Good Documentaries (2 Viewers)

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas

Ha i remember a guy in English class brought this is for his poetry piece.
Cause for poetry we were allowed to bring in lyrics-well-since thats was a poem according to my teacher.

I brought in Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. We both got a B-there is no justice.
 
saw this last nite. underwhelming, sort of like his music.

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he's technically amazing - especially his realism - but i can't stand those big smeary abstracts. they look like
melted smarties.

...but i will find and watch that doc.

one of my faves of his - really don't know how he does it.

nude-descending-stairs.jpg


and this one looks good -

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but i can't stand those big smeary abstracts. they look like
melted smarties.

I agree with you, but his process in making them is fascinating and he seems to lack pretense about the whole thing. his eye is restless and never satisfied and he seems to be trying to stay true to some internal bullshit meter, even if the results might cause us to scream bullshit.
 
well, there's no doubting his integrity - i can't call bullshit on him, but maybe some of it's just too intellectual for me
to dig.

our library has it so i'll look forward to checking it out.
 
The Invisible War is on netflix instant - it's a gut-wrenching look at sexual assault in the military, mostly focused on women.
 
just watched Reel Injun, about the portrayal of native americans throughout the history of cinema. very very interesting.

i find it very strange in the US that there is a huge gaping hole, in society/culture/media of all types, when it comes to native americans: for all of the racism and inequality that african-americans and south-americas have suffered, they are a much more visible group than native americans, even to an outsider like me.
 
I watched that too. Those things always get me wound up, since my great-great grandmother was Oglala Sioux.

This country has a problem admitting their problem with natives. Growing up in Minnesota, it was shocking the way people would talk about "The Indians." About how worthless and filthy they were. The same way people talk about those who are "below them" anywhere, I suppose. Even in my own family no one spoke about my great great grandmother. It was as if they were ashamed of her. When I asked my father why? about 10 years ago he said, "Oh, you know how it was. People just didn't talk about things like that." Well, that explains everything.

The only positive representation of Indian culture I heard or saw anywhere was the weekly American Indian Movement radio show. It was on the big rock station, late on Sunday nights (because in those days radio and television had to begrudgingly provide "public service" and "equal time" air time to fringe groups). That's where I first heard the tribal drums and the AIM radicals like Kevin Banks and Russel Means, talking about taking back their sacred land by force, since the government had reneged on every deal they ever made with the natives. As a kid I felt an affinity for all of that, and I never knew why until I was older and learned about the lineage.

America would like to write the Americans that were here before the Europeans out of our history. We can't even have a conversation about it. I guess genocide is harder to come to grips with than the slave trade. Though in reality it's six of one, and a half dozen of the other. It's all rooted in imperialism, the curse of religion and manifest destiny (which is itself a religious delusion). Yet most people still consider the European expansion around the globe to have been "progress."

Oh, sorry, we were talking about movies. Forgive me.
 
Quentin Crisp, take your pick of documentaries.I'm going to push it and include this: The Naked Civil Servant(1975) although technically a film, Crisp is in it and it's about his life, so want to be cheeky. Also Resident Alien (1990), his New York Years. Although accused of becoming a caricature towards the end of his life, FFS, he was always larger than life and a ballsy,brave, eloquent guy who dared to walk the walk (in painted toenails of course) in the early part of the 20th century, suffered the consequences for it and rose above it all in style.
 
Third installment on old automobile racing venues in the Los Angeles area. Originally a masters thesis that became a book and now an online video series.

This one looks at the road races in Santa Monica and Corona.

 
The Madness of Peter Howsen (BBC Artworks Scotland)
Watched this last year, painful to watch,really liked the relationship between him and his long time assistant Dougald McDonald. Angry about the shafting he took from the commission,(paint this massive artwork, we will finance it if you paint another 10 pieces for us, WTF???).He still looked pretty damaged by his time as war artist in Bosnia, he`s getting better now though.
 
mjp, have you seen Incident at Oglala? that's next up in my queue.
Yeah, that's a good one too. AIM always maintained that Leonard Peltier was railroaded, and it's pretty clear that the FBI went after "the head of the beast" when they went after Peltier. Without giving too much away.

Michael Apted made that film (the "up" movie guy) and he doesn't leave much question as to what he thinks about the whole thing.
 
Half way through the Oglala doc. Remembering the Peltier extradition furor from back in 1976. I guess he was in Oakalla, used to be up the road from where I'm at right these days. Now it's townhouses.

I watched the John Trudell documentary a while back. Pretty good as I remember.
 
i don't know if you noticed them along the freeway near our house, mjp, but there are always handpainted "free leonard peltier" signs stuck up in trees and weird places around this area. i finally looked up the name a couple of years ago. then, not long after we moved into our current place, i figured out that the guy putting up the signs lived down the road from us (but not anymore).

i don't know enough about the story/case to have any real opinion on his innocence or guilt, but i went down the rabbit hole after watching reel injun, and came across the story of annie mae aquash, who was allegedly murdered because she heard peltier confess to the killings.
 
Gah, for the third time today I've typed a lot and then lost what I've typed. It's one of those wayward finger days.

Yeah, there were bad people in AIM. Like in most groups that rose up around "fringe groups" that were/are fighting for their freedom. Most of them were not saints. I think it's hard to remain pure of heart and decent while you're in a war.
 
This country has a problem admitting their problem with natives. Growing up in Minnesota, it was shocking the way people would talk about "The Indians." About how worthless and filthy they were. The same way people talk about those who are "below them" anywhere, I suppose.

America would like to write the Americans that were here before the Europeans out of our history. We can't even have a conversation about it. I guess genocide is harder to come to grips with than the slave trade. Though in reality it's six of one, and a half dozen of the other. It's all rooted in imperialism, the curse of religion and manifest destiny (which is itself a religious delusion). Yet most people still consider the European expansion around the globe to have been "progress."
Agree totally about the treatment of Native American Indians but need to add: often Native Americans were in a near constant state of warfare with each other, with tribal conflicts over hunting grounds, food, women and slaves; many tribes were driven to extinction pre Columbus. (The Aztecs and Mayans have long histories of brutal warfare as well as a spectacular cultural, artistic legacy). Imperialism (as with the current American Imperialism) is ongoing in dominant human groups. The duality of innate aggression, the need to conquer and assimilate, with the more altruistic, artistic and intellectual desires of humans also brings the spread of learning and development of societies. (Obviously not defending Imperialism here, just pointing out it is endemic in most human behaviour, perhaps 2000yrs from now it won't be).
 
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the spread of learning and development of societies.
That would be nice if it ever happened without the attendant spread of the bible and the development of religion. And/or the extermination of the societies that are being "civilized." But in human history so far I don't see any example of where it has.
 
Given the relative youth of Judaism and Christianity in terms of human history, it has happened without that particular
subjugation. As a Scot,we can can verify to being invaded and occupied by every other bugger in Europe, Vikings, Romans, Anglo Saxons etc, but it isn't all bad, I refer to the quotes below from the glorious Life Of Brian:

Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People's Front?
Reg: Fuck off! We're the People's Front of Judea

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Attendee: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace - shut up!
Reg: There is not one of us who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of the Romans once and for all.
Dissenter: Uh, well, one.
Reg: Oh, yeah, yeah, there's one. But otherwise, we're solid.
 
Wow, loved these clips you've put up, hadn't heard of this band at all, totally deserve to be resurrected and heard, will need to try and watch the full documetary.:)

PS, been thinking, perhaps a slightly cheerier, or more descriptive?? name would have served them better:)
 

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