inri222

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I just caught this tonight at the IFC in Manhattan.
Great documentary by Herzog on the sociological aspects of crime & punishment.

Solid Snake

interesting...

Hazel Motes

What a heartbreaking film. As usual Herzog is able to draw the people he's interviewing out of their shells and get them at their most intimate. It reminded me of that Judas Priest documentary where the 2 boys shot themselves and it was blamed on subliminal messaging in a Priest song. It also really resonated with me in relation to Harmony Korine's Gummo and Trash Humpers. Specifically the scene in Humpers where they are driving and Korine's character details how he can feel how everyone around him is in pain in the trees and all the houses. So many small depressed towns in middle America seem like they're filled with absolute hopelessness and despair. I could barely distinguish the difference between the people who commited the acts and the family members of the victims that it effected. When you hear their stories and start to understand the misery and hopelessness that surrounds them on a day to day basis, the brutality of the crimes becomes somewhat muted. You're not shocked when you find out how many people interviewed in the film have been incarcerated at one time or another. In an odd way it made me appreciate Trash Humpers more than I did initially. It really illustrates the misery of some of these small deadend towns in mid America. Next on the list and continuing in theme is Paradise Lost 3. Anyhow. I highly recommend the film.

Dr. DVD

Caught this last week at a one time only screening at the local arthouse cinema. Very well done, and it's pretty obvious the "abyss" in question is the area in which the people live. What's sad is that there are so many of these places in America.
One thing I will say I noticed was that while Herzog admitted he was against the death penalty, he never really went into detail as to why the condemned might have been innocent. While watching I thought the guy seemed like he was putting on something of a show, and that he was guilty and trying to make a last ditch appeal. Just my take though.

Dr Mabuse

It's very good, as one would expect from a master like Herzog. A great documentary. The murderer was sickening in the way he was completely selfish and self-obsessed, but that's what scum like that are really about. Herzog wanted to unflinchingly display the whole matter as it is, not make some ham-handed polemics films.

This is also a doc that is continued in the TV series called 'On Death Row' that will play on the ID channel. Herzog continues the examination with 4 or 5 more death row cases in a similar fashion in the TV series.

Tarantino

This is streaming on Netflix. Crazy documentary...very powerful.

Also...makes me want to never visit Texas.

Osiris3657

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Can't wait until California and all of its "we're better than everybody else" residents breaks off into the Pacific

Tarantino

I guess everything is bigger in Texas...except for sarcasm detectors.

My Other Self

I've never met one person living out here who has thought that. And I'm a transplant, not a native.

mickey65

I saw the doc over the weekend. The guy on Death Row putting on the religious act and acting as if he was "so" innocent and blaming the victims for his misfortune of being in prison and having to be put to death. Laughing and smiling thru-out most of his interview. What a psycho.

Then his buddy getting only life, thanks to dear ol' dead testifying on his behalf about the "hard life" he had growing up with his daddy in prison for most of it.

And WTF with the groupie chick getting pregnant? I wish they would have explained how that happened. Did she get a loaded sock from him, or what?

My heart really went out to the daughter/sister of the victims. She lost her dad, a brother, her mom, and her brother/nephew all in within six years. That poor woman having to deal with so much like that. I'd be in a mental hospital!