The political documentaries that I wished “The Unknown Known” and “Mitt” were are able to found elsewhere. “Nixon on Nixon” and the excellent “All About Ann” are on HBO, and even if you only have Netflix, “Hank: 5 Years From the Brink” is better than “Mitt.”
“Hank: Five Years From the Brink”…A documentary on former Treasury Secretary (and former Goldman Sachs CEO) Hank Paulsen. Probably a little too much of it follows Hank’s personal life—his very uninspiring courtship with his wife, who talks about him in near-clinical terms—and it wouldn’t be unfair to call him boring. But the juicy stuff is the inside-baseball of high finance, the exact reasons certain industries had to be bailed out, and Hank’s frustration with arrogant banking CEOs who have seemingly never heard the phrase “beggars can’t be choosers.” That’s more than enough reason to watch. Grade: B
“Nixon on Nixon”…How did a man who was raised as a Quaker become one of the most morally corrupt presidents in history? I think this documentary of Nixon’s jaw-dropping recordings of himself with his aids does a decent job of getting at that question. You almost can’t believe that such casually horrendous things are coming out of Nixon’s mouth with the same frequency as breathing even while he knew he was being recorded. What’s shown is a deeply paranoid and suspicious man who was on the ultimate power trip, and wanted to go after anyone who said a bad word about him. Yet the worst words that can be said against him keep coming out of his own mouth: the stream of racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, xenophobic, and misogynistic epithets, mixed in with plenty of petty threats to his many “enemies.” Grade: A-
“All About Ann”…HBO’s must-see documentary about former Texas Governor Ann Richards. You almost can’t believe that such a progressive and genuinely interesting governor came out of Texas. [To say nothing of competence and intelligence.] Almost as astounding as the open prejudice Ann faced from her political foes is how unafraid she was of talking about that sexism or refusing to hide her pro-choice stance, in addition to her alcoholism. A lot of spineless modern Democrats should take notice, and anyone should catch this documentary, which includes great tales of what a weasel Karl Rove was in the Bush campaign for Texas governor against her and dozens of hilarious lines from Richards. Richards was a politician of candor and confidence and character (she led a campaign to reform Texas’ deeply corrupt state government), and it’d be great to see more like her in this day and age. Grade: A