Documentaries

[econophile]

Gimme Shelter (link) is a great rock & roll documentary about the Rolling Stones, and captures a violent riot at the Altamont Springs concert.

[KJS]

Burden of Dreams shows the difficulties Werner Herzog faced making his epic 'Fitzcarraldo', which is about bringing an opera house to the Peruvian jungle.

Project Grizzly highlights one man's obsession with building a grizzly bear attack proof suit. I think all the best docs are about obsessions.

The Decline of Western Civilization covers the early punk scene in LA and has great footage of some pioneers of that genre. The Metal Years sequel is also good for different reasons and has some priceless footage of dumb metal dudes.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer tells the story of the woman at the center of 'Monster'. Don't watch it just for that reason though, see how the director is very much a part of the story, for better or worse.

KJS

[Dids]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought this was fantastic, and really hard to watch.

"Hookers At The Point" is horrible. The naration is just awful.

[drexah]

I really just meant to post to ask where you have seen these documentaries (specifically, Cocaine Cowboy) are they rentable at say, Blockbuster? Or do you have to buy them online...but one of the best documentaries i have seen is the one that takes place in Lowell, MA. when it was the "crack city of the U.S." it's titled High on Crack Street: lost Lives In Lowell I remember seeing it when was younger and it had a pretty big impact on me. I also watched a grateful dead documentary that is very long but real fun to watch, however i'm sure its about 100x better if you're on mushrooms/acid since everyone in the video is sooo messsed up and the music is just trippy.

[jesusarenque]

Here is a link of good (free) onine documentaries covering several subjects:

Docs

[wet work]

Anyone see the documentary "Driver 23", it's about this delusional musician. It's kind of hard to describe but I found it entertaining. He leads this crappy life and is hopelessly optimistic that he's going to be a rockstar.

[Aloysius]

[ QUOTE ]
Startup.com -- I defy anyone to find a better exploration of the dot-com boom and bust.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can not remember if this was any good but E-Dreams, the "rise and fall" of Kozmo.com, is an in-depth look at a company that typified the dot-com boom-bust. I believe ~$60M was invested by VCs, along with ~$100M from corporations, and it may have even enjoyed a post-money valuation of >$1B! (Diablo correct me if I'm wrong.)

March of the Penguins is incredibly well executed, and I will 5th / 6th whatever Hoop Dreams as my favorite documentary.

-Al

[private joker]

Just realized Michael Moore is nowhere to be found in this thread. Despite the fact he is an insufferable, miserable prick, I think people often underrate his skills as a filmmaker. The craft involved with Bowling For Columbine is extremely strong and people forget how good he is at what he does. Agree with his politics or not, BFC is a really good movie.

[James282]

The Devil's Playground - A documentary about the Amish tradition of Rumspringe(spelling is awful), when Amish kids leave the Amish way of life for an undefined amount of time and are allowed to live the way the rest of society does. They can leave for as long as they want, and are always welcomed back into the church if they want to be. These kids do some absolutely crazy stuff, drugs, beer, sex, you name it. Very interesting watch.

James

[odellthurman]

[ QUOTE ]
Just realized Michael Moore is nowhere to be found in this thread. Despite the fact he is an insufferable, miserable prick, I think people often underrate his skills as a filmmaker. The craft involved with Bowling For Columbine is extremely strong and people forget how good he is at what he does. Agree with his politics or not, BFC is a really good movie.

[/ QUOTE ]

I left out a lot of political documentaries. Documentaries are another good reason to be a liberal. Liberals make better documentaries.