The Gamer's Quarter

[wourme]

In part because there aren't currently any video games I'm looking forward to, I've become interested in nonfiction films lately.

This started with Microcosmos, which I really enjoyed. Lackey then told me about Blue Planet: Seas of Life, which completely amazed me. I next somewhat blindly ordered Errol Morris's First Person, which I'm about halfway through and am also enjoying. The next set I get will probably be The Life of Mammals. But I have to wait for my next paycheck before I can order it. I'd also like to see Carl Sagan's Cosmos, but I'm afraid it's far beyond my price range at the moment.

Anyway, I figured someone around here might have more to recommend. But if not, that's okay, too--you can just consider this a recommendation of the films I listed (the ones I've seen, at least).

[dhex]

decline and fall of western civilization part II
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[Lackey]

I need to see all of Blue Planet now, the one episode I caught was really amazing.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Mister Toups]

dr. death
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[dark steve]

American Movie

[Swimmy]

I've been wanting to see Hell House, as I come from a place where that sort of thing is common but I've never been one to associate with the type of people who perform it or to care enough to go see one. I've heard the stuff in this movie is pretty messed up. All the girls fight to be the girl who gets an abortion, the preacher thinks he's healing his son's subsiding seizure, etc.

[dhex]

hell house is very interesting. only a few parts are totally fucked; most of the rest of it sort of makes the kid who freaks out near the end seem like an even bigger asshole. very worth seeing.
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[Shapermc]

I am at a woeful low on my Non-Fiction movie viewing. I mean, most is really hard to figure out which is boring and which is good. I really wanted to see that Spellbound movie (spelling bee kids). I almost bought the Jacques Cousteau box set recently.

[simplicio]

Spellbound is so excellent and intriguing it prompted both a broadway show and a crappy hollywood drama revolving around the subject. The original documentary is far more entertaining and honest than either of its offspring.

The Weather Underground is a really interesting look at the rise and dissolution of the militant white anti-vietnam movement.

I haven't seen Why We Fight yet (and I really want to), but Control Room, a documentary about the Al-Jazeera news network, is probably the most interesting thing I've seen about the "war on terror" so far. Followed by the Power of Nightmares (google that one- you should be able to download a copy pretty easily ), though that one is more than a little biased, but goes into the roots of the Western/Middle Eastern conflict more than most material.

Oh, and both Stacy Peralta's boarding docs (Dogtown and the Z-Boys and Riding Giants) are worth watching.

EDIT: Oh, and Winged Migration, which is infinitely superior to that Penguin movie, and in turn is probably less interesting than the documentary about the documentary, which is included on the DVD.

[Shapermc]

So, are documentaries about movies Non-Fiction? Like Heart of Darkness?

[dhex]

the weather underground doc is unintentionally funny, like a pbs biopic on fdr. control room, however, was pretty strong.

basically, start with errol morris and work your way up. gates of heaven and mr. death are amazing. especially mr. death. he's a compelling weirdo.

spellbound also rawked. hard.

anything frontline does is usually somewhat interesting. they have good production values and tend to at least give some modicum of lip service to balance. it doesn't always work out; when they adapted doug rushkoff's hidden persuaders thing it sort of became...if you're going to talk about the word magic of "death tax" - a brilliant rhetorical stance, btw, even though that's what it's called in other countries - then you have to talk about the word magic of "estate tax" as well. etc. but this one they did on palestinian women starting a pickling business was really riveting.

unrelated: the RAW doc "maybe logic" was quite good after the first 20 minutes of "zomg i love aftereffects" shit.
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[dhex]

here we go!
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[sawtooth]

Spin was my first insight into the true nature of party politics in america.

I watched a documentary called "the corporation" that outlined that qualities of the corporations that makes them crazy and evil. There's a fantastic segment featuring an interview with the ceo of shell; he talks about a small protest that took place in his front lawn. labeling him a murderer and all of that. And then he walks out into the front lawn and they all sit in a circle and talk about the issues concerned. The ceo's wife brings them some tea. It was beautiful.

American Movie was the movie that convinced me that documentaries can be entertaining. And huh! apparently the same director has another movie out (and it sounds intriguing).

Hopefully I'll be seeing The Aristocrats sometime soon.

[seryogin]

[dhex]

[wourme]

Ten or fifteen years ago, I saw a series of narrated computer-animated shows on public television that illustrated scientific principles. I really liked them, but I have no idea how I'd go about finding them again. The animation was very simple, even for the time, but the shows explained things well and may have even included some humor.

[simplicio]

I knew dhex was gonna call me out on something...

Anyway, I thought the WU was an interesting chronicle of the last gasps of protest in America. I fully stand by my recommendation; sure, the folks are a little self absorbed and trying to relive the glory days maybe, but at least fucking Werner Herzog isn't behind the camera telling us his opinion on the story.

And I really can't stand Werner Herzog, by the way. Grizzly Man could have been great if just about anybody else had made it.

[Dracko]

I am astounded that Triumph of the Will has yet to be mentioned.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[seryogin]

I remember an old Soviet documentary that we had to watch in school called Ordinary Fascism, a masterly piece of anti-Hitlerian propaganda.

It fucking shocked me to hell when I first saw it. As an eigth-grader I didn't understand why one was supposed to spend one's time disliking Nazis. Aside from vaguely knowing that they invaded our country and killed a tenth of our population, it didn't really dawn on me that these people were pretty fucking sick. I mean, I just couldn't visualize them until I saw that film.

It's kind of a comedy at first, sardonically going over the more ridiculous aspects of the Third Reich: it's occultism, pomposity, the fatness of its leaders, the way the army had to personally swear an oath to Adolf Hitler. The narrator jabs at the Nazis and their racial theories, all the while noting the various rivals Hitler had offed that appear in the videos.

It gets pretty sick later. Russians aren't squemish; when we make a documentary about something horrible, you'd better be ready to walk out of the room trembling with an ill feeling in your stomach, wondering how humans could sink so low. As a child I couldn't understand why the Nazis took photos of themselves stepping on little girls, naked shots of the women that they had raped and killed, rows and rows of bodies dangling from the lamposts; and the thing I couldn't understand at that time was, "Why are they smiling? And why are they taking pictures of these things in the first place?" One picture particularly bummed me out: a bunch of Germans holding bottles of champagne under their arms, pointing at the guy in the center, himself smiling, who had the severed head of an Orthodox priest dangling in his right hand.

None of this stuff particulalry shocks me anymore, these are the things that happen all too often in the history of the world and after reading about the Mongols and the British Empire, the Nazis seem to pale in comparison anyway.

So that was the day I was first shocked by History. When were you first shocked by an event from the annals of time? And I mean, truly, shocked. Bonus points to anyone that doesn't mention Nazis.
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[Scratchmonkey]

That would be when we learned (it must have been 2nd grade, perhaps 3rd) about the history of racial segregation in the US. The footage consisted of the standard people-getting-hit-with-firehoses and being attacked by dogs, although there was some stills from various lynchings.

For those of you who dislike Werner Herzog, there's a Les Blank documentary entitled "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe", which is just what it sounds like. So you can watch him be forced to eat his shoe, which should be at least somewhat gratifying.

[simplicio]

[seryogin]

I wanted things that didn’t deal with events that you’ve actually been alive to experience, though, hey, this works to.

If we’re going to talk about events that we can actually remember, then the crushed Moscow uprising of ‘93 is what riles my blood.
It was a shameful, hopeful three days in September/ October when the radicals sided with the rebelling parliament, hotheaded youths tearing off that Vlasov rag from the flag-post on top of the House of the Soviets and hoisting up the Black-Gold-White of the Monarchists and the Hammer-and-Sickle of the Leftists.

I still remember how the liberal intelligentsia sided with the plutocrats and demanded that the government crush the “red-and-tan scum,” the tanks flinging shells into the parliament, which exploded in huge clouds of glass and dust, Albert Makashov, one of the leaders of the rising, surveying the crowd from the balcony of newly conquered mayor’s office, yelling “Teper’ zdes’ ne budet ni Meyorov, ni Perov, ni Herov,”—“From now on here there won’t be any Mayors, or Pers, or Dicks,” through a loudspeaker. I remember the machine-gunning of the revolutionary crowds by the Interior Army, the bullets flying through the riot shields they had taken of the riot police that they had soundly defeated.

It was an exciting time, which like any truly noble aspiration in man, was crushed by the plutocrats, the youths themselves betrayed by the indecisive, finicky, cowardly old “rebelling” bureaucrats that they sided with.
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[dhex]

as burroughs once said, the secret to growing old is being evil.

(prounounced "eeeeeeevillll")

speaking of which, no one's produced a really good doc on burroughs yet, on par with the work in word virus, at least.
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