Re: Documentaries
 

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dig! - follows the rise(?) and fall of two bands - the dandy warhols and the brian jonestown massacre. it's billed as being a comparison between the two frontmen - courtney taylor and anton newcombe, but taylor is so uninteresting that most of the footage follows necombe as he creates trainwrecks at every opportunity. though he is compared to dylan and lennon and plays over 80 instruments, his addictions and mental health problems leave him nothing more than tragic. the film was shot over seven years and cut from 1500 hours of film. i enjoyed it.

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Dig! is excellent. I watched it on a flight to London a little over a year ago. It was the most interesting of the 5 or 6 movies I watched on those flights. The fact that it spans such a long period of time allows it to tell a really interesting story of the contrasts of these two bands struggles and successes from near the very beginning of their existences.

Re: Documentaries
 

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The Michael Apted 7 Up series.

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I recently read about this and it sounded like a really interesting idea. Can I start viewing this from any movie or do I need to start from the beginning to really get it?

Re: Documentaries
 

TiK,

I thought Wordplay was OK, but largely becasue I find the subject matter so interesting. Overall I was pretty disappointed and don't think it's nearly as good as those two.

Re: Documentaries
 

American Experience on PBS is probably my favorite show right now. The pieces they did on The Quiz Show scandal, and on Fidel Castro's story were absolutely incredible. I've like almost everything else they've done. I would suggest anyone into documentaries put it on their season pass.

Also History Viewpoint is a British series has some pretty good stuff. There's one I found moving called "The Germans We Kept" about German POWs that stayed and helped rebuild Britain after the war.

A lot of new history has come out in the last 5-10 years with the Soviet Union opening their files. Discovery Channel (I think) had a documentary called Russian Roulette about this incident that will curl your hair. Apparently 4 Russian subs were patrolling around the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis--in horrid living conditions, with tactical nukes, and very vague orders about when they were allowed to fire. There were a few confrontations where we were literally a bad gesture away from WW-III. The US had no idea until a few years ago that these subs were nuclear armed.

Once every few weeks or so I try to scan through every show on DirectTV (A-Z) looking for interesting stuff. Otherwise it's just too hard to know what's out there with all the channels. It takes a few hours to do.

Re: Documentaries
 

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Also very good was Capturing the Friedmans. Particularly since that was a huge bit of local news for me when I was growing up.

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Can't believe I forgot about this one. A great documentary that caused me to feel a wide range of emotions from sympathy, to disgust, and confusion.

I highly recommend this one.

Re: Documentaries
 

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I thought Wordplay was OK, but largely becasue I find the subject matter so interesting. Overall I was pretty disappointed and don't think it's nearly as good as those two.

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Agreed.

Re: Documentaries
 

Holy crap I just realized no one's mentioned Endless Summer yet. One of my favorite films--documentary or not. The stuff in Africa where they surf with some of the locals and become the first people to surf a pristine beach are highlights.

Re: Documentaries
 

i have only seen a bit of it, but a good friend always recommended American Movie

Plot : A hapless amateur filmmaker struggles to produce his latest horror film, "Coven."

Re: Documentaries
 

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Also very good was Capturing the Friedmans. Particularly since that was a huge bit of local news for me when I was growing up.

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Can't believe I forgot about this one. A great documentary that caused me to feel a wide range of emotions from sympathy, to disgust, and confusion.

I highly recommend this one.

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Yeah this immediatly came to mind for me too. The eldest son really sells me on the father being guilty. He is probably the worst actor in the world and obviously faking a lot of what he says. I wonder what happened to his career after that documentary came out.

Re: Documentaries
 

suzzer,

Riding Giants is another one about surfing that I really liked.