Good documentary films?

Oswald Osbourne · 16-11-2003 3:53pm #1

Can people reccomend any good documentary films? Preferably ones with humourous leanings in them eg Bowling for Columbine or The Filth and the Fury.

Samson · 16-11-2003 4:09pm

One Day in September.

Ro: maaan! · 16-11-2003 8:42pm

West Way to the World

azezil · 16-11-2003 9:17pm

The Blair Witch Project

The_Bullman · 16-11-2003 9:40pm

When we were kings.

bombidol · 16-11-2003 10:03pm

Try Roger and Me by Michael Moore

Venom · 16-11-2003 11:20pm

Bowling for Columbine by Michael Moore.

MadsL · 16-11-2003 11:34pm

Anything by Ken Burns;

Most recently Horatio's Drive - the story of the first car to drive across America. Narrated by Tom Hanks. Suprisingly moving and witty for a made for TV special. It should have had a general cinema release, but he gets snapped up by the TV networks.

MadsL · 16-11-2003 11:35pm

The Blair Witch Project

ROFL

RasTa · 16-11-2003 11:57pm

Dark Days

DadaKopf · 17-11-2003 12:23am

Ken Burns is an amazing documentarist.

Also, the Irish doc about the coup in Venezuela is very good. I heard the one about the spelling bee competition in America was real good, too and there's meant to be a great documentary on Jacques Derrida, called 'Derrida'.

It's not exactly a documentary but my favourite faux-documentary film ever is "The Battle of Algiers". It's a French film, depicting the Algerian war of independence in the 1950s. Powerful cinema.

Chad ghostal · 17-11-2003 12:41am

all of the above are really good ,especially one day in september..and "the revolution will not be televised"

also kurt and courtney.. good

blah.. head empty..

ObeyGiant · 17-11-2003 1:11am

Dogtown and Z-Boys is incredible.
Capturing the Friedmans is also fantastic.
Not a film, but Louis Thereux's Weird Weekends are out on DVD now, and they're also incredible.

If you've got a nerd streak going through you, Revolution OS, startup dot com and Freedom Downtime are pretty good. So is Code Rush - dealing with Netscape's decision to go open-source.

ObeyGiant · 17-11-2003 1:23am

Oh!
And Peter Jackson did an incredible mocumentary called "Forgotten Silver", about an old New Zealand filmmaker, Colin McKenzie. It's absolutely amazing, and it's a crying shame that it's so hard to get in Europe.

yellum · 17-11-2003 9:43am

Stevie by the guy that did the Documentary Hoop Dreams. This is meant to be really good.

Hoop Dreams is a fine flick too from all the reviews I've read.

davej · 17-11-2003 10:00am

Hearts of Darkness (making of apocalypse now)

Crumb (very bizarre documentary following the surreal/dysfunctional life of the famous comic writer)

Spellbound (recently on in the ifi)

Dark Days as someone else mentioned is also excellent.

Biggie and Tupac wasn't bad either...

davej

Bannor · 17-11-2003 11:44am

Waco: The Rules of Engagement

Promises - it's about Israeli and Palestinian children growing up in Jerusalem

jArgHA · 17-11-2003 6:31pm

'Lost In La Mancha' is great.

Documentary about the 'unmaking of' the Don Quixote movie by Terry Gilliam. Evrything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Pity cause looked like it would have been a great flic.

Samson · 17-11-2003 6:51pm

Originally posted by davej
Hearts of Darkness (making of apocalypse now)

Shit, forgot about that one.

Particularly liked the part about Martin Sheen getting pissed and threatening to kill Coppola on set.
Remember the part at the beginning of the film where he's doing the kung fu moves and smashes the mirror in his hotel room, that was real blood?
Hitting the mirror was unintentional, but being so drunk he mis-judged.

Then filming was suspended whilst Sheen recovered from the heart-attack he had later that night/next morning!

Hilarious.