Which documentaries should I rent?

[southernleftylady]

I'm making my list out for netflix and I knew ya ll would know which documentaries I should watch..
whats your list?

[hexola]

1. Dark Days

http://www.palmpictures.com/videos/darkdays.html

Incredible!

Dark Days is the multi-award winning feature length documentary from Marc Singer, about a community of homeless people living in a train tunnel beneath Manhattan.

In the pitch black of the tunnel, rats swarm through piles of garbage as high-speed trains leaving Penn station tear through the darkness. For some of those who have gone underground, it has been home for as long as twenty-five years. Dark Days depicts a way of life that is unimaginable to most of those who walk the streets above.

Surprisingly entertaining and deeply moving, Dark Days is an eye-opening experience that shatters the myths of homelessness with the strength and universality of the people the film represents. Featuring a haunting soundtrack by DJ Shadow, this important film is now available on DVD and VHS.

[Glimmer of Hope]

3. I just saw this. The behind the scenes section is just a good r/o

as the movie. I also recommend Going Up River, The War Room, The Fog of War, Bush's Brain and Heart and Minds.

[shaniqua6392]

2. Gunner Palace. Recommended by optruth.org

Available from Netflix.
Get inside the heads of our troops in Iraq via this engrossing portrait. Director Michael Tucker lived with 2/3 Field Artillery ("The Gunners") for two months and captured the humanity of these soldiers, whose barracks in the most volatile section of Baghdad are the ransacked pleasure palace of Uday Hussein. Tucker's footage provides a rare look at the lives of these soldiers, whether they're swimming in Uday's pool or raiding terrorist lairs.

And, of course, Fahrenheit 911.

[caledesi]

4. Born into Brothels

This Oscar-winning documentary is a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in Calcutta's red-light district, where their mothers work as prostitutes. Spurred by the kids' fascination with her camera, Zana Briski, a photographer documenting life in the brothels, decides to teach them photography. As they begin to look at and record their world through new eyes, the kids awaken to their own talents and sense of worth.

Good!

[jonnyblitz]

7. very good documentary!!

:thumbsup:

[Imalittleteapot]

12. Watched Born in the Brothels last week. Highy recommended.

[insane_cratic_gal]

15. I just recommended that one too

I haven't seen it but it's on my list!

It just looks stunning the pictures they took



Here is a small article about it

http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues05/may05/calcutta.html

shows some of their pictures.

[Crankie Avalon]

5. When We Were Kings...

...I just got this in the mail yesterday and watched it. Coincidentally, yesterday was also Muhammad Ali's birthday.

[NoSunWithoutShadow]

6. The Story of the Weeping Camel

It's a nice break from the political documentaries. It's a lovely, slow-paced documentary put out by National Geographic World Films.

Winner, Directors Guild Award for Best Documentary

Nominee, Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature

The Story of the Weeping Camel is an enchanting film that follows the adventures of a family of herders in Mongolia's Gobi region who face a crisis when the mother camel unexpectedly rejects her newborn calf after a particularly difficult birth. Uniquely composed of equal parts reality, drama, and magic, this film is a window into a different way of life and the universal terrain of the heart.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/weepingcamel/

[Imalittleteapot]

13. Ditto.

I loved this film!!!

[tishaLA]

8. Harlan County USA

about the coal mine strike in the 70s...and the great women who kept the miners going. One of my favorites.

Also: Thin Blue Line, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse, Brother's Keeper, and, if you have a lot of time, Shoah. But you can't go wrong with Hoop Dreams and When We Were Kings, either.

[Cooley Hurd]

9. Do a Netflix search on "Robert Greenwald..."

...and rent everything of his.:thumbsup:

[RebelOne]

10. This one seemed to be interesting. I put into my queue.

My Date with Drew (2003)
 
Mesmerized by actress Drew Barrymore, 27-year-old filmmaker Brian Herzlinger sets out to ask her for a date in this chronicle of his quest to meet the girl of his dreams. Ordinary-guy Herzlinger and his crew tackle the task of getting face time with the busy star, but it's not easy. Before he can ask the object of his desire on a date, Herzlinger must get through Barrymore's entourage of publicists, agents, producers and assistants.

[Imalittleteapot]

11. "500 Nations"

is a four disc documentary that chronicles the history of North and Central American Indians. This is an amazing depiction of how the indigenous people were over taken and defeated, portrayed through first-hand recollections, transcripts, computer reenactments and photographs. It tells an ugly story that is never printed in high school text books and paints a different picture of our beloved heroes and legends, like Christopher Columbus and Pocahontas.

[insane_cratic_gal]

14. Super size me

Death In Gaza - Casualties of War (hbo premier doc.. but lets hope you can get it) about the palestine/Israel conflict

Born into Brothels Its about a group of children whose mothers are prostitutes in India, a visiting photographer decides to give them cameras. Their world is captured by them. I haven't rented it yet but it's on my list!

Here is one picture one of the children took

[emmajane67]

16. The Revolution will not be Televised.

Excellent doco. Not sure if you can rent it but I believe it is available at indymedia and also they have a wesite which might point you in the right direction.

- The Corporation
- Manufacturing Consent
- The Panama Deception
- Darwins Nightmare

There have also been a couple of great docos on TV here in sunny England lately, not sure you can rent them anywhere though.

1 was a simulation of Guantanamo. 7 volunteers were put in a replica prison for 48 hours and treated in the way that the * admin admits to treating the Guantanamo prisoners. Only 4 made it to the end of the simulation and at the end all of the volunteers were very, very anti the use of force (torture) to get information even though there had been a variety of views amongst them at the start.

Another one was about prescription drug patents and whatnot. A very harrowing doco as the end involved watching an 8 year old boy die of AIDS on camera because the anti-virals were too expensive. Can't go into detail but the doco shook me up even though I was previously aware of the situattion, watching someone die on camera of something that could be easily avoided really hit home.

There's been a bunch of others too.

[chat_noir]

17. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

from my thread that fell into obscurity:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x167640

A timely debut for Enron DVD

Today's DVD debut of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, just two weeks before the start of the Enron trial, is no coincidence. In fact, the dates would have matched precisely if the trial hadn't been postponed to Jan. 30.
Most films released in April reached DVD before summer's end, "but Magnolia (Smartest Guys' distributor) felt the DVD is the ultimate viewer's guide to the trial," said director Alex Gibney.
A darkly comic dig into one of America's biggest corporate scandals, the film earned $4 million in theaters.
Smartest Guys was also a huge hit with critics, scoring 97 percent favorable reviews on review tracking site rottentomatoes.com. It's also on the short list of documentaries vying for an Academy Award nomination Jan. 31.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/3590614.html


With Ken Lay's trial starting shortly, looks like the administration may/should have another scandal in the news.

"so important it should be grouped together with movies like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Control Room." - FilmCritic.com

"Powerful on many levels at once, Enron couldn’t be more necessary as we wade into the muck of a second Bush term." - Film Threat

"Gibney exposes crucial moments where key players were clearly caught red-handed that's somehow more satisfying than anything the American legal system has managed (as in George Bush Sr.'s personalized farewell message to former Enron exec Rich Kinder: "You have been fantastic to the Bush family. I don't think anybody did more than you did to support George."). Who needs Nazis when you have characters like these?" - Premiere Magazine

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enron_the_smartest_guys_in_the_room/

[Midnight Rambler]

34. I second that one

My jaw was on the floor throughout that whole movie. I knew these guys were scum... I just didn't know just how scummy they were. And even that's an understatement.

[SCDem]

18. What the Bleep do you know?

Great semi-documentary/semi-movie about quantum physics

Sounds borind but is really great

[GCP]

19. "Living with Nightmares" by the BBC

Exposition on how there is no real war on terror, and the history of Bin Laden, the Middle East, PNAC.

"Bush's Brain"
"Control Room" - unbiassed look at Al Jazeera.

[DemInDistress]

24. did you mean "Power of Nightmares"

baby its cold outside,,
the politics of fear.
by adam curtis for bbc.

the story of muslims and the birth of the neocons...excellent piece in 3 parts.

[GCP]

28. Yes - thanks! eom

[Corgigal]

20. Grizzly Man

Trust me on this, it's something that you just have to see.

[Corgigal]

21. oh another one

National Geographic...Guns,Germs and Steel.

[NoPasaran]

22. The Fog of War

Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

[rodeodance]

23. The march of the Penquins

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

25. Good suggestions above; here's some recent-ish ones I thought were good

(I got a little carried away, but don't really want to take any out!)

"The Corporation"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/

"The Yes Men"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379593/

"Control Room"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391024/

"Outfoxed"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418038/

"Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364930/ (also Broomfield's 90's doc on Aileen, "The Selling of a Serial Killer")

"The Thin Blue Line"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096257/

"Paradise Lost" 1 & 2
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117293/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0239894/

"Murder on a Sunday Morning"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307197/ (Lestrade's epic "Death on a Staircase" is also brilliant - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388644/ )

"One Day in September"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230591/

"Capturing the Friedmans"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342172/

(& if you can find it) "The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0466710/

Also check out the outstanding fake-documentary "Punishment Park", which lasted only a few days in America when it was first released - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067633/ .

[ShadesOfGrey]

27. Wow! Great list!

I just added several to my own list. Thanks!

A couple more recommends -
"Orwell Rolls in his Grave"
"Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media"

[ptolle]

35. with permission

With permission of the author of the above list I would add Robert Kane Pappas' Orwell Rolls in His Grave.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

36. I really want to see "Orwell Rolls In His Grave"

To the best of my knowledge, it isn't out on DVD here yet (and I haven't got a multi-region player) and is yet to get a TV airing.

I thought of a few more documentaries over the afternoon - the last few aren't political, but they are good films.

I totally forgot about Steve Jones. "Hoop Dreams" - http://imdb.com/title/tt0110057/ - and "Stevie" - http://imdb.com/title/tt0334416/ - are fantastic. "The New Americans" - http://imdb.com/title/tt0408404/ - is also very good, but not out on DVD.

"Hell House"
http://imdb.com/title/tt0301235/

"Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst"
http://imdb.com/title/tt0390299/

"The Weather Underground"
http://imdb.com/title/tt0343168/

"Spellbound"
http://imdb.com/title/tt0334405/

"American Movie"
http://imdb.com/title/tt0181288/

"Tarnation"
http://imdb.com/title/tt0390538/

"Touching the Void"
http://imdb.com/title/tt0379557/

"Dogtown and Z-Boys" (a film of the 'Z-boys' came out this year called "Lords of Dogtown")
http://imdb.com/title/tt0275309/

Finally, I've not seen but really want to see a documentary called "Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession". I posted about it here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=210x10665

[cascadiance]

38. Not sure if it's available in Europe or not...

if that's what you're noting, but Orwell Rolls In His Grave IS available in the U.S. on DVD:

http://www.dvdpacific.com/item.asp?ID=657953

If you can get Dish Network Satellite TV, it has been airing on Free Speech TV and/or Link TV lately. Not sure if it's coming again soon, but it has aired at least on two different weeks in the last few months. Might show again.

[porphyrian]

26. Here're two more:

Unprecidented: The 2000 Presidential Election
http://imdb.com/title/tt0346091/

Vernon, Florida
http://imdb.com/title/tt0083281/

The first one is a maddeningly-accurate portrayal of what went down in the first stolen election. The second one is a hilariously-accurate portrayal of rural North Floridians, although the humor is all in the editing and at the participants' expense.

[bicentennial_baby]

29. The Corporation

The Fog of War

[Kazak]

30. Maybe Logic: The Lives And Ideas Of Robert Anton Wilson

I can't recommend this enough. It took my head off!

Edit: Though, not terribly politically oriented, aside from a little Bush bashing late in the film.

[long_green]

31. The Sorrow and The Pity

interviews of Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen about the German occupation of France. Four hours of people talking about the same events and remembering it differently. It came out in 1970 or so. In French, directed by Marcel Ophuls.

props for Harlan County, USA. Someone mentioned it above.

[cascadiance]

32. Hmm... Was beaten to the punch on some of these...

Ditto on the following:

- Robert Greenwald Docs - get all of them.
- The Corporation - really an essential documentary to understand what is wrong with corporations as they currently exist.
- Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - just coming out this week on DVD, it is an awesome history of what happened with this company.
- Orwell Rolls Over in his Grave - really tells it like it is on how the media corporate oligarchy controls this country.

Some others:
- The Take - this might not be in Netflix, as this I don't think is distributed in the U.S. yet formally. Can get it from Canadian sites though on DVD. Naomi Klein's and Avi Lewis's very good account of how former employees in Argentina "took back" their companies that had went bankrupt and made them profitable, and also how Mennen was pushed out of power by the citizenry which was fed up with his rule.
- Dark Secrets Inside the Bohemian Grove - A little more "flashier" than it should be as Alec Jones tends to be, but it is a little talked about subject of how the elite all gather in Northern California and do strange things that we wouldn't expect the "ruling class" to do.
- The Hunting of the President - Excellent account of how the Right Wing launched a campaign to bring down Clinton and how they so totally mistreated Susan McDougal in the process.
- Soldier's Pay - Made by the makers of "Three Kings", was documenting real exeperiences of American soldiers in Iraq, and how some actually in reality tried to do a "get rich quick" scheme similar to what "Three Kings" postulated might happen.
- Any of Dhar Jamal's videos - Dhar Jamal is a journalist and one of the few to report from Iraq as an "unimbedded" journalist, taking the risks that some who've recently been captured by terrorists take when not protected by the military. His stuff gets below the surface and shows *real* footage of what Iraqis endured in places like Fallujah, etc.
- Bush's Brain - Good account of how insidious Karl Rove is in how he conducts his business. Documents his dirty tricks in earlier elections before being on the Bush team.

[frylock]

33. control room..

but only if you're up for getting pissed off.

[Beaverhausen]

37. The Wal Mart Movie

Robert Greenwald's newest.

http://www.walmartmovie.com/