ESPN 30 for 30

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mfunk9786
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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#76 Post by mfunk9786 » Sat Mar 02, 2013 6:31 pm

Could someone clarify for me: Are all of these on Netflix? Or just select ones?

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#77 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sat Mar 02, 2013 11:08 pm

Select ones, I think. More have been added recently. Ice Cube's film about the Raiders' time in L.A. was interesting.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#78 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun Mar 03, 2013 12:25 am

I guess I ought to hang onto the Blu-ray set of the first 30 films, then.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#79 Post by dx23 » Mon Mar 04, 2013 1:50 am

I loved the Honus Wagner Card short. As a former baseball card collector I new about the card and its incredible value but never about the controversy. I agree that the PSA grading is somewhat of a scam and it's one of the reasons why this hobby went to the toilet. I now wish that they make a longer doc on the rise and fall of the trading card hobby.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#80 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Mar 22, 2013 1:38 pm

I really liked Survive And Advance which premiered this past Sunday. Joe Valvano at one point says (something to the effect of) that to live a full life you should laugh, think and cry once a day. This doc could bring someone to all those points pretty easily.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#81 Post by dx23 » Wed Mar 27, 2013 11:04 pm


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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#82 Post by dx23 » Tue Jul 30, 2013 7:30 pm

There have been some ESPN 30 for 30 spinoff films, called Nine for IX, airing on ESPN for the past several weeks. They focus on female athletes and it was done to celebrate the anniversary of Title IX. The regular 30 for 30 films return on Oct 1.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#83 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:49 pm

Awesome. I'm especially looking forward to Tonya And Nancy. I remember that was on the news FORRRRRRREVVERR back in the day, so it'll be a nice nostalgia trip.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#84 Post by dx23 » Wed Jul 31, 2013 1:16 am

By the way, Amazon.com has the BD set of the first 30 films for $34.99

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#85 Post by RagingNoodles » Wed Jul 31, 2013 5:44 am

Curious about the upcoming Roberto Duran-Sugar Ray Leonard documentary. I hope they actually focus on the first fight and acknowledge how impressive of a win that was for Duran. It's also one of my favorite fights that involves the "Four Kings". The second fight has been discussed to death, so I hope it's presented in an interesting manner. I never saw the third fight, just didn't have interest in it but I probably will at some point.

If it's in the same quality of HBO's Legendary Nights (which is returning with an hour-long documentary on the Gatti-Ward Trilogy this autumn), then I'll be satisfied with the production.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#86 Post by BigMack3000 » Tue Oct 15, 2013 5:05 am

Quick question (hopefully). If I pick up Volumes 1,2, and 3, ESPN Films vol. 1, and Nine for ix. Which films am I still missing from the series?

Thanks!!

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#87 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Nov 01, 2013 12:29 am

I've not been very impressed by the recent films, and if the AV Club reviews are any barometer, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Last week's story of the guy who almost conned his way into buying the New York Islanders was the most engaging on a human level, though I felt no sympathy at all for him. This week's film on Jimmy Connors was okay, but kind of bogged down by tennis jargon for me.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#88 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Jan 03, 2014 8:30 pm

Image

Oh yes...

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#89 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Jan 28, 2014 4:13 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Image

Oh yes...
I wrote a little bit about this on Letterboxd, will reproduce here:

As far as documentaries that follow the pattern of a lengthy newsmagazine of a well documented event go, it doesn't get much better than this. We begin so much in Tonya Harding's camp, seeing the horrors of her childhood and how exactly this chip was planted on her shoulder. And then we see her become more unlikeable - both in the narrative and in her interview - as everything unfolds. It's really quite startling how parallel this is, and how clear it seems to be that she was involved with this without the film beating us over the head with it. It's a quiet indictment rather than a loud public shaming (Harding's already gone through one of those, why do it again?). The unheralded star of the film is Nancy Kerrigan (who didn't participate) - the film reminds us just how stunningly beautiful and almost impossibly talented she was during her skating career, and just how strange it was that anyone could have demonized her for being involved in this most bizarre plot that she would have so gladly never had happen from the start. When we see Harding snipe at Kerrigan, two decades later, for her incredibly tiny snipe at Oksana Baiul, it becomes clear just how absurd this all was, and still is.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#90 Post by Black Hat » Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:04 pm

I caught it on Sunday and thought it was a very, very strange documentary. When Tonya's friend said yeah she knew also seemed very odd to me. It was good tho and brought back a lot of memories, I am curious to how accurate the idea that Kerrigan was robbed of the gold is or was it a case of America being 'Murica. I was in London at the time and don't remember much being made of it there. I would have liked to have heard from Kerrigan but apparently she has her own documentary coming on NBC during the olympics. What was equally as strange was the 30 for 30 that followed, No Mas. Didn't really understand the framing for the whole thing, did Leonard pay for it? It really made him out to be perfect and piled on Duran.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#91 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Jan 28, 2014 6:04 pm

I dunno, even as a kid I was shocked. It just seemed so clear to me that Kerrigan's final performance was technically and artistically perfect, and I recall it creating quite a stir at the time. But again, you might be right about it being more of a rah rah America thing... but it's certainly not how I remember it.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#92 Post by Andre Jurieu » Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:10 pm

Since I get both the Canadian and US coverage of the Olympics, it's always amusing to compare the two. It's kind of amazing how myopic the US broadcast sometimes feels (and I'm saying that as an American living in Canada). While the Canadian feed checks in on a number of sports and finds interesting athlete stories from a number of countries, the US feed seems focused solely on US athletes in sports that the US cares about. Obviously this is due to ratings, as NBC (or ABC and CBS back-in-the-day) will still focus on sports that garner great ratings without US contenders, but they also devote a tonne of extra coverage to those stories and sports that a US audience would care about. It's probably similar in a lot of the larger countries who dominate the Olympic (China, Russia, Germany), but I find that this often leads to a very skewed perspective of the event. Though the Canadian coverage is certainly biased whenever a Canadian athlete is in contention (the focus on hockey is utterly psychotic), since Canadians aren't always in contention for every sport, they often just check in on a number of different sports and number of different athletes (including Americans), which makes the event feel far more international and impartial. It's actually kind of interesting to compare the differences in coverage between different US networks, as I think NBC and ABC are actually far more objective than CBS, but that's totally based on my own perceptions without any real concrete data to back up my viewpoint.

Anyway, I remember the US coverage of the Women's Figure Skating at the 1994 Winter Olympics was just really exasperating after a while because it centered so much around the scandal. By the time the 1994 Olympics started, I think the general consensus outside of the US was a great deal of fatigue over the Kerrigan vs Harding rivalry and the surrounding circus. My parents always watch the figure skating coverage, so I also remember that many observers (basically color-commentators and experts back in the studio) seemed genuinely impressed with Baiul's performance and thought it certainly put her contention for the gold medal. From what I can recall, due to her youth, Baiul entered the 94 competition under the assumption that she was a more serious contender for the gold medal at the next Olympics, since everyone was aware of her talent and ability, but her lack of experience was a concern. The precision of her performance at the 94 games was kind of surprising, but not unfathomable. I remember the US announcing team was absolutely shocked that Kerrigan didn't win, but the Canadian coverage seemed to think it was a strong possibility that Baiul has done enough to win.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#93 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:58 pm

I have to confess I couldn't get into it about half-way through. I suppose it was one nostalgia trip not worth the ride.

I do not know what the next one is, but I have been reading on Twitter through Kevin Von Erich's page that someone did shoot something for the series on his family (and that it should air sometime late next month), a pro wrestling dynasty that collapsed through a tragic and almost-unbelievable set of circumstances.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#94 Post by Polybius » Wed Jan 29, 2014 3:20 am

Black Hat wrote: I am curious to how accurate the idea that Kerrigan was robbed of the gold is or was it a case of America being 'Murica.
I wouldn't use the term "robbed" but watching that night, I though Kerrigan was clearly superior.

Looking back on it, that was the first example of a distressing trend that continued with Tara Lipinski beating Michelle Kwan later. Women's figure skating became less about artistry and more about sheer athleticism, usually personified by skaters like Lipinski and Baiul, i.e. younger, smaller competitors who relied on a lot of jumps, almost more like gymnasts than what had been the usual physical type of figure skaters before.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#95 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jan 29, 2014 10:44 am

Bill Simmons mentioned on his podcast that he desperately wants to have a 30 for 30 doc on the XFL, but Vince McMahon has blocked any attempt of doing so because he owns all the footage and copyrights.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#96 Post by Black Hat » Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:28 pm

I think McMahon may be doing the sports guy a favor on that one. Unlike the ABA, AFL, USFL, the XFL wasn't particularly interesting, hehateme notwithstanding, nor popular in any way shape or form. It would make for a good 30 for 30 short tho.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#97 Post by dx23 » Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:30 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:Bill Simmons mentioned on his podcast that he desperately wants to have a 30 for 30 doc on the XFL, but Vince McMahon has blocked any attempt of doing so because he owns all the footage and copyrights.
I heard that. Vince really likes to re-write history and that's why your don't see footage of his failed ventures, like the XFL and the WBF, anywhere. Also, Vince likes to control everything that relates to WWE and its properties and rarely allows people to know the inside workings of the company unless if it is for something that they are 100% sure is going to be positive. McMahon feels that he has been burned by news outlets and shows like CNN, ABC News, ESPN and Fox News, and documentaries like Beyond the Mat, which have shown the darker side of the business he mostly controls. ESPN in particular has been notorious for focusing on the steroid problems and deaths in wrestling at the height of WWF/E's popularity. Vince and company questioned the motives behind these news outlets burying WWE while letting the NFL roam free (until recently).

In other news, Grantland released this 30 for 30 Shorts: ‘Judging Jewell’, about the security guard who saved a lot of people during the 1996 Olympics terrorist attack and then was accused of being the actual terrorist who planted the bombs even though he didn't have to do anything with it.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#98 Post by dx23 » Wed Jan 29, 2014 1:35 pm

Black Hat wrote:I think McMahon may be doing the sports guy a favor on that one. Unlike the ABA, AFL, USFL, the XFL wasn't particularly interesting, hehateme notwithstanding, nor popular in any way shape or form. It would make for a good 30 for 30 short tho.
I still think there is a story in this. The NFL and other professional sports leagues adapted the innovative camera angles and production coverage that Vince used for the XFL. In addition, we just saw this past month how the NBA marketed some of its players by using their nicknames in the back of the jerseys just like the XFL did. There is also the story of Tommy Maddox, who later went on to the NFL and was their league MVP. I believe there is enough material and content that can be used to make a 1 hour documentary on the XFL and make it interesting. I think the best way for this to happen is if Bill Simmons partners up with WWE and makes this documentary under both companies banner. WWE is pretty good at doing wrestling documentaries as seen with their multiple DVD releases on individual wrestlers.

Edit: I think Simmons' best chance to make this is if he makes it for the upcoming WWE network that debuts in February. WWE is looking to create original content and something like a XFL documentary will probably bring viewers.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#99 Post by Andre Jurieu » Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:08 pm

dx23 wrote:I think Simmons' best chance to make this is if he makes it for the upcoming WWE network that debuts in February. WWE is looking to create original content and something like a XFL documentary will probably bring viewers.
Except that I think part of Simmons's interest in the subject-matter is because he finds some humor in its execution. Simmons is a genuine wrestling fan, has some respect for what McMahon has accomplished, and he understands there's great material available for an XFL doc, but he's also aware of how comical the league was within pop-culture. As you stated, I would be surprised if McMahon would acknowledge that type of misstep at all.
Polybius wrote:Looking back on it, that was the first example of a distressing trend that continued with Tara Lipinski beating Michelle Kwan later. Women's figure skating became less about artistry and more about sheer athleticism, usually personified by skaters like Lipinski and Baiul, i.e. younger, smaller competitors who relied on a lot of jumps, almost more like gymnasts than what had been the usual physical type of figure skaters before.
Not sure about Kwan or Lipinski's battle (I don't remember that much about it), but I remember that Baiul's performance was considered by a lot of observers, at that time, to be one of the better displays of artistry during the competition. In fact, I think Baiul had a lower score than Kerrigan on the "technical" aspects (I remember the Canadian judge gave her a really low score on the "technical" portion) of the performance and it was her scores in artistry that saved her and allowed her to win the gold.

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Re: ESPN 30 for 30

#100 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jan 29, 2014 6:01 pm

dx23 wrote:
Black Hat wrote:I think McMahon may be doing the sports guy a favor on that one. Unlike the ABA, AFL, USFL, the XFL wasn't particularly interesting, hehateme notwithstanding, nor popular in any way shape or form. It would make for a good 30 for 30 short tho.
I still think there is a story in this. The NFL and other professional sports leagues adapted the innovative camera angles and production coverage that Vince used for the XFL. In addition, we just saw this past month how the NBA marketed some of its players by using their nicknames in the back of the jerseys just like the XFL did. There is also the story of Tommy Maddox, who later went on to the NFL and was their league MVP. I believe there is enough material and content that can be used to make a 1 hour documentary on the XFL and make it interesting. I think the best way for this to happen is if Bill Simmons partners up with WWE and makes this documentary under both companies banner. WWE is pretty good at doing wrestling documentaries as seen with their multiple DVD releases on individual wrestlers.

Edit: I think Simmons' best chance to make this is if he makes it for the upcoming WWE network that debuts in February. WWE is looking to create original content and something like a XFL documentary will probably bring viewers.
Just to clarify, Maddox only won Comeback Player of the Year in the NFL. He was the XFL MVP.

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