Tag: documentary

On Yacht Rock and the Yacht Rock “dockumentary”

I’m a fan of yacht rock, so I was keen to watch “Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary”. I’m happy to say it does a great job not only of reviewing the music being made at that time, but also in analyzing how a term (yacht rock) got applied to this music (since the term didn’t exist at that time).

that said, like some of the musicians involved, I have issues with the term. For one thing, I can also see why some of the musicians hate it, since it seems pejorative. For another, it’s also arbitrary and limited. For example, you can say Michael McDonald was Yacht Rock and Hall and Oates is not, but to me they’re all part of that soft rock era of the 70s. Likewise, Quincy Jones may have used Yacht Rock musicians on Thriller, but I just can’t think of it belonging to the same genre of music as Christopher Cross.

So enjoy the documentary…or Dockumentary. And if you find yourself liking what you hear, check out any of your favorite stream services: you’ll be bound to find a number of playlists serving up that easy listening sound.

P.S. How for to watch it online and stream from anywhere, see Tom’s Guide. Also my older post on Yacht Rock is here.

(Image from Tom’s Guide.)

On BECKHAM, the documentary

BECKHAM the documentary is very good. So good, it won an Emmy. Very good, but not flawless. Indeed, this piece argues, Netflix’s ‘Beckham’ Is a Very Good Docuseries with Two Glaring Flaws. I’d say it has one overriding flaw,and it has to do with any documentary like this.

With a documentary like this, the documentarian (Stevens) is dependent on the subject (the Beckhams) to tell the story. And whatever story he meant to tell, the Beckhams also had a story they wanted to tell. I felt those stories were in sync up until the end.

Then the ending occurred and I felt a bit betrayed. I thought David Beckham was telling a story about wanting to settle down with his family, but then it ends with him in Miami, seeming to do anything but settle. I thought he wanted to be different than his dad when it came to football, but getting a glimpse of how he talks to his son, I heard echos of his dad talking to him.

That ending made me wonder if the Beckhams were using the documentary to tell a certain story they wanted to tell in a way they wanted to tell it. A way of maintaining the brand, the way they had been maintaining a brand for many years.

I think there’s alot of sincerity in the film, and it’s a great story, well told. But I felt there was more going on than the narrative driving the film, and I think that slipped away from us.

Eyes on the Prize: the complete documentary, on YouTube

As mentioned on Kottke, it appears that the entire documentary Eyes On The Prize is now on YouTube. You can find it here: Eyes On The Prize – YouTube.

For those of you unfamiliar with this documentary, it was, to quote Wikipedia, “… an American television series and 14-hour documentary about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States….”. That’s an understatement. It’s a great production about a great event in world history.

Highly recommended.