Totally agree about the bloated run times, as I think we discussed with the Woody “Doc”. I have had a couple of No Shows today at work, so almost done with “This is a Robbery”. Clearly it would be much stronger at under 2 hours than closer to 4.
Your closing point is my main point as well. I am not in favor of banning bad or pseudo documentaries, but it is pissing me off to see bad docs passed off as good ones. I don’t think it would be that hard to set some basic criteria, then come up with a term that refers to “real” documentaries, and another, non pejorative term, that refers to the other. On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 3:23 PM Adam Bowie <[email protected]> wrote: > I think that it's pretty clear that quite a few things have changed in the > documentary genre, but like everything, there are good ones and bad ones. > > My personal bete noire is the over-extension of stories into multiple > episodes when the story just doesn't deserve it. I guess that this all > follows the success on Netflix on series like Making a Murderer, and then > more recently Tiger King. The former was a well told narrative, made over > years, and deserving of the series length they delivered. But I believe > that Netflix only came on board fairly late in the day. It was a massive > success, at least by Netflix's metrics, where keeping audiences coming back > for many hours is critical for maintaining subscribers. The worst case of > this I came across recently was the HBO series on McMillions. It was a > decent story, but could have been told in 90 minutes instead of six hours. > I didn't make it to the end I got so frustrated with it. (SNIP) > > I think some of the problem is that the same broadcasters/streamers > produce both good docs - the kind that win Oscars, BAFTAs and Emmys - and > tabloid trash. The same glossy "sheen" is applied to all of them, and it's > really hard to tell in advance, without knowing at least something of the > makers and perhaps their previous output, whether we're going to get > something good, or something trashy. > > > Adam > > > On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 6:55 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I am watching “This is a Robbery...”, like many, I always like a good >> (sometimes even a not so good) art heist story. >> >> The story here is interesting, but there are elements of the documentary >> style that I dislike (musical and sound effects, and some visual effects, >> added to create cheap drama). But what is really interesting to me is how >> this relates to the state of TV (especially cable and streaming) >> documentaries. After the shit show that was ‘Allen v Farrow’, I did some >> reading and found that there is a general sense that the skyrocketing >> popularity of documentaries on places like Netflix and HBO has been >> accompanied by a plummet in credibility and journalistic integrity. That >> helped me place the Allen project in a better context: more infotainment >> than actual news documentary. >> >> It does seem that someone, perhaps news divisions at the TV networks, or >> outside sources like Columbia School or Journalism, needs to define a sub >> genre of news documentary, and establish criteria and best practice >> guidelines. Then we could have like entertainment documentaries, that would >> perhaps contain a disclaimer of something like “inspired by real events”, >> and news documentaries, that would indicate it was produced based on >> accepted journalistic standards. >> >> I’m only halfway through “This is a Robbery”, and so far think it is not >> as entertaining as a Ian Pears novel, and about as credible as a >> documentary on the History channel. >> >> On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 7:16 AM Mark Jeffries <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> For the Sunday after Easter: (Snip) >>> >>> 2. THIS IS A ROBBERY: THE WORLD'S BIGGEST ART HEIST--The Netflix >>> original true crime docu-mini about the 1990 theft from the Gardner Museum >>> in Boston of $500M of art works dropped Apr. 7 and has an 88% RT >>> >> -- >> Sent from Gmail Mobile >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYKUdHTias49H%3D1YLLYdBZnYTnGHEWB5urZmcwLcBofNTA%40mail.gmail.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYKUdHTias49H%3D1YLLYdBZnYTnGHEWB5urZmcwLcBofNTA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAD_sJGDYkgbompChc8qEEa1jksH6LW8O68bMgbgeCvxoesSsEA%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAD_sJGDYkgbompChc8qEEa1jksH6LW8O68bMgbgeCvxoesSsEA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. 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