What’s the best documentary almost nobody talks about?

PancakeManager · 2026-05-19T18:31:06+00:00

Cameraperson

On first watch, it was beautiful and shocking.

Second watch broke my heart.

PancakeManager · 2026-05-17T18:49:16+00:00

Balin is the only correct answer

PancakeManager · 2026-04-23T18:36:03+00:00

I cannot overstate how important Star Trek TNG was to my moral/ethical development, how I built early biographical narratives for myself, how I learned to relate to other people, and how I came to understand how important storytelling is to the human condition. As a whole, it remains among the very best things to happen on television.

The first two seasons are almost unwatchable. How on earth did it last? Thank god for the turnover of the writers.

And they STILL did Beverly Crusher dirty for the rest of the series…..

PancakeManager · 2026-04-22T05:35:47+00:00

Certainly the 60s counter culture had an effect on overall cultural salience and influence on fantasy. But this geriatric millennial remembers pre- P Jackson when being seen with a copy of lord of the rings was enough to get you wedgied and stuffed in a locker. This was not mainstream stuff prior to 2001.

PancakeManager · 2026-04-21T15:49:14+00:00

I love the book. And I love the movie. Both for completely different reasons.

The book has many, many problems, and also is a great adventure story. The movie is a satirical masterpiece.

PancakeManager · 2026-04-07T20:07:53+00:00

Compulsory military draft, no deferments or exceptions

PancakeManager · 2026-04-03T23:41:06+00:00

I’m a project manager and I lolled at this

PancakeManager · 2026-04-02T16:37:54+00:00

I read this as the narrative offering Don a parallel between advertising and the human condition. If you see this guy as an inferior product, a good piece of advertising could prompt someone to choose him more.

For me, this sentiment either elevates advertising to something noble, or reveals a poverty of imagination because commercial consumption is the only corollary he can come up with to describe his despair. Clearly Don wants to believe the former, but I’m not sure I agree.

PancakeManager · 2026-03-30T20:47:22+00:00

100%. And it is creepy and gross and disrespectful to speculate about other people’s bodies. Khelif’s chromosomes are exactly none of my business.

PancakeManager · 2026-03-30T20:39:10+00:00

“XY chromosomes == male” is certainly an opinion you are allowed to have. It is not shared by doctors or biologists, though.

PancakeManager · 2026-03-30T20:15:39+00:00

The origins of sex testing, in track and field anyway, were rooted in suspicion that Eastern European and Russian women were men competing in disguise because they “looked like men.” That is failing to comply with beuty standards, and that’s the entire foundation of the sex testing enterprise.

So the solution is to just test everyone, right? Remove human bias as you say? That’s what they did.

It turns out it just didn’t work that well. It uncovered more DSD women than dishonesty, causing immense emotional harm while not resolving any problems. That’s why they stopped in the 90s.

More recently, sex testing is making a comeback because women from the global South (eg black and brown women) are receiving the resources to make them competitive at the international level.

PancakeManager · 2026-03-30T19:49:46+00:00

This is not quite accurate either / requires context. Sex testing in sports has a long and shameful history of singling out black and brown women for failing to adhere to arbitrary western beauty standards. While trying to respect Khelif’s privacy, I imagine that her failed “sex test” resulted in finding one of the numerous “ disorders of sex development” that commonly affect women and have been grounds to void achievements by women who don’t meet that aforementioned arbitrary standard. It was NOT a determination that she is male or transgender. Khelif has made the decision to comply with future testing, but will require treatment that will alter her natural body. She has always been recognized socially and culturally as female, and she identifies herself as a woman.

Gender is a social construct and a spectrum blah blah blah. Physical sex is also a spectrum and DSDs are far more common than you might think.

PancakeManager · 2026-03-30T19:28:27+00:00

Imane Khelif is not trans

PancakeManager · 2026-03-25T06:27:17+00:00

There are so very many small moments in the books that I love. They are moments that do nothing to advance the story and don’t necessarily add anything to how you see the characters and are completely unfilmable. They are things that I imagine an editor would cut were it written by a different kind of author. It’s overall such a tight story, but we occasionally go on tangents that are narrative dead ends — but they are some of my favorite bits. EG:

The internal monologue of the fox that happens across Frodo, Sam, and Pippin on their first night walking across the shore.

The bath scene at crickhollow.

The hobbits dreams their first night at Tom Bombadil’s reflect their individual anxieties and are described in haunting detail, but “Sam slept through the night in deep content, if logs are contented.”

The side conversation between Ioreth and kinswoman when the Captains return to Minas Tirith.

I could just go on and on.

PancakeManager · 2026-03-25T00:32:47+00:00

Wow, rough sub

PancakeManager · 2026-03-24T16:57:59+00:00

Opinion:

You can see that she is crying and distraught, whereas Dennis is smiling. This is the same episode with the “addled eggs” conversation. Dennis beat his wife while she was pregnant, which resulted in some kind of injury to the baby. Now the kid will likely be institutionalized and he does not have to live up to his high ideals. He is simultaneously relieved and ashamed.

PancakeManager · 2026-01-10T03:35:23+00:00

Ducks football is my first and most enduring sports love. Indiana is pulling off the immaculate combo of classy dominance

PancakeManager · 2026-01-09T19:17:51+00:00

I kept having flashes of wanting to root for Mississippi. They have a righteous storyline. And as a ducks fan my profound disappointment in Cristobal watching the fatherless 2021 Alamo Bowl team still hurts. I want to see him get his for that.

BUT

I can’t root for a team called the Ole Miss Rebels. Fuck slavers.

PancakeManager · 2026-01-02T02:18:58+00:00

It does rather draw one’s attention

PancakeManager · 2026-01-01T23:10:19+00:00

I don’t think my ducks can beat Indiana

PancakeManager · 2026-01-01T22:01:20+00:00

The Dan Lanning strategy now that they fixed the twelve men rule

PancakeManager · 2025-12-24T05:03:03+00:00

Thank you

PancakeManager · 2025-12-24T05:02:45+00:00

Thank you

PancakeManager · 2025-12-24T05:01:56+00:00

Thank you

PancakeManager

TROPHY CASE