I didn’t watch a single movie in theaters this week, but I did watch Errol Morris‘ The Thin Blue Line and Alex Gibney‘s Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (read my review here) as I’m feeling like I want to go on a major documentary binge.
I do want to say, however, when it comes to The Thin Blue Line, I understand its importance in documentary history and I’m sure had I seen it upon its release in 1988 it would have had a greater impact on me when I watched it, but it was a bit of a chore to get through. Certainly knowing the outcome is part of the reason, but I would still hope the story being told would have been a bit more dramatic or at least interesting. The repetitive use of the crime scene re-creation and the dull drawl of the talking heads did very little for me. Hell, I knew Robert Durst had been arrested and why before watching the final episode of HBO’s “The Jinx” and it was still immensely compelling… of course, even I have raised eyebrows concerning the film’s timeline so perhaps this comes down to whether you want the truth and nothing but the whole truth in your documentaries or would you prefer the filmmaker fudge things a bit for the sake of drama?
I also re-watched Ong Bak in prpeparation for Furious 7 this week and what pretty much amounts to the Tony Jaa comig out party in Hollywood. Ong Bak is so goofy and yet so great. I love every high-flying knee, knuckle and elbow. I also watched Aziz Ansari‘s Madison Square Garden comedy special on Netflix after Thin Blue Line and other than that, it was all basketball the last few days as the Final Four will be decided this evening. Can’t wait!
Now, what did you watch this week?
