favorite documentary

[patsopinion]

i just got watching done watching the corporation
its understandable, there are good visual interjections
the film as a hole makes me feel something
A+

what documentary is the best?

[Fat_Sunny]

Of Course, The Civil War By Ken Burns. Spectacular.

He Also Did One On The Donner Party That Was Riveting.

Also, Fat Saw One On PBS This Winter On The History Of The World Trade Center That Was Just Amazing. Did You Know That A Guy Walked On A Tight-Rope Between The Twin Towers In The Late 70's. It Was A Fantastic Documentary.

Great Topic As Usual, Little Buddy!

[epo]

I'll put Hearts of Darkness (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102015/)up there with anything. An amazing look at Apocolyse Now.

[Dudeman]

off the top of my head:
http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Hoop-Dreams-Poster-C10133146.jpeg

i also like roger and me.

[Fat_Sunny]

i have friends who are civil war scholars, and most of the historians feel burn's documentary was a bit sentimental, and missed many less glamorous, but very important points.

Well, As A Bit Of A Scholar Hisself, F_S Will Agree With That. However, It Is Impossible In 12 Hours (Whatever) To Do 100% Justice To A Struggle That Lasted 4 Years, And Was 200 Years In The Making.

What It Did Do, Which All Good Documentaries Do, Is To Leave You Wanting To Know More ABout The Topic, And Motivating You To Delve Into It In Greater Depth.

[Landblast]

I'm a huge fan of docs, so I have more than one,

Stanley Kubrick: A Liife In Pictures
The Fog Of War
Memories Of The Camps
Mayor Of The Sunset Strip
Woodstock

I also like productions that take place over a period of time,

Stevie (by Hoop Dreams Steve James)
and Frontlines Country Boys are a couple of favorites.

[Fat_Sunny]

I'm a huge fan of docs, so I have more than one,

Stanley Kubrick: A Liife In Pictures
The Fog Of War
Memories Of The Camps
Mayor Of The Sunset Strip
Woodstock

I also like productions that take place over a period of time,

Stevie (by Hoop Dreams Steve James)
and Frontlines Country Boys are a couple of favorites.

Yeah, Woodstock Was A Fav Also.

[HBox]

Paradise Lost.

Another good one is Street Fight, a documentary about the Newark Mayoral Election between Sharpe James and Cory Booker. Highly disturbing.

[Fat_Sunny]

Paradise Lost.

Like Marc With A C Said, You Click On Your Posts And It's Not A Link. What Was Paradise Lost About?

[HBox]

Like Marc With A C Said, You Click On Your Posts And It's Not A Link. What Was Paradise Lost About?

From IMDB:

Berlinger and Sinofsky's documentary of a gruesome triple murder in West Memphis, Arkansas and the subsequent trials of three suspects, takes a hard look at both the occult and the American justice system in 'small-town' America. Three teenagers are accused of this horrific crime of killing three children, supposedly as a result of involvement in Satanism. As in their previous documentary, things turn out to be more complex than initial appearances and this film presents the real-life courtroom drama to the viewer, as it unfolds.

[prothunderball]

My favorite is The Filth and Furry, it's a doc about the Sex Pistols, if anyone is at all a fan of the original punk scene it's a must see.

[patsopinion]

My favorite is The Filth and Furry, it's a doc about the Sex Pistols, if anyone is at all a fan of the original punk scene it's a must see.

if this is the one that im thinking about i really enjoyed it
its about what punk was and the message and the ideology
i mean one of the greatest bands in history and they were together for like 6 months or some crazy shit like that
really good flick

[Bay Ridge Tim]

Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119107/) is my favorite movie ever, not just documentary. It's the best movie ever made about the meaning of life. It's very moving.

[boonanas]

Favorite documentary must be Crumb, a film by Terry Zwigoff I believe that gives an outlook on the life of Robert Crumb and his disturbed family.

Second favorite documentary must be Harlan County USA, a film by Barbara Kopple which follows the strike against a mining company that turns violent, all of which they got on tape.

[sailor]

baseball (http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/baseball/)

50 points to whoever can guess (without cheating!) who is candy cummings

[Ritalin]

Yeah, Hoop Dreams

[Stankfoot]

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a350/stankfoot/dig.jpg

[docgoblin]

Of Course, The Civil War By Ken Burns. Spectacular.

He Also Did One On The Donner Party That Was Riveting.

Also, Fat Saw One On PBS This Winter On The History Of The World Trade Center That Was Just Amazing. Did You Know That A Guy Walked On A Tight-Rope Between The Twin Towers In The Late 70's. It Was A Fantastic Documentary.

Great Topic As Usual, Little Buddy!

I saw that one on the Donner Party years ago on PBS and it was riveting. I taped it on VHS and have watched it several times. What an incredidble story.

I love many of the docs previously mentioned (Civil War, Baseball, Hoop Dreams). There are a few more that I really like:

Depeche Mode 101 & Rattle and Hum are excellent (both 'rockumentaries' I guess)

Has anyone seen the doc from a few years ago called "Capturing The Friedmans?" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342172/) If not, I highly recommend it.

I also want to see "Let's Rock Again," the Joe Strummer bio. R&F interviewed the director last year and I've been dying to see it ever since. I've just been too lazy to get it on DVD. Has anyone seen it?

[Dudeman]

Another good one is Street Fight, a documentary about the Newark Mayoral Election between Sharpe James and Cory Booker. Highly disturbing.


good call.
(and i knew cory back in the day, before he became a media star- eventhough he sort of was one back then too)

and since no one else has said it- f 911 & bowling for c both had their moments.

[midwestjeff]

50 points to whoever can guess (without cheating!) who is candy cummings

a porn star?

[IMSlacker]

50 points to whoever can guess (without cheating!) who is candy cummings

Cunty McSlut's mom?

[IMSlacker]

This is one of my all time favorites.

http://www.impawards.com/1981/posters/decline_of_western_civilization.jpg

[Dan G]

I caught a fantastic documentary on IFC last week called The Bridge.
It's about the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The director set up cameras around the bridge for a year and watched people commit suicide. He would interview family and friends of the people, but never reveal that he had footage. He was also able to stop 6 from jumping. He would just film people as they walked along the bridge and you could kind of tell which ones were distraught, so he'd follow them closely. He always called the police as well to alert them of potential jumpers, so it's not like he was hoping to catch people as they jumped.

The DVD comes out June 12th.

[burrben]

Has anyone seen the doc from a few years ago called "Capturing The Friedmans?" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342172/) If not, I highly recommend it.



i loved that. i also liked "the devil and daniel johnston" and "fearless freaks" (about the flaming lips)

[AKA]

Well, outside of PUBLIC WITNESS (http://www.publicwitnessmovie.com)...

HOOP DREAMS,

BROTHER'S KEEPER,

HEARTS OF DARKNESS,

and

STREETWISE

[Yerdaddy]

There was an HBO documentary in the mid 90s about prisons where they were interviewing this Flava Flav looking con and he described how he took this other con in the closet and tossed his salad. The interviewer said "I'm sorry, what's that?" And the con says "Tossed salad is when you eat a dude's butt out." The horror. Next day "tossed salad" was an established part of the nation's lexicon. And that's movie magic. That's got to be my favorite.

After that one:

"The Fog of War", "Hearts of Darkness", "Super-Size Me!" (which helped me get through my two years in Yemen without a McDonalds), the old "Marty Stouffer's Wild America" series, the entire "FRONTLINE" series (especially their three or four pieces on Iraq), and "Gimme Shelter".

[El Mudo]

I'm not really a fan any more of Burns' the Civil War....

Sure its well edited and definitely a nice film to watch, its just like the movie Gettysburg in that the historical inaccuracies just distract and bother me to a point where I can't watch it any more


"Ring of Fire" about Emile Griffith and Benny Paret was great and horrifying and very sad


"When we were kings" was excellent, about the Foreman/Ali fight in Zaire


"Beyond the Mat" was very interesting, the Jake Roberts scenes in BTM were disturbing enough to be their own movie, and Vince making poor Droz puke on demand was hysterical

[FUNKMAN]

Don't know the name but it was about a couple of drug addicts that were living in Newark. At one point the camera followed the male addict into the Rowe Manse Emporium in Bloomfield where he proceeded to shoplift several shopping bags full of items. I used to deliver bread to that store.

At the end of the documentary this male addict is all strung out/fucked up sitting/laying on the curb with an expensive leather Minnesota Vikings jacket on and people just walking by going on with their lives paying him no mind.

I seem to have this deep interest in the 'dark places' human beings put themselves in and try to fully understand why they do it. I guess it helps keep myself sober in some sort of way...

[riverofpiss]

I watched a National Geographic documentary a couple of weeks ago that was subtitled. The filmmaker was following a group of vigilantes that were tracking poachers that were hunting antelopes to extinction. The poachers fight back and slowly start to pick of the vigilates and it is all caught on film. It was intense film.

[Mike Teacher]

A good Documentary = Teacher's Dream. Sadly, teachers show a lot of shitty docus

IMDB lists docus...

No Direction Home: Awesome Dylan and an education on the evolution of american music at the time.

The Fog Of War: Amazing, terrifying look at Bob McNamara and the US War Machine at the time

A Brief History of Time: Morris Nails Stephen Hawking's book. Also did...

The Thin Blue Line: If you havent seen this, you havent seen the documentary that got a man released from a life sentence for a crime the film shows he didnt commit.

Koyaanisqatsi: A visual sight and tome poem, no narration, no words, just images and the music of philip glass, shows the double edged sword of technology, as did the sequel...

Powaqqatsi: Which comes off as a training film for slaves. The opening sequence shows the men of Sierra Leone who are digging for diamonds in a pit where a moutain once stood. The main title music has been used in countless trailers. I'm a qatsi-holic. The third one is so bad it doesnt exist to me.

Shoah: A life changing early docu on The Final Solution. Brutal.

An Inconvenient Truth: Shows how not to present scientific evidence. Example: If someone presenting a scientific paper would start to wax poetic on how his early life led him to his path... theyd stop him here and ask 'What the F does any of this have to do with the data?' ugh. Sadly, the messenger fucks the message.

When We were Kings: Ali, Foreman, King, Plimton, Mailer, James Brown. This is superb; deserved its Oscar.

One Day in September: Shows the clusterfuck that was the 1972 Olympics debacle; sad horrific riveting, better then 'Munich' it's so sad how everyone, everyone failed those hostages. Oh how the germans fucked this one up. On so many levels you will watch this and be utterly drained.

Why We Fight: DDEisenhower gave a speech right before leaving office about the militarization of the world. were talking the Frigging Supreme Commander; yes that was his title of the Allied Expeditionary Forces [fancy words for the fighting forces of WW2], and here he is, as Prez, warning us back then about what will happen if... and it's happened.

To hear a sitting president talk abut the losses that the war machine put on humanity, I have some of his speech memorized Ive seen it so much 'Every weapon built, is, in the end, a theft, a loss.. this is no way of life, this is humanity hanging by a cross of Iron...'

My God see this. Everything he warned us of is coming true. Nostradomus had nothing on this guy.

Touching the Void: You have never seen a docu as brutal; as scary, as terrifying; it all happened, it is controversial to this day, and every climbing head ever knows the story. Simon ! ! ! ! ! ANyone who thinks they have endured pain hasnt until they see what these dudes went through; they should both be dead.

Dogtown and the Z-Boys: The Zephyr team that sprouted Tony Alva; Stacy Peralta [who discovered a young Tony Hawk] and others who brought surfing to concrete waves... see also...

Riding Giants: which [almost] exceeds Endless Summer [greatest surf docu, or docu ever, perhaps] in showing the evolution of surfing, and some lesser knowns who changed everything.

Cosmos: It's old but was huge. Carl Sagan's series was the most popular TV docu until Burns' Baseball/Civil War.

Capturing the Friedmans; mentioned above. Brutal.

For All Mankind: Very Cool! What it was like to walk on the Moon, to go to the Moon, told by the guys who were there. Won the Oscar for Docu I think. Great unsees/rarely seen footage of the moonwalkers.

Sheesh thats just the surface. I need a nap...

[badorties]

My favorite is The Filth and Furry, it's a doc about the Sex Pistols, if anyone is at all a fan of the original punk scene it's a must see.

if this is the one that im thinking about i really enjoyed it
its about what punk was and the message and the ideology
i mean one of the greatest bands in history and they were together for like 6 months or some crazy shit like that
really good flick

lydon getting choked up over sid was priceless, totally negating the sid/nancy mythology

baseball (http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/baseball/)

50 points to whoever can guess (without cheating!) who is candy cummings

'invented' the curve ball

[WhistlePig]

I love documentaries! I agree that Filth & the Fury, Capturing the Friedmans and Crumb are great, three of my faves.

Here are a couple more:

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones

New York Doll - story of Arthur "Killer" Kane reuniting with the New York Dolls after 30 years. Really a sweet sad story.

Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks - with great footage of Steve Jones showing how he plays Sex Pistols songs note by note

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster - I'm not a rabid Metallica fan but this film about the band's problems was pretty entertaining

[sailor]

'invented' the curve ball

yes, candy cummings threw the fiurst curveball in the late 1800s. and i always thought alva's logo looked loke awa till i knew better.

http://denverskateshop.com/products/images/Alva_Logo.gif

[SinA]

Not exactly a documentary, but I like the Michael Palin travel series, like Around the World and I think there was another called Pole to Pole or something like that.

I liked the Ewan McGregor Long Way Round series too.

As for true docs, the Dob Dylan Troubador, Wilco I am Trying to Breal Your Heart were awesome. Festival Express was good. too.

Spellbound and Jesus Camp are coming up soon in my Netflix que. I'm looking forward to both.

[outlawfrank]

City on Fire: The story of the '68 Detroit TIgers- This informative documentary takes a look at the 1968 Detroit Tigers and the team's effect on a torn and divided city after the explosive race rioting of 1967. Sporting only three blacks on the team the Tigers winning the World Series helps blacks and whites find common ground in putting their differences in the past. In 1968 Detroit was the nation's fifth most populous city and learning how to heal itself. Baseball fans and historians alike will find this hour documentary interesting.

[Ritalin]

Not exactly a documentary, but I like the Michael Palin travel series, like Around the World and I think there was another called Pole to Pole or something like that.

I liked the Ewan McGregor Long Way Round series too.

As for true docs, the Dob Dylan Troubador, Wilco I am Trying to Breal Your Heart were awesome. Festival Express was good. too.

Spellbound and Jesus Camp are coming up soon in my Netflix que. I'm looking forward to both.

Yeah yeah, I love those Michael Palin travel docs. He did one where he traveled around the Pacific Rim that was awesome.

[epo]

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. A great documentary about the early 70's new wave of directors in Hollywood and how they changed everything.

[Mr.Pants]

Anybody dig the Up series that Michael Apted makes every seven years? He follows the lives of 14 English subjects . It's wild watching these kids in 1964 get old now.

[Chainsaw]

A few that come to mind...

End of the Century- About the Ramones
The Atomic Cafe- helped inspire Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove
Hype!- A great doc on the seattle grunge scene
Stanley Kubrick: A life in Pictures- A very fitting doc/tribute to the genius
One Day in September- about the 1972 Munich Games...helped with the movie Munich

There was a phenomenal documentary on A&E a few years ago about how the music of the 1970's influenced the 70's film. Only saw it once, would love if anyone could remember the name or where to find it.

[Snacks]

Super size me and farenheit 911. Im looking forward to seeing sicko.

Another really good, funny doc was "My Date With Drew"

[Mr.Pants]

It seems like there's a new Iraq doc coming out every other week. The War Tapes, Gunner Palace, Occupation: Dreamland, Iraq in Fragments, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Voices of Iraq were all interesting.
Also related to the war are Control Room (about Al Jazeera) and Uncle Saddam which explains his crazy family pretty well.

[drjoek]

Riding Giants
Step into Liquid

I love watching surfing documentries. Never surfed in my life but they are excellent to watch.

Civil War and Baseball by Ken Burns

I agree with some of the criticisms of Burns but they are enjoyable to watch.

The smartest guys in the room about the Enron crisis
The high cost of low prices about Walmart very eye opening

This film is not yet rated about who sets motion picture ratings

One more

High on Crack Street set in Lowell Mass. On HBO
(Inside stuff it "starred" former Professional Boxer Dickie Eklund who got cleaned up and went on to be corner man for Micky Ward middle weight and inspiration for Dropkick Murphys Warriors code)

[Mike Teacher]

The Atomic Cafe- helped inspire Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove

=

The Atomic Cafe came out in 1982 so that's after Strangelove; I think what may have inspired him was the Atomic test footage shown in the movie; I forgot this one, it rules.

[AKA]

Anybody dig the Up series that Michael Apted makes every seven years? He follows the lives of 14 English subjects . It's wild watching these kids in 1964 get old now.

Absolutely - the "7-Up" series is very cool.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/61XG7XE8KML._AA240_.jpg

http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kwQ0R3JkL._AA240_.jpg

[torker]

Little Dieter Needs to Fly
http://www.oneworld.cz/ow/2003/shared/herzog/little1.jpg

[Bay Ridge Tim]

The Atomic Cafe- helped inspire Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove

=

The Atomic Cafe came out in 1982 so that's after Strangelove; I think what may have inspired him was the Atomic test footage shown in the movie; I forgot this one, it rules.


Yeah, The Atomic Cafe is brilliant. It is a lot like Strangelove in that it is both hilarious and horrifiying.

[grlNIN]

Like Hbox said, Paradise Lost was the first one that immediately came to mind.

DIG is only entertaining because it highlights how truly pathetic Anton Newcombe is.

[IamPixie]

Dark days. It's a documentary about the mole people living under the tracks of Penn station. Pretty nuts.

[Keotok]

The Boys of 2nd Street Park

It's about a group of friends that grew up together in the 60's in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. It takes them from childhood to present day with all of the trials of growing up in the 60's and 70's, drugs, relationships, kids, jobs and lives.

[Doctor Manhattan]

http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/8528/michaelmckeanrjparnellcxp2.jpg

[Mike Teacher]

If yer gonna include Spinal Tap; you GOTTA See:

Fear Of A Black Hat (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106880/)

From IMDB: A mockumentary chronicling the rise and fall of a not particularly talented--or particularly bright but always controversial--1990s hip-hop group, NWH (Niggaz with Hats) whose members include:

Tone Def
Tasty Taste
Ice Cold

[TheMojoPin]

FOABH FTW. What a hysterical flick.

[drjoek]

Anything done by HBO sports is usually worth watching