span of the documentary. Now obviously they did not, but as I said they seemed to, they gave the viewers that impression that we were there with them through it all.

            The Square falls just short of giving us that impression. We were there for the beginning, okay, and then we stuck with it, and stuck with it, and then we left, and stuff is still going on over there. Maybe things calmed down, that’s why the filmmakers chose to end it there and not follow through, I don’t know, but still that’s how it felt to me like we just decided to turn the TV off and move on to something else.

            Also, The Square seemed just a bit laid back for the events that it was covering. Control Room seemed more intense than The Square, and I mean that as a whole. The Square has a lot more “action” or intense scenes of violence than Control Room, and when you’re watching those scenes of people being driven over with the trucks, and shot at, you really do get a sense for that moment of the fear and confusion and panic. The people living in Egypt live with that always, not just during those scenes, and I didn't feel that as I did for those we were watching in Control Room.

            I think The Square loses something because of the way it is shot. The documentary is beautiful to look at; I mean seriously, it is amazingly filmed. It’s like a Michael Mann movie, the only thing is, it did not sit well with the sort of things we were seeing. Such tragedy and horror and injustice – but boy does it look beautiful!

            After all of that I don’t want to give the impression that I didn't like it. I did. For all of its faults none of them could ruin what is a very good documentary about a very important event in Egypt’s history as well as the world’s. The documentary also makes the people involved as important as the events themselves.

            How can a guy living in Wichita, Kansas, relate to the turmoil that another man may be going through in Egypt? I can watch Youtube and the news and all sorts of other websites that show the truth of what is going on, but it is still the documentary that really brings the people alive that are there doing the things that I’m seeing on the internet and the news. I know I will never go to Egypt, and I will probably never be involved in any sort of political protest (or any protest for that matter), so documentaries like this bring us one step closer to the people that are involved; I just wish I’d been able to get more attached to the people I was watching.

            The documentary ends with two men who had been protesting together, now forced to opposite sides of a protest that had gradually changed. I wanted to feel for both men. I knew that I should feel really affected by them and their situation, but I just didn't, and I think in that moment, when the two spoke and I felt nothing is when I felt The Square really missed something. I was more upset when the young man who was killed, his mother spoke about how she didn't care if her son was a martyr or not, she was just sad that he was gone, and I never saw her until that instant. The two men at the end I’d been with for over an hour or so and still I didn't feel what I wanted to.

            The Square is a beautifully shot documentary, and I think in the end, that is its worst enemy.

I "Really Liked It" Mitt, a documentary about the man and not the politics

Have I mentioned that I am not political? I don’t vote, and don’t really follow the topics or points that people touch on while running for an elected office. I watch the one on one presidential and vice presidential debates as a reality show, and if nothing really exciting happens for very long I get bored and turn it over. If there’s a highlight, I usually watch the clip on whatever website I found it on. I of course read and watch news clips of whatever scandal may hit, so the exciting and interesting stuff I’m into, the serious stuff not so much.

            It’s all right though, because as I said, I don’t vote. I know people who are the same as me but do vote. They let the highlights define the person trying to get your vote. Is it better or worse that I just simply don’t vote? Would you rather someone who opposes your view not vote at all, or would you rather they vote believing it to be their American right and/or duty?

            I was talking to a guy a bit older than me and he is very political and very republican. I told him that the republicans lost the election for the same reason he felt the democrats won. “The people voting democrat don’t know what they’re voting for. They just vote for what they see on TV, the are voting for the book’s cover instead of the book.” And I couldn’t agree more. “It’s like they didn’t have the time or the energy, people were too lazy basically, to actually read the two books and see that Mitt was the better one.”

            So I asked him: “So is it their fault they’re lazy, or Mitt’s fault because his campaign didn’t create a prettier book cover for those who were too lazy to read any of the actual books?” He looked at me like I was an idiot.

            “There are a lot of people who are like me, don’t really pay attention to everything and they still vote! Obama got those people because he painted himself in a way that made those who didn’t want to think too much about it as someone they could trust. He managed to say: ‘Look, don’t worry about the little things, vote for me. I got this’ and those who saw that said okay.” Like it or not, those people are voting, and if you want their vote you gotta cater to them.

            Mitt never managed to shake the stiff “I’m the boss you lazy guys know and hate” demeanor. I didn’t watch things as much as others but I saw it.

            The documentary Mitt really helped change that impression. It certainly didn’t get rid of it entirely but it did help curve it a bit, and had this documentary been released before the election I think he probably would have won. I also think that the knowledge that this documentary wasn’t going to be released until after the election helped those involved in it be a bit more real about the whole thing.

            Right before I watched this documentary I watched the documentary Strongman, and at the end of Mitt I felt that Strongman and Mitt shared something in common. At the end of Mitt and through the entirety of Strongman, the main guys are at a crossroads for what they will do with the rest of their lives. The ending of both shows were melancholic, and I really felt for Mitt at the end, I mean, any guy who would want to be president has to be a bit insane, but he kept it together through out the movie that he felt he was the right man for the job. He said at the beginning that anyone could do it, it just so happens that the right circumstances happened that put him in that position to run. If it were anyone else I don’t think he’d have had a problem with someone else doing it. His family certainly wouldn’t, that’s the for sure.

            It was nice seeing his family talk about his running, and one of the girls says that a con for him running is that he might win. I mean, if you really wrap your head around the idea of seriously being the President of the United States, I bet it would not seem all that good.

            I think too many will look at this documentary as showing us the evil man who ran for president and was defeated by the good guy, and others will look at it as a documentary about a great man and how the media tricked the people into voting for the wrong guy, but the documentary is more about the man – love him or hate him – and how he was going after something he cared about. I think the fact that the documentary touched on stuff like the hidden camera scandal but didn’t dwell on it shows that Mitt is a show about the man and not anything else.

            I think that the documentary would not have been as interesting had he won. Sure it would have ended up following a winning campaign for a man to become president, and maybe it’s just me, but with his defeat, Mitt becomes much more than just a documentary about a man running for president but a man running for a second chance, and losing it. It becomes tragic, and in that tragedy it becomes a good documentary.

Netflix: Lilyhammer News

I didn't hear much about Lilyhammer, until it had already been showing for awhile. I was anxious to see it for the novelty of it being Netflix’s first series, and I was impressed. With expectations low, the show was interesting, entertaining, and well done. I tried to find out if the show was a hit because the first season ended in such a way that it could be all wrapped up, or there could be more, and I wanted more, but I found that there was really no way to know if it was a hit for Netflix.

Awhile later Netflix began to really hit hard with original shows, and Lilyhammer was coming back for a second season, and I think that was proof that the show was doing well. Now with word of a third season already being worked on for release later this year, I think it’s safe to say that though it doesn't get the love that the other bigger shows get, Lilyhammer is still a good show that is doing good as well.

"We are proud to bring back Lilyhammer for a third season," said Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix.  "Lilyhammer is the type of global show that Netflix members around the world have discovered and love and season three will see that world expand even more."