Documentary thread?

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Blockhead
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Blockhead »

Has anyone mentioned "The central park 5" in here yet? heavy shit , right there.

LilLeftBrain
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by LilLeftBrain »

lots o herzog talk but no 'into the abyss' which is near dear zachary levels of depressing/unsettling w that verner swing
'stories we tell' recently got up on the netflix/prime, aces
moved by duck muscles

Smitty
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Smitty »

I can't figure out how to embed cuz I'm a fucking luddite I guess. These'll be mostly music docs, I'll list more bizarro and crime shit next time.

Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everyone Talking About Him?) - Great stories about the underrated singer/songwriter. Like the one about Nilsson & John Lennon drunk and high on blow heckling the Smothers Brothers.

Beware Of Mr.Baker - Legendary shit disturber Ginger Baker. Credited with being the first "heavy metal" drummer, he insists he's a jazz drummer. Played with Cream & Fela.

Stepping Razor: Red X - Peter Tosh recorded his diaries on tape, much of which predicted his eventual murder.

I Put A Spell On Me - Screamin Jay Hawkins' career is resurrected after being rediscovered playing in a rib joint.

Anvil - Hoser thrash metal band go on tour. Lotsa laughs.

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery Of The Toynbee Tiles: Some weirdo's been embedding a message in strange tiles in Philadelphia's streets about an afterlife on Jupiter. Tiles spread, are discovered in NY and as far away as Central America. The filmmakers try to discover the source. Fuckin strange.

Stevie - Director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) visits the troubled, pervy halfwit he was Big Brother to 10 years earlier. Everyone in this doc needs a shower. You will too.

Cropsey - The search for a real life Boogeyman who'd been snatching kids in Staten Island.

Los Angeles Plays Itself - An in depth examination of LA's presence and personality in the movies. Maybe too in depth, runs around 3 hours. I watched it a lil at a time.

Smitty
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Smitty »

Great picks fellas. Especially Marwencol, Knuckle, Hearts Of Darkness, and Best Worst Movie.

Gonna go lookin for that Gilliam "Don Quixote" joint. I know he's been tryna get it made forever, sounds entertaining.

gallax
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by gallax »

Great thread! I second Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Soul Power (amazing James Brown performance), and Grizzly Man

Some recommendations:

Music docs
Heavy Metal Parking Lot
It would be a stretch to call this a documentary, but :rockout:
Basically, bunch of kids being interviewed just before a Judas Priest concert in Maryland in the eighties

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones
This Ramones doc has all the elements of a soap opera. Especially Marky Ramone's role in the band was surprising.

Marley
For the ones who haven't seen this yet: amazing footage, indepth and surprisingly sincere. Loved this from beginning to end.

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
All the DoWC-docs are pretty great, but this second one was by far the most entertaining. Ozzy making scrambled eggs with make-up on in his bathrobe and Chris Holmes (WASP), wasted in the pool with his mom sitting next to him are some of the highlights.

....and the rest
Beyond the mat
There are tons of good wrestling documentaries out there, but this one really grabs you by the throat.

One day in September
When a Palestinian terror group took the Israeli athletes hostage during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, everything went wrong that could go wrong. The documentary maker did an extremely good job, and tried to let all the involved parties get their say on what happened.

Monty Python: Almost the Truth
More of a mini-series than just a plain documentary, but a must-see for any Monty Python fan out there.

Good Hair
Didn't know Chris Rock could make a decent documentary, but this one kept my attention all throughout.

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
I'm a big Lovecraft-fan and knew most of his stories, and this documentary filled in all the gaps. Well-shot, and a great introduction to the author. A lot of appearances by big-shot directors.

BBC's Century of the Self
I'm not too much into conspiracy theories, but this short series on BBC 4 blew my mind and gave me a new outlook on the world. Basically a chronicle of how American-made marketing and PR has been manipulating people throughout the decades, using Freud's work as a basis. Other works from the maker, Adam Curtis, are also highly recommended (The Trap, The Power of Nightmares)

Kiran187
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Kiran187 »

Smooth Lou wrote:Narcocultura is one of the best movies I saw this year; a story of a guy who does crime scene investigation in Ciudad Juárez Mexico who sees the grizzly side of the drug war every day. They parallel that with the story of a complete wanksta, a guy who makes ballads for the narcos and sings onstage with a bazooka on his shoulder and his quest to be seen as legit in the Mexican music industry. There's a scene near the end where he gets to see the neighborhood where all his favorite narcos live that's straight out of the twilight zone and puts it over the top as one of the best docs out there.
Watched this the other night and it was great. Really good contrast between the life of the cops/dealers in Juarez and the wanna-be gangster singers in the States. It was wierd to me that even old people seemed to like the music unlike gangster rap where it's mainly a younger audience.

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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Smooth Lou »

Kiran187 wrote:
Smooth Lou wrote:Narcocultura is one of the best movies I saw this year; a story of a guy who does crime scene investigation in Ciudad Juárez Mexico who sees the grizzly side of the drug war every day. They parallel that with the story of a complete wanksta, a guy who makes ballads for the narcos and sings onstage with a bazooka on his shoulder and his quest to be seen as legit in the Mexican music industry. There's a scene near the end where he gets to see the neighborhood where all his favorite narcos live that's straight out of the twilight zone and puts it over the top as one of the best docs out there.
Watched this the other night and it was great. Really good contrast between the life of the cops/dealers in Juarez and the wanna-be gangster singers in the States. It was wierd to me that even old people seemed to like the music unlike gangster rap where it's mainly a younger audience.
Yeah, the music is totally the same style as banda from 50 years ago but the lyrics are all about killing people with an AK-47.

Here's a trailer btw


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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Y@k Bollocks »

Radio Raheem wrote:American Movie is still my favorite documentary. Endlessly quotable, great replay value

Hands down my favourite documentary. Actually one of my favourite films full stop.

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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Y@k Bollocks »

Really liked Blackfish.



Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a performing killer whale that killed several people while in captivity. Along the way, director-producer Gabriela Cowperthwaite compiles shocking footage and emotional interviews to explore the creature's extraordinary nature, the species' cruel treatment in captivity, the lives and losses of the trainers and the pressures brought to bear by the mulit-billion dollar sea-park industry.

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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Y@k Bollocks »

Also worth tracking down Louis Theroux's stuff on a torrent or something.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0857621/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"LA Stories" was good, as was "When Louis Met... Jimmy" when he hangs out with Jimmy Savile (before he died and everyone found out that he was a MASSIVE nonce).

gallax
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by gallax »

Really liked Blackfish.



Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a performing killer whale that killed several people while in captivity. Along the way, director-producer Gabriela Cowperthwaite compiles shocking footage and emotional interviews to explore the creature's extraordinary nature, the species' cruel treatment in captivity, the lives and losses of the trainers and the pressures brought to bear by the mulit-billion dollar sea-park industry.
Ah yeah, that one. It was good! Reminds me a bit of The Cove, which had some pretty crazy dolphin massacre footage.


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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by AWAE »

the new alice cooper and roger ebert docs are both fantastic

Tommy Bunz
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Tommy Bunz »

Image

They just started screening this but I can't wait. Big Stanley fan because of Dust Devil and Hardware, and the behind the scenes stories from his Dr. Moreau have been the stuff of legend. DVD Savant said that this makes Burden of Dreams and Hearts of Darkness look like walks in the park.

boianski
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by boianski »

some really good stuff in this thread.. sorry if i repeat some things..

Five Broken Cameras - A documentary on a Palestinian farmer's chronicle of his nonviolent resistance to the actions of the Israeli army.
Burn - A documentary about Detroit told through the eyes of firefighters charged with the thankless task of saving a city that many have written off as dead.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi - A documentary on 85-year-old sushi master Jiro Ono, his renowned Tokyo restaurant, and his relationship with his son and eventual heir, Yoshikazu.
Korengal - this movie picks up where Restrepo left off; the same men, the same valley, the same commanders, but a very different look at the experience of war.
Maidentrip - 14-year-old Laura Dekker sets out on a two-year voyage in pursuit of her dream to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone.
The Final Member - Icelandic Phallological Museum - the world's only Penis museum. Yea...
The Internet's Own Boy The Story of Aaron Swartz - The story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz, who took his own life at the age of 26.

Krook
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Krook »

Image
Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, presents a gripping courtroom thriller, offering a rare and revealing inside look at a high-profile murder trial. In 2001, author Michael Peterson was arraigned for the murder of his wife Kathleen, whose body was discovered lying in a pool of blood on the stairway of their home. Granted unusual access to Peterson's lawyers, home and immediate family, de Lestrade's cameras capture the defense team as it considers its strategic options. "The staircase" is an engrossing look at contemporary American justice that features more twists than a legal bestseller.
This is much better than it sounds...masterpiece indeed

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Brougham33
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Brougham33 »

For those who enjoyed (watched in bizarre horror) The Act of Killing, here is the companion piece


Through Joshua Oppenheimer’s work filming perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered and the identity of the men who killed him. The youngest brother is determined to break the spell of silence and fear under which the survivors live, and so confronts the men responsible for his brother’s murder – something unimaginable in a country where killers remain in power.

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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Employee »

Brougham33 wrote:For those who enjoyed (watched in bizarre horror) The Act of Killing, here is the companion piece


Through Joshua Oppenheimer’s work filming perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered and the identity of the men who killed him. The youngest brother is determined to break the spell of silence and fear under which the survivors live, and so confronts the men responsible for his brother’s murder – something unimaginable in a country where killers remain in power.
:ohsh:

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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Employee »


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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Gyangsta 4 Life »

From recommendations in this thread, I watched "The Imposter" and "Queen of Versailles". Enjoyed both em shits.

My recommendations, available on Netflix:

Cocaine Cowboys Reloaded
Steve Jobs - The Lost Interview
Love Me
Dawg Fight

and Youtube:

The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia


Corruption, Cocaine and Murder in Trinidad


Guys and Dolls

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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Spartan »

No idea when it's out, but this is looking like one of Louis Theroux's better docs:



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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Comedy Quaddafi »

^ I have been watching a lot of Theroux lately going through most of Weird Weekends and some of the specials.

It's exceptional entertainment most of the time. Esp when hes being a faux-naive troll but also when hes more sincere and serious later in his career.

He just made a docu about alcoholism as well, which looks seriously depressing.
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by Spartan »

Watching the recent one about alkies was really grim. Seeing one dude having some nasty fluid drained from his stomach and Lois commenting, "it's got nice head on it" was fucked up.

wizeguy
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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by wizeguy »

Just seen 'Best of Enemies', a documentary about the debates between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal on ABC during the primary elections in 1968. Highly recommended if you're into that sort of stuff.

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Re: Documentary thread?

Post by djjeffresh »

streaming on netflix now an awesome bbc nature documentary called africa

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