documentaries-recomendations/favs.?

Started by NEON MERCURY, March 06, 2004, 08:42:54 PM

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03

yall check this out. wont go into detail. just watch it.
LAST DAM RUN OF LIKKER ILL EVER MAKE
documentary on this super oldschool moonshine expert.
it's slow but if you like hearing stories, it is fucking awesome.
03 [08|May 02:24 AM]:   skip around it before you watch the whole thing to make sure you like it, it wont ruin anything
03 [08|May 02:26 AM]:   this dude unveils so much fuckin history
03 [08|May 02:26 AM]:   its ridiculous

Mel

Some time ago I asked shoutbox for some recommendation. I wanted to thank again for those:


  • Brother's Keeper
  • Stevie
  • Capturing the Friedmans
  • 20 Feet from Stardom
  • Near Death
  • Crumb

I'm hesitant, when it comes to crime related documentaries, since it can be turned easily into shockumentary. I mentioned Richard Kuklinski in some other thread ("Fargo" TV series), HBO made some interviews with him:

Simple mind - simple pleasures...

03

QuoteKuklinski became associated with the Gambino crime family through his relationship with the soldato Roy DeMeo,

....i work for the gambinos..

wilder

This is a good doc. It goes beyond the tired subject matter and focuses on exploring the individual performers relationships. Made by a German-born documentarian, it also captures LA better than most movies I've seen -- something about the foreign eyes on a familiar place gives it this ability to distill the city down to the elements of its landscape that make it different than anywhere else...recommended.

NSFW





And imo one of the best crime docs ever made, The Staircase (2004). Michael Petersen is a more interesting character than most writers could dream of creating.




Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, presents a gripping courtroom thriller, offering a rare and revealing inside look at a high-profile murder trial. In 2001, author Michael Peterson was arraigned for the murder of his wife Kathleen, whose body was discovered lying in a pool of blood on the stairway of their home. Granted unusual access to Peterson's lawyers, home and immediate family, de Lestrade's cameras capture the defense team as it considers its strategic options. "The staircase" is an engrossing look at contemporary American justice that features more twists than a legal bestseller.

(8 parts total)

















wilder



The hauntingly beautiful, 20-minute Larisa (1980), about Soviet film director Larisa Shepitko, directed by Elem Klimov (Come and See)

A loving film tribute to Russian filmmaker Larisa Shepitko, who died tragically in a car accident in 1979 at the age of 40. This documentary by her husband, Elem Klimov, includes excerpts from all of Shepitko's films, and her own voice is heard talking about her life and art.

and from Criterion's Eclipse Box description:

The career of Larisa Shepitko, an icon of sixties and seventies Soviet cinema, was tragically cut short when she was killed in a car crash at age forty, just as she was emerging on the international scene. The body of work she left behind, though small, is masterful, and her genius for visually evoking characters' interior worlds is never more striking than in her two greatest works: Wings, an intimate yet exhilarating portrait of a female fighter pilot turned provincial headmistress, and The Ascent, a gripping, tragic wartime parable of betrayal and martyrdom. A true artist who had deftly used the Soviet film industry to make statements both personal and universal, Shepitko remains one of the greatest unsung filmmakers of all time.

wilder

#50
Stefan Jarl's Modstrilogin



Follows the lives of several drug addicts and alcoholics in Stockholm from 1968-1993. The trilogy begins with them as teenagers and ends with them as parents of young teenagers.

-They Call Us Misfits (1968)
-A Decent Life (1979)
-From Misfits to Yuppies (1993)

Reel

QuoteThe Staircase (2004). Michael Petersen is a more interesting character than most writers could dream of creating.




I finished watching this and there are two new installments filmed in 2011 that pick up where Peterson left off.

SPOILERS

It's such an engrossing documentary. Like you said, you couldn't write something this good, and yet I'm baffled as to how it was even made with so much coverage of the most minute details in the investigation. The access Petersen gave to the filmmakers of his home and private conversations with lawyers and family, HOW THE HELL DID HE THINK THAT WAS GOING TO HELP HIS CASE?!?!. What kind of lunatic are we dealing with here? That's what I find the most unsettling about the film, how much conviction he has in his own innocence and the hoops everyone else in his life has to jump through to go on believing him. It's sad, what he's done to his family and how long he's gotten away with it, and in the end even though you see him get his comeuppance you want it to hurt little more. "Come on, admit it. You're a sociopathic piece of shit."

I didn't like the treatment the West Memphis Three case got in 'Devil's Knot', but this one has all the ingredients for a great script just waiting there for the taking, and I'd be really surprised if they didn't do it, or already have it in the works right now with John C. Mcginley as Michael Peterson.





God, that would be such perfect casting...

samsong

dear zachary: a letter to a son about his father is back on Netflix instant.  please watch it.

jenkins


Mel

Quote from: jenkins<3 on September 08, 2014, 06:19:09 PM
basically i'm bookmarking this via a xixax post

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animated_documentary

Waltz with Bashir is great. This also reminded me of Persepolis - wanted to see it for a long time:

Simple mind - simple pleasures...

Reel

I watched 'American Movie' last night for the first time in many years, I must've still been a teenager the last time I saw it. It was a very different experience because as a kid I kind of looked up to Mark for his passionate, go getter attitude. His drive to make films really inspired me, because even though he worked a dead end job and had a mountain of debt, he still saw it as his ticket out. Everyone involved with the production felt like they were part of something bigger in their ordinary town, the movies gave them a purpose, however fleeting that may have been. And the fact it was all being filmed for a documentary must've really made it feel like "things were happening", and they DID happen! It's the funniest documentary of all time if you ask me.

Now, I'm approaching 26. You know, that pivotal year when QT made Reservoir Dogs and PTA did Boogie Nights? I couldn't identify with Mark more in his plight, and being a little grown up I felt like I finally read the film for how it's supposed to be presented. It's a tragic comedy, Mark never went on to be known for anything more than this, for which in large part he's acting like a complete asshole. Until this year he hasn't had a film in production since 'Coven'. His uncle GAVE him $50,000 in his will and he still couldn't make 'NorthWestern' happen. Uncle Bill is undoubtedly the best part of the movie, by the way. He's a total counter to everything Mark's about. His words are some of the most truthful in the movie, because they're untainted by Mark's delusional thinking. There's an added gravitas to him saying "I don't believe in this," "This isn't my dream" when you consider that he died the year after this film was made and Mark's subsequent lack of career in filmmaking. The biggest gift Mark could've repaid him with was involving him in 'American Movie'. Here's a humble, midwestern guy, widowed, just waiting to die in his trailer, and now he's forever immortalized in this movie as the barometer of common sense. In a way, I wish that Mark would've focused more of his energies on doing a documentary about Bill in his last days, he seems really interesting but we don't learn too much about him over the course of this movie, and Mark's interactions with him are pure gold. He's hustling him at every turn and Bill can sniff it all out.

There's something so perfect about how this documentary came together. Everyone in it seems like such a thought out character, and some parts are so damn funny it's hard to believe they weren't written. I couldn't help but see parallels to the 'Non-Fiction' segment of 'Storytelling', where the question is always looming of whether Giamatti's character 'respects' his subjects or not. Chris Smith is clearly staying out of the way with any filmmaking input and constantly giving Mark enough rope to hang himself, but at the end of the day he got to be the star of his own movie! Isn't that what he always wanted? From his IMDB page, this was obviously a wake up call that his place was in front of the camera, not behind it.

I want to put together some clips so you can all share in my delight. Just a really poignant and hilarious film that I certainly recommend a rewatch of, or a watch if you haven't yet!




Brando

"God has to be busy with everyone else"

Website
http://www.richhillfilm.com/

Trailer


I just watched the film. It lives up to the trailer. It is short. I think it follows only a year in the boys lives. That is the only disappointment. if it was three plus years, it would be truly great.
If you think this is going to have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.

Alexandro

Quote from: Reelist on September 12, 2014, 08:43:06 AM
I watched 'American Movie' last night for the first time in many years, I must've still been a teenager the last time I saw it. It was a very different experience because as a kid I kind of looked up to Mark for his passionate, go getter attitude. His drive to make films really inspired me, because even though he worked a dead end job and had a mountain of debt, he still saw it as his ticket out. Everyone involved with the production felt like they were part of something bigger in their ordinary town, the movies gave them a purpose, however fleeting that may have been. And the fact it was all being filmed for a documentary must've really made it feel like "things were happening", and they DID happen! It's the funniest documentary of all time if you ask me.

Now, I'm approaching 26. You know, that pivotal year when QT made Reservoir Dogs and PTA did Boogie Nights? I couldn't identify with Mark more in his plight, and being a little grown up I felt like I finally read the film for how it's supposed to be presented. It's a tragic comedy, Mark never went on to be known for anything more than this, for which in large part he's acting like a complete asshole. Until this year he hasn't had a film in production since 'Coven'. His uncle GAVE him $50,000 in his will and he still couldn't make 'NorthWestern' happen. Uncle Bill is undoubtedly the best part of the movie, by the way. He's a total counter to everything Mark's about. His words are some of the most truthful in the movie, because they're untainted by Mark's delusional thinking. There's an added gravitas to him saying "I don't believe in this," "This isn't my dream" when you consider that he died the year after this film was made and Mark's subsequent lack of career in filmmaking. The biggest gift Mark could've repaid him with was involving him in 'American Movie'. Here's a humble, midwestern guy, widowed, just waiting to die in his trailer, and now he's forever immortalized in this movie as the barometer of common sense. In a way, I wish that Mark would've focused more of his energies on doing a documentary about Bill in his last days, he seems really interesting but we don't learn too much about him over the course of this movie, and Mark's interactions with him are pure gold. He's hustling him at every turn and Bill can sniff it all out.

There's something so perfect about how this documentary came together. Everyone in it seems like such a thought out character, and some parts are so damn funny it's hard to believe they weren't written. I couldn't help but see parallels to the 'Non-Fiction' segment of 'Storytelling', where the question is always looming of whether Giamatti's character 'respects' his subjects or not. Chris Smith is clearly staying out of the way with any filmmaking input and constantly giving Mark enough rope to hang himself, but at the end of the day he got to be the star of his own movie! Isn't that what he always wanted? From his IMDB page, this was obviously a wake up call that his place was in front of the camera, not behind it.

I want to put together some clips so you can all share in my delight. Just a really poignant and hilarious film that I certainly recommend a rewatch of, or a watch if you haven't yet!





I saw it based on your recommendation and you're right on the money, it's funny and heartbreaking as hell. But I don't really see Mark as a loser or some crazy deluded dumbass. I think the film aims more to a kind of Ed Wood territory, where how talented or untalented he is becomes irrelevant in the face of his passion. He's infected with the film virus and there's nothing he can do about it. And as we've seen years on, he will continue trying no matter what, because even if you never "make it", whatever that means, there will be nothing that gives you more joy in life than making movies, once you taste it.

Reel

Yeah, it's interesting to hear your take as someone who's actually made films. I think theres some line where he's talking about 'absolute freedom' being "running around in a graveyard with a beer in one hand and a camera in the other." That's so funny to me, like he's fully engaged in the act of it, but not entirely invested in the product. If you watch the film 'Coven' you'll see how poorly written it is, I watched it with my friend and you would've thought it was a comedy from how much we were laughing at all the blunders in it. It really is essential viewing after you've seen the doc, to know what all that effort was going into. I don't know where it's available online

Glad I could influence you to see it! Didn't know there was anyone left here who hadn't. I'm kind of on a crusade to get people to watch or rewatch because of how profoundly hilarious it was to me.

Alexandro