plau_chi Reviews

The Grizzlie Truth (2022)

Padded and a bit melodramatic

[6/10 · 3 May 2023]

In one of the ending scenes of this documentary, the director stages a scene where she pushes a stack of papers from her desk in frustration, then says "turns out the answer is a lot more complicated than I thought".

No, it's not. You just showed me an hour-plus film proving that it's not. The answer is: Vancouver lost the Grizzlies due to poor performance, bad draft picks, and financial naivety. The end.

The film is (at minimum) thirty minutes longer than needed, padded with nostalgia. It's best when sticking to the facts. Yes, Grizzlies had a bad GM, and prospective superstars didn't want the burden of salvaging a team with a 30% winning rate. That's a fact bigger than Steve Francis, who undeservingly becomes the scapegoat far too often in this story.

If you didn't already know all of this, you will learn a few things from this film and it's worth a skim. But otherwise it's a film distracted with its own insular bias. Not that it's bad to provide a local narrative and share us the cozy memories of fans, but come on... in the end, numbers talk. The NBA is a business and there's no conspiracy here.

The Terminal List (2022– )

Overall Satisfying

[9/10 · 16 October 2022]

Recently finished the season and it's great, even if the flashback moments with Reece's family became tiresome (at some point, they became less informative and more distracting if anything). That aside, there are some great twists that were mostly not expected, save for one moment at the estate in the final episode that I saw coming.

Not sure why a political narrative is getting over-analyzed by some. Then again, it seems to be everything gets that treatment these days. If you go into it simply looking for a solid action and drama tale, this is great and keeps you on your toes.

Things tie up nicely enough that I can't imagine what a season two would entail but it's welcome anyway.

9/11: Inside the President's War Room (2021)

Unbiased and forthright recap

[9/10 · 10 April 2022]

I appreciated this documentary not trying to inject a biased narrative. It lets people talk, it doesn't position anyone as heroes or villains, it just shows you the actions taken and when they happened. How you feel about any of it comes externally from the film.

Too many documentaries on this topic have tried (rather transparently) to steer their audience towards a particular opinion or thought pattern politically. Refreshingly, there's no overt praise or overt admonishment of anyone in this. If one has problem with that, it's because they hoped for the film to service their bias in whatever regard, and I'm glad this film took the higher road.