Binge-worthy Recommendations

I’m back with one more reason to love a Facebook group. Finding a bunch of people who have similar interests as me, and in this case it’s pop culture, has given me so many entertainment ideas. First, it was Thanksgiving episodes to binge around the holidays. Most recently, it was the best documentaries to binge watch from years past. Now with Twitter, podcasts, Facebook groups, etc., it’s sooo easy to know the newest, greatest thing to watch. But five, ten years ago, people weren’t as connected into what their family and friends were watching and would recommend to others. So, members in the Facebook group I’m in revisited those days for documentaries we might have missed.

Below is the list in alphabetical order. Admittedly, some are newer, but I kept them on in case you’ve not seen them yet. We started with ” There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane” based on one review: “I think about Aunt Diane at least once a week. Saw it years ago and find it so crazy. So fucking crazy! Sad sad sad.” Now, I wouldn’t say I think about this documentary once a week since I’ve seen it, but it has come up several times randomly between my husband and me. I knew I could trust my Facebook group friends to not steer me wrong.

Here’s a list of documentaries to binge watch just in time for the weekend:

• American Juggalo – This documentary “follows fans of the Insane Clown Posse was the most bizarre thing I ever saw – I feel like it was a cult classic among my college friends.” American Juggalo is a look at the often mocked and misunderstood subculture of Juggalos, hardcore Insane Clown Posse fans who meet once a year for four days at The Gathering of the Juggalos.
• Capturing the Friedmans (HBO) – A riveting look at a family’s disintegration amidst the turmoil of the father and youngest son being charged with child molestation.
• Dear Zachary: A Letter To A Son About His Father (Amazon Video) -Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne’s poignant tribute to his murdered childhood friend, Andrew Bagby, tells the story of a child custody battle between Bagby’s grieving parents and Shirley Turner, Bagby’s pregnant ex-girlfriend and suspected killer.
• Dream/Killer (Netflix) – This riveting crime doc follows Bill as he confronts America’s broken judicial system after his son is falsely sentenced to 40 years in prison.
• The Imposter (YouTube Movies) – This documentary tells the gripping true story of a Texan boy who went missing in 1994 and was miraculously found three and a half years later thousands of miles away in southern Spain. Despite glaring inconsistencies in his physical appearance, the boy’s family brought their long-lost “son” home to restart his life in Texas.
• The Jinx (HBO) – A six-part examination of the reclusive millionaire at the heart of three killings spanning four decades.
• Long Shot (Netflix) – When Juan Catalan is arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, he builds his case for innocence around raw footage from a popular TV show.
• The Staircase (Netflix) – Accident or murder? After the mysterious death of his wife, author Michael Peterson watches his life go under the microscope.
• There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane (HBO) – Filmmaker Liz Garbus investigates the case of Diane Schuler, who in 2009 left the campgrounds in upstate New York where she was vacationing with her family and set off towards home on Long Island, only to eventually crash into an oncoming SUV, killing herself and seven others.
• Three Wives One Husband (Netflix) – Watch “if you are fascinated by Mormon polygamists.” A film crew captures a year in the life of modern polygamist families at Rockland Ranch, a community for fundamentalist Mormons in the Utah desert.
• Tell Me Who I Am (Netflix) – In this documentary, Alex trusts his twin, Marcus, to tell him about his past after he loses his memory. But Marcus is hiding a dark family secret.
• Tickled (Amazon) – After stumbling upon a bizarre “competitive endurance tickling” video online, wherein young men are paid to be tied up and tickled, reporter David Farrier investigates the strange underworld of secret identities, criminal activity and more
• Who Killed Garrett Phillips? (HBO) – The two-part documentary raises troubling questions of racial bias and issues surrounding policing and the criminal justice system.
• Wild, Wild Country (Netflix) – When a controversial cult leader builds a utopian city in the Oregon desert, conflict with the locals escalates into a national scandal.
• The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (Amazon Video) – This edgy and often hilarious look at a dying breed of American outcasts exposes the corruption, poverty, and West Virginia’s environmentally and culturally devastating coal mining culture.
• The Woman Who Wasn’t There (Amazon Video) – Tania Head’s jaw-dropping tale of escape from the south tower was the most astounding: the unimaginable hell she witnessed, the injuries she suffered, and the tragic loss of her fiancé, Dave, in the north tower. She rose to national prominence when she became President of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network.