Author Archives: Doc

ReMastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black (2018)

Posted on by

January 6th

Today’s Genre-ary documentary I found on Netflix and it was a short doc about the time Johnny Cash was asked by President Richard Nixon to come and play at the White House.

The doc gave us some basic background on both Johnny Cash and on Richard Nixon. The Nixon section was specifically focused in on the Vietnam controversies among his presidency.

The doc talked about Nixon using the “Southern Strategy” that has been well documented in Presidential politics since the sixties when the south became more of a Republican stronghold instead of a consistent Democratic voters. It brought up how Nixon used some dog whistles to bring out the “Silent majority” to support the Republican party and create a nation of divisiveness. It was very connected to the present day politics and how it has its roots in this time frame.

The doc never went into too much detail about any of the sections, as it was just under an hour long.

It was interesting seeing how Johnny Cash was affected by his own trip to Vietnam and how he made some changes to the songs Nixon had requested Cash play at the White House. Both of the songs he asked for were songs that took shots at some of the marginalized people of the time, including hippies and those on Welfare.

I liked this doc, but I really believe it could have gone into much more details about the performance and about the two figures of American culture. It touched on a lot of the issues, but it did not go into enough depth.

Silo S2 E8

Posted on by

Spoilers

“The Book of Quinn”

Apple TV +’s sci-fi series Silo is marching along this season with plenty of tense and anxiety-filled moments.

My favorite section is those including Rebecca Ferguson. She is an awesome actress and her character, Juliette, is one bad ass. Just this episode, she gets shot by an arrow, pulls it out, treats the wound, while suffering from the bends, and continues on in her search for the person who took Solo. She needs her suit back to make it back to her own silo and only Solo knows where it is.

At the end, though, Juliette comes across three others, one of which had that bow trained back on her for a second time.

Bernard is a real dirtbag. His quest for power is just non-stop as he manipulates poor Walker into becoming his snitch. He placed her former spouse’s life in danger in order to blackmail her. He truly is an epically horrible man. He is also going to be taking advantage of Lukas until he gets the message translated. Sims told Lukas that Bernard will dump him immediately after he gets what he needed from him, and I believe that fully.

More details on the mysterious and apparently awful Salvador Quinn are revealed as Lukas found the book that he was looking for, a copy of the Pact.

Two more episodes remain in season two of Silo and I see big things preparing to happen.

Dexter: Original Sin S1 E5

Posted on by

Spoilers

“F is for F*ck Up”

Okay, the last couple of episodes of Dexter have been a bit lacking for my tastes. This episode, Dexter gets stoned eating some of Deb’s pot brownies. That whole section of the episode felt like it came out of nowhere and did not mean anything to the story. Outside of trying to build some connection between Dexter and Debra, there was not much more for it to be included in this episode.

Harry’s arc through the episode was inconsistent too. I am not sure I enjoyed either the flashbacks with Harry or his incompetence at the trial of Dexter’s soon to be next victim.

Having Harry end up on Dexter’s table, wrapped in plastic, did not convince me that the cop would accept this as a possibility from his step-son.

Dexter trapped with the horse was another silly moment in the episode, as was him tucking the horse’s hair behind its ear.

The best part of the episode continues to be Debra, and her attempts to have some relationship with her father and brother. After letting her down again, Deb went to her mother’s gravesite on her own, with a ride from her new boyfriend. They have sex in his car later in the episode as he seems very kind and loving toward her. I have a feeling that won’t stay that way very long. I hope I am wrong about that, but it feels like the cliched manner in which this story will go.

I have not been a fan of this show as much as I thought I would after the first couple of episodes. I hope it starts to improve soon.

Battlestar Galactica S3 E19, E20, S4 E1, E2

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Crossover Part 1”

“Crossover Part 2”

“He That Believeth in Me”

“Six of One”

The finale two episodes of Battlestar Galactica season three and the first two episodes of season four were wild.

They revealed four of the Final Five Cylons and I found it difficult to believe. Sam, Chief Tyrol, Tory Foster and, of all people, Colonel Tigh were revealed to be Cylons in disguise. They were understandably confused, but seemed to have more free will than I thought they would.

Of course, that leaves one more Cylon of the five and the show is trying to make us think that it is Kara. Kara, who showed back up, not dead, came back with a story of finding earth. I do not think she turns out to be the Cylon. I think she is a red herring. I think there are some other possible suspects at this time:

Baltar: Another one what feels too obvious. With all of the interaction with Cylons, Baltar feels wrong. Plus, he is really buying into the one person/one god thing and the worshiping that the One-God crew was giving him.

Laura Roslin: With the cancer returning, I think this would be the shock that the show may be going for. She also has a connection to Number six through these visions. She shot at Starbuck at close range and missed. Maybe she can’t harm one of her own (or at least in his mind).

Admiral Adama: I think he has been really inconsistent as a character recently. He is up and down all over the place and this could explain that. It could also be that shock moment.

I am not sure what Lee Adama’s exit from Galactica meant this episode. Did he just leave the series or is he on a new arc into the political world?

Entering into the final season of the show, I expect things to be on a high level as the season progresses. I have questioned how uncertain I am of any of these characters, yet it feels very compelling.

Remembering Gene Wilder (2023)

Posted on by

January 5th

This documentary covers the life of EYG Hall of Famer Gene Wilder, one of the great comedic actors of all time. Wilder was the star of a multitude of amazing movies including Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Stir Crazy, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory along others.

I love Gene Wilder. Willy Wonka and Young Frankenstein are two of my all time favorite films and so I was interested in seeing this life

The film touches on his youth, but spends most of the time with his career and adult years. The background of the filming of The Producers and the other movie that followed was really great.

We had comments about the different movies and the genius of Gene Wilder from Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, Carol Kane, Harry Connick Jr., Eric McCormack, Ben Mankiewicz, daughter of Richard Pryor- Rain and Mike Medavoy.

The film spoke about Gene’s love and marriage with Gilda Radner as well as his discovery of his second wife Karen during research for the film See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Karen was a real emotional beat in the last section of the doc. As she was giving her first person POV of Wilder’s Alzheimer’s Disease, it was heartbreaking and I found myself with tears in my eyes.

Gene Wilder was such a kind and loving person and that comes across in this movie. We got much of this doc in Gene Wilder’s own voice. He did much of the narration of the film and it brought us even closer to this icon.

Battlestar Galactica S3 E16, E17, E18

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Dirty Hands”

“Maelstrom”

“The Son Also Rises”

I have not had the opportunity to watch many Battlestar Galactica episodes recently, so I decided to do a run of them tonight. I hope to try and wrap up season three tomorrow.

These were some wild episodes. “Dirty Hands” looked at the working class aboard the Galactica. Chief Tyrol was the intermediary in the episode as he was trying to help the people doing the horrible work keeping Galactica going. This was tough to watch because Roslin and Adama were brutal during the episode and they seemed really like the villains of the episode. When Adama told Chief Tyrol that he would have Cally executed if Chief did not call off the strike that he had initiated, I could not believe it. Of course, mere moments later, both Roslin and Adama were back all smiles and reasonable again. The whole story wrapped up in a third act switch, like it was a sitcom that had reached the end of the episode. It was a real whiplash effect.

Then was a shock. It was a Starbuck episode, featuring on the trauma in Kara’s past, including her relationship with her mother. The shock came at the end of the episode where it appeared that Kara flew her plane into a storm and it exploded into pieces, effectively killing her before the very eyes of Lee. LOST used to do this all the time, focus an episode on the back story of certain characters and then kill them off at the end. I do not know if this was the final episode for Katee Sackhoff and the character of Kara Thrace, but it sure seemed final. Kara had been in a downward spiral for quite awhile now and this felt like a fitting end to the character. I actually hope that there is no more sign of Kara Thrace outside of flashbacks. I have a feeling that we have not seen the last of Starbuck though.

Then, it seemed as if we focus in on Baltar’s lawyer. It was a weird episode where we have a new character named Romo Lampkin. Lee was assigned by Adama to protect him after the last lawyer for Baltar wound up dead from an explosion. The episode saw both Lee and Adama dealing with their grief over Starbuck in different manners. Of course, when Roslin was pulling random names out to form the tribunal for the trial of Baltar, Adama wound up on the panel, which was about as cliche as you are going to get. There is no reason why he should be anywhere near a tribunal in Baltar’s trial because, as we saw a couple of episodes ago, he was willing to shoot a woman as a “co-conspirator” to try and torment one of his friends into giving up a strike. He hid it under the guise of ‘following orders’ but it was a cruel use of extortion. I really get the feeling that Roslin just wants this trial over and I am not convinced that she will allow a truly fair trial to happen. Both Roslin and Adama are characters that I consider very much tainted since this season began, if not prior to it.

Season three has not been my favorite season so far. Perhaps it is because there is so much shade of grey in the storytelling, which I normally enjoy, but I would like to have a character or two that can rise above that. A character or two that I could really root for, knowing that they will always do what was right, and I do not thing that character exists currently on Battlestar Galactica.

Of course, the tension is always great and the acting is top notch, so there are still many reasons to love this show.

EYG Comic Cavalcade #133

Posted on by

January 4th

Because of the shipping issues that has been causing problems with the new comics over the last several weeks, I am back for the second EYG Comic Cavalcade of the week. It was a nice day today of just reading the books I picked up from Comic World on Friday.

It is mostly Marvel and DC this time, although there are a couple of other companies represented this post.

Books this week:

Sam Wilson, Captain America #1. “Better Angels” Part 1. Written by Greg Pak & Evan Narcisse. Art is done by Eder Messias with Valentine De Landro. Taurin Clarke did the cover art. A new Sam Wilson book opened up with a big cookout featuring Sam and a bunch of the black Marvel super heroes. It was a birthday party for Isaiah Bradley. It gets interrupted by vampires and then by Red Hulk.

The Spectacular Spider-Men #11. “Spider-What?” Written by Greg Weisman and art by Andres Genolet & Von Randal. Emilio Laiso & Edgar Delgado did the cover art. This was a weird issue with Peter and Miles getting shrunk down and having to face the Seelie Court. The new hero Elementary’s heart is judged. We also meet Cobweb. Strange book this month.

When I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee #1. Written by Gus Moreno and illustrated by Jakub Rebelka. One of the few independent books this week is from Boom! Studios and it is about a disgraced father named Manuel Barrera who is sent to learn the ability of the exorcism, and the weirdness that comes with it. I like the look of this comic as it is very dark and different than most other books out there.

Saga #71. Written by Brian K. Vaughn and art and cover art by Fiona Staples (Silver Medalist). Saga continues with the growing problems faced by Hazel as she tries to convince Emesis that they were still friends. Saga is constantly an entertaining book and there are things that happen that you never expect to happen. There is some excellent storytelling going on with this series.

Avengers #22. “The Casino Job” Part 1. Written by Jed MacKay and art by Farid Karami. Cover art was by Valero Schiti & Federico Blee. The Avengers head into space to attempt to steal the data on the “Missing Moment” which is what Kang has been searching for for a long time. However, it seems that their attempted theft was spoiled by another thief getting to the data before they could… Black Cat! Of course, you knew that if you happened to look at the cover…

Miles Morales: Spider-Man #28. “Webs of Wakanda Part Two” Written by Cody Ziglar and art by Danielle Di Nicuolo. Cover C variant art was done by Iban Coello (Gold Medalist). Miles is inside Wakanda and he must face off with Bast in a chance to cure the vampirism that has taken over the hero. It looked as if there is something unexpected that may block his path.

Werewolf by Night Red Band #6. Written by Jason Loo and art by Ton Lima. E.M. Gist did the cover art. Jack and Elsa Bloodstone are searching for a silver werewolf in an attempt to stop its massacring of people, much like Jack has been doing. The events do not leave Jack or Elsa in good shape and Lilith is here with her own motivations.

The Ultimates #8. Written by Deniz Camp with art by Juan Frigeri. Cover art was done by Dike Ruan & Neeraj J. Menon. The ultimate version of the Guardians of the Galaxy is here hoping to rescue America Chavez. Why? They have a long and futuristic story to share. I do like the formation of this new version of the Guardians and I hope they can make a return in the future.

Daredevil #17. “Introductory Rites Part Seventeen” Written by Saladin Ahmed and art by Aaron Kuder. Cover art by John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna and Richard Isanove. The cover has Daredevil squaring off with Bullseye, but that does not happen inside this book. Instead DD is trying to face off with the demons out there possessing people and causing him grief. DD finds out that Matt Murdock still has his lawyer license, conveniently so he can go into court to face off with possessed Foggy Nelson.

X-Factor #6. “Traitors” Written by Mark Russell and art by Bob Quinn. Cover art was done by Greg Land & Frank D’Armata. Havok and the remainder of X-Force grieve the loss of their teammate Oskar from last issue. This causes trouble among the people who are in charge. X-Factor does not feel like it has much longer in this form.

Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider #9. “Haunted” Part 9. Written by Stephanie Phillips and art by Paolo Villanelli. Mark Brooks did the cover art. Gwen is in all kinds of trouble, facing her past choices in her own mind. Meanwhile, Black Tarantula is out working on stopping Mister Fear.

What If Galactus Transformed the Hulk #1. Written by Mat Groom and art by Lan Medina. Ron Lim & Israel Silva did the cover art. I really liked the story that we got of Galactus taking the Hulk and making him his new herald. The problem was, this book ended at a spot where the story felt like it was just getting ready to get to the climax. This is a one-shot so I do not think we will be getting a resolution to the story and that makes me feel like it shorted me a finale.

Justice League: The Atom Project #1. “Atomic Collision.” Written by Ryan Parrott and John Ridley with art by Mike Perkins. Cover art by Mike Perkins & Adriano Lucas. My friend Todd told me this was a one-shot, but he must be wrong about that. This included a couple of Atoms and Captain Atom trying to fix some of the wayward powers in the DC Universe. If this is a one-shot, then the story leaves off much like this month’s What If.

Two-Face #2. “The Deadly Divorce” Written by Christian Ward and art by Fabio Veras. Cover art was done by Baldemar Rivas. This mini series featuring Harvey Dent is very fascinating, especially since it seems as one of the big antagonists of the series is inside Harvey’s own mind prison. It is a cool flip on the courtroom story.

Absolute Superman #3. “Boy from the Purple Prairie.” Written by Jason Aaron and art by Rafa Sandoval. Cover art was done by Rafa Sandoval & Ulises Arreola (Bronze Medalist). We get a full issue on Krypton, as we are seeing how the planet would eventually be destroyed. It is more than just that though as the issue is exploring a level of class among the Kryptonians and it does take the familiar story of the planet’s death and shake it up a bit. Krypto is here too.

Deadpool & Wolverine #1. “The Secret Lives.” Written by Benjamin Pearcy and art by Joshua Cassara. Cover art was done by Joshua Cassara & GURU-eFX. I liked this issue quite a bit because it takes Deadpool and does something different with him and sticking Wolverine in the story worked very well. It is not just a book that capitalizes from the movie. It has its own story to tell.

Other books this week: Creature Commandos #4, The Human Fly #2, Cable: Love & Chrome #1, and X-Force #7.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Posted on by

January 4th

One of the most well known documentaries of the past 25 years is on the agenda for the Genre-ary DailyView today: the Oscar-winning doc An Inconvenient Truth featuring a presentation by former Vice-President Al Gore.

The term ‘Global Warming’ is no longer used because the opposition forces have jumped on the semantics of the term, pointing to terribly low temperatures that have happened. The term these days is ‘climate change,’ which, as I said, is just semantics.

The science Al Gore presented in this doc is very compelling and hard to argue against. Contrarians might claim this is meant to be a political presentation, but it does not feel that way to me. Gore speaks about misconceptions during the film and how opponents try to build on doubt, and this feels more accurate.

Al Gore is undeniably an engaging speaker on this topic. He has always been presented as being stoic and stuffy, and, while one can see some of that in this doc, he showed himself knowledgeable and effective in providing info on this topic in compelling ways.

I thought the moments where they connected parts of Gore’s life, whether that be his presidential run, his sister’s death to lung cancer or the near death of his son, were very strong parts of the film that were then tied neatly back into the film’s overall narrative.

As a movie, this is a thoroughly entertaining work, but its relevance in the world today is undeniable unless there are motivating circumstances that prevent you from accepting the dangers that climate change can bring. Gore quotes Upton Sinclair in the film who said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

I am happy to have finally watched this two-time Oscar winning film (it also won for Best Song) and I wish people would stop looking at this through the spyglass of politics.

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

Posted on by

January 3rd

It is the first EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week of the new year. 2025 kicked off with a delay in the delivery of the comics to Comic World, which pushed this post back from Wednesday.

Last year’s Cover artist of the year was Alex Ross and the Platinum Medal winner for cover was Spider-Man: Black Suit & Blood #2 (Variant edition). Can Alex Ross defend his win this year or will there be another cover artist who will overcome the champ? (psst…Mark Spears?)

So… here is the medalists this week…

Bronze Medalist

Absolute Superman #3

Cover art by Rafa Sandoval & Ulises Arreola

It looks like Krypton has seen better days on the cover of Absolute Superman #3. The glowing green is a really strong standout color and I love how the title card is outlined in green too.

Silver Medalist

Saga #71

Cover art by Fiona Staples

This cover’s colors pop out of the new cover of Saga with Emesis in he corner. The background makes it look like a colorful web, but with closer examination, this is a circus tent. A lovely cover that also is very foreboding.

Gold Medalist

Miles Morales, Spider-Man #28

Variant Cover C

Cover art by Iban Coello

Switched out my A cover for this one which I saw on the stand. I love this one with the background of Black Panther and the beautiful NY inside him. I also have a sweet spot for the white background.

The Turnaround (2024)

Posted on by

January 3

It is a busy day today, so this is the first of the Genre-ary DailyView that will be a documentary short. I found this doc on Netflix, called The Turnaround and it focused on Trea Turner, a player for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Trea Turner signed a contract with the Phillies was 11 years for $300 million. It was a large contract and they expected adding him to a mighty Phillies lineup that would immediately shoot them to the World Series.

However, Turner started off with the Phillies in a terrible way, striking out and committing errors.

The Phillies fans are notorious for being tough on players. However a standing ovation from the fans led to a total turnaround.

This doc looked at one fan in particular named Jon McCann. According to IMDB, McCann was “a Phillies fan from the city’s Bridesburg neighborhood and a content creator known as ‘The Philly Captain’ who helped spearhead the standing ovation.”

“It’s nice to be nice some times,” said McCann in the doc.

The doc showed the depression that McCann was in, to a point where he was hospitalized for the potential of killing himself. The doc brought the two stories together in a very effective manner.

I am a baseball fan, and I loved Trea Turner, who spent some time as a Dodger. This was a really nice documentary short that presents that love of baseball and how the power of positivity can truly make a difference.

EYG Comic Cavalcade #132

Posted on by

January 2

Happy New Year. 2025 is here and we kick off the first EYG Comic Cavalcade of the new year. Of course, that meant that the delivery of new books tis still goobered up as it has been for the last several weeks.

I went up on New Year’s Day to Comic World with the knowledge that there would not be any books, but I had some coming from Todd and it was going to be worth it.

I was going to make the trip worthwhile as I picked up some other books at Comic World. With them lacking the books this week, I picked up these books to help even if it is just a little help. I grabbed some graphic novels off the shelf. One was Road Rage and the other was Rain. I have not gotten to either of those, but I wanted to touch on them here.

Books this week:

30 Days of Night: Spreading the Disease #1-5. Written by Dan Wickline and art by Tony Sandoval. All five of my issues were cover B variants done by Nat Jones. This series from IDW and it featured a lot of vampires and it provided a very dark and scary feel to it.

Dark Days #1-6. Written by Steve Niles and Ben Templeton. More vampires from the same studio. I actually started reading the first issue of this series and realized that it came after the 30 Days of Night. So I stopped and went to the 30 Days of Night to read first. It was not a direct sequel, but it felt in the same world. Very dark and creepy art.

Spectregraph #4. Written by James Tynion IV and illustrated by Christian Ward. Cover B art by Ian Bertram. This is the wrap up of the DSTLRY book from James Tynion IV. The house is filled with ghosts and can the two females escape their fate? There is a twist at the end of the book that is a touch confusing, but I do enjoy the creativity of it all.

Groo the Wanderer #95, #112. Written, illustrated and cover art by Sergio Aragones. Picked these two up on eBay and they got here really fast. I mean… I ordered these on Monday or Tuesday this week and they arrived on Thursday. That is really amazing.

Sex Criminals trade paperback. This collects the first five issues of the Sex Criminals series from Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. This was a wild and sexy issue. Oh, and dirty. So very dirty. It was a wonderful group of issues. I loved this and went to eBay to pick up the complete series.

Motherfu*kin’ Monsters #1. Written by J. Holtham and artist and cover art by Michael Lee Harris. This is an issue from Image’s The Horizon Project, a group of one shot issues that featured protagonists from a marginalized background set in a popular genre. The books called itself the Evil Dead for blerds. I was not a big fan of this book. The art was too cartoonish for my tastes.

Missing on the Moon #1. Created by Cory Crater and art by Damian Couceiro. Cover art by Damian Couceiro with Dee Cunniffe. Mad Cave has a new book featuring a new world that takes place on the moon. It was interesting and had a lot of sci-fi elements that were cool.

Hornsby & Halo #2. The storytellers of this book are Peter J. Tomasi & Peter Snejbjerg. Peter Snejbjerg did the cover art. Zack and Rose show off their angel and demon forms as this books starts to pick up some momentum.

G.I. Joe #2. Written by Joshua Williamson and art and cover art by Tom Reilly. G.I. Joe and Cobra are meeting up for the first time and terrible things are happening. The Energon Universe has become huge for Image and it brings Cobra Commander back to the front. I have been waiting for the second issue for a few weeks and this was worth the wait.

The Rocketfellers #2. Written by Peter J. Tomasi and art and cover art by Francis Manapul. The Ghost Machine series sees the Rocketfeller family trying to find a Christmas tree. Who thought that this would be major issue. Yet, I guess with the Rocketfellers, anything could happen.

Dust to Dust #1. Written by JG Jones and Phil Bram and art and cover art by JG Jones. This is a beautiful new series, featuring a Western story set in the thirties. The new sheriff arrived on a horse and sets up an exciting story… and a huge dust storm is on its way. I loved the art and the coloring of this book.

Groo: Minstrel Melodies #3-4. Written by Sergio Aragones & Mark Evanier and illustrated and cover art by Sergio Aragones. The Minstrel continues to tell stories of Groo’s misadventures. I did enjoy the one where Groo came across a Groo-look-a-like. The final two issues of this new Dark Horse mini series.

Creature Commandos S1 E6

Posted on by

Spoilers

“Priyatel Skelet”

Dr. Phosphorus got the focus this week as we learn how Dr. Phosphorus came to be, within the city of Gotham. Not only do we get Dr. Phosphorus in Gotham, we get a cameo from Batman. I kind of expected that cameo after the show started off with a tone that felt like the Gotham from Batman: The Animated Series.

There rest of the Creature Commandos, who had been split apart, reunited on hill outside the castle as they are on the way to kill the Princess. The Bride and Nina had come through a brothel that they had hidden out in, Weasel had been playing fetch with a pack of wolves and, of course, Dr, Phosphorus went through his own mess.

Meanwhile, Rick Flag is not dead as I mentioned last week. However, he is in a coma, with a broken back and Amanda Waller staying by his bedside. Of course, she is not there in any sort of concern for Flag, but to see what he has to say about the situation.

Frankenstein chartered a plane, in his own way as he is in process of coming for the Bride.

This is the penultimate episode of the show, which has ended quickly. I liked this one a bit more, but the gory blood still feels like it is just there for shock value and not a part of the show.

The Amazing Jonathan Documentary (2019)

Posted on by

January 2

Day two of the 2025 Genre-ary brought me to Disney + and a film about a magician by the name of the Amazing Jonathan, a documentary that started off as a story about a magician who was diagnoses with a heart condition that gave him one year to live, but ended up in a much different direction that included a deep internal conflict for the documentarian Ben Berman.

The Amazing Jonathan had been diagnoses with a heart condition and he told an audience that he had one year to live. When Ben Berman approached him, that was three years prior and Amazing Jonathan was going back out for a five-show tour.

However, the doc was not as much about Amazing Jonathan as it was about Ben Berman himself and trying to discover exactly was going on. He found out that there were other people working on a documentary about Jonathan, people whom Jonathan had also given permission to. During the doc, we discover three other documentaries in progress besides Berman’s.

As Berman filmed, he began to question what was real and what was being made up by the magician as an illusion or a prank.

Some may say not to turn the camera back on the documentarian, but I feel as if this film does it in a very effective manner. I was more compelled by the story about the making of this documentary than I was about the story of this dying magician. For a good chunk of the film, I saw Amazing Jonathan almost as the antagonist of the doc, which is crazy. I did like how this documentary brought the conflict to a close at the end. It felt like redemption for the film character Amazing Jonathan.

I see some hate for this documentary online, but I thought this was a fascinating tale of the creation of a doc featuring a magician and the documentarian and their intertwining story. I watched this on Disney +, but it was released officially on Hulu.

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024)

Posted on by

January 1

It is January 1st, which means that I start the new Genre-ary event at EYG. This year, EYG will be doing the Genre-ary with documentaries. I will watch a new documentary, one that I have never seen before, every day for the whole month.

The first documentary I watched was one I saw on YouTube pundit Dan Murrell’s video of the Best Films of the Year. It was called The Remarkable Life of Ibelin and it sounded like an emotional film. I decided that I would use 2024 documentaries in the Genre-ary instead of waiting on them until the June Swoon.

With the set-up out of the way, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin was truly a beautiful documentary about a young man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who was able to find friendship, love and hope inside the gaming world of World of Warcraft.

Mats Steen, a young Norwegian boy, was diagnosed with the muscular disorder as a child and had to spend most of his life confined to a wheelchair as the disorder slowly restricted his motor skills.

One of the few things Mats was able to do was be on his computer. He found a community or guild, inside World of Warcraft, called Starlight, where he was able to meet others. Mats did not reveal anything about his condition to the people playing the game with him even after they had formed a close online relationship.

The doc uses the actual online dialogue used in the game to create an animated model of the online game. It uses this animation, in the World of Warcraft style, to show how important Mats, as the avatar called Ibelin, would become to the Starlight guild. The doc also used interviews with other guild members and family members of Mats as well as some home movies to build this picture of the young man.

Mats wrote an online blog near the end of his life that the doc used to illustrate more about the thoughts Mats was having. They had an actor read the blog entries in a voice close to Mats. Mats’ family did not know anything of this blog and, after his death, Mats had left the password to his family. This is where they started to understand how much their son had impacted the world through the video game. They posted on the blog that Mats had died and dozens of people responded to them, one of the more powerful moments for me during this doc.

The doc was not about a man who was slowly dying. This doc showed the power of life, friendship and of connections to others, even if it is not in the typical way. Mats had a short life, but his presence was felt by many different people in extremely powerful ways.

This was available to stream on Netflix. It is well worth your time. You may give a second thought to the viability of those kids spending time on their computers.