| Author |
Message |
Tvfreak
Member
04-09-2008
| Friday, August 01, 2008 - 2:24 pm 
So, usually I'm not that into seeing a documentary in the theater, but there's a new film out for the Olympics called "let it out" which is going to show a lot of the greatest moments in Olympic history, and I think I'd really like the opportunity to see it on the big screen. Any other fans?
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Calamity
Member
10-18-2001
| Friday, August 15, 2008 - 2:24 pm
Oh I like documentaries too - that's one reason I was interested in reality tv at first. Boy, has that been a lesson in false expectations though, lol. Not that "legitimate" documentaries haven't themselves been plagued by accusations of distorting reality. There's been such charges going all the way back to Nanook of the North (which I saw in my college Anthropology class).
I don't often get the chance to see docs on the big screen since they don't usually come to the local theaters near me. But sometimes we go into the city to catch one. Up the Yangtze is there now, part of me would like to see it but it will no doubt break my heart.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Sunday, September 14, 2008 - 6:45 pm
I watched a really good one titled "My Kid Could Paint That". You start off feeling one way and towards the middle, you begin to see that things weren't as they appeared. The father was very sketchy.
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Babyruth
Member
07-19-2001
| Sunday, September 14, 2008 - 7:16 pm
Yes, Mamie, we saw that one. We had the same feeling. I ended up feeling the father wasn't truthful. But it was weird.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Sunday, September 14, 2008 - 8:07 pm
It felt like the mom didn't know but she suspected. He was just weird.
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Sugar
Member
08-15-2000
| Monday, December 08, 2008 - 10:23 pm
Watched Dear Zachary on MSNBC yesterday. Apparently it is also playing in a few theatres. It seems strange to say I enjoyed the film as the subject matter was sad indeed. However, I thought it was an interesting, sweet and thoughtful idea to make the film for Zachary and filmed quite nicely.
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Tvfreak
Member
04-09-2008
| Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 12:24 pm
Have any of you watched the Devil and Daniel Johnston? Came out in '05. IMDb says: Daniel Johnston, manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist is revealed in this portrait of madness, creativity and love.
It's extremely touching and very, very interesting. Even if you aren't a huge music fan!
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, December 15, 2008 - 3:55 pm
I watched a wonderful little film about Walt Disney and the making of the live action films. They brought back so many good memories. The man really was a genius.
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, December 15, 2008 - 4:04 pm
We rented Brother's Keeper from Netflix. Anyone seen it?
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Karen
Member
09-06-2004
| Sunday, January 04, 2009 - 2:12 pm
Sorry, Yankee, haven't seen that one.
Donners and I just watched Shark Water this weekend. Oh. My. God. It's beautiful and breathtaking and incredibly painful and disturbing to watch. I hope everyone sees this.
For filmmaker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth.
Driven by passion fed from a lifelong fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas.
Filmed in visually stunning, high definition video, Sharkwater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world's shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.
http://www.sharkwater.com
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Sunday, February 08, 2009 - 8:07 pm
I watched an interesting doc today called Fog City Mavericks. It was about filmmakers of San Francisco and the bay area. It was interesting to hear Lucas and Coppola talk about coming up as young filmmakers.
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, April 27, 2009 - 9:10 am
Sugar, I just saw Dear Zachary on "instant play" on Netflix. Oh my goodness. I can't stop thinking about it. If you watch it, I'd recommend NOT reading any reviews or looking anything up about it beforehand. There was one point I literally yelled at my screen. Also, as a warning, it's a big time tearjerker. }
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Supergranny
Member
02-03-2005
| Monday, April 27, 2009 - 9:50 am
there is a site called www.docs4you.org that has documentaries from all over the world. I really enjoy the ones from other countries that we would not get to see ordinarily.
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Calamity
Member
10-18-2001
| Monday, June 01, 2009 - 2:21 pm
Food, Inc.
Opening June 12, 2009 in limited release
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
® Official Site
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Kitt
Member
09-06-2000
| Monday, June 01, 2009 - 5:38 pm
I'm going to have to put my head in the sand on that one, Calamity. I just don't want to know. I'm vegetarian anyway but if you taint my veggies I won't know what to eat! Wish I lived close enough to my parents to eat their homegrown stuff.
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Calamity
Member
10-18-2001
| Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 1:51 pm
The Cove
in limited release
The Cove begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O’Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation “Flipper.”
But his close relationship with those dolphins – the very dolphins who sparked a global fascination with trained sea mammals that continues to this day -- led O’Barry to a radical change of heart. One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures so beautifully adapted to life in the open ocean must never be subjected to human captivity again. This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast.
But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and “Keep Out” signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling -- and the consequences are so dangerous to human health -- they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.
Undeterred, O’Barry joins forces with filmmaker Louis Psihoyos and the Oceanic Preservation Society to get to the truth of what’s really going on in the cove and why it matters to everyone in the world. With the local Chief of Police hot on their trail and strong-arm fishermen keeping tabs on them, they will recruit an “Ocean's Eleven”-style team of underwater sound and camera experts, special effects artists, marine explorers, adrenaline junkies and world-class free divers who will carry out an undercover operation to photograph the off-limits cove, while playing a cloak-and-dagger game with those who would have them jailed. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery that adds up to an urgent plea for hope.
Official Site (audio/video begins playing automatically)
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Ketchuplover
Member
08-30-2000
| Saturday, September 26, 2009 - 12:34 pm
There's a good review of The Providence Effect at www.aintitcool.com in case anyone's interested.
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Chaplin
Member
01-08-2006
| Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 12:49 am
I am lucky as our libraries carry huge amounts of documentaries so I usually go and get them out there once I order them on the library web site. My all time favourite has been Wordplay about people who do the New York Times crossword puzzles and those who enter the crossword puzzle championships. Even President Clinton is featured as a fervent crossword fan. I also liked Spellbound (about the kids who enter championship spelling bees).
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Colordeagua
Member
10-25-2003
| Sunday, October 25, 2009 - 8:00 am
DVD of Every Little Step was released recently. It's mostly about the casting and auditions for the 2006 revival of the Broadway play A Chorus Line and some about how the play originated. Geeeeez, Jason Tam brought tears to my eyes and those of the director, producer, etc. while he was auditioning for the role of Paul
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Sunday, November 01, 2009 - 2:13 pm
Just watched a wonderful film on Showtime titled Little Man. It followed a couple's choice to have a baby through a surrogate and what happened after he was born prematurely. It was frank, honest, amazing, touching.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 11:03 pm
I watched a couple of interesting films this past weekend. The first was Poliwood about Hollywood celebrities and their involvement in elections and politics.
The second was Nursery University about the competition for preschool spots in New York city. It followed a few families through the process. Very interesting.
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Scout
Member
01-20-2005
| Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 11:18 am
I saw an amazing documentary yesterday on the History channel called, "Standing Tall in Auschwitz".
I've read a lot of stories of Auschwitz, but this is the first time I ever heard of the Ovitz family and their experiences there.
They were a Jewish family of seven dwarves and some of their normal sized siblings who, before the war, lived in a rural village in Romania. They put on a musical revue and were apparently pretty famous throughout that area.
Just before they deported all the Jews from their village to Auschwitz, their mother died and made them swear they would always stick togehter. So when they arrived at Auschwitz and got off the train, they all kind of hung back - along with quite a few others from their village, who pretended to be part of their family.
Mengele was there giving his to the right or left thumb, saw the family, thought it would be a perfect chance to further study genetics (and also had always been fascinated by Grimm's fairly tales and loved the idea of having his own seven dwarves) and sent the entire group to live together in one of the barracks. They were exempt from head shaving and got more food than most of the others, but were still subject to his experiments.
They knew, though, that to survive they needed his favor, and it seemed like they had it because he would often come to visit them. He told them that as long as he was around, they'd live.
They all survived and went on to Israel, where they continued to perform. They interviewed the last surviving sister and she said that when she heard Mengele had died, she cried. The interviewer was pretty incredulous, but she insisted that he was the reason they survived.
She knew he was evil, but some part of her still felt grateful. It kind of sounds more like that Stockholm Syndrome, though.
Anway - it's an incredibly fascinating story.
I can't believe I've never heard of it before.
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Terolyn
Member
05-06-2004
| Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 1:10 pm
Scout, not sure if you are aware but there is a book called "In our Hearts We Were Giants" that tell the story. Quite a read.
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Scout
Member
01-20-2005
| Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 1:21 pm
Terolyn - Thanks! They mentioned the book, but I didn't catch the name. It's definitely something I want to read more about. Hoping our library will have it in, but if not, I'm sure they can order it.
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - 9:58 am
I just watched the oddest documentary last night on one of the movie channels. I think it was cinemax, not sure.
"Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999)"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192335/
I found it rather fascinating. It was about this man, Leuchter, who designed execution devices here in the US so they would be more humane and help eliminate device and human failure that prolonged the procedure, causing torture before death. It's a job, someone's got to do it I guess. But then he ruined his life by accepting the job of helping defend a Holocaust denier in a trial in Canada. He actually went to Auschwitz to gather evidence and claimed his findings show there were no gas chambers. (Of course then they have real scientists and historians in the movie explaining why his finding were garbage)
Anyway, it was pretty interesting and I'm surprised I had never heard of this documentary (or Leuchter) before.
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