That Documentary Films Thread
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Holy smoke, Soundtrack is a real work of art and history. I think I might have to put it above No Other Land as best of the year.
The caveat is you should be very awake and engaged when you watch. It throws a lot of players at you from Khruhschev to Louis Armstrong to Eisenhower to Maya Angelou to John Foster Dulles (and his brother) to Dizzy Gillespie and Malcolm X and dozens more.
Dense as fuck. Dense as an annotated tome of a modernist or postmodernist classic, but on film, and with a ton of style.
With this one and Dahomey (which wasn’t nominated), that’s a couple of really compelling, creative, and important docs.
And it includes this absolute ripper of Nina Simone doing Dylan better than Dylan:
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an0maly
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Skipping a stone across a bunch here:
Pee Wee As Himself - Two parts, really interesting in tone shift, and moving (he was dying during the making of it). I thought I knew his life story, but I wasn't close, and it was amazing.
The Mortician - Just a huge wow. This is about a real monster of a person, the impacts of the horrors he created, but it also reminded me of one of the great, and essential books every American must read, Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death. Both: highest recommendations.
American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden. - I strongly doubt there is a better documentary this year. The first two parts are kind of a slower, measured pace, but you can tell it's a worthy buildup. Part three is dynamic, actually exciting, and extremely emotional. There is some oversimplifying and whitewashing of mistakes and evils of the W. Bush administration, but part three is far too great, when you get there, to worry about that.
Pee Wee As Himself - Two parts, really interesting in tone shift, and moving (he was dying during the making of it). I thought I knew his life story, but I wasn't close, and it was amazing.
The Mortician - Just a huge wow. This is about a real monster of a person, the impacts of the horrors he created, but it also reminded me of one of the great, and essential books every American must read, Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death. Both: highest recommendations.
American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden. - I strongly doubt there is a better documentary this year. The first two parts are kind of a slower, measured pace, but you can tell it's a worthy buildup. Part three is dynamic, actually exciting, and extremely emotional. There is some oversimplifying and whitewashing of mistakes and evils of the W. Bush administration, but part three is far too great, when you get there, to worry about that.
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I include her as the singer in my all time North Carolina jazz band
John Coltrane
Thelonious Monk
Woody Shaw
Max Roach
Percy Heath
1moretimeagain
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I watched a standard real crime documentary yesterday - Mind Over Murder on HBO. What a crazy story and what I wasn’t familiar with previously.
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My list of historical documentaries that I liked is so long and so many and are so utterly devoid of any merit to anyone but myself, that I would hesitate to make any recommendation. But one that I can unhesitatingly recommend against seeing is "The Sorrow and the Pity." I viewed it in what was then the Business School auditorium just a few years after it was released. I sat through the entire 4 hrs and 25 mins. I can still taste how increasingly angry I got every time some fancy pant Brit was interviewed and this snooty Brit would respond in French rather than English and I would still have to read the grainy white captions. If I had actually wanted to hear an endless line of people speaking French, I would have spent more time in the language labs in the basement of Dye Hall.
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Yep! Reading the IMDB summary was enough for me. I have never been on a cruise, in large part because I feared exactly what was depicted in the "Poop Cruise." When I first read your post, I wondered if the "Poop Cruise" was some sort of satirical docoumentary about Scientology that I might enjoy. Wouldn't have thought it, but the actual "Poop Cruise" sounds worse than the guilty pleasure I had first imagined it to be.
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donbosco
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Half-hour documentary focusing on the music and cultural traditions of a unique community of North Carolinians, now settled in Darrington, Washington. Released through Southern Educational Communications Association (SECA), PMN and Eastern Educational Network (EEN), 1979. Fully funded by NEA.
www.folkstreams.net
Tarheels of the Northwest | Folkstreams
Half-hour documentary focusing on the music and cultural traditions of a unique community of North Carolinians, now settled in Darrington, Washington .…
www.folkstreams.net
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Half-hour documentary focusing on the music and cultural traditions of a unique community of North Carolinians, now settled in Darrington, Washington. Released through Southern Educational Communications Association (SECA), PMN and Eastern Educational Network (EEN), 1979. Fully funded by NEA.
Tarheels of the Northwest | Folkstreams
Half-hour documentary focusing on the music and cultural traditions of a unique community of North Carolinians, now settled in Darrington, Washington .…
Half-hour documentary focusing on the music and cultural traditions of a unique community of North Carolinians, now settled in Darrington, Washington. Released through Southern Educational Communications Association (SECA), PMN and Eastern Educational Network (EEN), 1979. Fully funded by NEA.
Tarheels of the Northwest | Folkstreams
Half-hour documentary focusing on the music and cultural traditions of a unique community of North Carolinians, now settled in Darrington, Washington .…
The author Tom Robbins, born in Blowing Rock, NC and a long-time resident of Skagit County, WA (next to Snohomish County, in which Darrington is located) often included references to Tar Heels living in Washington state, including remarks concerning the "best BBQ outside of North Carolina."
an0maly
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I know I have missed several good ones, but here are some more of the best I have seen this year:
Orwell 2+2=5 -- Timely examination of his life and work, with some (but in my view not enough) connections made to the nightmare of America in 2025.
The Librarians -- Important film about some heroic women librarians who are attempting to fight back against the book banning, censorship and sabotage of education of the political right wing in America.
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror -- Interesting examination of the past and now, of prejudice and cultural breakthrough, in the ways similar to the Pee Wee Herman film above.
The Perfect Neighbor -- Discussed elsewhere in this board, and about a specific case of neighbor shooting neighbor, because excessive fear of crime, racism, and gun culture.
Need to see the one on John Candy, the one on the '85 Chicago Bears, on Jane Goodall, and several others.
Orwell 2+2=5 -- Timely examination of his life and work, with some (but in my view not enough) connections made to the nightmare of America in 2025.
The Librarians -- Important film about some heroic women librarians who are attempting to fight back against the book banning, censorship and sabotage of education of the political right wing in America.
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror -- Interesting examination of the past and now, of prejudice and cultural breakthrough, in the ways similar to the Pee Wee Herman film above.
The Perfect Neighbor -- Discussed elsewhere in this board, and about a specific case of neighbor shooting neighbor, because excessive fear of crime, racism, and gun culture.
Need to see the one on John Candy, the one on the '85 Chicago Bears, on Jane Goodall, and several others.
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I skimmed your post and immediately thought, "There's a documentary connecting the dots between John Candy, the '85 Bears, and Jane Goodall, . . ., I've GOT to see that.
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I am the executive producer of this documentary and it has been getting very good reviews at various doc film festivals.
I'm hoping mainstream streaming platforms like Netflix will pick it up down the road.
I'm hoping mainstream streaming platforms like Netflix will pick it up down the road.
an0maly
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Thank you. I look forward to seeing this.