Is This The Real Life? Documentaries You Love

[Neurochick]

Valentine Road, great movie and shows how fucked up and prejudiced we really are in the USA.

[addison]

Oct 13, 2013 15:37:44 GMT -4 Neurochick said:

Valentine Road, great movie and shows how fucked up and prejudiced we really are in the USA.

We watched this today too - really well done movie but it was so infuriating to hear from some of the teachers and jurors, I yelled at the tv a couple of times. And cried. it's all just so sad. I don't know why people being different terrifies some people so much.

[emersende]

I've been watching a lot of documentaries lately . . . lots of Werner Herzog. I've seen four of his documentaries (<b>Grizzly Man</b>, <b>Wheel of Time</b>, <b>Encounters at the End of the World</b>, and <b>Cave of Forgotten Dreams</b>, which I really regret not having seen in 3-D) and they're all very good, as is his director's commentary for Aguirre: The Wrath of God. I also found "An Evening With Werner Herzog" on Youtube and there's a great moment when he talks about his views on making documentaries <color=blue><link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px4cPMMn2HU&t=51m8s>here</link></color>. The whole interview is a lot of fun- ninety minutes of Herzog telling stories. He really does have a hilarious "get out of my way, I'm making a film here" attitude.

Recently I also saw <color=blue><link=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0334548/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk2>The True Meaning of Pictures</link></color>, about Shelby Lee Adams, who photographs people in Appalachia. The film looks at how Adams presents and interacts with his subjects. In a way it's a rather shallow look at the issue but going by the comments on the Internet Movie Database people really respond to it. The New York City people in the gallery at the start of the film come off really badly, I thought, and deservedly so.

[Ginger]

I just watched Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. I knew the basics about Spitzer, but I didn't realize what good work he did as NY Attorney General, going after Bank of America and AIG and those guys with prosecution (the only thing that works) when they pulled the type of shenanigans that caused the financial crisis. The documentary asserts that George W. Bush's conservative US Attorney opposed Spitzer when he went after AIG, and that the investigation of The Emperor's Club was mainly focused on exposing Spitzer in order to bring him down as retaliation.

I think the most enlightening parts were the interviews with people like the former head of AIG, who had to step down because he was cooking the books, and is clearly one of the biggest assholes in the world and is still incensed because he thinks he was wronged.

[americanchai]

I will watch almost any documentary. The most recent one I saw was Detropia which is almost more of a visual diary of Detroit in decline (I know, original, right?). There's not much of a narrative though there's a couple interesting characters they follow a little bit - one is the head of one of the local auto unions and it is frightening how little power they have in that hard-hit industry now; the other is the owner of a blues bar/nightclub near one of the factories who is clinging to hope that business will come back. Sad and beautiful.

[codert]

I watched How to Die in Oregon. Wow. Touching documentary that I came across on Netflix about death with dignity.

[eclair]

Dec 10, 2013 0:23:57 GMT -4 emersende said:

I've been watching a lot of documentaries lately . . . lots of Werner Herzog. I've seen four of his documentaries (<b>Grizzly Man</b>, <b>Wheel of Time</b>, <b>Encounters at the End of the World</b>, and <b>Cave of Forgotten Dreams</b>, which I really regret not having seen in 3-D) and they're all very good, as is his director's commentary for Aguirre: The Wrath of God. I also found "An Evening With Werner Herzog" on Youtube and there's a great moment when he talks about his views on making documentaries <color=blue><link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px4cPMMn2HU&t=51m8s>here</link></color>. The whole interview is a lot of fun- ninety minutes of Herzog telling stories. He really does have a hilarious "get out of my way, I'm making a film here" attitude.

I love Werner Herzog! I also liked his Lochumentary, "Incident at Loch Ness". Soon after seeing Cave of Forgotten Dreams I saw an article that said that scientists have looked at the cave hand prints, and found evidence of sexual dimorphism in hands/handprints, which indicate that most of the cave painters were female, including the one with the bent finger. I believe Mr. Herzog used exclusively male pronouns talking about the cave painters (although I still like the documentary).

An article that explains this better.

[chonies]

Life Itself. Beautiful and sad, and although it clearly held Ebert in tremendous awe, I don't think it flinched from depicting the difficult, prickly, and occasionally brattish inclinations, as well as the disquieting feelings stirred by watching his last days.

[Ripley]

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Wow. It didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know or suspect, but it was very well done. It included footage from Tom Cruise's crazy black turtleneck interview. I can't believe it's been ten years since that happened.

I've always sworn that when I become Empress of the World that Warren Jeffs would be first up against the wall. I'm so very tempted now to replace him with David Miscavige. I am absolutely disgusted by those who use people's religious beliefs as a means of tyrannical control for their own selfish gain. Both of these men qualify, and I loathe them absolutely.

[scarlet]

I watched Happy Valley on Netflix. It's about the Sandusky case and doesn't really cover any new ground, rather examines the fallout his crimes had on PSU, Joe Paterno and the football program. My biggest takeaway from it was that, bottom line: people don't like their idols knocked off their perch and will react angrily against anyone who tries to do that, be that the media, the authorities and maybe even the victims a little.