I like documentaries more so than regular films, because in general most of them are good. Or at least there is a better ratio of good to bad compared to regular films.
Anyways, I haven't seen anything lately besides the cheesy stuff on discovery/history channels. And I'm looking for some recommendations. Anything about science, space, ancient history, conspiracies, religion, specific things (people, places, etc).
Stuff I've seen in the past year: Tyson Gonzo Future Of Food Sweet Misery: The World Reacts to an Adulterated Food Supply Religulous Obama Deception Scratch:Hip-Hop Zeitgeist Addendum The God Who Wasn't there Various Graffiti docus Steve-O (thing off MTV) King Of Kong The Corporation Deep Blue Heavy Metal In Bahgdad Confessions Of a Super Hero etc. (not saying these are all great but just giving you an idea of what interests me)
So what good/interesting docu's have you guys seen lately?
For thirteen consecutive summers, the American Timothy Treadwell moved to Katmai in the Alaskan Peninsula to live among the grizzly bears, with the pretext of studying and protecting them. In 2003, his girlfriend Amie Huguenard and he were surprisingly attacked and ate by a bear. Werner Herzog somehow accessed more than one hundred hours of footages filmed by Timothy and released this documentary, showing the life and death of Timothy Treadwell
On September 30 2009 21:53 REDBLUEGREEN wrote: Grizzly Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogYDUmIigw0 For thirteen consecutive summers, the American Timothy Treadwell moved to Katmai in the Alaskan Peninsula to live among the grizzly bears, with the pretext of studying and protecting them. In 2003, his girlfriend Amie Huguenard and he were surprisingly attacked and ate by a bear. Werner Herzog somehow accessed more than one hundred hours of footages filmed by Timothy and released this documentary, showing the life and death of Timothy Treadwell
I watched this with a friend and we both just wanted to punch this dumbass, he was all crying and berating the bears for eating their young when they were starving, and getting mad at some squirrel stealing his hat, and blahblah, all the while claiming that animals are basically people and live in happy little civilized communities. And that rant about the USA Gov was just so unbelievably dumb. "Fuck you!!! Fuck you!!!"
The doc is still definitely worth watching, it'll make you think, make you angry, or whatever. It gets a reaction either way.
Did you watch that Half-Ton kid thing that was posted in general? That was pretty good too.
Can you give a description at all besides the overt title? Btw is that link started at the beginning of the film?
It starts at the beginning. The film documents how corporations do some very bad things for profit and how they have enormous political power and influence. I am very for capitalism but this film changed my mind on a few things, namely that corporations shouldn't have the same rights as people and they should not be allowed to lobby (this is equally the fault of politicians who allow themselves to be bought).
Can you give a description at all besides the overt title? Btw is that link started at the beginning of the film?
It starts at the beginning. The film documents how corporations do some very bad things for profit and how they have enormous political power and influence. I am very for capitalism but this film changed my mind on a few things, namely that corporations shouldn't have the same rights as people and they should not be allowed to lobby (this is equally the fault of politicians who allow themselves to be bought).
I don't know if it's necessarily the politicians allowing themselves to be bought so much as they NEED to be bought to win. So maybe it's more of a problem with our system and culture and what have you.
- a interesting perspective to corporations: it compares two persons, the legal entity, person, a corporation with a real person with a personality disorder, a psycopath http://www.linktv.org/programs/special_corp1 again u got to find the torrent
Can you give a description at all besides the overt title? Btw is that link started at the beginning of the film?
It starts at the beginning. The film documents how corporations do some very bad things for profit and how they have enormous political power and influence. I am very for capitalism but this film changed my mind on a few things, namely that corporations shouldn't have the same rights as people and they should not be allowed to lobby (this is equally the fault of politicians who allow themselves to be bought).
On September 30 2009 22:48 wbirdy wrote: As part of my exam prep, my teacher asked me to watch a series of documentaries on Picasso on youtube. Quite an interesting watch i would say.
I forget what its called, but theres a documentary on the musician "Girl Talk" which is quite cool.. talking about copyright infringement and everything to do with sampling (if you are unfamiliar with him, he is a dude who takes little bits of popular songs and mixes them up, and releases them as his own work, yet has been able to avoid being sued)
really cool doc I caught yesterday on HBO. About children illegally immigrating (or trying to at least) from Mexico to US. Really makes you realize how hard and dangerous it is to cross the border. Really sad at parts
I would watch the 'greater meaning of water' i don't know if you know what free diving is, but i love that documentary.
Also another on that i really enjoyed , but i forget the name- was about all of the suicide jumpers off of the golden gate bridge. Basically the movie is wondering why people travel to the golden gate each year to just jump off of the bridge. I think it's somewhere in the realm of 270 people+++ jump off the bridge each year.
I also watched the documentary mini-series "The Genius of Charles Darwin" by Richard Dawkins on youtube a few weeks ago. Really good series that explains a lot about evolution if you are still having problems understanding it. A little too "anti-religion" in the last 2 episodes, even though I basically agree with it I felt it would of been more effective to be less aggressive (and thus more accessible for religious people).
On October 01 2009 03:31 Guss wrote: Second Skin looks great. Anywhere i can view it for free?
My best bet would be torrenting it, but stealing is bad It is a nice documentary, especially that it includes E. Castronova. I used some of his works in my papers, very good read.
I love documentaries too.I have watched a ton. Pictures of most of my favorites in the spoiler.
American Movie, Hoop Dreams, Children Underground, Spellbound, Born into Brothels, Word Wars,I Like Killing Flies, The Up Series ( follows kids from ages 7 ever 7 years till the most recent at 49) Names of movies are 7 Up, 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, God Grew Tired of Us, Air Guitar Nation, The Cats of Mirikitani, The Great Happiness Space, Confessions of a Superhero, Darkon
If you look at their top pics though it's shit like loose change and 80% 9/11 related. It's one thing to watch a few to get a different perspective, but you can only take so much of that shit.
Thanks Ideas and wbirdy, I'll probably watch those first. And Bosu thanks for the whole list, 7up looks interesting too. But If you guys could at least give a brief description of each film instead of just writing the title, that would be nice.
Philosophy Of The Knife is an interesting documentary/exploitation film about the horrors japanese doctors inflicted upon chinese citizens during World War II.
I would check out "Yes Men"
I also remember a documentary about a guy who goes on a quest to get a date with Drew Barrymore and actually succeeds. Forgot the title though.
I really liked Chasing Ghosts, its the same subject as King of Kong but focuses on some different people and doesn't have the whole clash of titans storyline thing
also Word Wars is a sweet doc about professional scrabble players
I'm also a real documentary fan so I'll just list some documentaries which were not in this thread that I feel are must-watch.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Fatherhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152758/ I really liked it, can be a bit hard to watch sometimes due to the 'amateur' editing but it keeps you hooked anyway, feels genuine.
Anvil! The Story of Anvilhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1157605/ Really interesting docu about Anvil, and I don't even like the genre. It's more a documentary about the life of these guys then a strict music docu
Helveticahttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/ A really nice movie about typography and design, might be boring if you're a total anti-design guy though, but I think it should be interesting for anyone.
Between the Foldshttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1253565/ You might think this is a boring documentary about origami at first but it's way beyond that, it's just a great docu which lets you in on things I'd not had a clue about before I watched it.
On October 01 2009 07:23 keit wrote: I'm also a real documentary fan so I'll just list some documentaries which were not in this thread that I feel are must-watch.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Fatherhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152758/ I really liked it, can be a bit hard to watch sometimes due to the 'amature' editing but it keeps you hooked anyway, feels genuine.
Anvil! The Story of Anvilhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1157605/ Really interesting docu about Anvil, and I don't even like the genre. It's more a documentary about the life of these guys then a strict music docu
Helveticahttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/ A really nice movie about typography and design, might be boring if you're a total anti-design guy though, but I think it should be interesting for anyone.
Between the Foldshttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1253565/ You might think this is a boring documentary about origami at first but it's way beyond that, it's just a great docu which lets you in on things I'd not had a clue about before I watched it.
I signed up for TL right after watching "helvetica"
On October 01 2009 06:02 heyoka wrote: I really liked Chasing Ghosts, its the same subject as King of Kong but focuses on some different people and doesn't have the whole clash of titans storyline thing
also Word Wars is a sweet doc about professional scrabble players
any idea where I can watch these online? Don't have much space/bandwidth to DL.
well you didn't mention anything about nature and you talked about cheesy stuff from discovery etc.. but i am still going to mention this: planet earth
yea i've seen random bits here and there of planet earth and the making of it, and even that new one that is just called earth or blue planet? anyways, I've been meaning to watch the thing from start to finish I just dont have space or bandwidth for the whole thing (i'd prefer to get it in hi-def)
Louis Theroux documentary series are very informative and quite entertaining, hes basically a guy that goes investigating sub cultures and extremist groups, very likeable guy and presents things with no bias at all and lets the extremists present their own ideas. Its probably my favorite documentary show
BBC Visions of the Future is a great documentary series on technologies that will be possible in the near future or changing our world now
The Story of Maths/Dangerous knowledge are 2 great docs on math history, reccomended if you are interested in that stuff
Bizzare foods is a cool food documentary series, not a cooking show, but just a random fat bloke going around and eating really weird shit
Mythbusters- No comment needed here
A History of God does a great job covering basic aspects and beliefs and history of the 3 monotheistic religions
Richard Dawkins "Enemies of Reason" and "Root of all Evil" are pretty good documentaries, root of all evil is basically a summary of the God Delusion and Enemies of Reason is debunking pseudo science groups
The Elegant Universe is a pretty cool physics documentary on a intro to string theory
Web Warriors is a interesting documentary on hackers
Steal This film 1/2 are good at covering the piracy copyright debate
You have to look at Louis Theroux, its good stuff
Edit: If you are interested in martial arts/fighting check out Fight Quest/Human Weapon
I saw a documentary on the History channel that I've always wanted to see again. It's basically about a guy who stays at a remote Canadian base in Afghanistan. It just shows their daily lives and such. Was really good. I never got the name of it.
Very limited summary of movies I listed. If you love documentaries though you really need to see everything on my list. All are top notch editing and very interesting. Most of them have some very funny parts as well as deep serious business parts.
Documentaries like spellbound, word wars, and word play may sound boring, but the world of competitive scrabble, crossword puzzles, and the spelling bee will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout.
Spellbound - Follows about 6 or so kids in the 2005ish US spelling Bee. It's insane how smart many of them are and the amount of time and money many put into being the best speller
Word Wars - Competetive scrabble players. Basically every top scrabble player dedicates their lives to scrabble and is a nutcase.
Word Play - Goes into the history and creation of crossword puzzles. Mostly focuses on a few of the worlds best crossworders and the crossword puzzle championships. It is ridiculous how fast they can do a friday NY Times crossword puzzle. Like 3 minutes average.
American Movie - Follows an extremely passionate burnout making his dream movie that his been in the works for many years.
Hoop Dreams - One of the most acclaimed documentaries ever. Follows two poor inner city black kids who show lots of promise to be great basketball players over about 8 years. It is about not only them chasing their basketball dreams, but the hardships they go through there growing up in the ghetto.
Children Underground - Orphaned kids ages about 5 - 16 who live in the streets and subways of Romania with only each other to care for them. They form gangs and huff a LOT of paint.
Born into Brothels - Indian kids whose mothers and sisters work as prostitutes, but they themselves not yet are. Live in a society that is almost impossible to get out of their social class. Some end up getting out of the slums and others never leave.
I Like Killing Flies - Crazy old chef that owns a restraunt in greenwich village in new york and cooks hundreds of different dishes, huge portions, and amazing prices. Hes fucking nuts, his restraunt looks like a shithole, but apparently the food is amazing despite mostly looking terrible.
The Up Series - ( follows kids from ages 7 ever 7 years till the most recent at 49) Names of movies are 7 Up, 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, 49 Up. There are a couple kids chosen from each of the different economic classes in the UK. A few end up having pretty dull lives, but most have pretty interesting stories to show throughout. Each film has flashback scenes along with the updates if you just watched the most recent, but I highly recommend watching from the beginning.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston - Fucking insane dude probably with some mental disabilities that has a pretty bad singing voice, but pours his heart and soul into every song he writes. Most of his hundreds of songs are about his one love that he obsesses over for most of his life.
He God Grew Tired of Us- African refugees that get chance to move to America. Follows them from their refugee camp until they are chosen to come to America. Having never been exposed to many simple things we take forgranted it leads to some pretty funny situations. It also focuses on the changes in culture like not having more than one wife and the hardships of missing/ reuniting with family.
Air Guitar Nation - Air guitar championships and qualifiers. Fucking awesome.
The Cats of Mirikitani - Crazy guy that was born in america, raised in japan, returned to america, and was imprisoned in the japanese internment camps for 3 years. Lost track of family. Eventually ended up living in new york on the streets where he paints/draws pictures of cats and sells them for a little bit of money.
The Great Happiness Space - Foreign documentary about the top male escort and some of his buddies in Japan. He earns millions of dollars a year just to grace pretty girls with his presence. Not even have sex with them. Basically the biggest pimp in Japan.
Confessions of a Superhero - Hollywood is full of impersonators and in this documentary you take a look at the lives of some of the super hero impersonators that basically sell pictures with themselves for money. Supermans life story is the highlight. His obsession with Superman is insane.
Darkon - About the biggest live action role playing group in the USA.
EPT
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