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prolapsed
Sep 9, 2015

djwetmouse posted:

Watching American Meth from 2008 already seems dated, what is a new, good, documentary on meth?

Walking down the street is a pretty good one.

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SpitztheGreat
Jul 20, 2005
Just finished There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane- a story about a terrible car accident on the Taconic State Parkway in New York State that killed 7 people including 3 children, and badly maimed a 4th.

Overall I give it a 6/10, it felt pretty shallow for its length. Eventually the mystery of what happened is revealed (the accident was caused by a drunk/impaired driver) and from there the movie kind of falls apart. It's not bad it's more an issue that the driving force behind the movie is so "mundane" that you could (sadly) tell this story thousands of times over. Without a unique twist to spur on the audience the film makers maybe should have attempted address the family dynamics after such a horrific tragedy. This method was used to great effect in Capturing the Friedman's, not only is the subject material compelling but the family dynamics really help complete the story. Because [b]There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane/b] doesn't have the same depth in subject material they needed a stronger B-side to the movie, and came up a little short.

The movie does a good job of providing a plausible theory as to why the driver was so drunk: Basically a combination of stress and a severe tooth abscess drove her to self medicate before driving home from a camping trip with 4 kids in the car with her. But I'm interested if anyone here has any thoughts about the timeline because it does seem like the last bit of the puzzle left untouched. What we know:

Leaves camp ~10 am- owner of the camp says goodbye and claims she was not intoxicated
Stops at a gas station for aspirin- clerk reports that she did not seem intoxicated
Stops at McDonalds, kids play in the play pit, restaurant workers remember her and report that she was definitely not intoxicated
~11am makes a series of calls on her way home, everything is fine, kids are heard in the background sounding happy.

From here things begin to get dicey as we have less evidence from inside the mini van.

Witnesses report a car driving very aggressively along the highway. Tailgating, taking evasive maneuvers, driving at a high rate of speed. Witnesses report that the driver seems to be very focused on driving. Witnesses report that they did not feel that the driver was drunk, her maneuvers were crisp, just very aggressive (if anyone knows driving in the area you'll know that assholes are a dime a dozen- my reading between the lines of the witness statements was that they just thought she was an rear end in a top hat).
Witnesses report seeing Diane at a rest area appearing to vomit.
~12pm Diane begins to make a series of calls that are incoherent or go to wrong numbers. She calls her brother who becomes concerned and a series of calls from him get the police involved and Diane's husband.
Around this same time Diane stops again somewhere around Sleepy Hollow. She pulls off to the shoulder and makes a call to her brother, as before it isn't very coherent, she seems very confused. This time crying can be heard from the children, there's definitely a serious problem. One of the kids makes a call and says that "Something is wrong with Aunt Diane, her head hurts. She can't see"
~1pm Diane enters the Taconic State Parkway traveling North on the Southbound side. As you can imagine the 911 calls begin to flood in immediately.
She drives this way for 2 miles, by all accounts extremely aggressively but with intense focus and crispness apparently staying in her lane while traffic dodges her.
Eventually she collides head-on with another car, killing everyone but one child in the process.
Two weeks later a toxicology report finds that she had a BAC of .19% and very high levels of THC.

The movie theorizes that, due to an abscessed tooth Diane was self medicating at some point that morning. The theory goes that when she combined alcohol with the weed it may have thrown her off (as anyone who has smoked after drinking can attest, it can really gently caress you up). Her family seems convinced that she wasn't a heavy drinking, and while they may be in denial, it could help explain that she may not have been prepared for the exaggerated effects of the pot. The clincher in the theory is that the combined effects of the alcohol and pot could have reacted to a badly infected tooth by causing her an intense fever and putting her into a state of delirium. In that state she would have been out of her mind and beyond the "normal" bounds of what a typical drunk driver at her BAC would be doing. So, somewhere between 11 and 12 she must have started to slip. If we can agree that by 11:30 she was becoming very delirious then that means that she drove for rough 1.5-2.0 hours like that.

What I don't understand, and I don't have anyone around me right now to bounce ideas off of, is how she got that drunk in a relatively short amount of time and managed to drive for 2ish hours. People that knew her (and again, they're in heavy denial) paint a fairly compelling image that she wouldn't have been drinking in front of the kids. So that tells me that she must have taken her drinks at McDonalds while the kids were distracted. However, for her to have a BAC of .19 they determined that she needed to have the equivalent of 10 drinks (in this case shots- they suspect vodka). I'm not questioning the findings of the toxicology report, but I'm having a hard time reconciling what appears to be divergent ideas. If she's hammered on vodka and pot you would think that she would be all over the road, but as I said before the witnesses claim that she was driving "pinstripe straight". When she entered the Taconic she would have been navigating a fairly narrow highway with sharp corners, and witnesses say that she was navigating it just fine- stayed in her lane and plowed on ahead. I'd like to know more about how someone can get wasted, high, drive for over an hour before the effects hit them (never stopping to think that they've made a mistake- but judgement is another question); then, when the effects do begin to hit them and they slide into a delirium, they are still able to navigate the roads well enough to drive for well over an hour, going through toll booths, getting off exits, and generally preforming driving maneuvers that require motor skills. It seems to me that once the drugs hit her she should have just crashed the car, how could you preform complex driving maneuvers when you're so sick that you're delirious?

Anyways, it was an okay movie, but I'm not sure it's worth a special viewing.

Garth_Marenghi
Nov 7, 2011

SpitztheGreat posted:

=There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane
The bottle of Vodka was found in the van so I assumed she drank straight from the bottle while driving to kill the pain, and because she was in so much pain she drank much more then she intended to in a short amount of time.

Bastard Man
Nov 15, 2009

Lipstick Apathy

djwetmouse posted:

The bottle of Vodka was found in the van so I assumed she drank straight from the bottle while driving to kill the pain, and because she was in so much pain she drank much more then she intended to in a short amount of time.

This is what I think too. Didn't the movie mention this theory? It definitely seems the most plausible to me for how she got drunk so fast.

SpitztheGreat
Jul 20, 2005
I've not had a lot of experience with raging alcoholics, but she seemed to have it together enough to physically not drink while driving. I admit that I'm probably being naive, but if she was actually drinking while driving then it would strike me as a massive fall from grace. It's one thing to be an alcoholic, another to be an alcoholic that can effectively hide it from friends and family, and yet another thing to be an alcoholic that justifies physically drinking vodka while driving. Even if she was experiencing incredible pain it would have been a crazy admission for someone who, apparently, was devoted to being in control that they were stooping to drinking behind the wheel.

I guess that is what I'm having the most trouble with. A person doesn't just wake up one day and decide to have ten shots of vodka behind the wheel without there being significant warning signs. If she did indeed drink that heavily while driving then her family is culpable in missing some pretty obvious signs.

Kull the Conqueror
Apr 8, 2006

Take me to the green valley,
lay the sod o'er me,
I'm a young cowboy,
I know I've done wrong

SpitztheGreat posted:

If she did indeed drink that heavily while driving then her family is culpable in missing some pretty obvious signs.

Or just lying about what they knew, which is kind of the impression I got from that flick.

SpitztheGreat
Jul 20, 2005
I know a lot of people got that impression, but it didn't really fit to me. They had very little incentive to lie from the very beginning, the accident was completely her fault and no one was going to blame the husband or the extended family for her alcoholism. I believe the problem stems more from a denial that morphed into a stubbornness that transcended logical thinking. But this is exactly what I was talking about earlier when I said that I wished the movie had explored the family dynamics more. There definitely seems to be enough there that they could have told a compelling story about a family's (in)ability to deal with grief. As it stands, the movie just begins to skim the surface, but maintains a focus on the accident itself- an accident who's cause is chiefly settled halfway through the movie.

Mahoning
Feb 3, 2007
I'm just a few minutes in to a series called Apocalypse: WWI and it is already hands-down the most interesting documentary on WWI I have ever seen.

It consists entirely of colorized archival footage and pictures from the era. It really draws you into the period and puts some faces to the names of the major players.

MeatRocket8
Aug 3, 2011

History lovin' geeks with Amazon Prime Video check out The Naked Archaeologist. No it's not about an archaeologist who goes streaking in supermarkets. But it's great for archaeology thats based on history and lore centered around Judaism, Christianity, the Bible, and the Roman empire.

mobby_6kl
Aug 9, 2009

Otto von Ruthless posted:

I think it also sheds some light on some of his other behavior I think it's probably the case that part of the reason he was so sympathetic towards the registered sex offenders is that he equates his own sexuality with their crimes. It's pretty clear that he sees homosexuality as a sin in and of itself, not just because of the dishonesty towards his family or something like that, and I think that kind of mindset could lead you to lumping all sexual sins together. It also seemed to me that the church was fairly fundamentalist - not a lot to go on for that point, but one thing that stood out to me was he was packing away some anti-evolution books as he was leaving the church.

Just watched Overnighters too without doing much prior research, so I thought it'd be just a documentary about badasses working on oil rigs or something like that :v:

So for me, the "twist" was really that it's actually about the pastor's personal poo poo and not the town or oil workers at all. I guess the poster could've spoiled that.

Still, it was interesting to see the town's reaction as well. They have people coming over in an attempt to get an honest job and mostly take care of themselves or have someone voluntarily help them. Yet they'll put in every effort to make everything lovely for everyone instead of looking for a real solution.

nonathlon
Jul 9, 2004
And yet, somehow, now it's my fault ...

SpitztheGreat posted:

I've not had a lot of experience with raging alcoholics, but she seemed to have it together enough to physically not drink while driving. I admit that I'm probably being naive, but if she was actually drinking while driving then it would strike me as a massive fall from grace. It's one thing to be an alcoholic, another to be an alcoholic that can effectively hide it from friends and family, and yet another thing to be an alcoholic that justifies physically drinking vodka while driving. Even if she was experiencing incredible pain it would have been a crazy admission for someone who, apparently, was devoted to being in control that they were stooping to drinking behind the wheel.

I've always thought that explanation was a little lacking too. Which is not to suggest conspiracy - her inebriation is clearly what caused the accident - but as you said, it seems something is missing from the timeline and motivation to have someone who seemed previously functional to suddenly become utterly drunk halfway through a trip and persist (and succeed) in dangerous driving for a few more hours, endangering their children. Maybe it's as simple as a mental condition or suicidal tendencies that the family hasn't spoken about.

Mister Mind
Mar 20, 2009

I'm not a real doctor,
But I am a real worm;
I am an actual worm
If you've got TCM in your cable subscription and a DVR, they'll be showing The Decline of Western Civilization on the 10/15 broadcast day at 2:45am Eastern/11:45pm Pacific, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years on the 10/17 broadcast day at 2:30am Eastern/11:30 pm Pacific, and The Decline of Western Civilization Part III on the 10/24 broadcast day at 2:45am Eastern/11:45pm Pacific.

doug fuckey
Jun 7, 2007

hella greenbacks
Having a three day Decline binge with all the amenities would own a lot.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours
It's hard to see Decline 3 legitimately, so tune in for that y'all.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
So I'm watching that Sleep Paralysis documentary on Netflix (called The Nightmare) and I don't think I'm sleeping tonight. :stare:

blood_dot_biz
Feb 24, 2013

MonsieurChoc posted:

So I'm watching that Sleep Paralysis documentary on Netflix (called The Nightmare) and I don't think I'm sleeping tonight. :stare:

Yeah, that's been the first movie in a long time that gave me actual shivers as I was watching it. I had to stop it a few times and I considered not finishing it at all. I had a few night terrors as a kid extremely similar to some of the scenarios in the movie, and they got the recreations so, so accurate to what I remember. Though I've seen a lot of comments from people who have never had night terrors saying the recreations were more goofy to them than anything, so your mileage may vary I guess.

Regardless, I really liked hearing everyone's rationalizations for their re-occurring paralysis. It's not surprising that their explanations are a little wild I can't imagine going through that on a nightly basis for basically your entire life. Also, the more I think about it, the more I think it was the right decision to not have people talking seriously and in depth about actual/potential explanations for the phenomenon. The doc was more about the people than the condition.

Jonas Albrecht
Jun 7, 2012


MonsieurChoc posted:

So I'm watching that Sleep Paralysis documentary on Netflix (called The Nightmare) and I don't think I'm sleeping tonight. :stare:

I watched this with my girlfriend. She, terrified by all things horror, thought the only scary part was the the spider jumpscare. That night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, she wakes up screaming about a spider on the bed, and then falls right back asleep. It took me hours to fall back asleep. And personally, the movie scared the living poo poo out of me.

I recommended it to a friend on Facebook, and I've been enjoying watching it spread like a virus through our mutual friends.

nonathlon
Jul 9, 2004
And yet, somehow, now it's my fault ...

blood_dot_biz posted:

Yeah, that's been the first movie in a long time that gave me actual shivers as I was watching it. I had to stop it a few times and I considered not finishing it at all. I had a few night terrors as a kid extremely similar to some of the scenarios in the movie, and they got the recreations so, so accurate to what I remember. Though I've seen a lot of comments from people who have never had night terrors saying the recreations were more goofy to them than anything, so your mileage may vary I guess.

I had a pysch lecturer say that just about everyone had night terrors, only infrequently, maybe once a year. I certainly had them at about that frequency as a kid (mine tended to be about ants and snakes swarming over the bed) but when I put this observation to some friends, they vehemently denied ever having episodes. First year lecture anecdotal rubbish or truth? I dunno.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
Yeah, I'm guessing how scary you find the movie is dependant on how much Nightmares scare you. I don't think I've ever had the same kind of full-blown night terrors as the people in the movie, but I regularly have some very weird and/or scary nightmares.

Garth_Marenghi
Nov 7, 2011

Night terrors are the worst, Normally I just feel paralyzed but once a year I have one where I can't breath for about 30 seconds or so as well.

Lurdiak
Feb 26, 2006

I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.


I had sleep paralysis exactly once in my life, and I was like "Oohhhh no wonder people believe in alien visitors and other creepy poo poo."

Weaponized Autism
Mar 26, 2006

All aboard the Gravy train!
Hair Elf
The Nightmare was just :stare:

I would have preferred to have seen more history and science about sleep paralysis in it rather than it being reenactments for the most part, but overall very good.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Anyone know any good in-depth historical documentaries about the Spanish conquest of Central and South America during the 16th and 17th centuries? If there's stuff about naval warfare in there somewhere, even better.

Tlacuache
Jul 3, 2007
Cross my heart, smack me dead, stick a lobster on my head.


MonsieurChoc posted:

So I'm watching that Sleep Paralysis documentary on Netflix (called The Nightmare) and I don't think I'm sleeping tonight. :stare:

I was kind of disappointed by this, actually. I have frequent hypnagogic hallucinations, occasional night terrors, and have had the occasional bout of sleep paralysis so this was relevant to my interests. I think I was hoping for a more biological breakdown of what was happening and instead got a lot of "AND THEN THIS SCARY THING HAPPENED." Dude, it happens to me too, you're not special. ESPECIALLY NOT YOU, MS. I-THINK-IT'S-DEMONS. [/grump]

Lady Naga
Apr 25, 2008

Voyons Donc!
It's because the science behind it isn't all that complicated and is way less interesting than the emotional responses it generates.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours
If you're legitimately looking for answers, I would suggest that you read a paper on the subject.

Harminoff
Oct 24, 2005

👽
Your brain paralyzes your body while you sleep so that you don't injure yourself. Sometimes your brain will wake up before your body and that's sleep paralysis . There ya go.

Ramrod Hotshot
May 30, 2003

Just saw Lost Soul, the story of the troubled production of the 1996 Island of Dr. Moreau. It's similar at times to Jodorowsky's Dune and Lost in La Mancha, and makes for a pretty good trainwreck kind of story with a neat little twist at the end. Lots of good anecdotes, but something about it feels a little bit slapshod, with sections kind of tacked on. Worth the hour and a half, though.

Tlacuache
Jul 3, 2007
Cross my heart, smack me dead, stick a lobster on my head.


Lady Naga posted:

It's because the science behind it isn't all that complicated and is way less interesting than the emotional responses it generates.

I know that, I just love people talking about science.

Mr Tumbles
Jan 14, 2013
Right now I've got a real hankering for space documentaries. Recently I've watched Hubble 3D, Through The Wormhole and Wonders of the Universe, all of which I really enjoyed and would recommend. I was wondering if anyone has any good recommendations for more space docos, ones on black holes in particular?

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






I suggest Gayniggers from outer space to fill your black hole itch.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours

spankmeister posted:

I suggest Gayniggers from outer space to fill your black hole itch.

Wow. Mods?

DashingGentleman
Nov 10, 2009

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayniggers_from_Outer_Space

Judakel
Jul 29, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 9 years!

Snitches get stitches.

Lurdiak
Feb 26, 2006

I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.



Making jokes on SA is such a losing proposition.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours
I know what Gayniggers From Outer Space is, you idiots.

Judakel
Jul 29, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 9 years!

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

I know what Gayniggers From Outer Space is, you idiots.

I really thought you didn't. No, really.

cloudchamber
Aug 6, 2010

You know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble. I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine
Guy that runs the Meades Shrine reuploaded all of Johnathan Meades's films to Vimeo in a single part and launched a webpage which makes it easier to browse through all his films. Has also uploaded his most recent series on Brutalism which I've never seen online before and seems to have discovered a lovely old Abroad episode about the Severn valley which I don't recall ever seeing on YouTube:

http://meadesshrine.blogspot.co.uk/p/shrine.html

Mahoning
Feb 3, 2007
So I've been really into true crime documentaries lately. In the past few weeks I've watched:

Theres Something Wrong with Aunt Diane - good, but not great
The Chesire Murders - again good but not great. Definitely an interesting crime, but it felt like the film was touching on some interesting things but never fully fleshed them out. Would love to have it delve deeper into the possibility that the cops could have saved some lives had they actually acted quicker/differently.
Into the Abyss - interesting in that we talk to the criminals who are behind bars. A bit more focused on its subject matter (the death penalty) than some others I've watched.
Crazy Love - An interesting story, but I hated it. It just was not what I was looking for.

Some older ones I've already seen:
Dear Zachary
The Jinx
The Central Park Five


Any recommendations are welcome.

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MrBling
Aug 21, 2003

Oozing machismo

Mr Tumbles posted:

Right now I've got a real hankering for space documentaries. Recently I've watched Hubble 3D, Through The Wormhole and Wonders of the Universe, all of which I really enjoyed and would recommend. I was wondering if anyone has any good recommendations for more space docos, ones on black holes in particular?

Brian Cox did a series called Wonders of the Solar System a year before he did Wonders of the Universe. Just in case you want more that dreamy, smart man.

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