Late night bullshit: Your favorite documentary.
 

I've been on a documentary bender the past few days. I've started threads about documentaries I've seen in the past, and I'm on record saying that Planet Earth and WWII in HD are the best things ever put on television.

I've seen a couple documentaries recently that really left a profound impact on me. Maybe you've seen some you'd like to talk about? Or maybe you just want to piddle around late at night. This is your thread.

1. I saw "Crisis: Behind A Presidential Commitment" on some channel called Pivot a few days ago, about John F. Kennedy enforcing the integration of the University of Alabama over the segregationist civil disobedience of its then-governor, George Wallace (almost certainly at the behest of his constituents).

This was pretty okay. The story it told didn't have a lot of chapters to it: the federal court decision that mandated integration isn't discussed, nor is any of the other fallout surrounding school integration in the south. This confrontation was entirely civil; there was no violence or use of force. Here's the entire movie: Kennedy wonders if Wallace is going to stand in the way of school integration at U of A, Wallace does, so Kennedy nationalizes the Alabama Guard and there you have it: school integrated.

What's really awesome about this documentary (and it's really old, made in 1963) is it has almost zero voiceover commentary. You are seeing everything happen as history unfolds, as cameras tape Kennedy sweating bullets in the Oval, and Wallace mouthing off to a federal representative as he stands in front of the entrance to his school, blocking it off.

This happened about 50 years ago. That is absolutely ****ing insane, that we've gone from segregation to total integration in such a small amount of time. A public divided on an issue so important became a public overwhelmingly in support of it. So much can happen in such a small amount of time. These were people that mostly look like us, dress like us, and talk like us. This is not ancient history. And we're at each other's throats over increasing gas mileage standards for cars. These people were talking about treating black people equally. Makes our fights seem small by comparison, if you ask me.

2. I saw "Blackfish" tonight on CNN, after months of wanting to see it at my local arthouse theater but never getting a chance to. This movie's about the gross negligence of aquatic amusement parks (SeaWorld, SeaWorld, and SeaWorld) for their criminally negligent treatment of killer whales.

I think the most amazing thing about this documentary is how ****ing amazing orca are. These are creatures that are the sizes of school buses, the intelligent capacity of humans, and what seems like an emotional capacity that far exceeds humans. It's really stunning, the things this documentary reveals about these gigantic mammals.

Mainly it follows the exploits of this one orca they call "Tillicum" from his capture at sea to his confinement in a tank that's simply impossibly small for a creature of his size. The fact that they store a ton of these things together in the same tank is revealed as absolutely insane: they're a lot like people from all over the world, and when you just cherry pick them, separate them from their families, and throw them into what must feel like a bathtub to them with a bunch of others who they can't talk to, can't understand, and don't trust, bad things happen.

Namely, trainers get attacked, mutilated, and occasionally even killed. And of course you see all the deliberate actions from SeaWorld to keep churning out product even in light of this danger.

Mostly, for me, this film really illustrates what it's like for us to abdicate our responsibility to take stewardship over the earth. Humanity simply does not have the resources to adequately care for these creatures: they span hundreds of miles a day, and require more stimulation and social interaction than we are capable of providing. These are incredibly social creatures apparently, and we are placing them in underwater jail cells.

I'm a religious person, and I can't help but think of this as a sin. I don't think you have to be religious to feel like the animals that share our world deserve moral treatment, and that aquatic amusement parks like SeaWorld are absolutely abdicating this responsibility with killer whales.

Anyway. :D That's my rant. What kind of mind-expanding documentaries have you seen recently?

Saw "Deep Water" a few weeks ago. Excellent.

even though it may be slanted, but I enjoyed watching Loose Change. Some things are interesting to think about, and some stuff is "WTF". But I enjoyed it.

Restrepo (spelling?) was crazy good.

Baghdad ER in HBO circa 2006. About an er room for wounded and dying troops in Iraq. It wa easily the most powerful and moving thing I've ever witnessed. No lie.

I don't watch many documentaries because a lot of them force a certain approach or perspective, rarely do you find one that has a neutral overtone on a given situation.

However, I'd recommend The Gatekeepers based of the flag in your avatar.
http://www.putlocker.com/file/C0F11434A9ECDC21

Also this if your into VICE.
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I really like The People vs George Lucas.

Also, Supersize Me, which is a fascinating experiment in eating nothing but McDonalds, if a bit flawed.

The Joe Montana documentary, Joe Montana: The Fire Inside, is a bit of a blowjob, but awesome nonetheless.

I'm a sucker for anything having to do with food, movies or football basically.

Blackfish is very good but very rough to watch...

Mine is The King of Kong...

Other favorites include Restrepo, Ghost Adventures, Paradise Lost, etc.

Right now, "Sound City".

9/11: In Plane Site and Zero: An Investigation Into 9/11 are much better than Loose Change IMO...

Loose Change... what's that about?

I really, really liked Restrepo. I read the companion piece, the book "War," by Sebastian Junger. One of my favorite books of the past few years. Way, way better than Restrepo, even as good as it is.

Sad that the documentarian behind Restrepo died in the field.

Interesting. Tell me about it.

If you like WWII documentaries try the British series from the early 70's called World at War. Tremendous.

Best sports doc I've seen in a while is Undefeated. Very, very good.

King of Kong was incredibly enjoyable.

Can you provide a synopsis?

Loose Change is a 9/11 conspiracy doc.

Welp, I'm out.

:p

yes; those are very good also.

Watched Craigslist Joe the other day. Fascinating how people will place ads for anything on that site.

What about Zeitgeist?

I'm generally out on conspiracy theories. I'm assuming that's what that is.

I subscribe to one. That's it.

1- Shock of the new.
2- Anything by Adam Curtis.

Going to sleep. Maybe I'll add more later.

shit....I forgot about that one. I liked that one too.

Favorite of all time is tough to say- top five in no particular order...

Paradise Lost
Hoop Dreams
American Movie
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Smartest Guys in the Room (Enron)

To make it short and sweet- They interview the six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, about the morality of state-sanctioned violence. It's kind of depressing but what I like most is how honest and sincere the men are about Israel's dirty laundry.

Wasn't it remade or changed several times to where the latest version is just a convoluted mess? The earlier versions were so far out there that at least they had some entertainment value.

Damn, dude. Hoop Dreams. Just incredible.

Sounds right up my alley.

Thanks for the recommendation!

There was a thread about this when it aired, but if you haven't watched A League of Denial then you need to.

I did see it.

A very, very sore subject with me, actually. I almost quit football altogether last year because of the book that documentary was based on.

Really, anything by Frontline is amazing.

yep; Smartest Guys In The Room was good; and pissed me off all at the same time.

I actually DVR Frontline, and this week's past episode was incredibly freaky, about a new breed of bacteria that is growing resistant to antibiotics...

Courtship of Rivals

Same. I'm also now convinced that I have CTE.

I really was thisclose.

Well, I think I was intellectually close. I'm glad the league has made strides, but they need to go farther.

I had functionally quit football last year for about six months. Then April rolled around, and the Combine began, and I felt the endorphins kick in.

It's such a great sport. But the deceptive practices of the NFL were atrocious. Much like SeaWorld's in the OP. For basically the same reason as SeaWorld in the OP...

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan Hoop Dreams, man. I haven't thought about that movie in a long time.

That's the greatest sports doc of all time. Sports docs begin and end with Hoop Dreams.

Hoop Dreams and The War Room.

Netflix streaming is worth it's weight in gold if you're into documentaries btw.

I have the War Room on DVD, actually. God, you guys are making me feel like a huge nerd.

Edit: NO! I have the Control Room on DVD. Nevermind. What's War Room about?

Thin Blue Line is easily my favorite.

Others favorites:

Fog of War
Dear Zachary
King of Kong
Imposter
Harlan County, USA
Capturing the Friedmans
Overnight

EDIT: Screw it, more recommendations of stuff I've liked:

Queen of Versailles
The Act of Killing
Grizzly Man
Man on Wire
Spellbound
Jesus Camp
Senna
Exit Through the Gift Shop
The World at War
Cocaine Cowboys

I just realized I watch more documentaries than any other genre, and my list would probably run another 20-30 deep, so I'll stop for now.

I'm best friends with Billy Mitchell and Walter Day used to live at my parents house!

Planet Earth. Attenborough version

The Art of the Steal



Senna
The Bue Planet (Attenborough)
King of Kong

The Civil War
Baseball

Both by Ken Burns

Winnar.

Back when I had Netflix, I used to watch documentaries because it was the only thing 'new' on.

Now I've pretty much stopped watching all documentaries because I recognized what total and complete horseshit most of them are. Outside of a few high quality organizations that actually care about educating you rather than selling you, 'documentaries' aren't worth watching.

In many cases they are effectively just commercials. The only differences are that instead of trying to sell you a product, they're selling you an idea. Ironically commercials are actually held to a higher factual accuracy standard(because documentaries have none).

Too often their job isn't to educate you, it's to sell you and that's just ****ed up. PBS, Nat Geo and the ilk are some of the few that still do a quality job. The rest? I feel better educated after watching a McDonalds commercial.

The Last Exorxism

I just watched Dive! the other night.
Pretty interesting on how we as a Nation waste food.



http://divethefilm.com/

The Marinovich Project. Hate the Faid, but love this documentary....hell, my Faid-hating may contribute to my liking of this documentary because its not like this guy was Joe Montana to those ****s... Love that documentary though.

I also like this documentary on Netflix about bullying. I can't remember what it is called, but it breaks my heart. It has an Iowa connection from a town that I am actually familiar with one of the bullied...which is cool. However, watching the torment these kids endure just tears my heart and witnessing their parents general apathy in terms of responding to it fumes me...I am a crazy enough father, that if I were to witness footage of one of my children having their heads bashed in to the seats/windows of the bus on nearly every bus ride to school and back...I would probably flip my lid to the point where I would take it out on the bully's parents. Like, I would confront them (public or not in public) and threaten to do everything to them that their punk ass kids did to my son on the bus if they didn't find a way to get their kid to discontinue the behavior (not to brag...but my reputation in town is that I am a very, very nice guy, but no one will ever **** with me. I can scrap...decades of relatively successful wrestling experience at youth-high school and collegiate level with boxing/MMA experience combined with the willingness to throw down if it comes down to is what contributes to this reputation). I can roll, yo...so my kids presumably won't have to worry about experiencing shit like that. Wrong or right, if my kids are ever ****ed with the way the kids in this documentary were ****ed with, it'd prompt me to act irrationally...but then again, when it comes to your kids being physically abused by their peers, what is "irrational?" And ironically, this documentary also makes me feel very guilty...for I had tendencies to be a bit of a bully myself in JH/HS. There were 3 guys who I contacted randomly a couple years after high school and apologized to them for the way I treated them...Billy Madison style. So this documentary gets to me a few different ways. It's good, though.

This.... I've been pretty much agreeing with everything I've noticed you post lately...not that I didn't before...I've just noticed it lately.

I haven't seen "War Room." I better check it out, it seems.

I watched "Run Ricky Run" last week. I loved it. I think Ricky Williams was one confused mother-scratcher and inadvertently selfish as **** (mostly because of his absence from his children's lives among other things), but man that guy was a character...I'd have a fun ass time partying with him and shooting the bull with him.

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey
Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage

Good one

Touching the Void

These are my personal picks:

Most intense documentary:
Vice Guide to Liberia
Vice documentaries are some of the best journalism being done today. This one is the best of the best.
http://www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-t...e-to-liberia-1

Most entertaining documentary:
Louis Theroux [Gangsta Rap, Vegas gambling]
Love Louis' stuff. I can't pick between his Rap episode and the Vegas one, they are both my favorites.

Most profound documentary:
Gates of Heaven [1981]
This might be the most profound film I have ever seen. It left me thinking about it for days afterward. I'm not even going to attempt to summarize. Here is a link to Ebert's review, where I heard of it.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gr...of-heaven-1978

Also, The Story of Anvil, about the rock band, was ****ing amazing.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1157605/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4

The Obama Deception

Collapse

Obama Deception is good.

Deliver us from evil
Documentary about a sociopathic pedophile priest. Very emotional documentary. You may never find yourself so angry.

On the flip side, god grew tired of us is also very good.

If the History channel would actually show history anymore I would point to one of their documentaries like "The Revolution", "The Presidents", even the war of 1812 was good.

This is so.... Iowa.

Greatest Tank Battles
Great Planes
The Planets
The Universe
Into the Wormhole

Favorite documentary - type series;

The Ascent of Man - Jacob Bronowski
Connections & The Day The Universe Changed - James Burke

There are so many, I couldn't name them all.

However, one that really sticks in my mind was about the 1895 Butte explosion.

I had spent Christmas eve and Christmas morning with my family and then had to head home since I had to work the next day. I was really bummed about having to leave my daughters and spend Christmas in a small apartment alone.

As I drove into the thriving metropolis of White Sulphur Springs Montana, I noticed the Lane Bar was open. What better way to drown your sorrows than with a beer in an empty dive bar?

I walk in and the place is packed with people without families to celebrate with. It was turning into a great party when something caught my eye and the retired electricians eye I was drinking with.

It was a documentary on an explosion in Butte Montana in 1895. So we turned up the volume a little and started getting sucked into the story. Next thing you know, all the TVs were on the station and nobody in the bar was talking. Everyone, 40 or 50 people, were dead silent watching this little part of Montana history none of us had ever heard of.

To this day, parts of that show still pop in my head.

http://www2.umt.edu/urelations/mainhall/0708/emmy.htm

http://mtstandard.com/news/local/dea...9bb2963f4.html

Great show.

Paper Heart is a very interesting pseudo-documentary (part doc, part narrative) about the idea of love. Has Michael Cera, Charlyne Yi, and a dude from new girl. Very good.

Dark Days is a doc about homeless people living in an abandoned train tunnel in New York. it's actually really uplifting. Children Underground is not uplifting. It's about homeless kids in Europe who live in train stations and huff paint. Depressing, but interesting.

The Ecstasy Of Order: The Tetris Masters is about, you guessed, people who are the best in the world at playing Tetris. I enjoyed it very much because it goes into the technical aspects and strategies of the game. The people in the film are also very likeable. Highly recommended if you like the game. I watched it on Crackle.

My current favorite documentary is Side By Side. Keanu Reeves produced a picture about making movies using photochemical film and the recent emergence of digital capture. He interviews some great directors and filmmakers. I love it. I believe it's on Netflix, too.

Also worth watching:

Restrepo
King of Kong
Dark Days
Grey Gardens
Dear Zachary
180° South
Man on Wire

Pretty sure you're talking about "Bully". And yeah...it brought back some awesome memories of my school years. Being the short fat kid was not a fun time.

http://www.obsessedwithwrestling.com...hackers/06.jpg

And don't forget it!!!!!

Speaking of rockumentaries, Dig! (Brian Jonestown Massacre through the eyes of sometimes friends, sometimes rivals Dandy Warhols) and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (Metallica during a transformational period leading up to the release of St. Anger) are both good ones.

And on a slightly different plane (pun setup intended), Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives is the story of Eels' founder Mark Oliver Everett's journey to learn about the life of his father, quantum physicist Hugh Everett III. Hugh Everett III is the man who came up with the parallel universe theory of quantum physics. In addition to being an interesting story about a brilliant man and his dysfunctional family, this documentary also includes some pretty good music from Eels.

There is Hoop Dreams and then there is everything else.

I've seen them both, Anvil was much better.

The People v. George Lucas

....recently, Runaway Slave.

The Zeitgeist series really opened my eyes.

Whether or not it is believable, it is supposed to make you ask QUESTIONS and think for yourself, which was really what I needed at the time.

Before watching this, I was a Christian who believed everything CNN/FoxNews told me and had complete trust in our government. I laugh now at how silly my beliefs were, but that is how I was raised.

Any and all documentaries about Earnest Shackleton. He and his men were total badass.

I bought this in 2012 and found it to be...underwhelming.

It could have been so much more, considering the band's four decade career.

"Joy Division" was another good rockumentary, but it may not be as interesting to people who are too young to remember the punk/post-punk period of the late 70s and early 80s.

Looking through my Netflix queue, I see a couple that I'm looking forward to seeing in "Lemmy" (Motorhead's lead singer) and "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" (not sure what this one's about but I've had people recommend it to me).

If any of you have any rockumentary recommendations, I'd appreciate hearing them.

If you're into music, History of the Eagles Part 1 & 2 is phenomenal.

Not only is the archival footage awesome, it illustrates a time when music was more about artistry, integrity and conviction, not just about the almighty dollar (like today).

"Sound City" and the Foo Fighters "Back and Forth", along with the aforementioned "History of the Eagles".

Definitely this. :thumb:

Well, except for the fact that Don Henley is one litigious MFer, it's not about the money.

Anvil! It's not like most "Aren't I a badass?" rockumentaries, it's actually very bittersweet. If you've seen Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, it hits some of those same emotional notes. Very true to life and very well done.

Thanks for the suggestions. It turns out I already had Sound City in my netflix queue, but I've added the other two.