Documentaries I have loved

Nice suggestions, Abbot. I haven't seen any of those.

Re: I'm starting to burn out on them, or run out of them, or both. - If you find that it's the latter, you could always turn to the PBS archives - an impossible wealth of hour-long, feature-length and serial documentaries on pretty much everything under the sun. Infotainment at its finest! Chances are your local library has an enormous cache of these gathering dust and just waiting for you to check them out (for free!).

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. If anything documentary has gotten more conservative in the last 10-20 years. And when does your timeline start? Flahrety? Lumiere?

I was typing a long response to this, but I guess this sums up my views:

I have watched many documentaries from many time periods. I have yet to see anything reach FORBIDDEN LIE$' level of mindfuck. I have yet to see a documentary told as poetically as THE MOTHER (including, yes, the holy fucking Nanook). More and more hybrids are popping up, and they keep getting more and more interesting.

I was watching this one documentary a few months ago that wasn't very good, but I didn't feel like I was wasting any time because, while it sucked, it had all these interesting ideas about form...splicing together all sorts of unrelated stories and shots of abandoned mental clinics and weird youtube clips...The whole thing made me excited about different sorts of craft...An Altman-esque doc with fiction-like camerawork, for instance. I didn't like CHICAGO 10 as much as everyone else, but the fact that Morgen decided to tell the story that way rather than using talking heads...I found it exciting. I guess that explains why i think documentary is getting better.

Also, the number of entertaining docs seems to have gone up tremendously in recent years (entertainment obv. goes hand-in-hand with craft)...I'm thinking of AMERICAN TEEN, MURDERBALL, SPELLBOUND, THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON, et al.

I was typing a long response to this...

tape store so u dug forbidden lies??

I thought a lot of the shots of Khoury like walking along posing and stuff were pretty O_o, but i generally found it entertaining.

I thought it was completely genius...SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED so it's about a director being conned by a con-artist and yet, all along, that director is actually conning the audience...incredible

Pillbox, you were asking about this:

> And the oft-referred to one about exceptionally gifted autistic
> children. Especially the child who could draw the entire skyline of
> London from memory, with pinpoint accuracy.

there've been a couple, for the BBC - one episode of QED and another called Fragments of Genius.

this is him:
http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/

the recent Imagine show on Oliver Sacks had a bloke on there who was the same with music.

and has anybody mentioned Etre et Avoir?

abbott you should see yangtze

faves of the last yaer

american teen
who is this nilsson (and why is everybody talkin' about him?)
encounters at the end of the world
chris & don: a love story

actually, SW lists all his documentary appearances on that website and it runes to over 40 in various countries...

Actually most of the docos I thought I loved turned out to be films in disguise so that was upsetting because I realised I'm not so cultured.

films in disguise???

I love old public television documentaries ... PBS, BBC, all of em. Don't know what it is about them

Anyway, some other great documentaries that maybe haven't been mentioned (apologies if they have) - Seventeen, Handsworth Songs, How To Live In The German Federal Republic, Route One (or is Route One USA?), El Cielo Gira, Get Rid Of Yourself. Someone already mentioned Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, but that's good (some problems though). The best documentary I've seen recently is Grant Gee's film about Joy Division, and I don't even really like Joy Division.

films in disguise???

http://www.impawards.com/1997/posters/waiting_for_guffman.jpg?

http://www.filmfodder.com/movies/reviews/master_of_disguise/images/master_of_disguise.jpg?

Impawards!

this is a good documentary that played on the television:

http://xhgc18.blogspot.com/2008/01/dont-get-high-on-your-own-supply.html

at the last ATP saw most of "Fearless Freaks", the Flaming Lips documentary. Great stuff, early histories, crazy family antics, further confirms Coyne's status as total dude and Nicest Guy in Rock; and one o_O and heartbreaking scene of one band member talking frankly about his heroin addiction while preparing to shoot up.

ledge, you should check out Summercamp! It's directed by the same guy + Sarah Price (The Yes Men, American Movie) and features a score by the Flaming Lips.

Uta Hagen's Acting Class was fun, other than a handful of bum scenes. she was a character wow.

*sigh* @ 18yo me

lol.
you're doing what you said you wouldn't!

I'll be seeing the Phil Spector documentary sometime in the next few weeks. Anyone seen it? Is there lots of cool Spector to go along with freak-show Spector? Is it the most egregious bad-hair film since Joe Pesci in JFK?.

I really liked the Louis Malle documentaries that the Criterion Collection reissued, like Phantom India, Calcutta, God's Country, Human too Human, Place de Republique, and Vive le Tour... especially Phantom India and God's Country.

Hoop Dreams -- I'm drunk and teary eyed watching this right now

Kings of Pastry was pretty enjoyable.

hoops dreams was very great don't get me wrong but i almost thought it was juuuust lacking on both the basketball and personal lives fronts

basically my criticism is i wanted it to be 8 hours instead of what, 3?

I kind of agree in that respect. saw hoop dreams while recovering from surgery in 95 and wanted more. Like more versions of hoop drams w/ different kids and stuff

haven't seen in it years but that was my reaction too

Yeah it does feel like it could use maybe two or three more players followed.

OTOH watched Gunnin For That #1 Spot and though it was totally superficial.

I haven't read the whole thread, but KING OF KONG MUTHAFUCKERS!

If you watch Hoop Dreams, you gotta watch "Recruiters" from Mr. Show. Unless you don't have a sense of humor.

Also, King of Kong was pretty amazing. And I Like Killing Flies.

There were some recent lists posted on the ILF thread for favourite documentaries. I've got a month till I go back to school, so I'd be very interested in running a Favourite Documentary poll if a) there'd be enough voters (25 at least?), and b) the people running music polls don't object. I wouldn't do nominations or campaigning: just send me your list of 10, I'll tabulate the votes and count down the list. Please post any thoughts here--if there's enough interest, I'll proceed.

sounds cool, id participate

maybe allow unranked ballots also if ppl just want to put in for 10 they generally like a lot

sounds like a great idea.

Unranked would be fine. I'd keep it to 10 because, even though I see a lot of documentaries myself, and know that there are other people on the board who do also, I realize that generally people don't. But I think a list of 10 would be relatively easy for most anyone.

yeah that'd be great! always nice to have an excuse to watch lots of documentaries.

I thought this was going to be bumped for Britain Through A Lens: The Documentary Film Mob which was shown on BBC4 tonight. It was pretty good, though didn't really tell me anything I hadn't learned in my A Level Film class.

Would definitely be up for the poll - a film poll would be a nice change of pace from all the music ones going on, too. Though I'm still sore over the fact that the 1930s one never happened.

i love documentaries but lately (past couple of years) have really not felt compelled to watch them. because so many of them are so damn depressing tbh.
i do want to see the New York Times doc (also likely depressing)

i watched this doc the other day (it came up on netflix) called "Dear Zachary" and i feel like i cried through most it? i wasn't even in a crying mood; it was just incredibly sad and, at the same time felt like it was just one of many stories of a similar vein that could be told, and so, in a weird way was mundane in its almost unbearable sadness. so sadder still! eegh

because so many of them are so damn depressing tbh.

lol, i feel like this says something pretty bad about fiction as escapism and real life as just terribleness from which we should escape.

i would vote in this i guess? i am not v orderly. do we need definitions? are essay films documentaries?, etc?

haha i was going to follow up what i said there with something along the lines of "tbf i find most hollywood comedies depressing too"

There seems to be some interest, so I'll start a thread tomorrow. I think enough people will drift in with votes for 25+.

By essay film (xpost), I guess you mean something like Letter to Jane. I don't know if I'd count that as a documentary myself, but if a couple of people decided that it was and voted for it, fine by me. I found a site with an overview of 100 documentaries that's very good (http://movies.sky.com/gallery-100-best-documentaries), but I notice they list Altman's Tanner '88. Excellent film, but that's just wrong.

Do we get a few weeks or etc. to watch some docs we've been meaning to see?

My only qualifier is that I'd have to have the whole thing finished by the third week of August. I was thinking a two-week window for sending in ballots.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9e/Monde_silence.jpg

my fav documentary

also possibly the least educational one i have ever seen :/

Oof, yes, that list is very inclusive. I mean, if we were to count The War Game and Haxan as documentaries I'd have to put them at the top of my list, but I'm really not convinced that they should count.

Flopson: see Rushmore! No, from what I remember of The War Game and Punishment Park, I wouldn't count them either.

ah, i've never found a copy of the silent world w/subtitles, which mightn't matter greatly but leaves me hanging on. it would be nice to catch a cinema viewing also.

what happens, with these things, do we discuss in the thread & lobby for our choices or do we just dispassionately direct a sealed, sealed e-mail to clemenza