Originally Posted by Paff (Post 14624655)

By the way, I missed the beginning of the first half, I started watching it as they were going over the releases of Piano Man and Streetlife Serenade. I watched almost all of the second half, minus a couple of minutes of doing household chores like throwing in a load of laundry. I mention all of this, because I noticed they barely talked at all about his tour in the Soviet Union. That was a pretty big deal, I saw a documentary on that alone, and there were some fascinating episodes in that tour, like him stopping mid-song because the arena kept lighting up the crowd and the audience would have to stop dancing lest they be seen enjoying a Western musician. And another where a Red Army soldier threw him his hat, another big no-no in the former USSR.

I would have thought that would be addressed in the second half, maybe not as in depth as that other doc, but it looked like they glossed over it completely other than the one scene of him upending his piano. And I think that was in Germany anyway...

ETA: One more note about not watching a music doc because you don't like the musicians. I'd have to say that one of my least favorite music docs is about one of my favorite musicians. Specifically, the story of Descendents and All, called Filmage. Don't get me wrong, I loved learning the history of the band, and seeing all the clips, but as a doc it falls flat because there simply was never any drama within the band(s). When the guitarist quit the band, burned all his gear, and moved out of town the rest of the band just said, "That's so punk rock". When the singer breaks up the band to go study biochemistry, they all said "He's a science nerd. Of course he'd do that". When the rest of the band decides to just change the name and get a new singer, the original singer said "Man, I loved them, bought all their records". Never any animosity whatsoever. Great band(s). Boring doc.

The Billy Joel story has so many ups and downs, it's a hell of a watch even if you despise every note the guy's played.

Originally Posted by Daytripper (Post 14625091)

Originally Posted by Daytripper (Post 14625091)

Originally Posted by davidh777 (Post 14625108)

I feel like they only touched on the Soviet stuff. Hard to remember from the five hours, but not much coverage at all.



Basically his ex-brother-in-law swindled him, and they gave up trying to sue him. It’s one of the unpleasant topics in part 2 (including Auschwitz).