Netflix
Trial by Media
May 16, 2020Netflix docuseries.
Executive producers:
- George Clooney
- Court TV creator Steven Brill
- CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin
The Guardian:
“We wanted a mix of cases that were famous and recognizable, and cases that were … just bizarre and fascinating on their own terms,” Toobin, a New Yorker staff writer, told the Guardian. “It’s really more about media manipulation from a broader perspective. I think in each of these stories, you see that the one-sentence media summary is almost invariably misleading if not outright wrong” compared with the trial.”
Episode #3:
The death of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed west African immigrant who was shot at, in what became an incendiary headline, 41 times by New York police in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment” while reaching for his wallet. He was unarmed. The four NYPD white police officers were acquitted after the trial was moved from the Bronx to Albany.
“The one thing you can say with certainty is that courtrooms are not hermetically sealed from what’s going on in the world,” said Toobin. “That tension between wanting a verdict entirely on the evidence in the individual case and recognizing that politics and social conditions are always going to affect the outcome – that is I think part of the tension that’s always going to be present in courtrooms.”
“You can get killed just for living in your American skin.”
Our planet.
April 13, 2019
The New Yorker
by, Rachel Riederer
With the Netflix Series “Our Planet,” David Attenborough Delivers an Urgent Message
Our Planet is a departure from David Attenborough’s previous documentaries. It places global climate catastrophe front and center, and treats the problems of climate change and habitat loss with a new urgency. “The longer we leave it, the more difficult it will be to solve the problem,” Attenborough, who is ninety-two, told me over the phone from Washington, where he was going to deliver a speech to the International Monetary Fund. “Eventually, of course, you can’t solve the problems, and the result is chaos.”
Mudbound
November 16, 2017
Set in the rural American South during World War II, Dee Rees’ Mudbound is an epic story of two families pitted against one another by a ruthless social hierarchy, yet bound together by the shared farmland of the Mississippi Delta. Mudbound follows the McAllan family, newly transplanted from the quiet civility of Memphis and unprepared for the harsh demands of farming. Despite the grandiose dreams of Henry, his wife Laura struggles to keep the faith in her husband’s losing venture. Meanwhile, Hap and Florence Jackson – sharecroppers who have worked the land for generations – struggle bravely to build a small dream of their own despite the rigidly enforced social barriers they face. The war upends both families’ plans as their returning loved ones, Jamie McAllan and Ronsel Jackson, forge a fast but uneasy friendship that challenges the brutal realities of the Jim Crow South in which they live.
[rotentomatoes.com]
Oh yeah. It’s great.
May 22, 2015
“The feature-length documentary film, The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir, detailing the life of Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir debuted on Netflix today, May 22. The film was directed by Mike Fleiss, and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in April of last year. Netflix posted an official trailer for the documentary earlier this month to give subscribers a taste of the film.”