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"The Best That Never Was" - Marcus Dupree (1 Viewer)

I've seen Kenny Fairley on tv many times. My wife is originally from Hattiesburg and whenever we go visit her family I love watching the "reverend" on local tv there.

 
I suppose I lean toward Pickles' assessment. I think it's been a pretty standard documentary series with good episodes and not-so-good episodes. Pretty much the equivalent of an episode of POV or Nova. I suppose that's a dramatic increase in quality for the network that gives us PTI and NFL Countdown, but I don't think it's anything revelatory.

 
Watched this one last week, this is my favorite of the 30 on 30 series.

Also liked the Vlade-Petrovic one a lot.

The Jimmy the Greek one was also entertaining.

 
scoobygang said:
I suppose I lean toward Pickles' assessment. I think it's been a pretty standard documentary series with good episodes and not-so-good episodes. Pretty much the equivalent of an episode of POV or Nova. I suppose that's a dramatic increase in quality for the network that gives us PTI and NFL Countdown, but I don't think it's anything revelatory.
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Not all of us belong to Mensa.
 
scoobygang said:
I suppose I lean toward Pickles' assessment. I think it's been a pretty standard documentary series with good episodes and not-so-good episodes. Pretty much the equivalent of an episode of POV or Nova. I suppose that's a dramatic increase in quality for the network that gives us PTI and NFL Countdown, but I don't think it's anything revelatory.
Click to expand...
You don't think it's revelatory that ESPN gave us something on par with POV or NOVA? I think it's remarkable. The jump from painfully awful to pretty good is something to celebrate.One that was a while back but was possibly my favorite was The Band That Wouldn't Die. It did a great job at capturing the secret to why we love sports so much,and how little it has do with the actual game. Also a huge fan of The U, Run Ricky Run, The Two Escobars, Into the Wind, Four Days in October (a layup, but still worth reliving), and of course the most recent one about Dupree.Disagree with JTC on the Jimmy the Greek one- I thought that was the worst of the lot.ETA: Loved the Vlade-Petrovic one as well.
 
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TobiasFunke said:
scoobygang said:
I suppose I lean toward Pickles' assessment. I think it's been a pretty standard documentary series with good episodes and not-so-good episodes. Pretty much the equivalent of an episode of POV or Nova. I suppose that's a dramatic increase in quality for the network that gives us PTI and NFL Countdown, but I don't think it's anything revelatory.
Click to expand...
You don't think it's revelatory that ESPN gave us something on par with POV or NOVA? I think it's remarkable. The jump from painfully awful to pretty good is something to celebrate.One that was a while back but was possibly my favorite was The Band That Wouldn't Die. It did a great job at capturing the secret to why we love sports so much,and how little it has do with the actual game. Also a huge fan of The U, Run Ricky Run, The Two Escobars, Into the Wind, Four Days in October (a layup, but still worth reliving), and of course the most recent one about Dupree.Disagree with JTC on the Jimmy the Greek one- I thought that was the worst of the lot.ETA: Loved the Vlade-Petrovic one as well.
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Maybe. I just think that they're pretty standard run-of-the-mill well made documentaries. And some of the topics are kind of repetitive. How many of them are "What If?" stories? The Bias one, the Drazen/Vlade one, the Tim Richmond one, Run Ricky Run, I assume the Dupree one. I think I liked the Drazen/Vlade one best even though I'm not sure it's a great documentary. Having Vlade narrate was a pretty bad shortcut, but it left me wanting Vlade Divac to narrate other things. Like the Tour de France or nature shows.
 
Jefferson the Caregiver said:
TobiasFunke said:
Disagree with JTC on the Jimmy the Greek one- I thought that was the worst of the lot.ETA: Loved the Vlade-Petrovic one as well.
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Oh Cmon, worst of the lot? You obviously didn't sit through the garbage that was Chrissy Evert and Martina.
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You nailed it. That's one of the three or so that I missed.I hated the fake voice over from a dead guy angle in the Greek one. Just turned me off completely.
 
General Malaise said:
Jefferson the Caregiver said:
TobiasFunke said:
Disagree with JTC on the Jimmy the Greek one- I thought that was the worst of the lot.

ETA: Loved the Vlade-Petrovic one as well.
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Oh Cmon, worst of the lot? You obviously didn't sit through the garbage that was Chrissy Evert and Martina.
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Oooof.Only one I've seen is "Best That Never Was". I'll have to check out a few more. ;)
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my favorites other than the Marcus Dupree one, listed in no particular order:Little Big Men: interviews with and footage of Kirkland WA team that won the 1982 Little League World Series

June 17, 1994: huge news day in sports trumped by the OJ chase; no new interviews, just news footage and off-air comments that got recorded

Small Potatoes: fun ride through the history of the USFL

The 'U': U of Miami football in the 1980s; worth it just to see the highlights of the Miami/Texas Cotton Bowl where the Canes won like 450-3 while committing about a million unsportsmanlike conduct penalties

No Crossover: Allen Iverson trial and aftermath, directed by the same guy who did Hoop Dreams; director is from the same town where the bowling alley fight happened, so it's almost a first-person account of the events

Also keep an eye out for the last one in the original series, "Pony Excess". It's about SMU football in the 1980s, with the rise/fall of the Dallas economy of the time in the backdrop.

 
scoobygang said:
TobiasFunke said:
scoobygang said:
I suppose I lean toward Pickles' assessment. I think it's been a pretty standard documentary series with good episodes and not-so-good episodes. Pretty much the equivalent of an episode of POV or Nova. I suppose that's a dramatic increase in quality for the network that gives us PTI and NFL Countdown, but I don't think it's anything revelatory.
Click to expand...
You don't think it's revelatory that ESPN gave us something on par with POV or NOVA? I think it's remarkable. The jump from painfully awful to pretty good is something to celebrate.One that was a while back but was possibly my favorite was The Band That Wouldn't Die. It did a great job at capturing the secret to why we love sports so much,and how little it has do with the actual game. Also a huge fan of The U, Run Ricky Run, The Two Escobars, Into the Wind, Four Days in October (a layup, but still worth reliving), and of course the most recent one about Dupree.Disagree with JTC on the Jimmy the Greek one- I thought that was the worst of the lot.ETA: Loved the Vlade-Petrovic one as well.
Click to expand...
Maybe. I just think that they're pretty standard run-of-the-mill well made documentaries. And some of the topics are kind of repetitive. How many of them are "What If?" stories? The Bias one, the Drazen/Vlade one, the Tim Richmond one, Run Ricky Run, I assume the Dupree one. I think I liked the Drazen/Vlade one best even though I'm not sure it's a great documentary. Having Vlade narrate was a pretty bad shortcut, but it left me wanting Vlade Divac to narrate other things. Like the Tour de France or nature shows.
Click to expand...
Please point me in the direction to find more of these type of sports documentaries!
 
Bruce Dickinson said:
General Malaise said:
Jefferson the Caregiver said:
TobiasFunke said:
Disagree with JTC on the Jimmy the Greek one- I thought that was the worst of the lot.

ETA: Loved the Vlade-Petrovic one as well.
Click to expand...
Oh Cmon, worst of the lot? You obviously didn't sit through the garbage that was Chrissy Evert and Martina.
Click to expand...
Oooof.Only one I've seen is "Best That Never Was". I'll have to check out a few more. ;)
Click to expand...
my favorites other than the Marcus Dupree one, listed in no particular order:Little Big Men: interviews with and footage of Kirkland WA team that won the 1982 Little League World Series

June 17, 1994: huge news day in sports trumped by the OJ chase; no new interviews, just news footage and off-air comments that got recorded

Small Potatoes: fun ride through the history of the USFL

The 'U': U of Miami football in the 1980s; worth it just to see the highlights of the Miami/Texas Cotton Bowl where the Canes won like 450-3 while committing about a million unsportsmanlike conduct penalties

No Crossover: Allen Iverson trial and aftermath, directed by the same guy who did Hoop Dreams; director is from the same town where the bowling alley fight happened, so it's almost a first-person account of the events

Also keep an eye out for the last one in the original series, "Pony Excess". It's about SMU football in the 1980s, with the rise/fall of the Dallas economy of the time in the backdrop.
Click to expand...
This is a good list. Of the ones I've seen, I'd go:

1. Into the Wind (Terry Fox story)

2. Marcus Dupree

3. Little Big Men <----- hard to believe this is my #3

4. Run Ricky Run

5. Len Bias

I sat through some of the Jimmy the Greek one, but it was by far worse than the others I saw. Look forward to Pony Excess as I spent a lot of time there not that long ago... and still some people around from those days with decent stories to tell.

 
Mr. Pickles said:
Joe T said:
Mr. Pickles said:
krista4 said:
Agree, GBGM, but here and more fully here. The 30 for 30 series is one of the best ever, IMO. :goodposting:
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Overall, I think the series has been a disappointment.
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This is an ESPN idea / production right?

WTF were you expecting?
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I think it was a Bill Simmons idea that ESPN produced marginally well. I was expecting pretty much what I got.
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Was the Debbie Downer skit on SNL based on a caricature of your your life?
 
Joe T said:
Mr. Pickles said:
Joe T said:
Mr. Pickles said:
krista4 said:
Agree, GBGM, but here and more fully here. The 30 for 30 series is one of the best ever, IMO. :goodposting:
Click to expand...
Overall, I think the series has been a disappointment.
Click to expand...
This is an ESPN idea / production right?

WTF were you expecting?
Click to expand...
I think it was a Bill Simmons idea that ESPN produced marginally well. I was expecting pretty much what I got.
Click to expand...
Was the Debbie Downer skit on SNL based on a caricature of your your life?
Click to expand...
For a moment there, I thought you were agreeing with me. Maybe next year.
 
This_Guy said:
Please point me in the direction to find more of these type of sports documentaries!
Click to expand...
Well, we can compare like for like. Was the Ali/Holmes one better than When We Were Kings? Was Against the Wind better than Murderball?Was Silly Little Game better than Dogtown and ZBoys?Has any been better than Hoop Dreams?Now, these are feature documentaries, but if we include non-sports topics we can find well-made documentaries on TV on all kinds of subjects. On William Kunstler. On the Genetic Code. On Joanie Mitchell. On Gitmo. On the financial crisis. Include HBO, and we have ones on PTSD and Fran Leibovitz. Or on outing gay politicians. HBO has also done ones on the US Women's World Cup team and Bird and Magic (which I thought were kind of mediocre, personally). And that's my only point. That 30 in 30 has been exactly what we might expect it to have been. A documentary series that churns out documentaries that are about as good as similarly well-funded documentaries on PBS or HBO. I'm not sure it's a disappointment, but I don't think it's a triumph.
 
scoobygang said:
This_Guy said:
Please point me in the direction to find more of these type of sports documentaries!
Click to expand...
Well, we can compare like for like. Was the Ali/Holmes one better than When We Were Kings? Was Against the Wind better than Murderball?Was Silly Little Game better than Dogtown and ZBoys?Has any been better than Hoop Dreams?Now, these are feature documentaries, but if we include non-sports topics we can find well-made documentaries on TV on all kinds of subjects. On William Kunstler. On the Genetic Code. On Joanie Mitchell. On Gitmo. On the financial crisis. Include HBO, and we have ones on PTSD and Fran Leibovitz. Or on outing gay politicians. HBO has also done ones on the US Women's World Cup team and Bird and Magic (which I thought were kind of mediocre, personally). And that's my only point. That 30 in 30 has been exactly what we might expect it to have been. A documentary series that churns out documentaries that are about as good as similarly well-funded documentaries on PBS or HBO. I'm not sure it's a disappointment, but I don't think it's a triumph.
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That's not really fair. You picked three of the best sports documentaries of all time, and you picked two of the worst of the 30 for 30 series (Ali-Holmes and Silly Little Game) to compare them to.It's not exactly apples to apples, but the Marcus DuPree story was better than the two other stories of high school sports phenoms that have come out recently (Gunnin' for that #1 Spot and the LeBron James high school team one). Unfortunately there just aren't that many sports documentaries to compare, which is why this series was kind of cool. It probably doubled the number of watchable sports documentaries in existence in the course of a year. Some of them sucked, but many of them were good stories. I don't think it was all that amazing, but it was worlds better than any other recorded programming that ESPN has done to my recollection.
 
Kings ransom, the one about the Gretzky trade to the Kings, was great. Alot of good interviews with people including Wayne.

Can't believe some people are bashing these. Sit back, relax, and just watch a great story being told instead of trying to be a movie critic.

 
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Joe T said:
Mr. Pickles said:
Joe T said:
Mr. Pickles said:
krista4 said:
Agree, GBGM, but here and more fully here. The 30 for 30 series is one of the best ever, IMO. :thumbup:
Click to expand...
Overall, I think the series has been a disappointment.
Click to expand...
This is an ESPN idea / production right?

WTF were you expecting?
Click to expand...
I think it was a Bill Simmons idea that ESPN produced marginally well. I was expecting pretty much what I got.
Click to expand...
Was the Debbie Downer skit on SNL based on a caricature of your your life?
Click to expand...
btw, this was pretty funny.
 
Watched this a couple of weekends ago. I really enjoyed it. I spent the first half thinking that I might not finish it because it was making me really sad, but I'm glad I saw it through and got to see his "comeback". Good stuff. :thumbup:

 
The Marion Jones one was worse than the Greek. Both were huge failures IMO.

The rest I've seen have been well done.

 
I would like to see one done about the BCS that captures the politics and scandals from the perspective of both the Big and Small conferences - as well as fans, players and TV/Media folk.

 
I still wasn't clear why the Rams cut him in the pre-season. Seemed like he could have landed with another team too. He just....was done?

 
They've been hit and miss. The Ice Cube directed one about the Raiders was kinda wack. But some of them have been absolutely excellent.

 
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