This week at Spectrum Culture, the significant mound of assignments I’ve picked up lately started to catch up with me (though not at the level of the next crazy few days). It was one of those rare weeks when I had two new film reviews up. As it turns out, both were documentaries and both were at least somewhat disappointing. First, I offered an assessment of the new film from Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg. I selected it because I figured its subject matter–baseball knuckleballers–made me a little more qualified to review it than many of my cohorts at the site given the way I’ve devoted far too much time to the great American game over the years. I actually didn’t realize until I sat down to start writing that it was directed by the same team that made the exceptional Joan Rivers documentary from a couple of years ago. The new film is moderately entertaining, but nowhere near as revelatory as the prior work.

I also reviewed a documentary about chefs who’ve received the vaunted three star rating from the Michelin Guide. That’s ostensibly what it’s about, but the focus of the film wanders far too much. It’s as if the director took little shards from three or four interesting, more pointed documentaries about the world of high culinary art.

Finally, I contributed to this week’s List Inconsequential about long songs. I finally decided against my original angle on the track I selected, which was its fame back at the college radio station in the late eighties as the song to play whenever a trip to bathroom was going to require, let’s say, a little more time.