Movies and TV Late night bullshit: Your favorite documentary. - Page 4

Direckshun · 10-24-2013, 11:10 PM

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.

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

Graystoke · 10-25-2013, 06:34 AM

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

http://divethefilm.com/

rico · 10-25-2013, 06:48 AM

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.

rico · 10-25-2013, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saphojunkie

Hoop Dreams and The War Room.

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

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.

KC_Lee · 10-25-2013, 07:00 AM

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

L.A. Chieffan · 10-25-2013, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silock

The Art of the Steal

Good one

**notorious** · 10-25-2013, 07:33 AM

Touching the Void

ReynardMuldrake · 10-25-2013, 07:37 AM

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

CoMoChief · 10-25-2013, 07:51 AM

The Obama Deception

Collapse

Dayze · 10-25-2013, 07:56 AM

Obama Deception is good.

chiefzilla1501 · 10-25-2013, 08:07 AM

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.

whoman69 · 10-25-2013, 08:45 AM

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.

SPATCH · 10-25-2013, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rico

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 is so.... Iowa.

**notorious** · 10-25-2013, 08:48 AM

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

KC_Lee · 10-25-2013, 08:49 AM

Favorite documentary - type series;

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

**rockymtnchief** · 10-25-2013, 09:02 AM

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

10-24-2013, 11:10 PM
Direckshun __ Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Springpatch Casino cash: $4383447	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. That's my rant. What kind of mind-expanding documentaries have you seen recently?
Posts: 59,262

10-25-2013, 06:34 AM	#46
Graystoke MVP Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Driftless Region Casino cash: $935564	I just watched Dive! the other night. Pretty interesting on how we as a Nation waste food. http://divethefilm.com/
Posts: 8,700

10-25-2013, 07:00 AM	#49
KC_Lee You're CARICATURES, ALL of you Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Kansas City, MO Casino cash: $1980960	Metal: A Headbanger's Journey Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage __________________ “There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.” - Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man
Posts: 9,218

10-25-2013, 07:33 AM	#51
notorious Supporter Join Date: May 2005 Location: Who knows? Casino cash: $2935884	Touching the Void
Posts: 83,362

10-25-2013, 07:37 AM	#52
ReynardMuldrake 2 Legit 2 Colquitt Join Date: Sep 2010 Casino cash: $4515754	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
Posts: 4,694

10-25-2013, 07:51 AM	#53
CoMoChief Mahomes Dynasty Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Parts Unknown Casino cash: $8052254	The Obama Deception Collapse __________________
Posts: 39,156

10-25-2013, 07:56 AM	#54
Dayze Resident Glue Sniffer Join Date: Nov 2003 Casino cash: $5189358	Obama Deception is good. __________________ Life is 99% inspiration, 1% Perspiration, and 1% Attention to Detial. RIP & Godspeed: Saccoppo Lonewolf Ed Fire Me Boy
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10-25-2013, 08:07 AM	#55
chiefzilla1501 In Search of a Life Join Date: Aug 2008 Casino cash: $2114497	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.
Posts: 48,084

10-25-2013, 08:48 AM	#58
notorious Supporter Join Date: May 2005 Location: Who knows? Casino cash: $2935884	Greatest Tank Battles Great Planes The Planets The Universe Into the Wormhole
Posts: 83,362

10-25-2013, 08:49 AM	#59
KC_Lee You're CARICATURES, ALL of you Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Kansas City, MO Casino cash: $1980960	Favorite documentary - type series; The Ascent of Man - Jacob Bronowski Connections & The Day The Universe Changed - James Burke __________________ “There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.” - Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man
Posts: 9,218

10-25-2013, 09:02 AM	#60
rockymtnchief Supporter Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: The Crazys of Montana Casino cash: $10018968 VARSITY	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 __________________
Posts: 5,740