Trainwreck: The Real Project X

Netflix continues its run of disaster porn, these tightly edited, punchy docs under the "Trainwreck" banner and I'm grouping these two together because we watched them back to back. While different in tone, both examine the chaotic consequences of crowd behavior and what happens when no one's in charge. "The Real Project X" revisits the bizarre true story of a viral invitation, poor local oversight, and a quiet Dutch town engulfed by a mob intent on mayhem. It feels quaint now, but the seeds of today's algorithm-driven chaos were already there.

In contrast, "The Astroworld Tragedy" is a somber and infuriating chronicle of corporate negligence, with a behemoth like Live Nation prioritizing profits over lives, and facing barely any accountability. As someone old enough to remember being lifted off my feet in the crush of a Halloween crowd in the Castro in 1990s San Francisco, the concert crowd footage lands viscerally. Mass gatherings can flip from euphoric to deadly in seconds, so I've learned to generally avoid anything that's going to give me a panic attack.

Title says it all. A girl wanted to have a nice birthday celebration with her friends and then men stepped in and had to ruin everything. And they're so proud of it. I felt bad for her and her family. Worst episode of the Trainwreck series for me, because I didn't feel entertained, just angry and disappointed.

I don't understand why society is so soft on anarchy. If we set a standard that says we won't tolerate anarchy, society will be a better place. The way to indicate that standard is serious is to debilitate offenders.

That is what should have been done in this case. Why was there no tear gas or rubber bullets? Or real bullets?

Anarchy should not be tolerated, and in this case it was well known to be a potentiality many many days in advance. Let's do better as a society.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

Some entitled Dutch kids shared a Facebook event invite, two loser YouTubers incited aggression in the crowd for profit (they're still proud of that cause they are still losers "it was like being in a videogame" says this 52 year old narcissist), then the kids threw some guardrails around, then some police stopped it. 90% of who they spoke to were doing a lot of superficial uptalk about this willfully moronic 5 hour street-drinking event like it was years long war-time and their golden years of achievement. I've never been less impressed by people talking about something so utterly pointless with so much pride.

The documentary was a real disappointment. First of all, I found it completely unnecessary that the people involved didn't speak Dutch. That made it feel unbelievable. I still remember the day very well, and the media played a major role in escalating the situation. All the media were just waiting for riots to break out. That aspect was underrepresented in the documentary.

Merthe's story mostly just caused irritation. She was laughing more than showing any remorse. The same goes for the other people interviewed. All in all, it was not a pleasant documentary to watch. No police officers were interviewed. The residents of Haren were victims, but it was all treated like some kind of joke.