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Expand Your World With [Documentaries]
adytum
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Documentaries. From shorts to episodic television content to full length feature films, documentaries seek to open a window on the world. Whether focused on the past or present, the real or the imaginary, documentaries offer a glimpse of an event and a chance to expand the viewers knowledge of it.
Documentaries are most certainly not a homogeneous genre. There are historical documentaries, documentaries of ongoing events, mockumentaries, prankumentaries, fauxumentaries, special interest pieces, etc.. The narratives vary from freeform to matter-of-fact to highly-opinionated. Some documentaries are consistent and fair in their approach, others are purposefully heavy-handed. Some- even those with high critical acclaim and wide release- have their basic facts wrong. Some may even be considered a hit piece. It's important, as a documentary viewer, to keep a critical eye out for the tone and message, to follow-up with your own research, and most importantly to draw your own conclusions.
This thread is for the critical discussion of documentaries- mainly feature films, but also including television and other medium. Feel free to talk about your favorite documentaries, what you're watching now, what you're looking forward to watching, your opinions on documentaries being discussed, and, of course your recommendations.
Documentaries are most certainly not a homogeneous genre. There are historical documentaries, documentaries of ongoing events, mockumentaries, prankumentaries, fauxumentaries, special interest pieces, etc.. The narratives vary from freeform to matter-of-fact to highly-opinionated. Some documentaries are consistent and fair in their approach, others are purposefully heavy-handed. Some- even those with high critical acclaim and wide release- have their basic facts wrong. Some may even be considered a hit piece. It's important, as a documentary viewer, to keep a critical eye out for the tone and message, to follow-up with your own research, and most importantly to draw your own conclusions.
This thread is for the critical discussion of documentaries- mainly feature films, but also including television and other medium. Feel free to talk about your favorite documentaries, what you're watching now, what you're looking forward to watching, your opinions on documentaries being discussed, and, of course your recommendations.
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PBS has several programs available for free streaming on their website
Frontline is largely focused on current events worldwide
NOVA documents advances in science and technology
Nature is a series about, well, nature
Global Voices tells the stories of extraordinary individuals from around the world
American Experience is a documentary series about American history
BBC ONE has a rotating group of documentaries available for free streaming on their website if you're in their broadcasting region
Netflix has a large number of feature-length documentaries and series available for instant streaming.
This post by Suriko gives a short summary of several historical documentaries
I will update this post with documentaries as they're discussed!
Art & Design
Business, Money & Politics
Crime & Justice
Culture
Food & Health
History
Human Rights / Human Interest
Music
Nature & The Environment
Religion
Sports
War, What is it Good For?
Here is a good teaser:
Whole thing: http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=review&reviewid=VE1117919782&categoryid=31&cs=1#ixzz1KYW7wSe5
It's on Canadian Netflix (I assume U.S. as well), and I absolutly loved it. Your head will be spinning by the end and you won't know what to think. And it's real journalism too.
Some are available on youtube and documentary heaven.
I think Food, Inc. is one of the worst documentaries I've seen. The topic is an important one, but the film is a poorly-done hit piece that completely undermines its message. It might just be because I know a fair bit about the subject matter, but their handling of it barely scratched the surface and glossed over a lot of issues to make them seem very cut-and-dry when they aren't. In some places it couldn't stay on topic, blatantly frames things out of context in order to make what's on screen appear worse than it is, and even contradicts itself.
Exit Through the Gift Shop is a pretty good documentary, but I wouldn't recommended it to anyone not interested in Banksy or street art.
What's more, I think- if there even is a message, which I'm not completely sure of- it undermines the closing thoughts on mass-market copy shop 'street' art by having Shephard Fairey be one of the narrators of the film that comments on the unoriginality of Guetta's work. Shephard Fairey is the original pioneer of photoshopping someone else's art and passing it off as his own on a commercial scale.
Some of my favorite documentaries & documentary moments:
Bowling for Columbine - Michael Moore asks Marilyn Manson what he would have said to the Columbine shooters and Manson replies, "I'd just listen to them." Moore asks the same question of either Trey Parker or Matt Stone (don't remember which) and he replies, "I'd tell them that life isn't like high school. It gets better."
Say what you will about Michael Moore's other work, I do feel that BfC was one of the most human treatments of the Columbine shooting.
This Film is Not Yet Rated - when it listed off the members of the MPAA ratings board, it made me realize how much control so few people have over American culture. I like movie theaters, but I almost want to see the theater business fail just so the MPAA will go the way of the comics code.
Gunner Palace - all of the rapping & freestyling scenes. The juxtaposition of creativity and war was a powerful one for me.
Also, pretty much all of this movie:
- Who's there?
The best sports film ever made.
Now I'm watching my way through Universe from the History Channel. 56 episodes of astronomical science? Yes please.
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Cool School: How L.A. Learned to Love Modern Art is fantastic as well.
Speaking of distorted hit pieces: Super Size Me.
That thing was less honest than Troy McClure on The Simpsons talking about cows graduating from Bovine University. Spurlock didn't even document what he was eating - I mean, it's not like documenting one's activities has anything to do with making a documentary, after all. And his girlfriend (now wife) is a vegan chef and author? Why hello there, Mr. Conflict of Interest!
I saw the Kings of Pastry a few months back. In short, it's about the hardest title you can win as a pastry chef, the MOF title. I found it extremely intriguing, because of the insane levels of dedication and sacrifice for this competition, and the high drama that surrounds it.
If you want to see grown man cry (happiness and not) due to cakes, spun sugar and chocolate, this is it.
I've always enjoyed Theroux's work as well, he gets wel involved with his subjects, but he always manages to end up in places that you had no idea about, or where your ideas were plainly wrong. He also dares to ask some questions to peoples faces that no doubt put him in grave danger at the time.
In the same vein and something I'd love to share, but is in Dutch was a tremendous series of a young reporter showing contemporary russian life, in all stratas. It has really plummeted my hopes for that country. (The episode on their draft army was particularly scary, the way they treat new recruits is insane)
It's a fascinating window into the fighting game scene and fighting game culture; a culture that is very different from other gaming scenes. The short cut is available for free off the site and it's coming out in a full cut later this year. The short cut is fascinating and director Ian Cofino uses some brilliant shots to really bring out emotion and feeling, two things that really define the fighting game scene.
This sounds like something I'd like. But I clicked around the site and all I see are teasers. I may be just a derp, but I can't find it.
Speaking of video game docs: The King of Kong (also on Can Netflix, prob U.S. too) is a story of the Donkey Kong high-score, and the length grown men would go to defend it. It paints an honest, if sometimes cringe-worthy, portrait of turbo nerds. I'd say it's worth a watch for free. Not brilliant, but it's cool to know that there is intense strategy behind Donkey Kong and a record was set that hadn't been broken for ~20 years.
I really wanted to like Restrepo going in, but I couldn't enjoy it. It was just too.. unnarrated to keep my attention. I understand wanting the subject to tell the story themselves, but the footage they put together wasn't really able to do that effectively imo.
Hrm, it looks like he took it off the site. You should still be able to find the Short Cut legally out there on torrent sites, as that's how he distributed it.
I thought it was great for that. I don't really watch documentaries for the narrative most of the time. I'd rather get the chance to interpret events for myself rather than be told what to think about the subject covered.
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After watching Restrepo, I 'learned' that life in Afghanistan as a soldier sucks, life as an Afghani in Afghanistan sucks, that life is cheap, that the US forces are completely out of touch with Afghanis, that US forces have the completely wrong priorities, that young and inexperienced soldiers are being recruited to the front lines..
All of which I knew before.
I'll chalk it up to being a different kind of documentary. I certainly don't expect a doc to tell me what to think; rather, it's a jumping off point to understanding a topic. I also like to end up knowing something more than I knew beforehand. Restrepo was too "free form" to accomplish any of that for me.
I just watched Waste Land, which was about recycling pickers in Brazil. I don't think it was anything super-special, but I really didn't know that people did things like that (individually pick out pieces of recycling fresh from garbage trucks).
If faith is just a silent tribute, mine is just a desperate act.
The stuff I found to be the most interesting (and it's been a while since I watched it, so hopefully this makes sense) was the effects that being deployed had on the individual soldiers, and the way the soldiers interacted with the locals. Like the guy from the family of flower children that signed up without his parents knowing. That guy's story was interesting to me, as was the effect that being stationed there was having on him.
I suppose if you abstracted all that into "american soldier" and "being deployed sucks" then it probably wasn't a great way to spend two hours. But I found the details to be very engaging.
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Turns out the movie is biased, but in the opposite way. In the words of the director:
http://www.411mania.com/games/columns/135856/Pixels-%5C%5Cn-Bits-04.14.10:-The-King-of-Kong.htm
I found the details interesting. I would have loved to have heard more about the soldiers background, their expectations, and their experiences. The problem was, every 30 seconds of interesting interview material was sandwiched by 10 minutes of grainy video footage of a wall with the sound of gunfire in the background.
Definitely political, but very interesting. You can find them for free on Youtube, which is always great.
Seen The Century of the Self a few weeks ago: It actually covers alot of ground but mainly focuses on pschology and how it the study of it has shaped the political and economic climate of our time and how it's used to control/manipulate/understand/etc people. It's rather varied but quite interesting.
I'm watching The Trap, another one of his, tonight:
This was a very timely thread for me. :lol:
I found it to be very interesting and well worth the watch independent of the shortcomings in that vein.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0912593/
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Both of these are relevant to my interests.
Because there are a billion documentaries I have to add, and resizing images take a fair amount of time. I'll update it as I can.
Also, your IMDB link is broken.
Ah looks like imdb doesn't allow hot linking their images. Anyways its an EXCELLENT movie about the first few months in Iraq and how we fucked up royally.
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Any gamers in the Danville, PA area? PM me if you're interested in some tabletop gaming.
MH3U Veggie Elder Ticket Guide
Waiting for Armageddon is a really interesting documentary about the fundamentalist Christian movement and how they view the book of revelation and the end times, and also follows a group as they go to Jerusalem. It was weird seeing people who essentially were acting just like the people I knew in my home town.
The moment in Jesus Camp that really got to me was when the one kid (who was all of, ten?) was breaking down in front of the group because he was unsure of his faith, and every other kid in the camp was staring him down like he had just strangled and eaten all of their puppies.
It also showed me way more of The Passion on the Christ than I ever wanted to see. It's gory. Your point has been made. Stop showing me that.