It's Real to Me - The Documentary Thread

[Reign]

I thought Man on a Wire was a nice tribute to the Towers. I'm pretty sure everybody knows that they aren't there any more.
Netflix instant watch really is outstanding if you like documentaries. In addition to all those listed here, they have great musical documentaries:
Who is Harry Nilsson( And Why is Everybody Talking About Him), QuietLoud QuietLoud: A Film About the Pixies and I Need that Record are amongst the better ones.

 

[foleyfanforever88]

Did anybody else watch Current TV's 50 Documentaries to See Before You Die? It finished up this week with Part 5, but it looks like they're going to be airing all 5 parts several more times over the next few weeks, at least. Here's the complete list, spoiler-tagged in case anyone cares. I've only seen 6 of these movies. :-\

Spoiler

50. Spellbound (2002)
49. Truth or Dare (1991)
48. The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002)
47. One Day in September (1999)
46. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998)
45. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
44. Burma VJ (2008)
43. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)
42. Catfish (2010)
41. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
40. When We Were Kings (1996)
39. Biggie & Tupac (2002)
38. March of the Penguins (2005)
37. Inside Job (2010)
36. Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)
35. Paragraph 175 (2000)
34. Brother’s Keeper (1992)
33. Tongues Untied (1989)
32. Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
31. Jesus Camp (2006)
30. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
29. Man on Wire (2008)
28. Gasland (2010)
27. Tarnation (2003)
26. Murderball (2005)
25. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
24. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
23. The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000)
22. Shut Up & Sing (2006)
21. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
20. Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
19. Touching the Void (2003)
18. Food, Inc. (2008)
17. Street Fight (2005)
16. Bus 174 (2002)
15. Crumb (1994)
14. Dark Days (2000)
13. The Fog of War (2003)
12. Bowling for Columbine (2002)
11. Paris Is Burning (1991)
10. Grizzly Man (2005)
9. Trouble the Water (2008)
8. An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
7. The Celluloid Closet (1995)
6. The War Room (1993)
5. Supersize Me (2004)
4. Waltz With Bashir (2008)
3. Roger & Me (1989)
2. The Thin Blue Line (1988)
1. Hoop Dreams (1994)

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Dear Zachary really should be on that list.

 

[Brocklock]

Dear Zachary really should be on that list.

I was watching that list on demand and thought the same thing. Perfect number 1 choice though.

Tarnation is one of the craziest movies I've ever seen.

 

[RedJed]

I just saw a documentary earlier this week apparently done by some of the Jackass guys on this uber redneck (potentially very inbred as well) family from West Virginia called the Whites, the entire name escapes me but its something to the effect of the Weird and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia or something.

Anyway its probably an older one but this certainly takes the cake of dysfunctional and over the top that it gets for me in documentary form in a hell of a long time.

Also finally caught the new Morgan Sperlock documentary on branding and advertising, etc........way out there but fun stuff that I enjoyed immensely in a whole different kind of way than the hillbilly orgy of the other one.

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

A while back I caught about 40 minutes of Not Quite Hollywood on TV - I missed much of the beginning, then fell asleep before the end. Unfortunately, this was apparently the last time The Movie Network was ever airing it as I've never seen it listed again. I've mentioned that before and Canadian Destroyer said the full thing was quite good.

Well, it was put on Netflix Canada last week and I finally got to see the whole thing. It was indeed a very interesting look at the world of Australian cinema, specifically the "genre" (exploitation horror) films. I'm not really a big horror fan (I like it, but I'm not in love with it) but there were several movies showcased I'd love to see.

 

[chuck415]

I just saw a documentary earlier this week apparently done by some of the Jackass guys on this uber redneck (potentially very inbred as well) family from West Virginia called the Whites, the entire name escapes me but its something to the effect of the Weird and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia or something.

Anyway its probably an older one but this certainly takes the cake of dysfunctional and over the top that it gets for me in documentary form in a hell of a long time.

Also finally caught the new Morgan Sperlock documentary on branding and advertising, etc........way out there but fun stuff that I enjoyed immensely in a whole different kind of way than the hillbilly orgy of the other one.

If you can track down the original doc Dancing Outlaw about Jesco White it is well worth a watch. Clips of it are on youtube.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

The Wild & Wonderful Whites Of West Virginia is a revelation. Probably one of the most purely entertaining movies I've ever seen.

Crumb is the best documentary, but worth mentioning are the works of Kirby Dick, in particular Sick: The Life & Death Of Bob Flanagen, Supermasochist.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Out Rage made in 2009 looking at closeted congressional members. Very fascinating documentary not only in regards to the current aspect of outing but in terms of looking at some of the history of congressional members who stayed/hid in the closet. Not too surprising, many of the subjects are/were Republicans who took hardline stances against LGBT but were themselves "gay" (bisexuality of course isn't mentioned 'cause that's just wacky).

Worth watching for the subject matter alone.

 

[RedJed]

For music documentaries this year.....any favorites?

The PJ20 film is an excellent piece of work, retrospective on Pearl Jam's career.

Saw a very interesting piece on Kings of Leon a few months ago on Showtime also. Well worth going out of your way to see.

Probably my favorite was the recent piece on U2, specifically the production of Achtung Baby.....its been playing on rotation on Showtime lately.

 

[Mattdotcom]

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

 

[KingPK]

Been watching some docs on Netflix lately. Cocaine Cowboys was a pretty good one about the drug boom in Miami in the 80s. I tried watching Cocaine Cowboys II but only lasted until a graphic labelled the main character (I assume) a "real Nigga" (which was about 3 minutes in).

Right now I'm watching When We Were Kings, which I have never actually seen before.

 

[The Metal Maniac]

When We Were Kings is fantastic. I just re-watched it like, last week, though I had seen it years ago.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Watched Religulous today. Didn't learn anything new but entertaining enough.

 

[Jingus]

Does Paradise Lost 3 live up to the first two? Well, the first one, anyway. Kinda felt like the second one was mostly just rehashing old news, except for the stuff about the one victim's creepy stepfather.

 

[Edwin]

It's good. I think it's more compelling and better composed than part 2, which was a little too focused on the effect of the first documentary for my tastes. The first 1/3 or so of this one is a well-done recap of the first two parts. What's most interesting is revisiting some of the major players some 15 years later and seeing how their views of the case either changed or stayed adamantly fixed.

 

[Smartly Pretty]

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

Watch this and DiG! back to back really late at night with a large group of people and then have a group discussion about who is more insane: Anton Newcombe or Daniel Johnston. Makes for a real good time.

 

[King Kamala]

I watched Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone this morning. I thought it was a lot more compelling than the fair to middling reviews I've read made it sound. It certainly made me more eager to check out their discography than I was after I watched the somewhat thematically similar Anvil and A Tribe They Call Quest documentaries. That being said it was just a little bit too erratic for me to truly consider it one of the all time great rock documentary. Especially in the first hour or so. Was it a look at a modestly successful, aging band trying to stay relevant against the odds? A thesis about Fishbone's place in African-American culture over the past thirty years? A Behind The Music-esque story about the rise and fall (and fall) of the band? All of these approaches are great but all of them at once is a bit too much.

And I have no idea why there were a bunch of Fat Albert lite animated segments in the first half hour or so of the movie but man, were they not necessary. Same with Laurence Fishburne's sporadic narration. Like I said in the Limited Release Films thread, I think someone just thought it'd be funny to say "Fishburne narrates the Fishbone documentary". Maybe the filmmakers were just trying to make the whole thing as eclectic as the band it was profiling but I don't know if I can give them that much credit. Still, one of the better rock docs I've seen in the past few years.

 

[Anakin Flair]

Just watched Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel. Great movie, Corman seems like a genuinely nice guy. Plus, Jack Nicholson- I've never seen him this genuine in an interview, and I didn't realize how many Corman movies he was in!

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Hoop Dreams director has a documentary about concussions now!

http://www.waow.com/story/19599174/hoop-dreams-director-takes-on-concussion-issue

"Head Games" opens Friday in theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The 90-minute film also will be available on demand at iTunes and Amazon, as well as from some cable and satellite providers.

The film includes extensive interviews with Primeau and Nowinski, whose own history of concussions led him to write "Head Games" and found the Sports Legacy Institute. It also features interviews with concussion expert Dr. Robert Cantu and parents struggling to decide whether to pull their children out of the sport they love following a head injury.

 

[King Kamala]

I just watched the documentary on the x-rated, '70s and '80s novelty artist, Blowfly. It was wildly entertaining if not a bit too fawning. I knew a little bit but his work but had no idea how prominent of a legit, mainstream R&B songwriter he was in the late '60s and early '70s before he decided out of nowhere to record exclusively dirty records. Anyway, I think it's up there with Anvil: The Story of Anvil for great documentaries about oft-prime acts (who were never that big to begin with) still trying to hack it in today's world. Also I laughed at Norwood from Fishbone being in his backing band at the beginning because Fishbone had a documentary like that themselves around the same time the Blowfly doc was released.

Most shocking thing though was seeing that Blowfly hated his own race.

 

[BruiserBrody]

VICE on HBO has been a real interesting show. Only 1 out of the 8 episodes so far fell flat for me.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Showtime aired Knuckleball! following Tim Wakefield & R.A. Dickey mainly during the 2011 Season (but also touching on their growing up, Wakefield's 2003 ALCS, etc.) Really fascinating stuff on the pitch itself, the mechanics, and especially the character studies of Wakefield & Dickey. If you are a baseball fan, it's worth checking out. Apparently it's also available on Netflix.

 

[Jingus]

I'm about 2/3rds through The Captains right now, Shatner's documentary about the various actors who've been the leads of Star Trek franchises. It's got a lot of neat moments, but other weirdly-edited comedic bits almost seem like Space Ghost outtakes. Shatner's name gets him a lot of leeway: he uses all the Star Trek footage that he wants, from every era. And he gets a weird assortment of people to show up for extended cameo interviews (Christopher Plummer, for one). But it's got an awfully slow, pokey tone and wanders rather slowly back and forth between vaguely connected topics. Kate Mulgrew still looks pissed off and unhappy to be there, too.

 

[KingPK]

I watched Let the Fire Burn on Netflix last night. It's about a 1985 standoff in a Philadelphia neighborhood between police and a leftist group called MOVE that ended with something like 61 homes destroyed and 11 MOVE members killed after the house they were holed up in had a literal bomb dropped on it by police. It doesn't have any narration or talking heads, just news footage of the group and their problems with their neighbors and police along with footage of the public hearings held after the event. It's very effective in just giving you as much of the story as possible and letting you draw your own conclusions about what went wrong.

 

[KingPK]

Netflix put up a new extended version of Cocaine Cowboys that adds another hour of footage that goes further into the backgrounds of all the main players.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Currently watching The Last One (2014) directed by Nadine Licostie covering the creation of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. No matter which documentary I watch, it never fails to not boggle my mind how Reagan and that presidency handled the entire AIDS epidemic during the 1980's.

 

[King Kamala]

Watched the Quiet Riot documentary on Showtime on Demand. I really, really enjoyed it and was genuinely kind of moved by it. I won't make fun of bands touring without any original members for at least a week.

I think documentaries about oft prime bands going on failing comeback tours is my new favorite subgenre of movie (Anvil: The Story of Anvil, Last Days Here, the Fishbone and Blowfly documentaries)

 

[DrVenkman PhD]

The documentary on Cannon Films, "Electric Boogaloo" (not to be confused with a more 'official' documentary called The Go-Go Boys) is on Netflix and an entertaining way to spend an hour and 45.

 

[NoCalMike]

I recently watched WHY HORROR? It was decent enough.