Documentaries — Page 3

November 11, 2019 By Emilio Leave a Comment

Review of The Devil Next Door

Directed by Yossi Bloch and Daniel Silvan
Rating *****

Was John Demjanjuk the murderous Ivan the Terrible, who worked the gas chambers at the Nazi death camp Treblinka, or was he a victim of misidentification? That’s the question at the center of this five-part Netflix documentary series.

Demjanjuk was a retired autoworker living in Cleveland, Ohio, when first identified as a former Nazi. American authorities handed him over to Israel to stand trial. The trial itself took a year. There was plenty of evidence both for and against his guilt. But the story doesn’t end with the verdict.

As someone who writes about wrongful convictions, I found myself wavering on Demjanjuk’s guilt or innocence. Treblinka survivors were adamant in their identification. But the defense was able to offer compelling evidence pointing toward his innocence.

Later in the series, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there is compelling evidence pointing to Demjanjuk’s innocence. But a closer examination of that evidence convinced me that he was indeed Ivan the Terrible. You can make up your mind yourself.

October 15, 2019 By Emilio Leave a Comment

Review of Inside Bill’s Brain

Review of Inside Bill’s Brain Neflix *****

I’m currently reading a book called Dark Money, which is about how a few wealthy individuals have used their money to promote their nefarious self-interests. This documentary shows how Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest people in the world, has used his money and the money of other like-minded individuals to promote benefits to humanity.

It all starts with an article about children dying of diarrhea. That is the launching point for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill first identifies the problem, then he sets out to find solutions. Since this is an area that Bill has no expertise in, he enlists the help of others to find the answers. He creates a competition that will eventually lead to improved toilets and water treatment plants.

The next episode in this three-episode Netflix docuseries deals with Bill and Melinda’s time at Microsoft and their efforts to eradicate polio. I grew up during the dawn of computers. I watched Microsoft grow and dominate. I also witnessed Microsoft make one of the biggest marketing blunders of all time. It happened under Bill and Steve Ballmer’s tenure. And that is the failure of Windows Mobile Phone. There is absolutely no reason that there aren’t three mobile operating systems: Apple, Android, and Windows. But that story is for another day, and it’s not a subject covered in this documentary.

I found the last episode to be the most impactful. I’m a green energy promoter. We need to move away from fossil fuels as soon as possible. One solution that hasn’t received enough attention is nuclear power. Bill Gates uses his money and influence to enlist the help of others to rethink nuclear energy. They tackle the major obstacles – old technology, public perception, risk, waste – and come up with a new reactor that addresses all of the perceived problems. Their plans go awry due to the trade war with China, which was to be the launching point of their first full-scale reactor. It’s such a great solution that I don’t understand why they can’t find partners here in the U.S. or elsewhere like France.

I admire the work Bill and Melinda are doing through their foundation. I have just one word of advice for Bill Gates. You don’t have to carry around a shopping bag full of books everywhere you go. They’ve come up with this new technology called eBooks. Give it some thought.

August 22, 2019 By Emilio Leave a Comment

American Factory Quick Take

American Factory Directors Steven Bognar and Julia Rechert
Rating *****

This documentary is jammed pack with relevant content: the decline of factory jobs, culture differences between China and America, an argument for unions, and the role of automation in job replacement.

This is the first film from the Obamas Netflix deal. It’s not political except to point out the many complexities facing world economies and trade deals.

The film starts out with the impact that a GM plant closing has on the workers and the surrounding community of Dayton, Ohio. After eight plus years of blight, hope appears in the form of a Chines automotive glass company called Fuyao. The CEO of the company promises to revitalize the community with jobs. Thousands of workers are hired. They are trained by Chinese employees from a sister plant in China.

The Chinese managers and Fuyao CEO quickly form an impression of American Workers as lazy and hard to manage. The American workers, on the other hand, soon realize that the promised jobs pay only $12 an hour, more than half what they earned with GM. The work is tedious and in some cases unsafe.

To help expedite the training, a number of American workers fly to China to see how the workers there perform the same jobs. This is where the stark differences between China and America stand out. The Chinese employees work 12 hour days with only two days off a month. They work in unsafe conditions. They sing songs about the company and march as if they are in the military as opposed to working for a company.

This is life in a communist country. Children grow up with absentee parents. Workers have no voice. Industry pollutes the air, water, and land with impunity.

I belong to a union. This film shows the important role unions play in a worker’s pay, benefits, and working conditions. Unions give workers a voice.

The answer the Chinese find for their hard to manage American workers is to fire union organizers, then replace as many as possible with automation.

Are you a nonfiction fan? Do you enjoy learning about new nonfiction books, films, and documentaries? If so, I can use your help. Please share the articles posted here on your social media sites. This site averages about thirty unique visitors a day, but the number of followers on Facebook and Twitter are embarrassingly low. So, please help spread the word by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter, and sharing these posts with the share buttons below. Thanks.

August 18, 2019 By Emilio Leave a Comment

Review of the Free Meek Docuseries

Rating *****

Meek Mill attends the world premiere of Amazon Prime Video’s “Free Meek” limited documentary series at the Ziegfeld Ballroom on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2019, in New York. (Photo by Jason Mendez/Invision/AP)

You do not have to be a fan of Rap music to enjoy this compelling expose of our broken criminal justice system. For all the ” he got what he deserves” critics out there, you have no clue what you’re talking about.

I was aware of some of the facts surrounding this story. I knew that Meek Mill was a rapper imprisoned due to a technical violation of his probation. I didn’t know the details of his original conviction or the story of his eleven-year odyssey. This excellent five-part docuseries fills in the gaps while also exposing issues such as mass incarceration, problems with the probations system, plea deals, inequities with the bail system, ineffective counsel, and crooked cops.

I had planned on watching each episode over a series of nights. I ended up binging on all five. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger.

One of the most glaring anomalies about Meek’s case is the actions of Judge Genece Brinkley. This one-woman wrecking ball is the poster- child for injustice. The only rationale I could come up with for her mean-spirited decisions is that she was infatuated with Meek Mills. She certainly wasn’t motivated by a sense of fairness. How many other poor souls are wasting away because of her decisions?

When the tables are finally turned on Judge Genece Brinkley and the detectives that started the whole mess, there is a sense of redemption, even though the saga is not entirely over for Meek Mills.

My only complaint is that the filmmakers glossed over one crucial fact. The case against Meek Mills starts with the suspicion of drug activity at the house were Meek Mills was staying with extended family. The detectives involved were allegedly not so much interested in disrupting drug activity as they were in robbing suspected drug dealers of money. According to Meek’s cousins, the detectives found some thirty-thousand dollars in cash at the residence, which they did not report. The filmmakers did not explain how and why there were thirty-thousand dollars in a home in a poor neighborhood stashed away in plastic bags.

Not everyone has the resources and support that Meek Mill had. Still, his case highlights the need for criminal justice reform. The reality is that there are millions of people caught up in a system that wants to penalize people indefinitely.

July 18, 2019 By Emilio Leave a Comment

Review of I Love You, Now Die

Review Of I Love You, Now Die written and directed by Erin Lee Carr
Rating *****

This two-part HBO documentary looks at the manslaughter case against Michelle Carter, the seventeen-year-old accused of encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide through text messages.

The first part concerns the prosecution’s case against Michelle. Prosecutors painted Michelle as a lonely teenager desperate for attention. In their version of events, Michelle encouraged her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to commit suicide solely as a way to gain sympathy as the grieving ex-girlfriend. Ex-schoolmates and other acquaintances testified as to how Michelle seemed to relish her newfound attention. The lynchpin of their case was the idea that Michelle, at one point, told Conrad to get back in his truck after Conrad expressed doubts about going through with it. That’s the story told in the media and drummed up by people like Nancy Grace.

You may have a completely different opinion of the case after watching the defense side of the story. Several key facts changed my opinion about Michelle’s complicity. For one, both Conrad and Michelle were on psychiatric drugs. One well-known side-effect of these types of medicines is suicidal tendencies. Conrad had expressed suicidal thoughts to Michelle previously, and she had tried to talk him out of it. Conrad also had a failed suicide attempt months before the incident in question. It was his actions alone that caused his death. In Michelle’s mind, she was acting to comfort him not encourage him.

An element to the case new to me was the connection that Michelle had with popular culture, particular the TV show Glee and the film The Fault In Our Stars. Both shows had storylines dealing with young deaths. Michelle connected with the female characters.

Another important detail involved the relationship between Michelle and Conrad. They had only met in person five times. Their relationship existed mostly through text messages and phone calls. There is doubt as to whether or not they ever had sex together. There is also a question as to Michelle’s sexuality.

The judge hearing her case convicted Michelle of manslaughter based almost entirely on her telling Conrad to get back in the truck. Conrad killed himself by carbon monoxide poising. One problem, though, is that there wasn’t any direct evidence that she even made that comment. Most people assumed that she did it through a text message. No such text message exists. Instead, Michelle made that statement in a text message to a friend after the fact.

Conrad and Michelle spoke on the phone before and during his suicide attempt. So it is entirely possible that she did tell him to get back in the truck. But is that enough to convict someone of manslaughter? Say you drive up to someone who is about to jump off a bridge. Let’s say that you call the guy a loser and tell him that the world would be a better place if he went ahead and jumped. Are you guilty of manslaughter if he jumps and kills himself? What if you made the same comments in a text message?

After hearing both sides of the story and reviewing all of the evidence, I believe Michelle’s conviction was a miscarriage of justice that has now set a dangerous precedent. Say you have a couple involved in a bitter divorce. The husband or the wife sends a text message to the other person telling them that they wish they would go kill themselves. Is that person then guilty of manslaughter if the husband or wife follows through?

July 4, 2019 By Emilio 2 Comments

Heartbreak and outrage: A review of the Netflix Docuseries The Confesstion Tapes Season Two and Exhibt A

There’s something about wrongful conviction stories that always draw me in. I can’t stop thinking about these people, most of whom are still behind bars. Fiction can’t do that. No matter how good the story or the writing, you know that it was all made up. For the wrongfully convicted, their stories drag on, and those responsible are seldom held accountable.

There are two documentary series streaming on Netflix that tell one heartbreaking story of injustice after another. I urge you to watch each one. You’ll be thinking about these people long after hearing their stories.

I’ll start with season two of The Confession Tapes. You can read my review of season one and the True East episode on this site. Season two is only four episodes long, but each packs a punch. As the title of this series suggests, each story involves a confession (or false confession). The filmmakers don’t prejudge the merits of any particular case. They lay out the facts and let the viewer decide.

The first episode, Gaslight, tells the story of a man accused of murdering a teenage girl. One of the star witnesses claims to have seen the suspect driving his truck with a woman passenger with jet black hair hunched over in the passenger seat around the time of the girl’s disappearance. The problem is that the girl had blond hair. What the witness saw was a knapsack slung over the passenger seat. That fact does not dissuade the prosecutor or the detectives.

The Joyride episode is one that will keep you up at night. One, because of how the police zeroed in on the wrong suspects, and two because of how the real killers were a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde. There is some real detective work that leads to the actual murderers. But the tunnel vision of the lead detective, even after his theory of the case gets blown to pieces, is astonishing.

The Angelika Graswald story I’ve written about before. I still believe that the defense lawyer made a mistake having her take a plea. There is no way the state could have proven their case. It all falls apart on close examination.

The last story, Marching Orders, is one that I’m not sure I’ll ever forget. What the FBI did to this individual is reprehensible. The fact that they held a press conference to tell everyone how they helped prevent a terrorist attack should make everyone outraged. The FBI took an innocent Muslim man and sentenced him to twenty-four-years in prison on the pretense that they were preventing a terrorist attack before it happened. Forget the fact that they did everything in their power to entrap him and get him to make incriminating statements that weren’t a confession to anything. And for them to get in front of cameras to tell everyone what a great job they did pisses me off. I’m glad that these men are now facing the criticism that surely is coming their way. They deserve to take this man’s place. Let them lose their freedom for twenty-four years.

Next up is Exhibit A. This four-episode series tells stories of wrongful convictions that are the result of questionable forensics.

The first episode tells the story of a man convicted based on video forensics. Wait? How can someone be wrongfully convicted when there is video evidence? This case is an example of how detectives can fall into the trap of trying to get the evidence to fit their theory even when the evidence is screaming that they have the wrong man.

If the Blood Spatter episode doesn’t make you outraged, then nothing will. A couple of cold case detectives looking to prove their worth try to solve a cold case involving the murder of a man nearly thirty years prior. They send off the nightgown of the man’s wife to have it forensically examined. The person examining the nightgown uses a high powered microscope to go every square inch of the garment. He concludes that the nightgown is covered in microscopic blood spatter only visible under a microscope. The detectives waste little time arresting the wife and putting her on trial. Later, additional testing reveals that only one small spec tests positive for blood. Whew! Glad they caught that before they went to trial and tried to convict an innocent person. Oh, wait. They didn’t drop the case. Even though their whole theory of the murder was that blood spatter on the nightgown was evidence that the wife was close to her husband when he was shot, and now that evidence no longer exists, they still go through with their cockamamie prosecution. They didn’t even prove that the spec of blood belonged to the husband. And then a scientific review panel doesn’t question the evidence because of that one microscopic spec of blood. What is wrong with these people? Use your common sense. There was ample evidence pointing elsewhere. Why destroy a woman’s life over your disproven hunch?

Next, there is the Cadaver Dog story. I’m not sure of the man with the cadaver dogs is the same man that aided in the Madaleine McCain case, but I did recognize some video from that documentary. The cadaver dog evidence in that case was flawed as well. Should we be putting people into prison when the only evidence against them is the bark of a dog?

The last episode involves touch DNA. Everyone knows that DNA evidence is rock solid, right? Guess again. This story involves politics, money, and the fraudulent use of DNA data. It’s the only story of all the ones covered in this review, that ends better than where it started.