If you've never seen any Louis Theroux documentaries, see Louis Theroux documentaries. Of particular interest areLemon, April 09, 2014, 08:16:37 pm
- The Most Hated Family In America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Hated_Family_in_America). Louis hangs out with the Phelps family for longer than most people could stomach
Particle Fever, which is about scientists trying to destroy the universe with their hardons.CuddlePLEASE MAKE IT STOP SNOWING, April 10, 2014, 05:39:06 pm
Cocaine. That's what the person responsible does. And that's what they do until the disappointment goes away.Particle Fever, which is about scientists trying to destroy the universe with their hardons.CuddlePLEASE MAKE IT STOP SNOWING, April 10, 2014, 05:39:06 pm
I wonder what the person responsible for thinking up porno titles and plots does when the original film already has a porny title and plot.
Isfahan, April 10, 2014, 06:00:57 pm
I wonder what the person responsible for thinking up porno titles and plots does when the original film already has a porny title and plot.(http://i.imgur.com/Ss6tlrx.jpg)
Isfahan, April 10, 2014, 06:00:57 pm
(Twilight of the Porn Stars is good but not as good as the first special).
kal-elk, April 09, 2014, 08:38:30 pm
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles is, as the title says, a mystery, and a weirdly compelling one.
For reference, this is what a Toynbee Tile looks like:
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O_vQJApKYog/TtOIFbZqCQI/AAAAAAAAAMw/neZdn6zQzMQ/s1600/Whole-Tile-Close-Up.gif)
They've been found all over the world, and in at least one case in the middle of a highway. Who creates them and why, and what do the messages mean? It's a fascinating story, as are the stories of the filmmakers themselves, and you end up with this great thing about art as communication and knowing when to let a passion project go.
Wordplay is about competitive crossword puzzle-solving. I like it a lot but I am very biased because I love crosswords and also I know a dude who won the competition featured a couple of times. (We used to volunteer for the same organization.)
The movie theater two blocks down from me is currently showing The Unknown Known, which is about Donald Rumsfeld, and Particle Fever, which is about scientists trying to destroy the universe with their hardons. I will be seeing one of them next week and it's not going to be the Rumsfeld one.
CuddlePLEASE MAKE IT STOP RAINING, April 10, 2014, 05:39:06 pm
Anything Errol Morris is great, too. My favorite is the Fog of War although Mr. Death is a pretty close follow up. His TV show First Person is also worth checking out - each episode focuses on a person with their own eccentric life story, whether it's a cryogenic freezing activist or a mobster lawyer. What I wouldn't give to see it rebooted.
🍆, September 06, 2014, 02:15:02 am
What's really fascinating to me is that for all the time that it's taken us to leave our mark on the environment through various types of industries, nature would virtually undo everything we did in a matter of a few centuries.Locclo, September 05, 2014, 11:32:33 pm
This is a recommendation of a more absurd, "F Plus-y" variety.Oh man, now I have to watch this. I love all sorts of documentaries, but being fascinated with conspiracy theories makes the nusto one seem all the more appealing. In a similar vein, 9-11: In Plane Sight is chock full of terrible science, bad graphics, and alarmist warnings of impending new world order government takeovers. It's fantastic.
The Hidden Hand: Alien Contact and the Government Cover-Up is one of the funniest things I've seen. It's a lovely mix of crazy old men talking about alien hierarchies, people talking about their alien babies, and conspiracy theories.
I watched it solely because of this image showing up on my Netflix feed:
(http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTQyNzI2NDM5MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTY2NTA2MDE@._V1_SX640_SY720_.jpg)
FattyBoBatty, September 09, 2014, 04:47:16 am
Anything Errol Morris is great, too. My favorite is the Fog of War although Mr. Death is a pretty close follow up. His TV show First Person is also worth checking out - each episode focuses on a person with their own eccentric life story, whether it's a cryogenic freezing activist or a mobster lawyer. What I wouldn't give to see it rebooted.
🍆, September 06, 2014, 02:15:02 am
Anything Errol Morris is great, too.True, but be prepared to sit there and really hate Donald Rumsfeld for a while if you watch The Unknown Known.
🍆, September 06, 2014, 02:15:02 am
Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies (http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/cancer-emperor-of-all-maladies/home/) is a fucking excellent 3 part, six hour documentary about cancer.
MISANDRY CANNON, April 21, 2015, 03:52:29 pm
The World Before Her is a tale of two Indias. In one, Ruhi Singh is a small-town girl competing in Bombay to win the Miss India pageant — a ticket to stardom in a country wild about beauty contests. In the other India, Prachi Trivedi is the young, militant leader of a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls, where she preaches violent resistance to Western culture, Christianity and Islam. Moving between these divergent realities, the film creates a lively, provocative portrait of the world's largest democracy at a critical transitional moment — and of two women who hope to shape its future.Quote from
Just finished watching The World Before Her.Thanks for the recommend, now I'm kind of depressed. I had basically known what to expect about the terrorist camp, but seeing it in motion is always disheartening.The World Before Her is a tale of two Indias. In one, Ruhi Singh is a small-town girl competing in Bombay to win the Miss India pageant — a ticket to stardom in a country wild about beauty contests. In the other India, Prachi Trivedi is the young, militant leader of a fundamentalist Hindu camp for girls, where she preaches violent resistance to Western culture, Christianity and Islam. Moving between these divergent realities, the film creates a lively, provocative portrait of the world's largest democracy at a critical transitional moment — and of two women who hope to shape its future.Quote from
That's a pretty tame overview. This film will probably make you very, very angry. It focuses heavily on the Hindutva reactionary group Durga Vahini (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Vahini), and is the first time a documentary crew were granted access to their young women's indoctrination camps. In a really striking scene, Prachi (who's 24, and has gone to these camps since she was 3) denies that she runs a terrorist training camp - the idea is ridiculous to her. She jokes that they don't even teach how to make bombs - it's so easy, you'd just need sulfuric acid and some household cleaners. How can we be a terrorist training camp if we don't even learn to make bombs, she asks.
The Miss India segments are also really good, and the message that India's girls have no options but to be subsumed is quietly beaten home. None of these martyrs believe, and they lose their identities in the process.
You can watch it online through the Knowledge Network (https://www.knowledge.ca/program/world-her) (which, oh my god, i love) until June 12th. It's also on the PBS rotation, I'm not sure if Knowledge is accessible outside of Canada. Check your local listings (http://www.pbs.org/pov/worldbeforeher/).
(content warnings: footage of violence against women, discussion of child abuse and infanticide)
chai tea latte, May 13, 2015, 01:17:58 am
Does anyone have anymore suggestions along the same lines as the previously mentioned Toynbee Tile documentary? I an genuinely interested in the strange and weird, things that just have no real explanation. Please no "omg aliens" documentaries though, the aliens ones are just... eeegh.
Sun Smasher, August 19, 2015, 06:49:00 am
Does anyone have anymore suggestions along the same lines as the previously mentioned Toynbee Tile documentary? I an genuinely interested in the strange and weird, things that just have no real explanation. Please no "omg aliens" documentaries though, the aliens ones are just... eeegh.
Sun Smasher, August 19, 2015, 06:49:00 am
Someone suggested it in the podcast thread but the thinking sideways podcast is pretty good. I personally like the unsolved murders the most, but they talk about a bunch of other mysteries as well.
Blandest, August 19, 2015, 10:39:13 pm
Does anyone have anymore suggestions along the same lines as the previously mentioned Toynbee Tile documentary? I an genuinely interested in the strange and weird, things that just have no real explanation. Please no "omg aliens" documentaries though, the aliens ones are just... eeegh.
Sun Smasher, August 19, 2015, 06:49:00 am
Someone suggested it in the podcast thread but the thinking sideways podcast is pretty good. I personally like the unsolved murders the most, but they talk about a bunch of other mysteries as well.
Blandest, August 19, 2015, 10:39:13 pm
Yeah, they are great. I'm actually the one who mentioned them. It's hard to find more good things along those lines though.
Sun Smasher, August 21, 2015, 10:26:21 am
Does anyone have anymore suggestions along the same lines as the previously mentioned Toynbee Tile documentary? I an genuinely interested in the strange and weird, things that just have no real explanation. Please no "omg aliens" documentaries though, the aliens ones are just... eeegh.
Sun Smasher, August 19, 2015, 06:49:00 am
Someone suggested it in the podcast thread but the thinking sideways podcast is pretty good. I personally like the unsolved murders the most, but they talk about a bunch of other mysteries as well.
Blandest, August 19, 2015, 10:39:13 pm
Yeah, they are great. I'm actually the one who mentioned them. It's hard to find more good things along those lines though.
Sun Smasher, August 21, 2015, 10:26:21 am
Well then egg and my face are in alignment. I guess you can take that as encouragement that someone liked your suggestion.
Blandest, August 21, 2015, 04:04:03 pm
I Think We're Alone Now- People who stalk the singer Tiffany. Also file under 'batshit crazy'.
Spoop, August 23, 2015, 11:12:25 am
Cropsey- SPOOKY! about child abductions in Staten Island, and the mental institution that used to be there.
Spoop, August 23, 2015, 11:12:25 am
I Think We're Alone Now- People who stalk the singer Tiffany. Also file under 'batshit crazy'.
Spoop, August 23, 2015, 11:12:25 am
I saw this when it was on tour at the local warehouse-turned hipster theater. I was fucking great and then it turned out that the filmmakers had actually brought mr stalker dude with them and he answered questions from the audience and signed posters and weirdly hit on the friend I was there with.
a gross spider, August 23, 2015, 01:09:01 pm
Oooh just watched this one! it was really good!
Couldn't say whether or not Rand did it, but I'm leaning towards "did it"
goombapolice, August 23, 2015, 03:37:10 pm
On the off chance that anyone here hasn't seen Crumb, please please do so.
🍆, September 06, 2014, 02:15:02 am
My local arthouse has recently gone very doc-heavy (among other things they're doing a four-part, four-year retrospective of Frederick Wiseman's complete filmography). They also had a fantastic mini-festival of avant-garde docs. A few choice selections:Holy shit, well there goes my weekend
The Killing of America: A bleak, terrifying, essential piece of American filmmaking. After Taxi Driver indirectly caused Reagan's near-assassination, Paul Schrader's brother Leon became obsessed with how and why violence was so prevalent in America. Leon happened to be fluent in Japanese and ran into manga artist turned producer Mataichiro Yamamoto, who was looking to capitalize on the success of Faces of Death in the Japanese video market. Sheldon Renan was hired to direct, and added cherry-picked future Oscar winners from UCLA's filmmaking program to his production team (who made the American dubs of Shogun Assassin and later, Akira). The final result is more of a stark Werner Herzog type meditation on the increase of violent crime in America instead of straight-up mondo schocksploitation, which its producers were not happy about. But it's accompanied with the most tragic and horrific film of the 20th Century, including the murder of JFK, live footage of the Nguyen Van Lem execution, and late 70s' LAPD gunfights that the doc's production team filmed themselves. It goes from the most high-profile assassinations of the 60s' into the political violence at home and abroad through the late 60's and 70's before hitting the serial killer boom of the 80's (including a horrific interview with an obscure serial killer). It's such a bracing slap of reality that it was never distributed in the US,not even on home video. But in Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia it was a box office hit (it was the #7 highest grossing movie at the Japanese box office in 1982). It's currently being restored for a Blu-Ray release.Not a valid vimeo URL
Dead Slow Ahead: Mauro Herce's first feature, a horror movie about late capitalism, a version of Alien where the massive clanking emptiness of the spaceship is the monster. Filmed with almost no dialogue from the POV of a commercial freighter as it makes its way from one dystopian seaport to another, barely connected to land by a faulty satellite phone line. Sometimes the crew is shot in close profiles as they maintain the ship or relax in an impromptu karaoke room, but most of the time they are tiny figures outlined against a bleak and inhuman space. I saw it on a Sunday afternoon and that pretty much the perfect time for it, as it works best when the viewer relaxes and lets the endless roar of the sea and industrial freight roll over them completely.
Cameraperson: Kirsten Johnson has worked as a cinematographer on documentaries for most of her life (including Fahrenheit 9/11 and Citizenfour) but in the middle of making her first feature, one of the main characters of the documentary asked to be removed for reasons of personal safety. Forced to reconfigure her footage, Johnson accidentally hit upon how much of herself she had documented on camera. That sent her on an archival search through raw footage from over 120 projects she'd worked on to create a nonchronological memoir of a live lived in dozens of countries; including postwar Sarajevo, full War on Terror era Afghanistan, and a resource-strained maternity clinic in Nigeria, as well as autobiographical snippets from her own life (including her mother's sad descent into Alzheimer's).Not a valid vimeo URL
Helmut Berger, Actor: This is less a documentary than a Mexican standoff with a resentful German manbaby that descends into a real-life Lars Von Trier or Gaspar Noe movie. Helmut Berger was the one-time lover and muse of Austrian director Tony Visconti. When Visconti died in 1976, Berger tried committing suicide, fearing he'd never work as an actor again. Afterwards Berger became a recluse, famously swearing off interviews about his work with Visconti or his attempted suicide. Though he'd agreed to do a documentary, he still wouldn't talk about any of these subjects to director Andreas Horvath. The only person willing to talk about Berger's past is his maid, who's dutifully maintained Berger's run-down two-room apartment for decades. Horvath won't stop asking and Berger starts having full blown freakouts at him both in his decaying apartment and over voicemail. And then things get even weirder.
CormansInferno, September 09, 2016, 12:40:46 pm
I don't know if it's actually worth watching. But this VICE documentary struck home with me.
Ghost Mall (https://www.viceland.com/en_us/video/ghost-mall/57bddb2fa39540ed4498faec). It's under VICE's Abandoned series and it's about the Rolling Acres Mall in my town. It really is surreal seeing it like this. The host is kind of obnoxious in the way that hosts in VICE docs are wont to be.
MISANDRY CANNON, September 27, 2016, 11:21:20 pm
If I could throw another suggestion in here, I'd recommend Marwencol, a documentary about a dude who suffered severe brain damage after being beaten up by five or so guys outside of a bar, and who had to re-learn basically everything, up to how to walk and feed himself. As part of his efforts to start re-training himself, he made this little dollhouse-sized bar, and populated it with G.I. Joes and Barbies, and this eventually grew to an entire WWII-era town full of buildings and people. The detailing and customization he was doing was to build hand-eye coordination, but he also started using the town to tell stories about its inhabitants, and cope with his own personal traumatic experiences.
LancashireMcGee, August 26, 2016, 04:04:18 pm
I was impressed by just how good a lot of that file footage from 1969 looked. They did a great job cleaning it up.
ikaribattousai, May 10, 2019, 12:16:27 pm
I watched it on the Australian streaming service StanThe streaming service name is Stan? ... yeah, sounds right for Australia.
Salubrious Rex, December 16, 2019, 06:52:14 pm
No it's just a guy that comes around to your house and let's you watch his videos. I guess Rex's guy is called Stan.I watched it on the Australian streaming service StanThe streaming service name is Stan? ... yeah, sounds right for Australia.
Salubrious Rex, December 16, 2019, 06:52:14 pm
Shell Game, December 17, 2019, 03:47:10 am
No it's just a guy that comes around to your house and let's you watch his videos. I guess Rex's guy is called Stan.I watched it on the Australian streaming service StanThe streaming service name is Stan? ... yeah, sounds right for Australia.
Salubrious Rex, December 16, 2019, 06:52:14 pm
Shell Game, December 17, 2019, 03:47:10 am
Blandest, December 17, 2019, 06:13:08 am