Great Documentaries... (1 Viewer)

[City Champ]

I love a good documentary. Sit down and watch something that will teach you something, enlighten you, or infuriate you, I just cant get enough of them.
What are some of your favorite and not so favorite documentaries...

Jesus Camp-- All I can say is WOW!!! No matter how you feel about the evangelicals, this is something you should watch...

Blood of my Brother-- Lame. The Arabic translations were ok. Of course they gave the jist, but did a terrible job of really expressing what was said. some sections were dumbed down, and others, it was smartened up a bit. I have watched alot of documentaries on Iraq and this is one of the weaker ones...

What the bleep-- A must see that will really challenge your brain. really cool documentary which looks at science and how it relates to a supreme being and individual energy...

Outfoxed-- Great flick which breaks down the news of the "fair and balanced" network. really does a great job of showing just how many dirty and underhanded tricks FOX will pull and how it affects today's democracy.

March of the Penguins-- Morgan Freeman does a great job as narrator of a cool flick about the plight of the emperor penguin. looks at the roles of both male and female penguins in rearing the child. cool stuff...

So what documentaries do you really dig or cant stand? Lets try to keep our personal politics out of this please...

 

[JimEverett]

I love them as well.
I watched a good one the other night - "Street Fight"

Its about the 2002 Newark mayoral election.

 

[City Champ]

give more info on that jim. that sounds pretty interesting...

 

[JimEverett]

It was about an ivy league educated guy who had just won a seat on the city council going up against the incumbent mayor who had been so for 16 years or something - and had been on the council for 16 years before that.
It was good insight into big city campaigning. the incumbent put all this pressure on local buisinesses to support him. The police would close up stores who had the challengers signs on them and stuff like that.
I actually thought it might not be that good, but the time flew by while watching it.

 

[gaminerie]

"The Smartest Guys In The Room"

The film features actual voice clips from Enron employees discussing the transfer of electricity from the state of California into nodes in other states where there was a surplus. California had signed legislation allowing for a free market in energy. As a response to this, Enron created a demand by causing blackouts across the state.

Following this the price of electricity sky-rocketed, right in time for Enron to ship back the energy they took out of California back into California, making billions upon billons of dollars in profits. The controllers who were doing this discussed how much energy they had transferred knowing full well that it was going to blackout the cities in California.

That's over and above the books-cooking issue. This was a really good doc.

Now what i would LIKE to see, is if there is any feature-length documentary out there on the 1980 Jefferson Island Disaster at Lake Peigneur (near Vermilion Bay). i guess that happened before examining oil company operations was cool

i also REALLY want to see "Been Rich All My Life" but the wait for that on the Blockbuster TotalAccess queue is considerable.

my forever favorite though might be "Scared Straight" or anything we watched in health class. just for nostalgia's sake

 

[domedog316]

If you've never seen "Wrestling with Shadows" and you are a wrestling fan then you should see it immediately. I just bought the VHS from Amazon (couldn't find it on DVD).

I watched it back in 1998 on A&E, it's a fascinating look into the way Pro Wrestling works. It involves a year in the life of Bret Hart and is going on at the time of the whole Montreal Screw Job.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0179218/

I just looked at the imdb listing and it may be on DVD as of now, I've already burned my own copy but for those that don't still have a VHS player it would be good.

It's a great doc, you won't be dissapointed. I like that the director, Paul Jay stays out of it completely letting the participants do all the talking. It's not like, say, a Mike Moore doc where he's constantly telling us what we should think, you know?

 

[ra]

The Filth and the Fury

 

[JimEverett]

The Sorrow and the Pity is a classic. About French collaboration with the Germans under Vichy.

 

[City Champ]

the smartest guy in the room is now on my watch list as is street fight.

i saw that wrestling one and it was pretty good...
of course there are the hunts point documentaries which are great...
players ball is another great documentary as is pimp...
spike did a great job on the katrina/HBO documentary (actually HBO undercover has done some great stuff).

 

[MLU]

The Fog of War, Who Killed the Electric Car? and The Smartest Guys in the Room are he best three that I have seen in awhile. I finally saw The Thin Blue Line thanks to Jim's recommendation and enjoyed it very much. Errol Morris is gold. Morris has one coming out about Abu Ghraib soon.

This Film is Not Yet Rated is also a pretty interesting (and inadvertently funny) film. Super Size Me was great as well.

I have heard that Murderball is good, but I have not yet seen it. Add One Day in September to the same list as Murderball.

 

[DavidM]

Nothing "unearthed" here but three that come to mind for different reasons,

Grizzly Man, largely because Treadwell was such an odd personality.

The Farm, Angola, USA -- interesting from a local perspective.

The Fog of War -- Robert McNamara's life and insight into the Kennedy Administration, Vietnam War, etc.

And in addition to being a top actor, Morgan Freeman has a great voice for narration.

 

[City Champ]

i will be all over that abu ghraib one and will tell ya just how accurate it is...

AG was a tragedy, but it was WAY blown out of perspective...
the farm was pretty damn good.

super size me was good as well...

 

[superchuck500]

I saw Year of Yao the other night. It is on IFC this month.

It was actually really good. Well made and the perspective you get through the narration of Yao Ming's translator (a young American who basically became his friend and roomate- as they were always together) was very interesting. I recommend it.

 

[JimEverett]

The Fog of War, Who Killed the Electric Car? and The Smartest Guys in the Room are he best three that I have seen in awhile. I finally saw The Thin Blue Line thanks to Jim's recommendation and enjoyed it very much. Errol Morris is gold. Morris has one coming out about Abu Ghraib soon.

This Film is Not Yet Rated is also a pretty interesting (and inadvertently funny) film. Super Size Me was great as well.

I have heard that Murderball is good, but I have not yet seen it. Add One Day in September to the same list as Murderball.

Dr. Death by Errol Morris is good. About a weird little man.

 

[DavidM]

Perhaps just a bit out of the scope of the topic, but I recently watched several episodes (perhaps all -- not sure how many there were) of One Punk Under God -- a documentary series centered on Jay Bakker, the son of Jim and Tammy Bakker, and his Revolution Church. (It aired on one of the pay channels but was available on a free On Demand channel here.)

His idea of Christianity -- simple, all-inclusive, non-judgemental (as it came across anyway) -- is a close depiction idealistically of how I believe the faith should be. Most striking was his seemingly genuine discomfort with raising money. Among their meeting places for worship was a barroom during off hours (because it was available to them) in a come-as-you-are fashion.