Good Documentaries (3 Viewers)

Same with DiG! The music of those bands was really meaningless to me, but their story was good.

I put off watching this one because I can't stand The Dandy Warhols, and my knowledge of The Brian Jonestown Massacre was limited to one album, Give It Back, which was interesting, but sounded like Syd Barrett doing The Beatles (although I guess that's better than Oasis, who sound like Hootie and the Blowfish doing The Turtles doing The Beatles).

anyway, I watched it the other night and it was quite good.

my opinion hasn't changed regarding The Dandy Warhols, if anything I dislike them and their posing, manipulative prettyboy singer more than I did before. and although I wouldn't want to spend 10 minutes with Anton Newcombe of TBJM, I would listen to his music.

but Newcombe is batshit crazy. and drugs make him über batshit crazy. after watching this movie, I'm glad my drug days are behind me. I'll just kill myself with booze, it's much more civilized.

very good movie.
 
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I forgot all about those Dandy Warhols. Yeesh! Thanks a lot for reminding me.

MJP watched some Frank Zappa thing last night. I'm glad he watched it without me. I heard it wasn't so hot.
 
I love the Runaways and I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. I can't believe they made a movie about them, though I think they're really deserving, but I was surprised about the Darby Crash film, too. Must be that LA connection.
 
The Germs what we do is secret fell completely flat for me. I think I would have rather had some filmmakers do a real documentary ala End of the Century-the Ramones story, then hire the actors they did to portray Darby and his band mates. The new Runaways movie, I like Dakota Fanning, but will probably wait for dvd release.

And oh how I await the Iggy Pop biopic starring Elijah Wood, that has been rumored for 5 years now! (yes sarcasm font intended)
 
Don't wake the sleeping Zappaphiles!

Too late, mjp! :D
- I like Zappa's music (not all of it, though), but I would'nt call myself a Zappaphile. Anyway, What Zappa documentary did you watch?
 
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Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention: In the 1960s.

It was a little sleepy for me. Much like most of Zappa's music. Though I think he was a very interesting guy, and I admire what he tried to do with his senate testimony lambasting Tipper Gore's PMRC, but there was not a shred of that interesting man anywhere to be seen in this.

When it was over I thought, "I guess you really have to like Zappa to enjoy that." Then it occurred to me that if you really liked Zappa you probably already knew everything in the movie. So I'm not sure who it was made for.
 
It's not a great Zappa documentary, that's for sure. I bought it recently myself and I was a bit disappointed. Maybe it has to do with it being made without cooperation from the Zappa Family Trust, because they couldn't show any footage or interviews with Zappa and that's not good when you're making a documentary about Zappa and the Mothers - on the contrary.
I think the best parts was the interviews with the old Mothers Of Invention members. The "experts" also contributed with some interesting facts now and then. I certainly learned a thing or three I did'nt know about before. That said, it was a bit boring or sleepy in places. Maybe also because it's a 2 hours 14 min. long documentary.
The worst part is the total absence of Zappa (the absence of the hero) in the documentary. Sure, there were lots of stills of Zappa but that was about it.
 
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Well, along with all the other thumbs up already in this thread, gotta say Grey Gardens was one of the best documentaries I've ever seen! It was simply awesome! I think I'm in love with lil' Edie!

The weather is against us! - Edie
 
I would agree with many of the recommendations on here, esp. Dark Days. It's rare that I'm ever watching anything other than a documentary, because even a mediocre documentary is more interesting to me than an amazing blockbuster.

Two suggestions would be Night and Fog, which is a harrowing film that packs some lasting effects in a short film. It deals with the concentration camps, before and after.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/


Also, Baraka which is a beautifully filmed documentary filmed all around the world. It's actually the reason why I bought a Blu-Ray player.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103767/
 
I just re-watched the documentary on Roky Erickson. Eh, it was ok, but remembering docs like the devil and daniel johnston, I'm not sure why Roky's doc doesn't hold up? Has anyone else seen it? I don't know, maybe it is good, and maybe after seeing it again, I'm just not much of a Roky fan. The song you're gonna miss me and i walked with a zombie are classics, but watching this doc for maybe the 3rd time left me feeling like I'm ready to get rid of any 13th floor elevators, roky erickson stuff I have.
 
I've recently seen 'Die Anwälte' about three well known German lawyers, who were in the late 60s/early 70s defending extreme-left-wing clients (even RAF-members), two of which are now right wingers (one even a Nazi).

Their names: Otto Schily, Hans-Christian Sträbele and Horst Mahler.

see imdb for an English review.
 
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I just re-watched the documentary on Roky Erickson. Eh, it was ok, but remembering docs like the devil and daniel johnston, I'm not sure why Roky's doc doesn't hold up? Has anyone else seen it? I don't know, maybe it is good, and maybe after seeing it again, I'm just not much of a Roky fan. The song you're gonna miss me and i walked with a zombie are classics, but watching this doc for maybe the 3rd time left me feeling like I'm ready to get rid of any 13th floor elevators, roky erickson stuff I have.

he's got a new album coming out with Okkervil River.

listen to a song first, then decide if you want to throw his stuff out. ;)
 

interesting docu about the impact of 'living online'. interesting but... annoying: the main dude, josh harris, starts to complain about how living his whole life online (something like 32 cameras rigged up around his and his gf's apartment) is just driving him crazy. but it was HIS idea, and he could've stopped it at any point.
 
That trailer makes it look interesting, but the actual "living in public" in that loft was fucking boring. Not to mention it was ye olden dayes on the internet and you couldn't really watch it in real time over the modem connections most people had.

But even that concept, at the time, wasn't new, it was borrowed from the first "reality show," MTV's The Real World. It was just an unedited version with a smaller cast. The gimmick was the internet streaming, and that gimmick got him a lot of press.

I worked at a web hosting company back then, so the office had enough bandwidth to waste that you could almost watch it stream in real time. But even with a giant commercial internet connection the feed jerked and stopped and buffered. Ugh. Everyone who managed to watch it for more than a minute uninterrupted had the same reaction; "This is stupid."

Looks like a good movie though.
 
yeah, that was kind of the big letdown: yay, we can do this cool tv-on-the-internet thing... but it's beyond irritating to try and watch.

the main dude is an interesting character, but pretty much a huge asshole. he skipped out of the US because of the debt he was in and now lives in ethiopia, coaching a kids' basketball team.
 
I was flipping through channels tonight and I paused on The Sundance Channel and thought 'this looks familiar.'

I can't believe I forgot about it.

I saw it back in the late '80s and it is probably one of the best docs of all time (or maybe just the most entertaining):

Gates.jpg


brilliant stuff.
 
I saw the Roky Erickson doc and liked it, but not as much as the Daniel Johnson one. I don't know why they get compared together. I guess they are very similar.

I'm a big Errol Morris fan too, but Gates of Heaven (IMHO) was his least best. Thin Blue Line and Mr Death are great.
 
it's a case, for me, where the filmmaker got me to watch a film whose subject matter held little or no attraction for me, and also made me enjoy it immensely.

I would, however, watch a film about a corrupt justice system no matter who directed it. luckily, Morris directed The Thin Blue Line and took it to another level.
 
if you want to watch something really sad and heartbreaking, there's this documentary about the pets left behind in the wake of hurricane katrina.

i got about 15mins into it and seriously began to think maybe i would have to turn it off - all the images of stranded/abandoned/injured/starving animals was really hard to watch.
 
Has anybody seen When you're strange, the docu (first ever made!) on the Doors?

Oh and this one looks very cute: [This video is unavailable.].
Yesterday, I saw a poster in the street with the face of the baby from Namibia on it and there was written : "For the first time on screen: Ponijao" (his name). I found this so lovely.
 
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Just watched Year Zero - The Silent Death of Cambodia which, over 30 years later, is still intensely upsetting.

I've read a couple of books about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge but still have never been able to understand what their aim was. Most ideologies seem to have, at their base, some perceived good for some group of people. What the Khmer Rouge did was beyond barbaric and had no possible good outcome for anyone. It does seem in retrospect, that their rise was planned by both America and China, but I still can't see what benefit it could have possibly had to either China or America. I guess it's just something that I'll never be able to understand.

It's interesting that Hitler and the Nazis are held up as having inflicted the most abhorrent crimes against humanity that the world has ever seen while the Khmer Rouge is rarely mentioned, even though what they did was probably worse, albeit on a smaller scale.
 
chronic, the documentaries site is a great find. Thank you for sharing.

Just watched "The World's Scariest Ghosts Caught On Tape" and will dig deeper into the mystery world tonight with "We Are The Aliens".
 
I'd name a few but you all seem to have covered it. Didn't see Brother's Keeper although I may of missed it. Apart from loving Burn's Civil War I also enjoyed his Baseball series. Waco: Rules of engagement, Crazy Love & Overnight were also good.
 
End of the Century The Story of The Ramones

I was cleaning the house this weekend, and pulled out my old VHS copy of the first Ramones documentary, We're Outta Here. I don't think it was ever available on anything but VHS?

outtahere.jpg


Anyway, it completely covers the last Ramones show ever at the Hollywood Palace. It's a great documentary, and runs 2hrs 30mins(wow, that's as long as Inglorious Basterds) but I tell ya, this documentary is way better! It's kinda cool to see how some of the band, friends, and family were kinda upset that they would hold the last Ramones show in Los Angeles. At the time Johnny was living in L.A. and had all his Hollywood friends, so refused to do it in New York. Dee Dee wasn't even in the band at this point, but he does join to sing Love Kills in classic Dee Dee manner, found below. It's cool, at the beginning of the clip, Marky Ramone is on the phone with Dee Dee trying to convince him to be in the film, do some interviews, etc and Dee Dee refuses. Also CLASSIC moment at 1:50 in this clip...Dee Dee can't remember the words to the song, so he completely butchers the song, and finally says, that's me, that's just the way I am! He looks so messed up, hard to believe the show was in 1996 and he lived another 6 years longer.
[This video is unavailable.]

The doc covers a lot of their career and has a ton of interviews and special guests. Anyway, a must see for any Ramones fan, or music documentary fans. It's not just the concert, definitely a must see documentary. Here's a cover of anyway you want it from the film with Eddie Vedder. It's the very last song of the concert, making it the last song the Ramones ever played. And unlike all the most bands, when they said they were done, they really meant it. Poor Joey died 5 years later and Johnny 8 years later, but I'm not sure they would have reunited, they really did hate each other as many of you have seen in the End of the Century doc.
[This video is unavailable.]
 

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