Documentaries

[Scotty_ffgamer]

One of my friends just finished making a short documentary about Clairemont, and it made me realize that I miss sitting down and watching interesting documentaries. Anyone else here like watching documentaries, and what are some of your favorite ones?

One of my personal favorite documentary I've ever watched is 180 degrees South. This is mainly due to all of the cool places the people go to as they try to make it to this mountain they want to climb. The people in the documentary are all really interesting, too.

I think my favorite documentary is Sigur Ros' Heima documentary. This documentary is about the band putting on a bunch of free shows in Iceland with music from their album of the same name. Their music is all fantastic, and the documentary has several interesting tidbits and a lot of cool locations where they performed.

[chionos]

I've seen the Heima documentary. Immensely enjoyable, some of it outright fascinating.

I love documentaries.

Throw Down Your Heart, about Bela Fleck going to Africa to trace the roots of the banjo.

As a baseball fan, I really enjoyed Ken Burns' Baseball which chronicles the entire history of the sport.

Netflix has some great docs.

Watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi with my kids a few days ago. I enjoyed it very much and I think they enjoyed it even more.

[krissy]

last doc i watched was a doczone about plastic bags
pretty cheesy but some gross footage

the weirdest doc i've seen was definitely the real doll doc that circulated the net a while ago

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I saw this one documentary called The Blair Witch Project about a couple kids who went and got lost in the woods and were never heard from ag-

wait. no.

Really though I watched a documentary recently about the band Refused and the last year of their career and I enjoyed it.

[Pete for President]

All of BBC's Earth documentaries are amazing.

Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum are two documentaries I think everyone should see because it explains how totally ridiculous our monetary system is. Seriously, watch it;

Zeitgeist (gives you an idea about the origins of religion, some basics of the monetary system and some scare-bits about 9/11): Zeitgeist: The Movie - by Peter Joseph ( Full Film ) - YouTube

Zeitgeist Addendum (is all about the monetary system, MUST WATCH): Zeitgeist Addendum - YouTube

Following up on those two I recently watched this one about propaganda. Now I have some mixed feelings about this one, but it does shine light on consumerism and the ridiculousness about how celebrities who do nothing of use get worshipped by millions. We should be supporting scientists and problem-solvers. But no, instead we give millions to some boneheads because their faces look pretty. MADNESS I TELL YOU!

Propaganda: PROPAGANDA | FULL ENGLISH VERSION (2012) - YouTube

[Pike]

I watched a couple of good ones in my Documentary class in college. There was this great one about a presidential election that they later spoofed in Family Guy and it cracked me right up.

I also love any computer or history related documentaries.

the weirdest doc i've seen was definitely the real doll doc that circulated the net a while ago

Oh man, there is some bizarro stuff on Youtube.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Has anyone seen Waiting for Superman? I was just thinking about it this morning. Since I am trying to become a teacher, several of my friends have suggested it is something I have to watch. Other people have told me it is really inaccurate and not worth watching.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum are two documentaries I think everyone should see because it explains how totally ridiculous our monetary system is. Seriously, watch it;

Zeitgeist (gives you an idea about the origins of religion, some basics of the monetary system and some scare-bits about 9/11): Zeitgeist: The Movie - by Peter Joseph ( Full Film ) - YouTube

Not to be a downer, but whoever did Zeitgeist did not do their research about religion whatsoever. Speaking as someone who has studied religion and has read a lot regarding it, it takes a few grains of truths and completely misconstrues the facts. It is intellectually dishonest, merely taking any facsimile of truth and using them to support their own thesis without taking account the actual context of the information used. Sorry, this film makes me rage when I watched it and whenever it is mentioned.

I recall watching this documentary on penises on SexTV once, it was interesting.

Also, The Corporation is pretty interesting, giving insight into the oddness of legal status of corporations and if they were actually people how they'd be sociopathic (or was it psychopathic? I cannot recall). And it is free!

Also, do TED videos count? They are awesome.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

[QUOTE=The Summoner of Leviathan;3204629]

Also, do TED videos count? They are awesome.

TED talks are pretty awesome. I've only seen a couple about spoken word poetry, but they were fascinating.

[Araciel]

Star Wars.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Star Wars.

Yep. Documentary of life a long time ago. In a galaxy far far away.

[Pete for President]

Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist Addendum are two documentaries I think everyone should see because it explains how totally ridiculous our monetary system is. Seriously, watch it;

Zeitgeist (gives you an idea about the origins of religion, some basics of the monetary system and some scare-bits about 9/11): Zeitgeist: The Movie - by Peter Joseph ( Full Film ) - YouTube

Not to be a downer, but whoever did Zeitgeist did not do their research about religion whatsoever. Speaking as someone who has studied religion and has read a lot regarding it, it takes a few grains of truths and completely misconstrues the facts. It is intellectually dishonest, merely taking any facsimile of truth and using them to support their own thesis without taking account the actual context of the information used. Sorry, this film makes me rage when I watched it and whenever it is mentioned.

Interesting. Are you saying the religion part is just trout in it's whole or what parts are considered to be valid?

And what do you think about the monetary system parts?

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

The religion part is mostly trout. There are some grains of truth in it. Yes, Christianity did borrow from the Egyptians for the Marian iconography. But hell, if you do any sort of extensive research you can see that there are similar themes in Babylonian, Egyptian and Judaic cosmology. And the Egyptians were not the only ones the early Christians borrowed from. Any area where several traditions are in contact will influence each other (another classic example is mutual influences Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism had on each others' development in China). Anyways, they take a point like that and completely (as far as I recall) spin it into something else. Moreover, anyone who claims they can definitely say how "religion" (here I do not mean one tradition but the phenomenon we call religion) started is talking out of their ass. There are many theories and good educated guesses, but nothing definitive nor will there be any, unless you can time travel. It really does a horrid job and any kernel of truth is buried deep into bulltrout that completely mutilates it.

As for the rest of it, I just got an impression of "conspiracy theory" that always makes me wary, but I do not know enough about the subject matter to make definite opinion. Just wary about the rest. Especially given it's shoddy start.

[krissy]

that's actually why i'm not big on the zeitgeist films
they seem incredibly concerned with creating an emotive response from the viewer, and less so with actually providing information.
there's only so much shots of cannon fire i can take before i start to question what it is i'm watching in terms of who made it and with what intention in mind
the problem with documentaries is often that they need to take a stance to get people interested
i'm not huge on stances in information provision services

[Pete for President]

that's actually why i'm not big on the zeitgeist films
they seem incredibly concerned with creating an emotive response from the viewer, and less so with actually providing information.
there's only so much shots of cannon fire i can take before i start to question what it is i'm watching in terms of who made it and with what intention in mind
the problem with documentaries is often that they need to take a stance to get people interested
i'm not huge on stances in information provision services

Very well said and I see your point, but I still think they are worth watching.

It is indeed very suspicious that Zeitgeist uses some of the same tactics to hook a crowd as say, a politician raging on about terrorism. They try to scare people. But a decently sharp person can pince right through that presentation. The points still stand; politicians do not solve problems, all monetary systems are basically corrupt, war is business etc. These are point of views hardly anyone dares to explore because we are raised to think it's normal or even 'good'. The fact that Zeitgeist shines even a little light on these point of views makes it worth a watch.

Also, Jacque Fresco is a very intelligent man and many of his statements make sense. Though he repeats himself every now and then, I find his lectures (found on YouTube) still really interesting.

I watched the first episode of 'Through the Wormhole' the other day, can't say I got excited. This one also suffers from poorly chosen 'we-want-to-be-exciting' background music and generally not that much information given.