Anybody else watch the first episode, "A King's Ransom"? I had high hopes since I love sports and love documentaries, but I've never seen a flatter, hackier doc. Very disappointing. The good news is that there are 30 different filmmakers involved. So maybe the others will have some real value.
yeah, I was very disappointed in this one. 'Gretzky trade devestated Canada.' Already knew that, but that's what it was all about ... listening to some of the hype from Simmons, I was expecting new insights. Hope they're saving their better ones for latter on or I'll be cancelling my season pass.
I couldn't believe how completely Berg missed the far more interesting bigger-picture story. Gretzky's trade from small-market Edmonton to big-market LA presaged a decade-and-a-half of NHL (and North American sports in general) spurning traditional hotbeds and fans for "new" metropolitan areas and sponsors. A simple map of franchises in 1988 and franchises now would have sufficed to get the point across. Other than the Curt Flood ruling, the Gretzky trade was the single most important player-based transaction in modern North American sports history. But let's totally ignore that. That's my main gripe as a sports fan. As a documentary fan, I'd say that Berg didn't deliver on even his most modest promises. He never actually explained what Gretzky was traded for He never took a look at Edmonton's finances in 1988, whether they could have held onto him or not and if not, what that portended for the league as a whole no player interviews except for some insipid clips of Robitaille and McSorley saying "oh it was pretty neat to be famous in LA, eh" No full clips of Gretzky in action in his prime I sincerely can't believe that last one, but it's not even Berg's most flagrant failure as a filmmaker. That distinction goes to the point he tried to make about Gretzky being indecisive about the trade until he eavesdropped on a phone call between Pocklington and McCall in which Pocklington bad-mouthed him (Gretzky). McCall recounts the details of the call, but neither Pocklington nor Gretzky are ever asked about it. Why not? McCall is a convicted felon, for god's sake - it's like taking Soliari at face value. Were Pocklington and Gretzky unwilling to comment? It's only the most freaking important phone call in hockey history, yet we're supposed to take the word of a guy who spent five years in prison and leave it at that? Apparently that's what Berg considers a "deeper" look at the business side of the sport. As a Whalers fan I'm disappointed. As a fan of documentaries, I'm appalled. The whole thing was an excuse for Berg to get a chance to hit golf balls with his sports hero. What a ********ing joke.
Supposedly, the one about Allen Iverson's assault case and the subsequent trial is very good. It's the one I'm most looking forward to. No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson
Very poor effort-funny too, since Simmons has been in a bit of a tiff with WFAN's Francesa re: his shot at HBO. This was not up to the quality of HBO and considering all of the hype, I was surprised they showed the debut w/commercials. You do get the sense though that Gretzky feels me made a mistake-the body language is too big to miss on this score. That's about all I really took from it. The next one up is Barry Levinson's film about the Colts marching band. This should be good-I've already heard one review that gave it high marks.
can you explain this further ... not sure what it's all about, though I have heard they were bickering.
It seems that Simmons in his promoting the series, took some shots at HBO in a Newsday interview-he seems bent on pushing ESPN to take on HBO with re: to their sports documentaries (they are the "World Wide Leader In Sports," ya know ) Francesa took issue with Simmons shots. There seems to be a bit of history there; Francesa has sometimes taken issue with what seems like Simmons claim as "Mr Boston Sports Guy," and Simmons claims he spurned an offer to work with Francesa after Russo left. So they've been taken little jabs at each other of the last couple of years. More handbags than knives to be fair. I agree with the other poster who noted that the podcast with Berg and Simmons was more insightful than the film. The whole bit about Janet Jones telling Gretzky that Detroit was the better place to go...gee, that seems like an angle to go into in depth. I'm not a big hockey fan and had no idea that was something they were thinking about.
yeah, the podcast got me excited. the detroit thing woulda been interesting.plus, as somebody mentioned, what did Gretzky and the Oilers owner have to say about the overheard phone call. the one thing I thought was also lacking was interviews with Edmonton fans today. Does the trade still resonate with them? They had old interviews with Gretzky, McNall, the Oilers owner plus current ones to bookend. They had a lot of old interviews with fans ... but how has their perception changed? what about somebody from Detroit ... how close were they? Another interesting thing in the podcast that wasn't in the documentary (with any real substance) was how the trade may have hastened the fall of the NHL with overexpansion to non-hockey markets. they kinda touched on the expansion in the post script but this trade really had an impact beyond LA & Edmonton. anyway....
I haven't heard of this, whats the concept? Just documnetaries about past athletes? I usually like ESPN's documentaries. I liked "Second Chance Season" and the one about the women who coached basketball for Boys and Girls High School. I wish they showed documentaries more. They seem to only come on every once in a while on ESPN Classic, well reruns do.
they gave 30 filmakers complete control to tell stories from the past 30 years (30 for 30) ... not the biggest stories that have been told a million times, i.e. Magic Aids, Jordan, blah, blah. for example, this week's is about the Baltimore Colts' marching band and how the team leaving affected them. One is about Reggie Miller's relationship to Madison Square Garden ... stuff like that.
Barry Levinson's doc about the Colts Band was certainly an improvement over the Gretzky one. Unfortunately, I missed the bit that I most wanted to know about: was there any acknowledgement that they now have a team again only because Modell did to Cleveland what Modell did to Baltimore?
I haven't see the Colts Band one yet, but sat down to watch the one on "Who Killed the USFL?" as well as the Ali v. Holmes fight. The USFL one was spectacular. Any MLS fan has to watch this, take a deep breath and thank Vishnu/Allah/Buddha/Jesus/YHWH/Science to have had the likes of Anschutz, Hunt and Garber pulling the strings. Whether Tollin's version of things is to be trusted or not, he put together a great documentary that will keep me at least partially invested in the series. Then the Ali v. Holmes one nearly destroyed all of that. While not as odious as the Gretzky doc, it was unbearably amateurish and, ultimately, pointless. Somehow they filmed a half dozen of Ali's advisors claiming that greed is the reason Ali is in the state he's in today - greed on the part of "other advisors," without asking who these other advisors were. Nobody named names. They also showed clips from 1980 of people saying Ali was younger than his years because of his diet and religion, then in the present day interviews never followed up and asked if they might have done the man a disservice by enabling him. In the end I got the impression that they were so excited to have so much previously unaired material of Ali in training they didn't think about what else is needed to make a documentary great. Or even adequate. Hoping for better from the Len Bias one, but the fact the title's a pun doesn't have my hopes up.
It's already obvious that the blessing and the curse of this series is that each one is made by a different team without a lot of input from ESPN. "Without Bias" so often felt like an extended news magazine show segment that I didn't hang around to find out if it was anything more. It did not (to understate) draw me in.
here's my question about Len Bias ... does anybody outside of Boston/Maryland give a shit? Yes, it's sad when a young man dies, but this sounds like a Bill Simmons pet project. I'm skeptical of this one (haven't seen Ali yet)
As I understand it, the whole point of the series was to either look at less covered events or to revisit more familiar events from a different perspective. A successful version of "Without Bias" would have made your question irrelevant.
I think many people would be interested in that story. He's the basketball version of Duncan Edwards in terms of "what if" scenarios. I live in Belgium and am very interested in seeing the Bias doc.
Maybe if you didn't know anything about Len Bias going into "Without Bias", it would be interesting to you, but most of the stuff in it , at least to me, seemed like it had been covered in various college basketball reports by ESPN over the years anyway. From what I saw, there wasn't really anything that I didn't already know. I'd say the one about the USFL was probably the most successful so far, but even in that one, it felt like the maker of that particular program was trying to lay the failure of the USFL completely at the feet of Trump to settle some sort of personal beef he had with the Donald.
On the other hand, the same personal history (the guy actually worked for the USFL) that led to him blaming Trump was the episode was as good as it was.
Mmm, I don't know. I thought some of it was kind of petty. My favorite bit was the interview with Steve Young about that championship game against Jim Kelly. I'd really like to watch that now.
And that's what made it such compelling TV! Especially for a MLS fan. Besides, that was a tack I hadn't seen taken yet on the demise of the USFL. So it fits the mandate. It was a regular season game. If you search around a bit, you can find torrents of it online.
yes, it is. my point was that Simmons, who I like, thinks this topic is more relevant just because he's a Celtics fan. that's all. not judging the documentary ... the colts band one was great, for example and that's not a 'big' story.