documentaries-recomendations/favs.?

[jenkins]

from sherman's march, he's talking to a female for some reason i forget, and i once wrote this all down and i want to keep remembering and remembering it:

So then. . .I figure this will be the beginning of my screenplay. So that's the first - scene in my screenplay. Just me and Granny Smith - I have braids on, plaid shirt, the whole thing. ('You have to give me a compressed version because I'll never...') (She laughs). So that's how it starts out.

Then I turn into the best actress in the world. Probably with some huge love scene, comparable to Romeo and Juliet. Something that captivates the whole world - the heart of the world. Now by the fact that I'm such a famous actress I'm a multi-millionaire, and move to an island in the South Seas, with my lover who's going to be Tarzan to me. And we just play Jane and Tarzan.

And then about three years later we build a center - which will have seven or eight centers coming out from - we'll have another island with a center. And this will be the most intellectual island in the world, full of the top scientists, we'll cure cancer, et cetera.

And I come back, and I've found all these scientific things - possibly cured cancer myelf. Come back - -

Now wait a minute, while I'm on the island though, my Tarzan lover, whose name is Will, he has a fit because he no longer has me to himself, so he goes into a fit and burns down the island that's totally built on, you know, all the scientific research.

And at this point in the movie I want it to be total fantasy. Just, like, tropical, huge, huge plants. Huge animals. The music will be, just, unbelievable. Probably Stevie Wonder's type of music. 'The Secret Life of Plants.'

('How old are you at this point?')

(She sighs). At this point, pretty much ageless. Because I've been an astronaut. So I haven't really aged. And this is another thing that overwhelms people, is that I'm this person who's really never really aged.

And so we go to Venus. And - we start coming back and forth to Earth and we start teaching people flying lessons, 'cause the gravity's different, so, therefore we can build our muscles up like breaststroke (she demonstrates). And we come back and forth.

Well I get in a huge fight with Will in Venus and he takes a sword and cuts my head off and my head floats back to Malibu Mountain, in California. And I give this speech - and at this point I'm a female prophet - and I give this speech to the whole world who's lined up on fences, beaches, all along the mountaintops.

And all they see is my head floating. And it's just totally....gets to the whole world.

And my message is one of love.

same but with a guy giving advice in david holzman's diary:

Okay, well, Penny is ridiculous. She's pride. She behaves melodramatically. She just - not credible. I know you didn't set it up, I know she really got annoyed. But I - I don't know somehow it just - it's not believable. Because - you listen, like very bad actress, in a very bad script -- horrible movie, just horrible movie. Um -- you know, I like her, it's alright. I - you know, if you want to live in her bad movie it's alright because - some people's lives are good movies, some people's lives are bad movies, and Penny's life's a very bad movie, but don't make me look at it on the screen, please. You know it -- (drags from a cigarette) -- the problem is that you wanna make a movie out of your life, alright, so you wanna be in it, you want Penny to be in it, and me to be in it, and your apartment my apartment, but, I'm an interesting character to watch, but you're not an interesting character, and Penny is certainly not an interesting character at all. And uh, I don't know, if you want to make a good movie just write a script, I'm sure you can write a better script than that. But this is not a good one. Your life is not a very good script, but, ugh. Somehow I - I don't think that you want to make a good movie. What you want do is find things about your life, find out the truth. There's something that happens that you don't understand, you wanna get to the core of it. Well David I don't think that you're gonna find it this way because if something happens and you don't understand it, [something], you're not gonna understand it any better by freezing it on celluloid and looking at it over and over again. You know - what you have to do is try to understand it the first time. And uh -- I don't know. (Drags from a cigarette.) But - you don't understand the basic principle: as soon as you start filming something, whatever happens in front of the camera is not reality anymore. It becomes part of something else. It becomes a movie. And, uh - you've stopped living, somehow. And you get very self-conscious about anything you do. 'Should I put my hand here, should I put my hand here?' 'Should I place myself this side of the frame, should I place myself this side of the frame?' And your decisions stop being moral decisions and they become aesthetical decisions. And your whole life stops being your life and becomes a work of art. And a very bad work of art this time. But, ahem (drags a cigarette, puts cigarette out). I don't know, it's just very foolish to think that there's any spontaneity in what's happening in this movie because you say to me, 'Look, I'm onna show you the film I'm doing, and I want you to tell me what you think of it.' And then what do you do? You place me in front of the mural, you make me move the table out of the way so you can see it all, and uh, you knew exactly what I was gonna say.

You didn't put words in my mouth, you didn't tell me what to say, but you knew what I was gonna say because you know me, and uh, and I'm not gonna say anything that will harm you. I won't say any truth, because I don't know you, I just know a little bit of you, and it's same way with the film, you wanna put - a little bit of David, safe part of David, the David that you wouldn't be afraid to show to anybody. But there's a David that you don't want to be in the film, and that David may be the truth. And uh -- that's what you should try to put in the film, if you don't dare face yourself other ways. Confess things to the camera. I don't know, say, say the things that -- that you're most ashamed of, things that you don't want to remember. Things that you don't want anybody to know. Maybe, maybe that way there'll be some truth. Or perhaps you should take off all your clothes and stand in front of the camera for hours. And and not do anything, just stand in front of the camera. Perhaps something magical will happen. Perhaps some truth will come out -- like, I'm not sure. But, you know, one thing I'm pretty sure of - you know, hmm -- the way you're handling this whole thing, you just getting half-truths. You're not getting truths, you're just getting half-truths, and, I think that's what's done a lot. It's very good. Okay, that - that's all I have to say. (Beat).

David, I don't want to play any games, please, turn it off.

paris is burning:

Pepper: You know a lot of those kids that are in the balls, they don't have two of nothing. Some of them don't even eat. They come to balls starvin. And they sleep [somewhere]. Or they sleep on the pier. Or wherever. They don't have a home to go to ... but they'll make, they'll go out and they'll steal something and get dressed up and come to a ball for that one night and live the fantasy.

There's people who sit home all day, they have potential, okay. I mean they go to the balls and they prove that they have potentials on actually selling a garment. Okay, but they like, being that I have this potential the ballroom tells me, okay, the ballroom tells me that I'm somebody. When the ballroom is over, when you come home, you have to convince yourself that you are somebody. And that's where they get lost.

[03]

david holzmans diary is on netflix, i just found out the other day. don't know if i mentioned it yet.

[wilder]

Joel DeMott and Jeff Kreines' 1985 Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner Seventeen (1983) is coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow. Playlist review here.



In their final year at Muncie's Southside High School, a group of seniors hurtle toward maturity with a combination of joy, despair, and an aggravated sense of urgency. They are also learning a great deal about life, both in and out of school, and not what school officials think they are.



Seventeen (1983) - Amazon


Trailer

Clip on Fandor

[wilder]

Real talk

[Garam]

Don't Get High on Your Own Supply 1998 53 minutes



A super little documentary about obsession, addiction, creativity and fading dreams.

https://vimeo.com/149131539

edit: and the follow up doc Cold Turkey 2001 48 minutes

[Reelist]

Funny that was the last recommendation because after 'Making A Murderer' I had to seek out some other gritty docs to keep me in the same mind state, for some reason. I would hope you have all seen the brutal foray into depravity that is 'Dope Sick Love.' Well, HBO has recently released a documentary called 'Heroin: Cape Cod, USA' which serves as a kind of pseudo sequel in that it covers the exact same subject with much more well off and privileged kids. They're not as desperate or scummy looking as the street urchins we come across in 'Dope Sick'. They're actually super nonchalant about their heroin use because apparently all of Massachusetts has become like a haven for opiates which were responsible for over 1,000 overdose deaths in the state last year. I was turned on to this from Big Jay Oakerson mentioning it on 'The Bonfire' and the only reason he did was to bring up how obnoxiously thick their New England accents are somehow makes them talking about heroin all the time comical. He's absolutely right. There are countless moments of hilarious line deliveries, and I don't think I've ever felt less sympathy for drug addicts before. They're being interviewed talking about how it's the love of their lives and all they need, but BOY DO I WISH I COULD QUIT. It's an interesting example of a movie about users you can kind of laugh at because of how clean cut and arrogant these kids are. There are an obscene amount of close ups of injections, which I can never stomach, but if you look away it's worth it 


Secondly is movie on a much more fascinating subject called 'Thought Crimes: The Case Of The Cannibal Cop.' It's about the NYPD patrolman who was thrown in jail for his extremely graphic correspondences over a fetish website. If any of you are familiar with Sword and Scale's infamous "episode 20", this is like a less explicit account of the same type of case. Except that in this story, no hard evidence ever showed up connecting the cop to actually intending to commit these crimes. However, many questions come into play about the character of this man by the lengths he would go to obtain information about these real life 'victims' and share it with people over the internet. It's a very dark and compelling documentary about whether it's even possible to be prosecuted for our subjective fantasies, and it now needs a sequel because Gilberto Valle was acquitted of all charges 3 weeks ago.

check it out on youtube:

[Reelist]

aw man, Wilder deleted his post before I got to read it! It must've contained some self incriminating statements. I have a bad habit of not responding soon enough…


If any of you had the faintest interest in 'Foxcatcher', I can't suggest The Prince Of Pennsylvania enough! It's an hour long ESPN documentary covering the whole 'rise and fall' of Dupont's wrestling career ( to say the least ). It's a much more comprehensive account of the events leading up to that tragic day, and leaves the impression that Dupont was WAY crazier than they portrayed him in the movie, but there was a subtlety in Carrell's performance that really gets under your skin.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Thanks Reelist, I just watched 43 minutes of Cannibal Cop at work. While also being semi-productive. Very interesting doc. The access they got is very reminiscent of Making a Murderer.

SPOILERS

I agree with the acquittal. The level of detail in his fantasies doesn't matter, practically. Researching how to do things was obviously intended to heighten his fantasies and make them feel more real. His plans were provably unrealistic and every "deadline" simply passed with nothing happening — that seems like a smoking gun.

[wilder]

Reactivated Netflix tonight and was reminded of this documentary from a few years ago. It's not amazingly put together, but what makes it fascinating is the exploration of the older girl, Ashley, a former model, who now works as a scout. The deeper you get into her psyche the more you wonder what's wrong with her, why she's doing what she's doing given what she knows, and at one point it goes into such a weird place you start to feel like you're watching a truly demented Chabrol thriller.

Despite a lack of obvious similarities between Siberia and Tokyo, a thriving model industry connects these distant regions. Girl Model follows two protagonists involved in this industry: Ashley, a deeply ambivalent model scout who scours the Siberian countryside looking for fresh faces to send to the Japanese market, and one of her discoveries, Nadya, a 13-year-old plucked from her rustic home in Russia and dropped into the center of bustling Tokyo with promises of a profitable career....

[Reelist]

Yikes! I'll watch it, alone. With a lot of tissues. For crying! Of course..

[jenkins]

i want to memorize this:

[samsong]

seymour: an introduction is streaming on netflix and it's an absolute gem.  highly recommend you give it a whirl.

[wilder]

Lot of interesting documentaries are up for free on Thought Maybe, including Alex Gibney's latest, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, Going Clear, Citizenfour, Adam Curtis' 'The Century of the Self', Girl Model, and The Act of Killing

[pete]

just came back from Hot Docs festival in Toronto - really loved Weiner:

[wilder]

The History Channel's 12-part documentary The Color of War (2001), comprised exclusively of color WWII footage, and narrated by Peter Coyote. The first 5 parts are up on youtube, but in really terrible quality. I saw the part I screencapped from below over the weekend and it reminded me of you-know-what...

At its core, World War II was a black-and-white struggle between good and evil. But the everyday scenes of carnage, human resistance, and guttural warfare were much more complex. A striking assemblage of color footage and photographs from national archives and private collections, THE COLOR OF WAR delivers striking perspectives on the day-to-day experience from every imaginable angle. From the first draftees thrown into the breach to the sheer boredom between battles to the uniforms worn and the objects carried, this unparalleled collection of voices is further illuminated by letters and diaries, communiques from the battlefield and the sounds and songs of the era.