This weekend I lucked into three documentaries on YouTube and I’m looking for more. Each of them has small production teams, from 2 to maybe a dozen people, and they were excellent. I’m wondering if anyone else can recommend similar style documentaries. The one caveat is that I want to avoid a bunch of repeat topics— it seems like I could easily find a dozen or more videos on people doing ultramarathons. I’m interested in a greater variety of hobbies or sports.

Listers — birding — 2 hours, 2 guys, very good (probably better than you think)

The Finisher — Barkley Marathon — first female finisher.

King of Moab — 240mi ultramarathon in Moab desert

Day In The Life of The #1 BBQ In Texas —I don’t really care about BBQ (not saying it isn’t tasty), but this was delectable to watch.

Prime has the documentary "Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe" while Netflix is running "Escaping Twin Flames" which were produced by different investigative reporters but take a similar approach to exposing this new group. Both rely on the testimony of ex members of the group to expose the founders power and control and how things changed when the group wasn't working out as they planned.

Apparently the group has a strong presence on facebook and there is also an entire reddit sub for its adherents.

I watched both of these multi part documentaries and was fascinated by the origin and rise of this group. The founders, Jeff and Megan (who now goes by Shaleia) are preying on the desperation of mostly female followers who are desperately seeking their 'one and only true love', their "twin flame". Using a technique of turning all hurts and pains inward the pair asserts they will help heal people who will practice their 'mirroring' technique.

But it starts to get really strange. Shaleia appears to be the one who started with the 'spiritual' aspect of the enterprise and Jeff appears to be the one with a fervent entrepreneurial bent who has turned it into a money making proposition.

They were living in a run down apartment when they began, but now a few years later, have bought a large home with a lake view in Michigan, with Jeff boasting about his Corvette and Porsche in the driveway. Even stranger, they have people living and working in their house to keep their enterprise running. There are shades of other religious communities with a strong 'messianic' leader that have started this way with Waco being mentioned in the documentary. Jeff even suggests, very strongly, that he may be the Christ.

The adherents pay for private or group facetime sessions with Jeff and Shaleia and are encouraged to take their video courses, which can be anywhere from $100 to $8,888. And those who have taken on the role of being life coaches under them are also encouraged to find more life coaches - it seems to be a combination of multi level marketing, religion and some kind of mass delusional 'teaching' to desperate and gullible people.

Jeff and Shaleia encourage people in their group to cut off relationships with anyone who is not supportive of Twin Flames, a sure sign of a cult, and there are several testimonials from hurting parents who are desperate to be back in touch with their children.

And in probably the strangest twist, when very few people were finding their "twin flame" to be responding, Jeff proclaimed that their twin flame already was part of the group - but since most of the group were women, he insisted that several of the women pair up and that one of them was now a "divine male", to the point of asking some to change their clothes, hair and go by a new male name.

It's all quite fascinating, and I couldn't believe that in an age where information on cults and cult activity is so easy to find, that so many people would be sucked into Twin Flames Universe and not see the control and manipulation going on in their lives.

Both are well worth watching but if you only have time for one, I'd recommend Prime's documentary - seems to be a bit more professionally produced.

I watched Val tonight. Its mostly old footage that Val filmed himself. He was quick to have a video camera and seemed to carry it with him everywhere.

If you're unaware, Val Kilmer lost his voice during his treatment for throat cancer. He can still speak, but with difficulty.

Anyway, even if you're a mild fan of Kilmer's work, this is worth a watch. I much prefer this format for documentaries to the talking heads we get with other documentaries like Velvet Underground (2021)

Val is from Amazon Studios and A24.

I'm on a binge of watching YouTube videos about Asian culture and wanna take it to the next level. Anything about the cultures of countries like Japan, both Koreas, China, etc. As long as it's high quality and available on the major streaming websites. Thanks!