I thought the Bartman doc was going to be part of 30 for 30

One of his other daughters is an actress. She played a flight attendant on Curb Your Enthusiasm earlier this year (which was part of the deal to get Buckner to participate).

 

Because it's obvious that no one, not even a Cubs fan, could fathom what it's like to be a "cursed" franchise without a heavy dose of Red Sox and the history of Bill Buckner and the 1986 Series. :

Anyone who wonders why fans of other teams hate Boston fans and their egomaniacal attitudes about their teams needs only to watch Catching Hell. There was no reason for Buckner and the Red Sox to be as big a part of this as it was.

 

Actually, I think the Boston and Buckner stuff worked well. The story isn't just some schmuck who couldn't get his hands out of the way. It's a story about why we scapegoat, and how -- and who -- should forgive. Who better to speak on that than Buckner? Actually, I thought the film lost nothing by NOT having Bartman. That's part of the story. Buckner can forgive and be forgiven because the Red Sox won. When does that day come for Bartman and the Cubs -- especially if the Cubs never win?

 

Just saw Catching Hell. Wow. Masterpiece.

I cannot believe that Buckner, defending reaching out for the ball as natural, actually said "Heck, I would have done the same thing." Not the endorsement Bartman needs.

 

I also didn't need the narrator spelling everything out, leaving nothing to intimation. Great documentaries don't tell, they show. If you cut the narrator out and let those security guards and the guy with the video camera in left field tell the story along with the Fox clips, it'd be so much more effective.

Too bad they didn't have a bit clearer view of Bartman waving to the camera. It would have been chilling to end the doc with just that footage with no music and no narration. Just him waving in complete silence.

All in all, I'm glad I watched, though.

 

I'll respectfully disagree. If this film were made for a Boston audience, sure, it would help a lot to show Bartman's story through the Red Sox/Buckner filter. But it wasn't for a Boston audience. That's not to say Buckner's experience didn't provide an interesting comparison. But I thought too much time was spent on it. And we didn't need Buckner's story to teach us about scapegoats and forgiveness. Bartman's tale was compelling enough on its own, and there are certainly other sports scapegoats whose stories could have filled the same role as Buckner's, or been included with Buckner's (in less time): Chris Webber, Fred Brown, Scott Norwood, Joe Pisarcik, the Columbian soccer player who was killed, Fred Merkle (for whom a bar is named in Chicago, just down Clark Street from Wrigley Field), to name a few.

 

Also disagree, and also respectfully (though I see your point) ...

I think the answers to these points are easy: "Who better to speak on that than Buckner?" That's a slam dunk: Bartman. He exerienced what this movie is supposed to be about.

"Actually, I thought the film lost nothing by NOT having Bartman." If that's the case, then if Bartman would have been willing to talk about anything and everything that happened that night and since that night and given every gory detail, you think telling him "No thanks" and making the movie that Gibney made would have been fine?

Whoever makes that movie that has Bartman's side of the story, in his own words (if it ever happens), will have the definitive sports documentary of this generation (and maybe the best sports documentary of all time.

 

Part of what makes the film powerful is the mystique of Bartman. The sightings are like finding Howard Hughes. The security guard's story about Bartman flipping the channels to hear stuff about himself was riveting. And it says a lot that eight years later, Bartman still isn't showing his face.

Sure, if Bartman was going to talk, great. But he wasn't, and I think Gibney worked well around it and made it an effective theme of the piece.

 

To be honest, it wouldn't be so bad to be in Bartman's shoes. If he chose to, Bartman could have made a lot of money off the incident. I think Budweiser offered him $1 million to do a Super Bowl ad and he turned it down.

 

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but what pissed me off as a Cubs fan was hearing that Moises Alou and Aramis Ramirez scheduled their flights home to the Dominican after Game 6, basically acknowledging they knew the series was over.

 

Haha, I caught that too and made a joke about it in the newsroom.