Stay ConnectedSup Doc is the comedy podcast where docs get reviewed and recapped! Hosts Paco Romane and George Chen dive into docs with sharp takes, big laughs, and cool guests from the worlds of tv, movies and music.
No homework required—just show up and have fun.
“A fun way to pore over docs” – Vulture
“Enlightening” – The A.V. Club
Today we cover the docuseries THE VOW on HBO, the story of the whistleblowers who left the cult group NXIVM, started by “the smartest man in the world” Keith Raniere.
After a decade as a leader in NXIVM, Sarah Edmondson finds herself blindfolded and branded as part of an inner ring of women called DOS. Grooming women and controlling their weight Sarah is blackmailed with "collateral" and is desperate to take back her life. Along with Mark Vicente, their spouses, and actress Catherine Oxenberg, the small group of defectors sets about dismantling NXIVM with all the information they share.
Directed by Jehane Noujaim (Control Room, The Square) and Karim Amer (The Square, The Great Hack), this film relies on insiders revealing their own stories along with hours of archival footage.
We are covering episodes 1 through 5, which are wild, and there will be spoilers in our conversation.
Johnny Pemberton is a comedian, actor, writer, mildly knowledgeable gardener, reggae enthusiast, and friend to both insects and mammals.
Johnny is the voice of ‘Peanut’ on the Disney XD show “PICKLE AND PEANUT”. He can be seen in the films “21 JUMP STREET” “22 JUMP STREET” “NEIGHBORS 2” “THE WATCH” “ANT MAN” “BAND OF ROBBERS” “THE 4th” “ACTION POINT” “TONE DEAF” and Armando Ianucci’s Oscar nominated film "IN THE LOOP". He plays 'Bo' on NBC’s "Superstore", 'Max' on season 4 of FXX's "You're the Worst", and 'Alangulon' on the FOX series “Son of Zorn”.
Johnny is a nationally touring comedian and host of the vanguard podcast “LIVE to TAPE” on Starburns Audio. He was born and raised in Rochester Minnesota. He lives in Los Angeles.
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Twitter: @johnnypemberton
Instagram: @Johnny_pemberton
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Today we recap an all-time classic, Capturing The Friedmans, and get into a lively debate about how this documentary stacks up in today’s world. Was director Andrew Jarecki irresponsible in how he handled the footage and information he had? Was there a bias towards helping Jesse? Will our guest Curtis Cook and Paco ever see eye-to-eye on this doc? Listen to find out!
The true crime documentary Capturing The Friedmans was directed by Andrew Jarecki. Released in 2003, this was Jarecki’s first film and was subsequently nominated for an Academy Award. While preparing a documentary about children’s birthday party entertainers, Jarecki learned that professional clown David Friedman, was the son and brother of two men who had been convicted of child sexual abuse in a high-profile 1980s criminal trial.
Using home videos made by the Friedman family before and during the trial, Jarecki explores the conflicting stories of the accused, the alleged victims and the investigators as this modern day Greek tragedy unfolds on film. There are many documentaries like Capturing The Friedmans but somehow this doc is entirely unforgettable.
Our guest Curtis Cook is a writer and standup comedian living in Los Angeles. He’s puked after a keg stand on a show called Flophouse, traveled through an Ebola checkpoint for a segment on Vice News, and awkwardly interacting with Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein during a sketch on Portlandia.
Most recently, Curtis’ standup has appeared on Comedy Central, where he also wrote for the reboot of Crank Yankers and was a writer/correspondent for the WGA Award nominated The Jim Jefferies Show.
*Brendan Lynch's "clown joke" is not really a clown joke
*Curtis' shutdown talk show The End Is Night
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Twitter: @curtis_cook
Instagram: @curtsicookcomedy
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Paco and George are pleased to have on today’s guest Tylor Norwood the director of Robin’s Wish. This documentary centers around the final years of Robin Williams and the confusion around why this comedy icon killed himself in 2014.
After his death, the media narrative skewed the facts surrounding why Williams died. It wasn’t until a coroner’s report that the complexity of his situation was better understood: he had a severe case of Lewy Body Syndrome.
Williams’ widow, Susan Schneider Williams, has become a championing voice for the little-known form of dementia with Lewy Bodies. Showing the frailty of a suffering genius in his last months, Robins Wish is the first time the public is seeing this side of Williams’ life.
This story is lovingly crafted by director Tylor Norwood, who has been a guest on Sup Doc for his previous documentary, The United States of Detroit. Tylor was approached by Susan to tell this story, and his team tracked down friends and neighbors while laying out the details of a fairly obscure disease that is very difficult to diagnose.
Robin’s Wish comes out on Video on Demand (VOD) everywhere on September 1st.
Follow Tylor on:
Twitter: @tylornorwood
Instagram: @tylornorwood
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Today Paco and George are joined by Dakin Hardwick to recap the new Showtime documentary The Go Go’s. Notably the first all-femme band to write their own songs, play their own instruments, and snag a #1 US album.
Directed by Allison Ellwood, this straightforward music documentary looks at the LA group's rise, reign and breakup, along with youthful ambition, firings, drugs, rehab, money squabbles, breakup, and inevitable reunions.
Dakin Hardwick is the one of the founders of Spinning Platters, a website started by a small group of Bay Area based music fans. He was not a writer before starting this blog, and honed my craft in the public eye. The blog is still alive and well after a decade on the internet, even managing to continue to put out content during the COVID crisis. In addition to managing the blog, Dakin has managed to work in music his entire adult life, starting out as a clerk at Wherehouse Music, interning for both Universal Music Distribution and Six Degrees records, and then working at Ticketfly throughout the entire lifespan of the company, then eventually landing at Eventbrite, working on their Music venue product up until the COVID pandemic wiped out the industry, causing the company to let go a large percentage of it’s staff. Dakin, along with fellow Spinning Platters founder Gordon Elgart, occasionally hosts music trivia in San Francisco.
Dakin currently lives in Oakland, CA, and is hunting for a full time day job while raising his 1-year old daughter, making sure she understands the importance of listening to music that will alienate her from her peers.
Dakin's new podcast How Did I Get Here?
Follow Dakin on:
Twitter: @vagueofthrones
Instagram: @friedoxygen
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Paco and George are excited to have Rachel Mason, the director of Circus of Books, as their guest on the podcast.
Rachel’s parents, Barry and Karen, ran a gay bookstore and porn distribution company out of Los Angeles for over three decades, all while maintaining their tight-knit family, battling the FBI, and living through the AIDS crisis.
Her film is surprising, funny, and heartfelt. It also has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is streaming on Netflix.
Rachel Mason is an artist, songwriter, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her debut documentary, Circus Of Books was just nominated for an Outstanding Non Fiction Writing Emmy.
Follow Rachel on:
Twitter: @rachelmasonart
Instagram: @futureclown
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We look at the 2016 documentary A Genuine Forger (Un Vrai Faussaire) directed by Jean-Luc Leon. Available on Amazon Prime. Our guest is comedian and podcaster Scott Simpson.
This doc profiles Guy Ribes, one of the world's most notorious art forgers. For over three decades Ribes scored major deals selling works by Picasso, Matisse, and other legends, with a twist: He painted the works himself. Fake heirs, ruthless dealers, and more - it's all here in this documentary.
We also talk about the current state of comedy, Paco being conned when he first moved to San Francisco, and how we want our con-men to be part Robin Hood. As our guest stated “I love art, fakes, and con men. Great forgers are all three”.
Scott Simpson is a comedian based in San Francisco, but his career started in the corporate world. He helped create and run the Apple iTunes podcast store and later did the same with iBooks. Now,, he's a full time comedian and performer. His show "You Look Nice Today" received the Podcast Award for Best Comedy Podcast. He produces the most popular independent standup show in San Francisco, Cheaper Than Therapy, which -until recent events intervened- entertained over 500 comedy fans per week. Make sure to listen to You Look Nice Today’s new incarnation, California King.
Other art forgery docs:
There Are No Fakes about a Canadian forgery ring
Art and Craft about Mark Landis
Follow Scott on:
Twitter: @scottsimpson
Instagram: @scottsimpson
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Episode 150! We’re commemorating by taking a look back at one of our favorite documentaries, the 2010 Jeff Malmstein documentary Marwencol. After recovering from a brutal attack that left him in a coma, Mark Hogancamp builds a miniature World War II-era town in his backyard and creates photographic stories of its intrigues.
This is a story about hate crimes, art therapy, and time-traveling witches!
Marwencol has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes while its biopic adaptation starring Steve Carell has only 35%.
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Paco and George recap the 2008 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil directed by Sacha Gervasi, who was a teenage Anvil fan and roadie in the '80s. This doc is tragic brilliant and hilarious and is as close to the real life Spinal Tap as possible (and even involves a player named Robb Reiner).
Canadian heavy-metal band Anvil delivered an influential 1982 album that inspired the likes of Anthrax and Metallica. Then they dropped off the map and spent decades of toiling in obscurity. The doc centers around guitarist Steve "Lips" Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner as they stumble through a European tour and reflect on failure, friendship, resilience, and following an impossible dream. It's like the opposite of Some Kind of Monster? Along the way we find out this movie's connection to the Spice Girls, what to watch out for when touring the Czech Republic, telemarketing, and life after this doc.
Anvil: The Story of Anvil has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and should be on everyone’s Best Of documentary list. It’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
-Pitch A Doc : Patrisse Cullors and Fatty Arbuckle
- Funk Turkey's AI-generated Nirvana song
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Paco and George look back at one of our favorite docs, Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005).
Pieced together from Timothy Treadwell's own video footage, this is a remarkable examination of the calling that drove Treadwell to live among a pack of wild grizzly bears in Alaska.
A devoted conservationist with a passion for adventure, Treadwell believed he had bridged the gap between human and beast. When one of the bears he loved tragically turns on him, the footage he shot serves as a window into our understanding of nature.
Narrated and directed as only Werner Herzog can, Grizzly Man is a perfect blend of funny, personal, and harrowing. With a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Grizzly Man is a classic documentary about devotion, nature, and its grim realities.
Along the way we ponder "Chekhov’s Bear", if Hollywood auditions are worse than living in The Maze, Alaskan Tinder settings, Tiger Kings vs. Grizzly men, and the dope-ass Richard Thompson soundtrack.
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Hosts Paco and George review the 1989 Michael Moore debut Roger & Me. Foundational to modern American documentary, this is a biting, vital, and angry film that is sadly still relevant today.
Michael Moore demands answers when General Motors suddenly closes the doors of all its auto plants in the Flint, Michigan, the city where he grew up. With over 30,000 people out of work, Flint is economically devastated, and Moore aims to track down GM CEO Roger Smith to make him answer for his actions. While on the search, Moore also chronicles the emotional effect the closings have had on his family and friends, while violent crimes begin to skyrocket in Flint. As Moore pokes around what has been described by one magazine as "the worst place to live in America", he finds out how the local populace is coping with GM's betrayal of the American Dream. Among those visited are a family who is evicted just before Christmas, and an enterprising middle-aged woman who set up a thriving business slaughtering and skinning rabbits. Never feigning objectivity, Moore contrasts the impact of the shutdown on the average Joes and Janes with the diffident reaction of Flint's power elite. The latter's patronizing attitude towards the unemployed multitudes is succinctly captured in the scenes in which visiting celebrities Robert Schuller, Anita Bryant, Bobby Vinton and Pat Boone exhort the citizenry to grin and bear it. Even more out of synch is "Miss Michigan" Kaye Lani Rae Rafko, who in her morale-boosting speech to the disenfranchised GM employees begs them to pull for her in the upcoming Miss America pageant! The film's throughline is Moore's futile effort to locate GM chairman Roger Smith, so that he can show Moore first-hand the utter devastation of Flint. Roger & Me is very funny, but it is the gallows humor of soldiers about to embark on a suicide mission.
In 1992, Michael Moore more or less updated Roger & Me with his half-hour short subject Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint.
We also learn about Paco's time working third shift in a GM plant, why no one in San Francisco works, being a living statue, '80s fashions, woke branding, and debate whether soda is food.
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