Icons making films about icons. This time, Ron Howard on Jim Henson. Hard to be surprised by a story you know backwards, but it was nice to see all the footage of Jim, the sketchbook and diary content, and so
Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)
I’m a bit sheepish about clicking on music documentaries on streaming services because of the high volume of non-stories that have come out of it – however this one was pretty decent; less about any specific band and more an
Attack of the Hollywood Clichés!
Rob Lowe fronts a documentary sarcastically explaining the concept of “tropes” to people too lazy to look it up for themselves. This is a web page that’s been turned into a TV show, so maybe this is where Netflix is
Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens – A Life in Animation
Chuck Jones was a bona-fide once-in-a-lifetime legend, so this documentary with footage of interviews with him and his contemporaries was pure gold dust. Such a mind, a heart, and an attitude. There’s something about listening to people casually describe how
Life After Flash
Made the mistake of thinking this’d be interesting… One wonders whether the ppl who put this together did any research before crowdfunding its production: my guess is, they didn’t. It’s largely the fairly sad story of a film hasbeen, trying
20 Feet from Stardom
I enjoyed this doco about rock legend backup singers, and marvelled at the idea that Darlene Love worked with so many cornerstone acts and appeared on SO MANY singles, but I’d never heard of her. I liked that this got
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire
I think the main point this doco tried to make (repeatedly) over its 78 minute runtime was: The English are Pricks. The really, really rich ones specifically. If you’re interested in learning more about what they do, and how they
The Secret Lives of Dad’s Army
A very provocative title – although they’re not going to call it “Approximately 50 minutes’ worth of random footage and 2nd-hand anecdotes”. I did learn a few things about Dad’s Army that I didn’t know, such as Corporal Jones and
Are You Being Served?: Secrets & Scandals
Similar to the Dad’s Army one (I watched them back-to-back), this was pure Channel 5 non-documentary claptrap. Some decent factual content about the programme, and filled in a bit more context for me about why it was so popular and
Elstree 1976
“Famous with the mask on” – the thread here is around actors in small roles in the Star Wars trilogy. We know their lines; they’re iconic. But unlike the marquee’d players, we know nothing about them. But, remembering that this