Here are three things I’ve watched lately and recommend. Coincidentally, they’re all streaming on Max…
I enjoyed HBO’s “Winning Time” series about the LA Lakers, so I was sorry to see the season — and the series — come to an abrupt end Sunday night. Its showrunners must have been told the network was cancelling the show, but at least they got to add some text on screen at the end to remind viewers who don’t remember what happened to the lead characters over the years that followed. Over its seventeen episodes, I fully came to believe that Quincy Isaiah and Solomon Hughes were Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In addition, John C. Reilly as team owner Jerry Buss, Michael Chiklis as Celtics coach Red Auerbach, Gaby Hoffman as Buss’ number two, plus the trio of Tracy Letts, Jason Segel, and Adrien Brody as the Lakers’ coaches during that time were all right on the money. Though it’s not a straight documentary a la ESPN’s “The Last Dance” (about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls), any basketball fan who’s not from Boston would enjoy “Winning Time.”
“Telemarketers” is a wild documentary made by two guys — Sam Lipman-Stern and Pat Pespas — who once worked for a firm called Civic Development Group. They and their colleagues made fundraising calls on behalf of police departments and unions, shaking people down twenty or thirty dollars at a time. It was a wild place to work, with a crew mostly made up of people with criminal records who couldn’t get a job elsewhere. But CDG’s bosses were the only ones who got rich, apparently with the full knowledge and consent of the cops. After a while, Lipman-Stern and Pespas soured on the business and decided to look into who was behind it, how its outrageous tactics were permitted, and why it kept thriving even after a government crackdown. Pespas in particular qualifies as one of those great characters no one could have made up. There’s a great scene towards the end where they finally get a meeting with Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, who — as soon as he sits down with Pespas — decides he’d rather be anywhere else, and the camera catches his disinterest fully. Interestingly, since the success of “Telemarketers,” Blumenthal has announced he’s looking into the sleazy telemarketing industry officially.
“Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President” is a 2020 documentary about how musicians like the Allman Brothers Band, Willie Nelson, and Bob Dylan helped put Carter in the White House. He returned the favor by having them stay over and play gigs there, along with many jazz musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea. The movie also delves into how the Iran hostage crisis and massive inflation ruined Carter’s chances at reelection, as well as the humanitarian work he’s done since leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — which makes him the Greatest Ex-President Ever.