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Favourite Documentaries


Green Dogg

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just thought of another one. Wim Wenders' truly excellent Buena Vista Social Club, following Ry Cooder on a journey of musical discovery to Cuba. Great music, great characters, just a great film :)

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Watched this last week, was bloody brilliant!

Another great one I saw recently was called 'Jiro dreams of Sushi', a bit slow going but pretty much a masterpiece IMO

Few more for the list:

Cutting edge- the men who jump of buildings

William Eggleston in the real world

and of course all of the Louix Theoroux series'

:yinyang:

It's brilliant isn't it, I had to double check they weren't actors!

I had no idea about a doco on William Eggleston. As insane as it sounds now, he was the first photographer that made me realise photography is an art form, definately going to check that out.

Another friend reccomended Jiro dreams of Sushi to me yesterday, I'll be sure to check it out thanks, the men who jump off buildings is incredible too, if you like that and haven't already seen it make sure you check out Man on Wire, people with that drive to push life to it's limits amaze me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz89x2Oj8hY

I haven't actually seen any of these, but the friend who reccomended Giro dreams of Sushi also reccomended:

"The wild & wonderful whites -- about a redneck family that terrorizes a west virginia town or Paris is burning about transsexual 'balls' in NY in the 80s.

I also liked Jiro Dreams of Sushi-- a motivating biopic about a sushi master

Oh and the thin blue line-- an Errol morris must. You've probably seen it."

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just thought of another one. Wim Wenders' truly excellent Buena Vista Social Club, following Ry Cooder on a journey of musical discovery to Cuba. Great music, great characters, just a great film :)

Ry Cooder, is amazing only just discovered him, I'll be sure to check it out thanks Boojum.

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Guest HailCannabis

I usually only watch documentaries related to the natural world and/or space. That said, I had a right good laugh at this the other week. This is just the trailer, but it's all on youtube..

ETA, Vice make some great documentaries if you check out their channel. They also make some bloody awful ones.

Edited by HailCannabis
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Another one - This Film Is Not Yet Rated, an amusing and impassioned look at the rot at the heart of the American movie ratings system, examining the power that the Motion Picture Association of America (who represent the interests of the big 6 studios and a small anonymous group of which are responsible for giving movies American ratings) wield - the power to make or break a movie.

E2A Let me run that by you again, the American movie ratings system (for cinemas) is controlled by the 6 major studios - it's a voluntary system, cinemas choose to follow the ratings (but since the studios decide which cinemas get which films, cinemas that don't follow the ratings don't get films) :headpain:

It's an eye opening documentary and a must-see for anyone who loves and cares about movies :)

Edited by Boojum
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Nice one people. Looks like I'll be spending a lot of the day checking out some of those docs mentioned :yep:

I totally forgot about the King of Kong C123 mentioned, if someone tried describing me that documentary before watching it I would of felt pretty confident it would turn out to be utterly pathetic, but it really is an engrossing documentary.

Top mention by Booj as well with the When We Were Kings, classic!

Heres another one I really liked called The Net. It's a German documentary on Ted Kaczynski, the rise of technology, CIA's mind controlling operations (MK Ultra project) Very thought provoking stuff :yinyang:

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not really sure if it counts as a documentary, but one film that everyone should see (preferably after a few spliffs :) and if not in the cinema then on a BIG HD telly with good audio) is the truly beautiful Koyaanisqatsi :)

Edited by Boojum
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I just remembered, a brilliant documentary on the Apollo moon landings, for all mankind, terrific footage of the launch right through to the Lunar Module, you can see the moon in HD

Its available on piratebay, get the HD version if you have an HD telly. This documentary convinced me that the conspiracy theory surrounding the moon landings is hogwash

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Best drug dealing/smuggling doc i`ve ever seen :)

e2a, others i rate highly are..

The Story of Electricity, bbc.

Most PBS Nova Science Now docs.

How The Universe Works, first series.

e2a2

another superb doc is Hot Coffee

Edited by ratdog
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anything by louis theroux, his earlier stuff is more entertaining but his newr documentaries are still great.

looks like lot's of good ones in this thread!

i can't stand most science documentaries, such slow pace and often they miss the point. maybe it's good for people who are not usually into science :unsure:

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Some good inputs - i'm a little addicted to documentaries myself! :wassnnme:

There are so many out there but here a few from the top of my head:

The Fog of War - Excellent documentary feat. Robert S. McNamara about the cold war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj5Uf2bn29o

Mount St.Elias - This one about human vs. mountain. This is only the trailer, but i'm sure you can find a site that streams it if you look for it. I recommend it to any adventure type person and you like mountains!

There are lots more, which shall be added later on...

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Good idea for a thread ForestDog. :) Love watching documentaries, mainly history and nature.

John Pilger's stuff is always worth a watch too imo

Agree, brilliant documentary maker, this one is excellent, but quite disturbing:

A more modern one from 2010 about the Khmer Rouge which is also excellent, and very disturbing, is this:

It features a Cambodian documentary maker, Thet Sambath, as he interviews Khmer Rouge Cadres and Brother No2, Nuon Chea about their crimes. Despite having had members of his own family perish during the KR period he remains very composed and proffessional in the face of some truly scary people.

Unreported World on C4 is a consistently good, and consistently underrated documentary series. It travels around the world reporting on little known events which occur in far away places a lot of people haven't even heard of. It's been on for years at 7.30 on a friday night, coincidentally a time when not many people care to watch hard hitting stories from the developing world. :)

There are many episodes from earlier series on the 4OD website, well worth checking some out.

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Nice one Mrchang, love the ice man confessions doc, the book is also a great read.

Great shout by AT as well with Mount St.Elias doc. Felt he may of added a few porkies in that story myself but even so, really gripping watch :yep:

Personally my favourites are crime documentaries, anyone else that are really into them should check out the RealCrimeUK channel on youtube. Amazing video's, must of got through every one of them within a week or so.

Top ones on there for me are - The story of Tracey Andrews, Serial killer on camera, killer on the run, Death on the bay and Diamond geezers.

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