Welcome Back, "30 For 30": In Praise Of ESPN's Documentary Series

When Will Leitch started Deadspin, his guiding principal—beyond a belief that he could get the whole world to refer to the Arizona Cardinals as the Buzzsaw—was that sports, in the grand scheme of things, aren't that important. Yes, there's lots of money spent on them, and when your team wins the World Series it's the…

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Errol Morris's Short Film On Sports-Themed Funerals Is Morbidly Cool

One of the best things ESPN has ever commissioned is the fantastic 30 For 30 series, which is now available on Netflix Instant. There are more on the way this fall, but here's a short film done in that vein—directed by Oscar-winner Errol Morris (Mr. Death, The Fog of War, Standard Operating Procedure)—that should…

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ESPN's Going To Produce A Bunch More 30 For 30 Films

So, fantastic news. ESPN will announce at today's upfront that they will roll out a second series of sports documentaries under the 30 For 30 umbrella, even though it's no longer the network's 30th anniversary and there may not be 30 of them. The first one will premier this fall, and new films will roll out over the…

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Why You Should All Be Watching HBO's Brilliant On Freddie Roach

Sports documentaries tend to adhere to a certain formula: tremendous amounts of archival footage plus talking heads. If you're Ken Burns, you mix in some banjo music. Sometimes you get the subject to reminisce about a time in his life that is still of abiding interest to sports fans, and maybe, if you're lucky, you …

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Vlade And Drazen Sitting In A Tree, U-N-I-T-I-N-G (The Balkans)

The "30 For 30" about Vlade Divac And Drazen Petrovic premieres tonight. It's called Once Brothers, and depending on who you ask, it's either powerful or tripe. Quality aside, we'll be watching because we like Vlade and Drazen.

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