Mike Goes To Movies

How to With John Wilson (Season 1) TLDR: It's hard to describe exactly what How To is or why exactly it works, but there's a certain point in every episode when the comedy begins to click and then the human element - the surprising poignancy and the everyman/woman relatability - comes out in spades. This documentary series is unlike anything else out there and absolutely worth your time. Who exactly is John Wilson? That's the first question that comes to mind when HBO's new documentary series is recommended to a new viewer. The name is in the show's title, and yet John Wilson is rather a nobody in the grand scheme of things as well as in the entertainment industry (at least he was prior to the becoming a bonafide hit). However, not long ago, contemporary comedy icon Nathan Fielder discovered Wilson and, after seeing his work and style, decided to jump on board as a producer for a new series made by Wilson.  So, again, what exactly is this show? Well, each episode of...

The Last Dance (2020) There is no denying that now is the perfect time for Netflix's magnum opus Michael Jordan docu-series, The Last Dance.  For many of us - especially, basketball fans - the series hits that sports craving that all of us have been succumbing to since the day that covid ended sports for the year. No longer can we sit back in the evening, relax, and throw on whatever great matchup is on tv. No longer can we wear our favourite team's jersey while we cheer and cry through our team's triumphs and tribulations. And no longer can we simply watch incredible humans perform incredible athletic feats. But, now, with The Last Dance, we are given not only a riveting in-depth look at one of the greatest athletes of all-time, but we can also revel in the awesome reels of footage and first-hand accounts of Michael Jordan's greatest performances. The Last Dance is simply almost everything a sports fan could ever ask for in a documentary series.  There p...

Three Identical Strangers (2018) This utterly fascinating and equally-heartbreaking documentary follows the story of Bobby, David and Eddy - three identical triplets - who were separated at birth, discovered the existence of the others nineteen years later, and thereafter tried to rekindle their lives together for what may have been. Their stories are not being heard here for the first time - but perhaps in greater detail than ever before - as their incredible reunion made international headlines when it occurred in 1980 and turned them into bonafide celebrities for a short while. The story, as told by the brothers, friends and a few others, is a true roller coaster of emotion as we experience the exciting highs of the first meeting of the brothers and their endeavour to make up for lost time and learn everything there is know of each other. However, the happiness of the story does not persist as the documentary uncovers, again, the fascinating, yet horrific, secrets underlying t...

Mid90s (2018) I really wanted to like this film, I really did. It is not a bad film by any means, but it becomes apparent about halfway through that its tone and direction is fairly misguided. At times, the film plays out like the grungy faux-doc films of the 90's/early-00's by Larry Clark and Harmony Korine that centred on youth cultures. Director/writer, Jonah Hill's, inspiration by these predecessors is quite apparent from the relatively no-name cast, the grainy film style, the improvised dialogue sequences, and the small cameo by Korine himself. However, it is, perhaps, Hill's Hollywood sensibilities that restrain him from taking the film to that next (and difficult) level that the earlier films, Kids, Bully and Gumbo, were able to reach. As one would surmise, Mid90s is about the youth of the 1990s, specifically here, a boy on the cusp of teenagehood, Stevie (Sunny Suljic), who tries to escape his violent brother (Lucas Hedges) and often non-present mother (Ka...

Free Solo (2018) So, I'm not going to lie here... at no point last night was I comfortable watching this year's Best Documentary winner, Free Solo . Yes, it is an incredible documentary, but I personally do not do great with heights and so this documentary was a bit of an endeavour for me to get through. Throughout the entirety of my watching experience my hands were doused in a perpetual layer of sweat and my stomach wrenched tightly in my chest. Unlike Alex, my amygdala was very much being stimulated, perhaps to a dangerous degree, as I watched him free climb a number of mammoth and unrelenting sheer rock faces including the plat du jour, El Capitan. Free Solo really is an utterly remarkable documentary though. It is an adrenaline-pumping, majestic and fascinating look at one man, Alex Honnold, an interesting character himself, and the limits he must push himself to in order to conquer El Capitan, a mountain that has never before been free soloed. The training, both m...

Hoop Dreams (1994) I finally had the pleasure of being able to watch the acclaimed  Hoop Dreams  and I can tell you that it is one of the finest documentaries I have ever seen.  Hoop Dreams  is an engrossing story that follows two young boys, living with their families in an impoverished and predominantly black neighbourhood of Chicago, Illinois, who aspire to take their proficient basketball skills to the next level. The documentary was originally only intended to be a 30-minute short film made by PBS, however, based on the mutually (and coincidentally) extraordinarily interesting developments that ensued in both of the boys' lives, the documentary crew ended up following both of them for close to eight years, compiling more than 250 hours of raw footage. The end result is a three hour, fascinating look into the worlds of teenage aspiration, youth basketball, the American private and public school system, and, foremost, the hard lives of African Americans in So...

Apollo 11 (2019) That's it - I'm officially on board with the ol' theory that Stanley Kubrick masterminded the Apollo 11 landing footage 'witnessed' by the world in 1969. The new footage seen in this documentary, the cinematic majesty of it (quite reminiscent of 2001...), the suspense of it, the pacing of it, it all seems to perfectly align with Kubrick's style. It's just too fitting... Anyways!... back to the real business - the new Apollo 11 documentary is quite simply incredible, and one that should be seen by any space lover, film lover or, really, anyone who wants to witness one of humankind's greatest achievements in fantastic cinematic fashion. The documentary breaks the mold of most documentaries and lacks the usual narrative structure. In Apollo there are no interviews, nor is there a narrator, other than the real life NASA workers speaking and announcing critical information to other NASA individuals about the status of the spacecraft and...