Documentaries

[SomethingClever]

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



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I can verify that this movie is remarkable.

[bwana devil]

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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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an excellent movie. by the time it was over, i wasnt sure what to believe, was confused but was sure i felt sorry for most everyone in the film. and those kids were still likable. what conflicting feelings.

the movie doesnt try and present any answers which is what a great documentary of this type does.

if youve never seen a movie about a child-abusing clown, i highly recommend this.

[alebron]

The Comedian follows Jerry Seinfeld as he creates a whole new standup act from scratch after retiring his old act on the I'm Telling You For The Last Time HBO special. Also follows Orny Adams, a journeyman comic trying to make it big. Interviews of many famous and not-so-famous comedians abound, it captures the craft of standup better than anything else I've seen.

[MikeyPatriot]

7 Up Series as mentioned is great. You probably don't need to watch all of them as they show clips from all the prior shows. Girlfriend and I watched up to 42 a few months ago. Extremely interesting.

Marjoe is the story of a former child evangelist. His parents had him preaching (and even marrying couples) as a 3 year old boy. When his father left him and his mother in his teens, he quit and ran off with some hippies. The film documents his life in his twenties after he started preaching again so he can make money. He is getting out of the business again and exposes evangelists for what they are - scam artists.

I had more, but some friends walked in. Might post later.

[thatpfunk]

really interesting from a music fan's perspective and quite sad. on the dvd there are some cool extras including him meeting the woman he was obsessed with for 20 years. not my favorite documentary of all time but something well worth seeing.

[odellthurman]

I also love documentaries and watch as many as I can. Here are some good documentaries that I don't believe have been mentioned:

One Day in September - Outstanding look at the 1972 Olympic hostage situation involving Israeli athletes.

4 Little Girls - Spike Lee film about the 60's bombing of a black church in Alabama.

Paradise Lost - Very good crime documentary about the West Memphis Three - boys arrested for murdering children. There is also a Paradise Lost II that gives updates, but it's not as good. It is worth watching if you really like the first one.

Last Days - Focuses on a handful of Hungarian survivors of the Holocaust.

Into the Arms of Strangers - This looks at the Kindertransport, where Jewish children during WWII were taken to escape the Holocause and live with English families.

Also, Capturing the Friedmans has been mentioned a couple of times, and it is unbelievably fascinating. You should also check out the separate bonus disc.

[FoxwoodsFiend]

I thought "Fade to Black," which was basically a documentary (more in the mold of "the last waltz" in so far as it wasn't narrated but just did a good job of editing footage to convey its point) of Jay-Z's last concert in Madison Square Park cut with scenes of the making of the Black Album was extremely fascinating. Watching him construct songs on the fly with no preparation and listening to him talk about his life provided a lot of insight into how much different and more intelligent/artistic Jay-Z is from most other rappers.

[Costanza]

Something The Lord Made

A story about Alfred Blalock, the surgeon credited with inventing the first operation to correct Tetralogy of Fallot (blue-baby syndrome), and Vivien Thomas, his lab assistant. A good bit of it revolves around how Thomas' contributions were marginalized because he was African American.

Besides it just being a good story, it was interesting to me because it shows places I went to school and talks about a lot of people who were lumiaries from there. I went to Vanderbilt as an undergrad which is where Blalock and Thomas start out before going on to Johns Hopkins, Tinsley Harrison (Blalock's medical school rommmate) basically built my medical school into what it is today, and a couple of Blalock's surgical residents became faculty members at my medical school as well.

Also interesting for me because it talks about a time when some things we take for granted in medicine today (treating shock with fluids/plasma, heart surgery) were considered novel and even taboo.

[private joker]

Speaking of Spike Lee, last month I saw When the Levees Broke, his amazing Katrina doc. While I didn't need all 4 hours of it (the first 90 minutes or so is standard reporting, and the last hour is a bit redundant), the middle section is so incredibly powerful that it has to be seen.

Spike gets really angry, and the political skewering of Bush & co. is really intense. The characters are rich, the footage is striking, the score is beautiful, and you'll weep several times at some of the accounts from survivors.

[kipin]

The Mark Twain documentary by Ken Burns is excellent. Of course I may be a bit biased in thinking this as Mark Twain is one of my heroes.

The Jazz 10 part documentary also by Ken Burns is also amazing, although I have only seen a couple episodes of it.

Come to think of it pretty much anything by Ken Burns is amazing.