a 30 for 30 thread

i'm biased for 'the u' so i'm gonna exclude that -- my top 5

1 iverson
2 run ricky run
3 two escobars
4 winning time
5 len bias

its impossible to pick between 2 escobars and winning time - escobars was the most moving, but winning time was the most entertaining. the one i really want to find on torrents is the OJ/day in June movie.

yeah i never saw that one -- should be on dvd soon

OJDay was pretty great; I remember that day really clearly. I was waiting tables in a restaurant and people were slipping me cash to keep them updated on the chase from the bar in the next room.

as a vancouver canucks fan, i'm prob gonna have to skip past the ny rangers parade footage - watching mark messier's stupid face is just too painful

2 escobars is popping up in oct a couple times--check the schedule site

another good one tonight

your boy the ump had the eric gregg strike zone working in that last inning tho

last 30 mins are better than i thought they would be

not a huge fan of directors explicitly telling stories in docs tho

unless it's werner herzog

god "one night in vegas" looks soooo fucking good

I'm just glad his teammates didn't get all resentful and jealous. Or maybe they did at the time, and as adults realize they had no reason to.

Who the fuck spits at a 12 year old kid, though?

man, child athletics are worse than the real thing

it's interesting to me how all the teammates talk about the game like it's in the present, using baseball cliches and what not

this was really well done tho -- did a good job of making you ride the same roller coaster

he sounds like john kruk!

I kinda would have preferred like 45 minutes of the aftermath of the championship. I guess there wasn't nearly as much footage of all the ridiculous crap that happened to Cody Webster et al after they won, but that segment was just so sad and so fascinating. The prior 30 for 30s have spoiled me to the point where this and Jordan Rides the Bus both came off kind of like "Eh this was interesting but it could have been a little better than it was".

One Night in Vegas seems like it could go either way. I am afraid they will spend a ton of time being like "Tupac's death was a truly significant moment in American history because blah blah blah metaphor" instead of being more like June 17, 1994, and just letting the story and the footage do all the work.

one of the things i really like about these is that they're (with some exceptions) only an hour long so you can watch them every week w/o feeling like you're going to film class or something, but i'm sure that's prob a bit of problem for the directors

Watching the Jordan ep finally...stupid Surewest guide kept lying to me.

I was never a huge Jordan fan, or baseball fan or anything but fuck that dude was everywhere back then, scary godlike to so many people...but I forgot how cool it is just to watch him move. Even when his swing is way off, just the...I dunno, beauty in his motion, the way he was *in* the moment of the swing...you forget that it wasn't just hype. Well, I forgot.

Getting the Little League ep tonight too, excited. Can't wait for Vegas.

I was living in Alabama the whole time he was in Birmingham. My dad tried to get us tickets when the Barons came up to play the Stars in Huntsville, but there was no way in hell to get any. I'd already kind of cooled on baseball at that point, so I really didn't remember the whole "Jordan Plays Baseball" thing being such a joke, but I was also in a place where just about everyone wanted to see him be awesome...so maybe a lot of the national scorn never made it my direction.

Bob costas looked like an infant

this wuz the 1st one that struck me like some major studio biopic that rly ddnt need 2 b made

The Jordan one was kind of a missed opportunity, I think. The story is great, but I didn't like the doc very much.

jordan is such an impenetrable subject

Little League ep felt out of place...i think it ties the Jimmy the Greek ep for overtelling what could be a good story. The narration was so distracting & cliched it kind of ruined the story...and I wanted to know the whole team a little better, not just how they felt abt Cody. It's like I could see the doc it should have been, but it tried too hard to tug at heartstrings. Which is dumb because the story seems like it almost tells itself, and I liked the kids and the coach...the director just seemed to persist in pulling me out of the story by trying to drag me in. Lots of great footage of the kids and the games though.

couldve done w/out the comic book style & poetry slam stuff but thought this was decent, not great

maya angelou was great in it

i do really remember at the time not thinking pac would die

also cant believe the coda at the end that tyson fought holyfield TWO MONTHS LATER?

yeah, this was kinda wack.

This Martina/Chris Evert one is much more interesting than I thought it would be based on the commercial. I hadn't even turned 10 yet when they were at the top of their game, so they always seemed a little before my time. I'm learning a lot.

yea despite feeling like it was made by lifetime, it was p good...made me think how male rival/friends could nvr be that open probably

there is really zero redeemable content in the steinbrenner one

didnt even consider that one

I'm halfway through it and I'm kind of torn. Part of it feels like a promotional film made by the Yankees...but then on the other hand, I kind of liked seeing such a loving portrayal of a team that so many people flat out hate. I dunno. I don't think it's all bad, but it's definitely pretty low down in terms of favorites.

Oh, and I finally saw the Martina/Chris Evert one. Didn't like the 'chick flick' feel at all, but loved the conversations between the two of them. Forgot how much I admired them both as a kid (my family were all tennis freaks, so I was pretty much born on a tennis court)...great footage. But yeah, could have done without the driving down a country road/rugged up in cozy sweaters sipping coffee...looked like a Tampax commercial for the most part.

I thought the Steinbrenner one was good! I liked that they included criticism of the new stadium's pricing, the sight lines, brought up the issues that let to his disassociation with the team, brought up concerns about the younger Steinbrenners, frequently talked about how the team is both loved and hated, talked about how divisive and impulsive Steinbrenner could be ... while at the same time creating a portrait of what exactly the fans were losing in both the stadium and in George.

idk ive heard all that stuff a billion times. think some reporter from teh post or somewhere mentioned with the incredible access kopple had she really couldve/shouldve come up with some more original content & i could not agree more

it's not been very good lately? Like since the little league ep.

idk ive heard all that stuff a billion times. think some reporter from teh post or somewhere mentioned with the incredible access kopple had she really couldve/shouldve come up with some more original content & i could not agree more

Oh, I agree with that much. But I liked all the footage of the workers and fans and stuff. I got a little verklempt. :(

But yeah, it has not been so hot lately.

lol deadspin link

http://deadspin.com/5646013/bengals-turn-into-actual-tigers-after-satanic-pact-maul-steelers-yeah

This fucking series.

The Terry Fox story?...holy cow. I didn't know anything about him before this. Incredible story. And of course I cried like a baby.

Yeah, the Terry Fox episode was a definite return to form. I had also never heard of him, guess I'm a little young.

the red sox one struck me as something that should be packaged and sold on nesn, not really fitting w/ the rest of this series imo. course, that is only from the like ~7 minutes of it i could bear to watch

Halfway through it. Wish it came with an optional 'no soundtrack' option. It's chopped up all to hell too, but I like the players talking abt the game. I'm trying to watch around all the bells and whistles.

i "liked" it because it's a classic turn of events but it didn't really add much of anything -- it was pretty much a highlight video that could've been sold by mlb, oh yeah with added bill simmons. there was like a total one minute of player interview footage.

The Red Sox one was brutally boring to me, especially after just having watched that same series of events in the equally boring Baseball documentary.

looking forward to the fernandomania one.

the petro/divacs one was great; as good as this series has been.

the two escobars is screening in nyc! forget where..

cinema village, i think

I was talking to a dude at a party about how I loved The Two Escobars and it turned out that he edited it!

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_la7i8qd07b1qe9rcro1_500.jpg

was looking at some stuff on espn.com about the jimmy the greek 30 for 30 and this is from the director's "personal statement"....anyway check the part in bold...have i COMPLETELY missed something in Bull Durham in the 30+ times I've seen that on cable???

Twenty-five years later I have the good fortune to look back and try to figure out the man, whom I first found so jarring and later came to feel a genuine affection for. More recently I have so many questions about “The Greek”—his rise to power as a commentator on that iconic pregame show and his swift fall from grace after his fateful remarks concerning African-American athletes. How was this odds maker and gambler able to make his profession seen so legitimate, almost the way Susan Sarandon made prostitution seem innocent in “Bull Durham?” How did he make his way to “The NFL Today show?” What was his appeal and how did the NFL feel about his presence on the show? But most importantly, how did he bring odds making and gambling out of the shadows to mainstream America?