OJ Made in America

[DALLASTEXAN!!]

I know most of you are sick of this case and I thought I was. But then I watched Oj made in America. It was very well done and goes just beyond the murders and trial. It is long but clearly reveals his guilt.

[nohwheregirl]

This was such an excellent documentary. I just finished watching it yesterday. Everyone should watch this, whether you care about OJ or not.

Besides the historical context - which was what made this documentary so special - the revelations about OJ's character were interesting as well. For some reason, I found the "minor" transgressions like stealing his best friend's girlfriend in high school, and cheating at golf to be very telling.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

I'll have to check this out.

I DID watch The People vs. OJ Simpson in its entirety. Very well done on the part of Ryan Murphy. I was kinda shocked at how wrong I was about Robert Kardashian through the whole thing. David Schwimmer did an admirable job of really showing how conflicted Robert Kardashian was during the trial, especially when presented with the DNA evidence...

What network is OJ: Made in America on? Can I get it via Netflix/Hulu/Amazon?

[nohwheregirl]

Originally Posted by LooksLikeCRicci

What network is OJ: Made in America on? Can I get it via Netflix/Hulu/Amazon?

You can watch it on the ESPN website for free. There are 5 episodes, I believe.

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by nohwheregirl

This was such an excellent documentary. I just finished watching it yesterday. Everyone should watch this, whether you care about OJ or not.

Besides the historical context - which was what made this documentary so special - the revelations about OJ's character were interesting as well. For some reason, I found the "minor" transgressions like stealing his best friend's girlfriend in high school, and cheating at golf to be very telling.

Finally watched the entire documentary this past weekend. I liked how they spent the first two episodes showcasing how OJ came across as the nicest, most likable guy ever, but every now and then, they'd drop hints (such as the story about him stealing AC's girlfriend) to suggest there was something off about him. And of course, by the time they got to the domestic violence section near the end of episode two, it becomes obvious that something was REALLY off!

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by nohwheregirl

You can watch it on the ESPN website for free. There are 5 episodes, I believe.

THANK YOU. I know what I'm doing tonight!!

[nohwheregirl]

Originally Posted by RobinW

Finally watched the entire documentary this past weekend. I liked how they spent the first two episodes showcasing how OJ came across as the nicest, most likable guy ever, but every now and then, they'd drop hints (such as the story about him stealing AC's girlfriend) to suggest there was something off about him. And of course, by the time they got to the domestic violence section near the end of episode two, it becomes obvious that something was REALLY off!

Right! I found myself smiling and really WANTING to like him. I was LOLing when they showed his clips from Naked Gun...like, he was really funny. But I think the documentary does a good job of showing how calculating he was.

[DALLASTEXAN!!]

Excellent I'm glad I'm not the only one that enjoyed it. When I first heard of it I thought oh great another OJ documentary but this was so well produced and really shows how race tensions played a factor before during and after the trial. It also really shows how domestic violence can escalate when not punished. That 911 call just months before the murders is chilling and you can hear the rage in his voice and the fear in Nicole's. It was interesting and troubling to hear the victim blaming by one of the jurors. I also saw one of the other jurors maybe in a different interview say that he completely dismissed kato's testimony(perhaps the most damning for OJ) because he thought kato was an idiot....smh.

I found it interesting that Oj avoided confronting race issues until only when it benefited him at his trial. I think the fact that he just did his thing enabled so many to love him. Unfortunately he had a dark side that until the murders was mostly covered up. I loved the guy before the murders and even early on thought there was no way he did it until I saw the bronco scene. To me it is clear that he was guilty then and am surprised that the prosecution opted not To use that in trial.

[Axl Rose]

i'll wait for it to hit netflix (if ever) i thought the tv series on the case was pretty good...the guy that played Cochran was amazing i thought

i don't think theres much chance OJ would be acquitted today. Forensic Files has dumbed down DNA evidence enough where everybody should know yours should not be at a crime scene

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Originally Posted by Axl Rose

i'll wait for it to hit netflix (if ever) i thought the tv series on the case was pretty good...the guy that played Cochran was amazing i thought

I wanted to punch him in the face SO bad. Which means he nailed it.

[DALLASTEXAN!!]

Originally Posted by Axl Rose

i'll wait for it to hit netflix (if ever) i thought the tv series on the case was pretty good...the guy that played Cochran was amazing i thought

i don't think theres much chance OJ would be acquitted today. Forensic Files has dumbed down DNA evidence enough where everybody should know yours should not be at a crime scene

I think ESPN is replaying it every so often. I saw one episode on the other day. I watched the last episode first and it got me hooked. I swear I don't really use Netflix. If I can think of something I want to watch they don't have it.

[Axl Rose]

Originally Posted by DALLASTEXAN!!

I think ESPN is replaying it every so often. I saw one episode on the other day. I watched the last episode first and it got me hooked. I swear I don't really use Netflix. If I can think of something I want to watch they don't have it.

yeah Netflix is garbage when it comes to movies, but i think its pretty good for TV shows.

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by nohwheregirl

Right! I found myself smiling and really WANTING to like him. I was LOLing when they showed his clips from Naked Gun...like, he was really funny. But I think the documentary does a good job of showing how calculating he was.

Totally the same story with me. When I heard him yelling at Nicole in the background on one of the 911 calls, I was awestruck at how completely compartmentalized he had to have been, and probably still is.

[Babalu]

I have it on On Demand. I knew the case details very well so there wasn't that much new to me in that respect. I stuck with it even though the first four parts seemed to be half OJ and half evil racist America. But part five was excellent. It tore him to shreds which is exactly what I think he deserved.

[Awsi Dooger]

Terrific series, the best one dealing with the Simpson case and all its offshoots. I intentionally taped it and watched each episode later when I had plenty of time to focus on the show itself.

I'm not sure I mentioned here that I saw O.J. all the time when he lived in Miami, circa 2000-2006. I posted that info on other forums but I may not have found reason to specify here. O.J. lived in suburban southwest Miami, not far from Killian High School. There is a nearby golf course that I play quite often, Killian Greens. I never saw O.J. on that course. It is a very narrow course and not always in the best condition. But several miles further west there was a wide open and much nicer track called Calusa Country Club. O.J. was a regular there for years. My parents played that course and I joined them when I was visiting from Las Vegas. Very conservatively, I'd say I saw him at least 40 or 50 times. He had a short choppy swing but a decent short game. He did struggle to ascend the very low (2-3 feet high) tee boxes here at sea level.

It was incredibly awkward throughout those years. I'll never forget the first time I saw him, not long after I teed off on a relatively tough 200ish par 3 that ran parallel to a par 5 at left. I hadn't noticed O.J. waiting alongside the fairway when I teed off. His ball was in the rough to the left of his hole, meaning he would have to walk quite close to my ball flight on the par 3. I hit a decent 5 iron to the left fringe, not far from the hole. As I'm walking back to the cart suddenly my mom whispers, "Gary, there's O.J. Simpson." To my astonishment, there he was, walking forward to his ball and perhaps 10 yards away. O.J. grinned and said, "Nice shot." I nodded my head and said nothing.

That was 2000 or 2001. For the next 5 years I never said a word to him and didn't notice anybody outside his regular group talk to him. He was always with the same group, which occasionally included Lawrence Taylor, the superstar linebacker from the Giants. There was a buxom blonde named Kristi who often followed in a separate cart. She was featured late in this series. His son Jason had matured into a good looking young guy and would show up occasionally. But more often I saw Jason on the rare occasions I saw O.J. outside the golf course. I remember once at Costco, another 2 or 3 times at various restaurants. One time we were rained out at the golf course and just happened to pick the same restaurant for lunch that O.J. chose.

O.J. has a booming voice that carries forever. He was always the loudmouth at those restaurants, no matter where he sat. You couldn't help hearing everything. Invariably he was somewhat of a jerk. At the coffee shop at Calusa Country Club many of the long term regulars refused to eat there when O.J. was present. It was always uncomfortable.

The early hours of Hurricane Katrina in summer 2006 hit Miami and damaged the Calusa clubhouse, which was torn down. The course closed for more than 6 months. I never saw O.J. again. The Bacardi Corporation then bought Calusa solely to run the course into the ground and then claim it was no longer viable as a golf course and the property needed to be rezoned, the 99 year covenant broken. It was incomparable corporate arrogance and greed. The details are truly unbelievable. We followed the case closely on Miami forums. Bacardi somehow won an early judgment from a judge who was either incompetent or paid off, but the appeals court early this year ruled in favor of the homeowners. The covenant was upheld. The property is in limbo since Bacardi refuses to budge. The southwest Miami area needs that golf course, if not now but for the future when demographic trends logically normalize.

Sorry for the detour. Here are other aspects I remember from the series:

* I was shocked that Jo Ellen Dimitrius was never mentioned. She was the tall blonde jury consultant for the prosecution who essentially won the case before it started by doing research revealing that black women were the ideal juror for O.J's side.

* As a USC alum it was interesting to see pictures of the campus from O.J.'s era, circa late '60s, or more than a decade before I arrived. The football practice field and its surroundings changed the most during that period

* I've long struggled with my opinion of Barry Scheck and his partner Peter Neufield, who also strangely was not mentioned. They have done tremendous work, freeing countless people who were wrongly convicted via the Innocence Project. Scheck was fantastic in basic lawyering skills and persuasive argument during this case. He also apparently was heavily involved in case strategy behind the scenes. However, Scheck essentially argued against his entire career during this case. He knows fully well the DNA was legitimate and damning. In fact, I guarantee that Barry Scheck has freed many people based on DNA sampling that was collected using far worse and sloppier methods than Dennis Fung or anyone else on the LAPD utilized during the Simpson case. At the time I remember screaming for Marcia Clark or Chris Darden to point that out. Those old evidence bags are dragged out and DNA tested without any video or notes or concern about how the sample was collected or who did it.

* I have an O.J. anecdote from USC...early '80s. A very shapely girl named Suzy became kind of a groupie at the student newspaper office. Naturally the guys didn't mind. Suzy had an awesome caboose. The girls on staff, on the other hand, didn't understand Suzy's presence and often mumbled about it.

I got to know Suzy fairly well. She was dating a star volleyball player. He was incredibly jealous, accusing Suzy of sleeping with this guy and that guy,. According to Suzy he would rattle off a list of names and demand to know --- Yes or No. Suzy said she would throw in some scattered Yes answers just to appease him, since he didn't believe any version with all No.

Suzy eventually told me a wild story. She had worked in the fee bill office during football season, the place where students paid tuition. The Coliseum -- USC's famous football stadium -- is directly across street from campus. Suzy said that after a football game she was walking back to campus when a Bentley stopped alongside. The window went down. The driver -- a black man -- asked her to get in the car. Suzy was shocked and said no. But her friends immediately recognized him and encouraged Suzy to go with him. "Suzy, that's O.J. Simpson. Go with him. Get in the car."

Suzy refused and kept walking. But O.J. undoubtedly saw that caboose and wasn't going to surrender. According to Suzy, he somehow found out where she worked and showed up at the fee bill office literally every day the following week, bringing flowers and other gifts every time, asking her out. Suzy said she was polite but said no every time.

Still, O.J. didn't relent until Suzy offered a blunt comment, one O.J. obviously wasn't accustomed to hearing: "Sorry, O.J.. You seem like a really nice guy. But you're not the right color."

Wow. Suzy told me that story many times, describing the stunned look on O.J.'s face after her remark. He backed away and never showed up again.

I thought of that incident many times during the trial, and during this series, particularly during all the segments that focused on O.J. being removed from the black community and basically not thinking of himself as black. Suzy was probably one of the very, very few who ever offered that variable to him. Not that she ever displayed any type of bigoted thinking while speaking to her. Just the opposite.

Suzy looked very much like Nicole. Superior caboose. A bit younger. According to the timeline, O.J. was already dating Nicole when that incident occurred. As the program detailed, O.J. has been a player at every stage, regardless of relationship status. It would have been Suzy on those steps, her throat slashed.

BTW, that series included more graphic photos than I've ever seen of Nicole and Ron Goldman's injuries. I had to look away.

* I watched the Las Vegas trial throughout. Totally bizarre it happened at the Palace Station, of all places. That is a locals hangout, off the Strip and not glamorous at all. I'm not sure outsiders realize the reaction from Las Vegans when it became known that O.J. was busted due to something that happened at the Palace Station. Previously it was known as Bingo Palace because that was the most exciting activity on the property.

There's no doubt O.J. was railroaded during that trial. As Carl Douglass pointed out, that was a 2 year sentence max for anyone other than O.J. Simpson. I was annoyed that the time but now I'm thrilled at the sentencing, particularly after finding out so much more about O.J.'s character over time, as Nowheregirl pointed out earlier in this thread.