Too much of everything

Powerful

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Disclaimer: I have always had an appreciation for the Penn State football program. My mother was a Penn State fan (not an alumnus though), and she would always say that Joe Paterno represented class, while almost in the same breath denounce the legendary coach of my favorite college team, Barry Switzer as being anything but. Even though I am a loyal Sooners fan (though not an alumnus of OU, simply having been born in Oklahoma), I could appreciate what JoePa and Penn State stood for.I couldn't help but think of that as I watched this documentary. In his lifetime Joe Paterno went from being a mere man into being a mythical one. It was one legend right after another, and I don't believe it matters who you are, if left unchecked, a person can buy into their own hype. I believe that happened with Joe Paterno, and it has left an impression on a program, a university, and a community struggling to make sense of it all. The whole truth may never fully be known.From watching this I got the sense that Joe Paterno genuinely wanted to do the right thing. Having however the myth of "St. Joe", I believe he hindered himself from doing more because he couldn't believe a monster had gotten so close to him, and he couldn't live with what that would do to his perception. His son seemed to confirm as much as he stated both his parents were very well read, but naive about many other things surrounding them. Joe was too wrapped up in his own myth.This documentary goes to great lengths to show how others have bought into the myth as well, and their support is as blind for him as it is deep. On the one hand they'll acknowledge what was done to the kids Jerry Sandusky was supposed to be helping was terrible. Just as quickly though they will try to absolve Paterno of any wrongdoing, saying he reported what he knew. In other words, the bare minimum. For a man that had built a reputation of going above and beyond the bare minimum, this seems to me, unacceptable. Yet they don't see it.However, the lasting impression I got from watching this, and honestly I believe this was the point of the documentary, was that there is no prototypical child abuser, and that it is possible to dupe many into thinking one thing about you when something else may be the reality. That's a sobering thought for anyone.The line that sums up this documentary for me though is quote "You should never build statues for guys who are still alive." True character is revealed when nobody else is looking. We may think we know someone, even if only by reputation. That reputation however may be little more than a house of cards ready to fall. In the end, regardless of what Joe Paterno knew or didn't know, what he reported or didn't report, the carefully crafted myth has come crashing down.

A well done documentary about how people react when the people and things they believe in turn out to be an illusion. Being from the 'liberal west coast', I've never understood how football could possibly reach the level of reverence it enjoys elsewhere. But here it is in all its glory... supported by hoards who seem more concerned with sportsball than anything else in their lives -- including justice for abused kids. Well okay, maybe they care for the kids as long as the football games don't stop and no one attacks their coach. For without football, we are nothing.In all fairness, the documentary did include representatives from the non-reverent point of view. But it's witnessing the reactions of people who have so much invested in a sport that has achieved cult status, as well as the mechanics of group think, that make this an interesting doc. A good study in the sort of self-righteous mentality that starts wars. But who am I judge? I'm a west coast liberal. I'd rather do almost anything else than watch football.

I liked this documentary very much. Watching people involved in the unchecked crimes of Jerry Sandusky give their side of the story was much more revealing than reading quotes. Matt Sandusky, Jerry's adopted son, impressed me as thoughtful and sincere. He did his best to be fair to Sandusky, saying that ninety percent of the time he spent with the man was everything a kid would want--association with fame, access to football games, etc.--but the other ten percent "would destroy you." I was shocked when Matt, at the end of the film, said that not one single person from the Sandusky family contacted him after he went public about how Jerry molested him. What kind of people are Dottie and her relatives? If they didn't believe him, you would think someone might want to talk with him and ask him to take back his "lies." But no. That didn't happen.The one thing missing from "Happy Valley" was any mention of the well-known fact that Paterno decided that some of his players who broke into a residence and beat people should not be put into the legal system. Paterno clearly believed that he and his players were above the law. He decided the law-breaking players would clean up the stadium after some games. It's also known that then-President Spanier and other higher-ups in the Athletics Dept. all agreed that Paterno was in charge of things like this. This piece of history is a big deal. It should have been in the documentary.The behavior of some of the residents of Happy Valley was detestable. There's an extended scene in which these idiots don't hesitate to grab a sign from an older man making his negative view of Paterno known at the statue of the coach. A woman who wants a selfie with the statue pushes the man aside with her body. Others get in his face with red-neck-type logic. It's scary to see how conformist the community could be---all worshiping a football program. This film had to be made, and it was made well.

Just to get this out of the way: first, I am a huge fan of Amir Bar-Lev, a very intelligent and respectable filmmaker who has made two of the most interesting documentary films of the last decade. Both 'My Kid' and 'Tillman' were accomplished, gripping, and worthy of all the praise they received. So it is with sincere regret that I have to rate this project as one of complete and utter boredom. So much so, in fact, that I actually fell asleep halfway through (no exaggeration -- it was that dull).Unfortunately, Amir wades into the thick of the muck all too eagerly, with the attitude of a Hollywood wunderkind who is about to show all the inherent vice in the heart of America; what results is more of a exposition of Film Industry superiority reigning over ordinary, hard-scrapple Middle America. The subject matter, however, is secondary to the desperation in trying to get this movie into theaters by any means possible, including exploitation.Each one of the interviews is conducted, one after another with wide-eyed, sincere, painfully naive gerbil-like players in the giant fishbowl of absurd media, where the central question, who knew what? is debated over and over again to the point where we really can't keep track of any of them and begin to wonder why it all matters.Okay, so the basic premise is that there is a coach who is buggering youngsters and his boss is aware that something is going on (by an unsubstantiated third party) and so the whole city has come to a screeching halt in order to take sides on the issue. We've heard the same boring details hundreds of times already, as the media loves to continue to belabor this type of story anyway, and so there isn't much more hidden motive to uncover. Simply stated, the film doesn't show us anything beyond the obvious: the coach of a famous football team likes to play around with young men. Is this a revelation? Doesn't anyone seem to notice that football is a homoerotic sport to begin with? As far as the outcome of the case, we see thousands of Penn State students marching in defense of their beloved Joe Paterno, as if it's a giant demonstration in response to the bombing of a Middle Eastern elementary school -- which of course, none of them ever would care about. Sad to say, the only thing that seems to get these kids off their respective asses is the idea that they might not have a winning football season. That lets me believe that Bar-Lev might have had an actual point to making the film. But it is all watered-down with a mind-numbing dose of Americana: as the debate rages, just what does the admission mean for Penn State and the future of football in general? And who cares? It's really a sorry statement that a good filmmaker like Bar-Lev has to stoop so low as to pick up National Enquirer-like subjects to get his films financed. But I guess that's what's happened to documentaries -- since no one bothers to watch anything intelligent, we have to resort to exploitation to get a movie into a theater. Overall, it is a sad reflection on the state of documentaries as a whole.