What was the last documentary you watched?

[J. R.'s Piece]

Queen Victoria and the Crippled Kaiser.

Queen Victoria’s Children


Queen Victoria really scares me now. Wishing the eldest of her sons to die before her. The jealousy. The comparing childbirth to being like a cow. The attempts to overly control her children and bind them to her and their attempts to escape from her. And her constant picking at perceived faults in her children. The corrective childhood treatments given to Kaiser Wilhelm also scare me. Walking around with half a dead hare strapped to his arm. And with a support rod up his back for two years.

 

[James from London]

 

[Sarah]

THE SOCIAL DILEMMA (2020, Netflix)

I'm not much of a social media user -- I have an obligatory Facebook account I rarely look at, I use Instagram casually and Twitter passively -- but I was surprised at how uneasy this documentary made me. I was of the vague belief that social media platforms are tools, not unlike the telephone, and that any problems that arise are due to how people use them. This documentary demolished that, given how deeply these platforms are designed to be manipulative and addictive. If the documentary was focused on "experts" and academics, I might have dismissed it as alarmism; but when the very people who designed these tools talk about how dangerous they are, it's hard not to take it seriously.

I immediately turned of notifications of nearly every app on my phone.

I had a really quite intense argument with a close friend last year over his mobile phone usage while we were on holiday. It was somewhere we'd never been and he spent the majority of it, checking on other people's lives on facebook or sending messages to other people. We came to blows over it and he told me he had no intention of giving up his thing. I won't go anywhere with him again until he realises as having ruled out he wasn't just 'bored', I told him how it made me feel and that it is incredibly rude. I find it very sad that people aren't looking at the world around them, and missing the likes of beautiful scenery and really fun things, just to check into what everyone else is doing on facebook. It's maddening.

 

[DallasFanForever]

The last documentary I watched was The Last Dance, which I have to say was one of the most inspirational things I’ve ever seen in my life. Love him or hate him, I’ve never seen a person more driven than Michael Jordan. For anyone who says they can’t do something, or if ur having trouble motivating urself to do something, my advice is watch this documentary.

 

[James from London]

 

[Ome]

Very interesting account of his life with the Style Council

 

[Rove]

I immediately turned of notifications of nearly every app on my phone.

I never turned them on in the first place. I've also adopted the habit of not answering or deleting numbers or messages which are not saved in my contacts list. In most circumstances now I block them.

 

[Rove]

Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb​

Available to view on Netflix.​

 

[Richard Channing]

With The Crown currently on Netflix they also have a host of Diana related documentaries. Watched this last night and it's an absolutely fascinating first hand account of what Diana was going through behind the scenes during some of the most memorable events of her life. Going from a shy 19 year old, who'd never even had a boyfriend, to being Princess of Wales and the most photographed woman in the world, you can certainly understand why she was so troubled and became bulimic.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I had planned to watch this part of The Crown, but with so much original and interesting footage available (as opposed to, say, Cleopatra) I figured I didn't really need to see the dramatized version. They can soap it up all they want but to me it'd still feel like a watered-down and unnecessary interpretation.

 

[Richard Channing]

I had planned to watch this part of The Crown, but with so much original and interesting footage available (as opposed to, say, Cleopatra) I figured I didn't really need to see the dramatized version. They can soap it up all they want but to me it'd still feel like a watered-down and unnecessary interpretation.

I have similar feelings about watching The Crown. They take a lot of liberties with what may or may not have actually happened and it's easy for it to get ingrained in your head that that's the way it went down, when it's probably not.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Yes, and if that would happen in a Cleopatra story then I wouldn't need to believe it, because nobody could possibly remember the how's and what's.

They take a lot of liberties with what may or may not have actually happened

And that's the strange part because the reality is already interesting enough. I don't understand this need to alter or enhance the narrative.

 

[DallasFanForever]

I agree. This has always driven me nuts!!

 

[Richard Channing]

Really sad and moving documentary about a family who embark on a series of walks around Britain to confront the loss of their brother, who committed suicide 13 years earlier, but they have never spoken about it since. It's confronting but also quite beautiful, and a powerful reminder of the healing power of facing pain and opening up about it.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Wow! That looks really good. So sad but I would definitely watch that

 

[Sarah]

I started watching Murder in the Outback about Lindy Chamberlain and her baby Azaria. She was accused of killing the baby but always insisted a dingo took the child. It finishes tonight on Channel 4.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson


George V

George VI

The Christmas Truce

Princess Alice

David Olusoga’s The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire. Parts 1 and 2: Martial Races/Foreign Legions

 

[Richard Channing]

Binge watched all 4 episodes of this last night. Turns out I didn't know that much at all about the Yorkshire Ripper and the extent to which his reign of terror had the nation gripped in fear. And that it went on for as long as it did. This was a really well made doc and very addictive, especially as they always leave you with a kind of cliffhanger or twist at the end of each episode to keep you glued.

 

[Alexis]

Binge watched all 4 episodes of this last night. Turns out I didn't know that much at all about the Yorkshire Ripper and the extent to which his reign of terror had the nation gripped in fear. And that it went on for as long as it did. This was a really well made doc and very addictive, especially as they always leave you with a kind of cliffhanger or twist at the end of each episode to keep you glued.

That's tonight's viewing sorted.

 

[Sarah]

Evelyn is fabulous @Richard Stuffing - watched it a while back.