Let’s be honest. We are all embarrassed of our Tiger King phase at the start of the pandemic. So what's next?
How do we quench oour thirst for the most whacky real-life stories? Rather than waste your time with Jurassic World: Dominion, save that 500 rupee note and read on to discover the ugly and the crazy.
Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics (Netflix)
An hour-long film about celebrities getting high. Get the popcorn. Of those celebrities asked to appear in the documentary, 1 out of 10 agreed to do so. So you know whoever did is a legend. Maybe the subject of using needed a more moral and careful tone. The jokes sometimes fall flat as they’re coming from rich, privileged people who can check themselves into luxury rehab at a moment’s notice. The minorities whose lives are destroyed by drugs may not be as provocative to interview but are the ones whose stories needed to be told. But if you want to understand the culture of drugs, and how they have become such a part of the 21st century narrative, this is a good starting point. And despite what we say, it is refreshing to watch people you admire, may it be a movie star or a rockstar, be so candid about their trips.
Don’t F**k with Cats (Netflix)
This documentary is a conundrum. The subject isn’t anything like its title, but after you’re done with it, you’ll agree it is exactly as zany as its title. This series has one of the most engaging plots, almost like a premium television series. After finding evidence of gruesome animal cruelty on the internet, a few young, amateur internet sleuths launch a manhunt for the preparator. It is as Gen Z as possible, with sleuths swapping the pin-up board detectives generally use with a Facebook group where they listed out evidence and discussed theories. But this cat-and-mouse chase turns deadly as the perpetrator begins to feed off the attention they were giving him and commits a far more heinous crime.
Behind the Curve
Remember all those memes making fun of flat-earthers? Well, they went ahead and made a documentary on them. It goes behind the life of a flat Earther, Mark Sangent, and paints a picture of the entire flat Earth community. Their YouTube videos, podcasts and conferences reach a surprisingly large amount of people in the United States of America, which is juxtaposed with interviews with scientific researchers who lament the dearth of critical thinking in society and what consequences it can bear on all of us.
Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened (Netflix)
You see an Instagram post from Bella Hadid promoting a crazy music festival on an island that was part of the Medellin Cartel. The headline artists included Blink-182, Major Lazer and Pusha-T. Who, in their right minds could’ve predicted the disaster that was about to unfold? It’s a story that is so sad it is almost funny. Partygoers that reach this tropical paradise only to face soaked mattresses in military tents, cheese sandwiches in plastic containers and worst of all, no way back home. This harrowing account of man’s greed and the ability of social media to mask reality is a must watch.
Three Identical Strangers
It’s like that episode of FRIENDS where Joey discovers his hand twin. Or even the ultimate Bollywood trope of kumbh mele mein bhichde hue do bhai. The documentary delves into the lives of a set of identical triplet brothers that were separated and adopted as infants by separate families. The best part is, they discovered each other by chance at the age of 19 in New York City. Now that’s a good story, huh? But the story gets darker as we delve deeper into their curious origins. At its core, it is a cautionary tale of psychology, of a nature vs. nurture study that shouldn’t have happened.
Abducted in Plain Sight (Netflix)
The most chilling story in this entire list. A man so committed to his crime that he weaves himself in the lives of his neighbours. From sexually manipulating the father to flirting with the mother. A sociopath who convinces the foolish parents not only to allow him to spend unreasonable amounts of time with their young daughter, but to even drop charges against him for kidnapping her. A horrifying tale of blind faith, Stockholm syndrome and grooming.
Tickled
Our top pick for you. A journalist stumbles upon a strange tickling competition online, where young men are tickled by each other. Of course he finds it fascinating. The state of media, am I right? But this story is more than just that. There is a whole subculture of media agencies producing and distributing these videos on the internet. These agencies bullied the men in those videos by defaming them as homosexuals in their personal and professional lives just to keep them in circulation. Underneath the absurdness of competitive tickling, there exists a layer of dangerous corporate greed. Which, in hindsight, was to be expected.
The Staircase (Netflix)
A renowned novelist calls the police to claim his drunk wife fell down the stairs to her death. The cops don’t believe him and launch an investigation that leads to trial and his incarceration. Not the most original of plots, right? But as the documentary cuts deep into their suburban, domestic lives like a knife through butter, revelations change our perspective of the characters, especially the accused, Michael Peterson. Is he the villain they are portraying him out to be? Or is he one of many strange, silent, but ultimately innocent, men that the world has failed to understand?
