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Your Favourite Documentaries (With Info)
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23-12-2009 02:59PM#1Join Date:Posts: 10350
Lets use this as a thread to share your favourite documentaries.
Please make sure to include more info than just a title - Try to include Movie Poster, Links to IMDB/Wikipedia etc and aYoutube videro of the trailer as well - this way this thread will be a lot more useful for the readers...
OK I'll start:
The Corporation
Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/
The End of America:
The End of America details the ten steps a country takes when it slides toward fascism. It's not a "lefty"tot tome, rather a historical look at trends in once-functioning democracies from modern history that are being repeated in our country today. It gives any reader (or viewer of the lecture) a much-needed history lesson and constitutional refresher. Most importantly, it puts the recent gradual loss of civil liberties in the U.S. in a historical context. The average American might not be alarmed at AT&T selling our private information to the Bush administration, but when this action is seen as part of a larger series of erosions and events, a pattern emerges with unfortunate consequences that become disturbingly clear.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1294790/
The Trap - What Happened to Our Freedom - Adam Curtis - BBCThe Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom is a BBC documentary series by English filmmaker Adam Curtis, well known for other documentaries including The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares. It began airing in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 11 March 2007.
The series consists of three one-hour programmes which explore the concept and definition of freedom, specifically, "how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(television_documentary_series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0979263/8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa3wyaEe9vE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrhFc2kIsP4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAluyt5_kicComments
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Join Date:Posts: 10350
Yeah the Centuary of the Self is excellent, really all of Adam Curtis's Documetaries are brilliant. I really like this one too:
The Power Of Nightmares - The Rise of the Polotics of Fear
The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis. Its three one-hour parts consist mostly of a montage of archive footage with Curtis's narration. The series was first broadcast in the United Kingdom in late 2004 and has subsequently been broadcast in multiple countries and shown in several film festivals, including the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
The films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and claiming similarities between the two. More controversially, it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares0 -
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Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152758/In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child. Friends, relatives, and colleagues say warm and loving things about Andrew, home movies confirm his exuberance. Andrew's parents, Kathleen and David, move to Labrador where the ex-girlfriend has gone. They await an arrest and trial of the murderer. They negotiate with the ex-girlfriend to visit their grandchild, Zachary, and they seek custody. Is there any justice; is Zachery a sweet and innocent consolation for the loss of their son?
I didn't think I'd enjoy this documentary as it was very hyped up at the time of it's release, so I expecting more of an artsy ta;e rather than anything really interesting... I was wrong0 -
Terry Jones' Medieval Lives
I got the DVD set for as a present over christmas.. I had missed it on TV a few years ago. It's really good and informative as Terry Jones' documentaries always are.. it's kind of funny too, of course0 -
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I'm really really happy to see "The Century of the Self" mentioned in this short list. Adam Curtis is amazing. Everybody knows who Eddie Bernaise & Anna Freud are now, or they ought to!
This documentary is such an eye-opener.
"It Felt Like A Kiss", his newest documentary gives the viewer the feeling that the 60's was like a kiss with open eyes lol, great stuff! Listen our for the Beach Boys reference, I didn't know how to react to what he said, or wrote
The Corporation is also a must see!!! I really feel like I should get a pen and paper to copy down everything it says. Someday soon I will...
Noam Chomsky & Howard Zinn are two people whose documentaries are really worth looking out for.
But there seems to be a classic documentary missing from this list. In my eyes it is the pivotal documentary of the modern era,
Zeitgeist
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
The above is a link to the site where you can legally download the movie for free, or watch it on google video, whatever floats your boat.
I have issues with the second movie, Addendum, but then again I was hungover watching it :P
Another documentary that needs mentioning, well 3, are all on physics & the sheer mind-bendingness crazy mind love that these thoughts give you.
1. Atom,
What a great introduction to the world of physics.
What better way to look at the world than by looking at the smallest things (or thereabouts:P) and seeing how this crazy stuff was developed.
The battle of Einstein and Bohr is certainly one that is not to be missed!
2. Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time,
I can't tell you how good this documentary is. I expected something terrible, glorifying his disability & loads of close-ups on "the chair" or something but this is a work of beauty.
3. The Elegant Universe,
Lets get "theoretical" and talk string theory. It is, after all, "just a theory".
You be the judge... This show will certainly inspire you to find out what all the fuss is about with the L.H.C. & the most beautiful "theory" ever - The Higgs Boson.
This one gets a bit technical in the third part, even for a t.v. show, but it's certainly worth it.0 -
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Has to be Fog of War for me -- just a brilliant documentary. You really get an insight into McNamara's thinking, his personality, etc.Robert S. McNamara discusses his experiences and lessons learned during his tenure as Secretary of Defense under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He talks about his work as a bombing statistician during World War II, his brief tenure as president of Ford Motor Company, and the Kennedy administration's triumph during the Cuban Missle Crisis. However, the film focuses primarily on his failures in Vietnam. The theme of the film are his "eleven lessons" learned during this time. Some of these include improving military efficiency, understanding your enemy, and the frustrations of trying to deal with (and unsuccessfully trying to change) human nature.
Anyone interested in history, war, or politics should watch this pronto ! Can't rate it highly enough0 -
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Streetwise (1984)
It's a documentary about a bunch of street kids in 1980's Seattle.
What they have to do to survive, how hard life is etc.
I was actually told about it by somebody on here, and for that I am grateful.
The whole film is on youtube.
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The Fog of War is probably my all time favourite. A few more favourites..
Taxi To The Dark SideOscar-nominated director Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) investigates the torture and killing of an innocent Afghani taxi driver in this gripping probe into reckless abuses of government power. Disturbing and incisive, the Academy Awardr-winner Taxi To The Dark Side incorporates rare and never-before-seen images from inside the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons into its exposure of the Bush administration's "global war on terror." This stunningly crafted narrative demonstrates how this one man's life and death symbolizes the erosion of our civil rights and how what it means to be an American has changed forever.
The Devil Came on HorsebackAn up-close, honest, and uncompromising look at the crisis in Darfur, THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK exposes the ongoing tragedy in Sudan as seen through the eyes of one American witness.
Using the exclusive photographs and first hand testimony of former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle, the film goes on an emotionally charged journey into the heart of Darfur, Sudan, where in 2004, Steidle became witness to a genocide that to-date has claimed over 400,000 lives. As an official military observer, Steidle had access to parts of the country that no journalist could penetrate. Unprepared for what he would witness and experience, Steidle returned to the U.S. armed with his photographs, intent on exposing the images and stories of lives systematically destroyed.
A 2007 world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, this astonishingly propulsive and dramatic film from award-winning filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern (The Trials of Darryl Hunt), is a heartfelt account of what this particular American witness saw and, just as important, what he did afterward.
Shake Hands with the Devil
For 100 days, one man was the conscience of a world that turned its back on the slaughter of 800,000 human beings. That man was General Roméo Dallaire, commander of the small, underresourced, and hamstrung U.N. peacekeeping force stationed in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. Shake Hands with the Devil the Journey of Romeo Dallaire movingly documents his return to Rwanda for the 10th anniversary of the genocide, reliving the political and psychological drama in unforgettable detail. Director Peter Raymont follows Dallaire as he revisits the sites of mass murder and heroism, vividly brought back to life by his traumatic memories and striking newsreel footage. Shake Hands with the Devil does not attempt to describe the Rwandan tragedy from the point of view of Rwandans. On the contrary, its subject is the West's view of Rwanda and how the international community and media abandoned the Rwandan people in their time of greatest need. Audience Award, Best Documentary, 2005 Sundance Film Festival
Why We FightWhy We Fight is the provocative documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Eugene Jarecki (The Trials of Henry Kissinger) and winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Named after the series of short films by legendary director Frank Capra that explored America’s reasons for entering World War II, Why We Fight surveys a half-century of military conflicts, asking how – and answering why – a nation of, by and for the people has become the savings-and-loan of a government system whose survival depends on an Orwellian state of constant war.
The Why We Fight DVD features interviews and observations by a "who’s who" of military and Washington insiders including Senator John McCain, Gore Vidal, and Dan Rather. Beginning with President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s prescient 1961 speech warning of the rise of the "military industrial complex," Why We Fight moves far beyond the headlines of various American military operations to the deeper questions of why America seemingly is always at war. What are the forces – political, economic, and ideological – that drive us to clash against an ever-changing enemy? Just why does America fight? Unforgettable, powerful and at times disturbing, Why We Fight on DVD will challenge viewers long after the last fade-out.
The King of KongIn this hilarious, critically acclaimed arcade showdown, a humble novice goes head-to-head against the reigning Donkey Kong champ in a confrontation that rocks the gaming world to its processors! For over 20 years, Billy Mitchell has owned the throne of the Donkey Kong world. No one could beat his top score until now. Newcomer Steve Wiebe claims to have beaten the unbeatable, but Mitchell isn't ready to renquish his crown without a fight. Go behind the barrels as the two battle it out in a vicious war to earn the title of the true King of Kong.
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Hands by RTÉ
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055087235
Not so much information on-line about it.
In summary it was a series of documentaries made sometime in perhaps the 70's and 80's in Ireland where each episode focused on a traditional hand-craft.
Examples such as Silversmithing, weaving, curragh/Naomh Óg making etc.
Really amazing series that I would dearly love to have on DVD.
Saw a boxset of it in the IFI on Friday FYI (if you dont buy it, I will
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Life After People
Part-documentary, part-excuse-to-see-big-things-get-destroyed, it theorises what would happen to the world if every human being on the planet suddenly vanished. It shows things like what buildings would survive longer than others, how animals would evolve to adapt to their new surroundings, and whether there would be any trace of our existance in the future. It's quite humbling actually, and shows how insignifacant our existance really is in the long run.
When it aired originally, it became the most-watched documentary ever on the History Channel (which in itself is ironic since it shows a future without us, but presents events as if they happened in the past), and has spawned a spin-off series that goes into more detail.
You can get the original documemtary on DVD, the complete 1st Series was released recently as well, and AFAIK half of Series 2 has been aired in the US already.
AFAIK they are showing re-runs of Series 1 on the History Channel at 10pm on Mondays, and is worth a look at.0
, the early bird and all that, if someone delete or lock this thread I've copied and pasted into the other thread so it's all good 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaLPFayD8FA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h-scpQ_szM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0MPcN08Zc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=498tOlnBQBY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlINz3SRTXg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf1CDmn8q0M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMJZ-_bJKdI
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