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Kull the Conqueror
Apr 8, 2006

Take me to the green valley,
lay the sod o'er me,
I'm a young cowboy,
I know I've done wrong

The Saddest Rhino posted:

What's the thread's view on The Look of Silence (done by the same people who did The Act of Killing)? There's a screening I'm meaning to go on Sunday https://www.facebook.com/events/445355628979601/ but I have conflicting plans on the day itself, and need to weigh my priorities.

It's a masterpiece. Seriously, go.

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Cocoa Ninja
Mar 3, 2007

The Saddest Rhino posted:

What's the thread's view on The Look of Silence (done by the same people who did The Act of Killing)? There's a screening I'm meaning to go on Sunday https://www.facebook.com/events/445355628979601/ but I have conflicting plans on the day itself, and need to weigh my priorities.

Dude, it's even followed by Q&A with Joshua Oppenheimer! Go and tell us how it is. Worst case you can say "Hey, I liked your old stuff..."

Kull the Conqueror
Apr 8, 2006

Take me to the green valley,
lay the sod o'er me,
I'm a young cowboy,
I know I've done wrong

Cocoa Ninja posted:

Dude, it's even followed by Q&A with Joshua Oppenheimer!

Also, that. Hearing him speak made me hopeful for the future of docs. He is the real deal.

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.



Awesome, I'm gonna go attend - I didn't realise there was a Q&A because I am bad at reading. Hopefully it will be super insightful and can give you all a trip report!

Cocoa Ninja
Mar 3, 2007
Sweet!

My best doc experience was getting to see Restrepo at a doc festival with a Q&A afterwards hosted by Tim Hetherington and a bunch of the soldiers that were in it.

It's definitely not my favorite doc but it was a treat to have him talk about his process and goals.

Jonas Albrecht
Jun 7, 2012


mod sassinator posted:

But as a documentary about sleep paralysis you really won't learn anything at all about the subject.

I'm cool with that. The study side of sleep paralysis is a lot of dry neuroscience. The real meat is in listening to people recount some truly horrifying encounters with the dark recesses of their own minds.


Hot Girls was an eye opener, and I really enjoyed it. I think it suffers from the same relatively minor issue as Tricked, in that why the gently caress is the poster for it titillating.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

This must've been mentioned in the thread already but I don't remember seeing it so I may as well mention 2004's Soupçons (also known as The Staircase), an 8-episode miniseries documentary about the Kathleen Peterson murder case by Oscar-winner Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. It goes through pretty much the whole thing and offers a really fascinating in-depth look into the whole case from the defense's point of view, pretty much the best courtroom doc I've ever seen with several twists and turns.

I went into it without knowing much of anything about Peterson or the case and it totally hooked me. It's very matter-of-fact and occasionally very candid doc. It also got a sequel a couple of years ago called The Last Chance which was a worthy and equally interesting continuation. Definitely recommending it if you're interested in the US legal system or true crime stuff.

wizardofloneliness
Dec 30, 2008

Stare-Out posted:

This must've been mentioned in the thread already but I don't remember seeing it so I may as well mention 2004's Soupçons (also known as The Staircase), an 8-episode miniseries documentary about the Kathleen Peterson murder case by Oscar-winner Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. It goes through pretty much the whole thing and offers a really fascinating in-depth look into the whole case from the defense's point of view, pretty much the best courtroom doc I've ever seen with several twists and turns.

I went into it without knowing much of anything about Peterson or the case and it totally hooked me. It's very matter-of-fact and occasionally very candid doc. It also got a sequel a couple of years ago called The Last Chance which was a worthy and equally interesting continuation. Definitely recommending it if you're interested in the US legal system or true crime stuff.

Didn't the filmmakers intentionally leave out a bunch of evidence and other stuff that the prosecutors used? It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember thinking that the verdict was pretty surprising based on what they had shown. I looked it up afterwards and it seemed like the other side had a lot of convincing evidence that hadn't been included in the documentary.

That's not necessarily a mark against it though, I remember it being extremely engrossing when I watched it. But if you're bothered by documentaries not being entirely "true" or something you might not like it.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

I can't say, it's hardly unheard of, I mean it did focus pretty much entirely on the defense's side after all, but I was definitely thinking it would come down as a guilty verdict after the time of jury deliberation and what evidence the prosecution was shown to present to the jury.

Also, in The Last Chance, it's said by at least one juror that Duane Deaver's testimony was a huge factor behind the original verdict and of course it's shown that Deaver was extremely unreliable as a witness (and is in fact currently facing criminal charges) but if it did indeed sway them one way or the other, it was at least shown in the documentary.

The Saddest Rhino
Apr 29, 2009

Put it all together.
Solve the world.
One conversation at a time.



Kull the Conqueror posted:

It's a masterpiece. Seriously, go.

Cocoa Ninja posted:

Dude, it's even followed by Q&A with Joshua Oppenheimer! Go and tell us how it is. Worst case you can say "Hey, I liked your old stuff..."

Thanks for the recommendation on The Look of Silence. Watched it today and I was blown away - it probably wasn't as shocking as the The Act of Killing, but even then there were so many parts of the film that was unsettling and horrifying. Every time you think something is horrendous, another scene later will amplify it and it just keeps going worse and worse.

I would really recommend going in blind other than "this is a sequel to Killing". I did that and I think that heightened my experience.

Spoiler talk:
So the plot of the whole film concerns Adi, whose brother Ramli was killed during the 1965 massacre, who meets and talks to the people responsible for his brother's death. A constant scene shown is Adi watching scenes edited out of Killing, including one where two of the killers describe candidly how they killed his brother, pointing out the river where they threw his body into, and how the fishes there could't be sold etc because people were scared to eat the fish that ate the men. All this while Adi's face is of zero drama or overreaction, just this resigned look of indescribable grief.

Whenever Adi meets one of the people involved, he starts off just asking normal questions and then it twists when he points out his brother was a victim. The variety in their reactions betray their feelings, and they keep going "it's politics, stop talking politics" and refuse to admit their guilt, while Adi just continues with confrontational questions. There's a terrible scene towards the end where he meets the family of a (now passed) member - he wrote and illustrated a book which depicted the death of Ramli - the true nature of Ramli's killing is revealed and the family completely breaks down.

There's also a touching subplot of Adi's old parents. His mother Rohani is a total badass ("Why do you go talk to these people? They'll poison you, so just tell them you're fasting. Bring a bat. Hit them at the back of the neck, like this.") and one of the final scenes involving her and a survivor is incredible. There's a final scene of his father going through late stage dementia which didn't seem to make sense, but the Q&A I've linked below explains it and gives it a whole new layer of meaning.


I've managed to record the Q&A session, but because I was using a phone the audio quality's kind of poo poo and I had to amplify it. I think the auto-ducking was also in effect so some of Oppenheimer's words may get muddled up. It's essential that you watch the film before listening to the Q&A.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0TDuG2rlIMA

One thing I was hoping someone asked was what subject matter he would address in future documentaries - it's clear that he and his crew will never be safe to return to Indonesia again, and because of how Killing was received by the Indonesian government the story he told through Killing and Silence was unique and could not be recreated again.

Kull the Conqueror
Apr 8, 2006

Take me to the green valley,
lay the sod o'er me,
I'm a young cowboy,
I know I've done wrong

The Saddest Rhino posted:

One thing I was hoping someone asked was what subject matter he would address in future documentaries - it's clear that he and his crew will never be safe to return to Indonesia again, and because of how Killing was received by the Indonesian government the story he told through Killing and Silence was unique and could not be recreated again.

At a different talk here in town he was asked this, and he said he can't go into great detail because of the nature of the work he does, but he did say it was going to feel a lot closer to home in terms of subject matter. It's funny, when I got out of the Act of Killing the people I went with said, "It's like the Nazis still existed!" (which many others have repeated), as though the film were merely some classic example of exotic gazing on the tribal other, but all I could think was "We do this poo poo too." That's the point he's really making, that it's so easy to subconsciously ignore the horror around us. My guess is that it will have something to do with genocide of indigenous Americans.

Glad you got something out of it. More than anything else that scene where Adi and his family friend (?) make the same walk down towards the river that he saw in the video broke my brain, it was just so devastating.. That creative decision is what sets Oppenheimer apart from most filmmakers.

eminkey2003
Oct 11, 2009
This isn't new, but if you're into DIY, it's real inspiring. James Rolfe of Angry Video Game Nerd shows his development as a filmmaker from kid to adult:

"Cinemassacre 200:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiQE_Lb801U (note: swearing)

bunky
Aug 29, 2004

eminkey2003 posted:

This isn't new, but if you're into DIY, it's real inspiring. James Rolfe of Angry Video Game Nerd shows his development as a filmmaker from kid to adult:

"Cinemassacre 200:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiQE_Lb801U (note: swearing)

Wait. Swearing? Like poop and stuff. Pass.

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






Swearing? On forums dot something awful dot com?

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
YOU HAD ME AT SWEARING.

eminkey2003
Oct 11, 2009
Maybe your boss is a sensitive guy? I dunno. Maybe you work in kindergarten. I could happen.

He also made a making of episode I really enjoy:

The Making of an AVGN episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfnSqLzUzfM (excessively naughty language)

eminkey2003 fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jun 15, 2015

AGirlWonder
Oct 24, 2010
I just watched God Loves Uganda on Netflix. I am completely mortified by what fellow Christians have done in that nation. There is no love for outsiders. I like the film's lack of narration, as it lets the footage speak for itself.

Viginti
Feb 1, 2015
I was really impressed by Happy Valley. The story at the centre of the film wasn't one that I felt I needed to hear any more about, it pretty much being covered by the news/Daily Show/etc. but the treatment here was interesting; looking more at the psychology behind football and scandal and hero worship and the effect this whole ordeal had on the community. It's not a very optimistic look at humanity, but its a pretty unique one.

Kull the Conqueror
Apr 8, 2006

Take me to the green valley,
lay the sod o'er me,
I'm a young cowboy,
I know I've done wrong
Maidan is on Netflix. Not sure how well it'll play on a smaller screen, but it's totally worth checking out, especially if you're into people-watching.

Garth_Marenghi
Nov 7, 2011

Just say a Documentary on The Amityville Horror, basically debunking the story. I was wondering if anyone here knows of any other documentaries about supernatural phenomenon that take a skeptical point of view?
Too many of them seem to take everything at face value and are built mostly on sketchy testimony.
By the way I watched "What Happened, Nina Simone" on Netflix it was Okay.
Kinda like "Montage of Heck", the footage is great but the story it told from too many unreliable sources.

Garth_Marenghi fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jul 1, 2015

fenix down
Jan 12, 2005

Kull the Conqueror posted:

Maidan is on Netflix. Not sure how well it'll play on a smaller screen, but it's totally worth checking out, especially if you're into people-watching.
Loving the netflix reviews saying that it isn't a real documentary. :)

SamLikesCake
Oct 6, 2006

... and he is my navigator.

djwetmouse posted:

Just say a Documentary on The Amityville Horror, basically debunking the story.

What's it called? I really wanna check that out!

Real Close Encounters sounds like your usual History Channel woo-woo aliens show, but it actually does have a more skeptical slant. As the title suggests, it's about the alien abduction phenomenon. I saw this on Discovery or TLC or something back in the mid-90's and it scared the gently caress out of me. Stupid Grays. :ohdear:

The whole thing is on YouTube if that's what you're after.

Garth_Marenghi
Nov 7, 2011

SamLikesCake posted:

What's it called? I really wanna check that out!

Real Close Encounters sounds like your usual History Channel woo-woo aliens show, but it actually does have a more skeptical slant. As the title suggests, it's about the alien abduction phenomenon. I saw this on Discovery or TLC or something back in the mid-90's and it scared the gently caress out of me. Stupid Grays. :ohdear:

The whole thing is on YouTube if that's what you're after.

It was just okay and only 46 minutes but it's called The Real Story: Amnityville Horror. It's on Netflix.

Tactical Grace
May 1, 2008
Any recommendations for a documentary on the Spanish civil war?

El Gallinero Gros
Mar 17, 2010
Netflix has a documentary about James Randi called An Honest Liar. Good stuff. Watching Uri Geller fail on national TV was kinda sad (albeit completely self-imposed).

Also it's kinda interesting how weird it is to see people smoke on TV (Carson was smoking while Geller was doing his thing).

El Gallinero Gros fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jul 7, 2015

revdrkevind
Dec 15, 2013
ASK:lol: ME:lol: ABOUT:lol: MY :lol:TINY :lol:DICK

also my opinion on :females:
:haw::flaccid: :haw: :flaccid: :haw: :flaccid::haw:

El Gallinero Gros posted:

Netflix has a documentary about James Randi called An Honest Liar. Good stuff. Watching Uri Geller fail on national TV was kinda sad (albeit completely self-imposed).

Also it's kinda interesting how weird it is to see people smoke on TV (Carson was smoking while Geller was doing his thing).

A lot of Randi's debunkings are on the Tubes.

Anything that can be done to spread awareness of some of the big scams is still crucial though. Geller and Popoff are still in the business and still making money today. Somehow.

Cactus
Jun 24, 2006

The comments are...... special.

White people: Official Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas

I'm only 2 mins into it and I've cringed a few times already.

Herv
Mar 24, 2005

Soiled Meat
What Is Reality - BBC Documentary

quote:

There is a strange and mysterious world that surrounds us, a world largely hidden from our senses. The quest to explain the true nature of reality is one of the great scientific detective stories.

Clues have been pieced together from deep within the atom, from the event horizon of black holes, and from the far reaches of the cosmos. It may be that that we are part of a cosmic hologram, projected from the edge of the universe. Or that we exist in an infinity of parallel worlds. Your reality may never look quite the same again.

It's a few years old, but if anyone wants to get beat up by quantum mechanics this one if for you. I hate this stuff because it messes up my reality, so I am looking to take a few hostages with me, hoping to feel better about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFD0h9hhe_Q

I couldn't watch more than a few mins of the white people doc...

Dr.Caligari
May 5, 2005

"Here's a big, beautiful avatar for someone"

Herv posted:

What Is Reality - BBC Documentary

I would really like to watch that, but what is up with some YT videos being light in the center . Do they do this to avoid having it taken down?

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






Herv posted:

What Is Reality - BBC Documentary


It's a few years old, but if anyone wants to get beat up by quantum mechanics this one if for you. I hate this stuff because it messes up my reality, so I am looking to take a few hostages with me, hoping to feel better about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFD0h9hhe_Q

I couldn't watch more than a few mins of the white people doc...

Is it supposed to look like I'm experiencing hypoxia?

nonathlon
Jul 9, 2004
And yet, somehow, now it's my fault ...
It's been recommended multiple times but I finally caught up with The WIld and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. Engrossing, sympathetic to its subject without making them heroes and kinda heartbreaking in parts. It's on Youtube, so no excuse.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

Ropes4u posted:

Something else that stood in my mind is how prom is slowly getting more degrading.

The Prom has always been degrading.

Ropes4u
May 2, 2009

BiggerBoat posted:

The Prom has always been degrading.

drat auto correct, but since i was a bit of an outlier and didn't attend mine I couldn't comment.

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

Just watched Give Up Tomorrow on Netflix, a documentary about the Chiong murder case in the Philippines where seven men were convicted for kidnapping, raping and murdering two sisters. The whole thing was pretty staggering to watch for reasons I'd rather not spoil for anyone who wants to check it out. It's a hell of a story and it's still ongoing.

rest his guts
Mar 3, 2013

...pls father forgive me
for my terrible post history...
Sort of a cross-post, but all fans of jazz, R&B, rock or just outright polarizing human drama should check out the "Beware of Mr Baker" on Netflix (also linked below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfa1RE7EaN0

While the documentary stays comfortably within the 'rock doc' genre (with a healthy emphasis on drugs and partying), Ginger's personality and sense of self, especially within the context of rock drumming on full display when he calls Keith Moon and John Bonham poo poo, is so volatile and fascinating that virtually every artistic contribution he's ever been a part of culminates somewhere between miracle and disaster and often both. As a huge fan of Cream (and Ginger's peerless drumming on those albums), I think rock fans will be especially enthralled by this story. The doc does a great contextualizing the forgotten drummer's (when measured against the other greats) career and convincingly establishes him among the greatest (if not the greatest) drummers for a generation that hardly remembers Cream save Clapton.

And if all of that isn't a ringing-enough-endorsement, watch to see Clapton behave like a prick for yet another entire duration of his screen time.

rest his guts fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Aug 2, 2015

DeimosRising
Oct 17, 2005

¡Hola SEA!


outlier posted:

It's been recommended multiple times but I finally caught up with The WIld and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. Engrossing, sympathetic to its subject without making them heroes and kinda heartbreaking in parts. It's on Youtube, so no excuse.

Be sure to check out The Wild World of Hasil Adkins, One Man Band And Inventor of the Hunch and Bury Me In Kern County, too.

Cocoa Ninja
Mar 3, 2007
Watched The Source Family doc over the weekend - Netflix Instant.

It's a profile of a new-age cult leader in the early 1970s (former WW2 pacific theater veteran, judo master, bank robber, multi-millionaire and acquitted murderer) who takes LA's first health food restaurant and leverages it to become worshipped as "Yod" by a cult of a couple hundred.

The material is supported with gobs of photos and films shot by the official cult photographer and the entire soundtrack is psychadelic rock that was recorded by the cult itself (60 albums in all!). Most of the interviews are with former cult members. The execution is totally fine, nothing special, but the story is such a specific time and place I found it fascinating.

I wish I had seen this before I watched Inherent Vice, I think they'd be a good double feature.

Sleepstupid
Feb 23, 2009

rest his guts posted:

Sort of a cross-post, but all fans of jazz, R&B, rock or just outright polarizing human drama should check out the "Beware of Mr Baker" on Netflix (also linked below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfa1RE7EaN0

While the documentary stays comfortably within the 'rock doc' genre (with a healthy emphasis on drugs and partying), Ginger's personality and sense of self, especially within the context of rock drumming on full display when he calls Keith Moon and John Bonham poo poo, is so volatile and fascinating that virtually every artistic contribution he's ever been a part of culminates somewhere between miracle and disaster and often both. As a huge fan of Cream (and Ginger's peerless drumming on those albums), I think rock fans will be especially enthralled by this story. The doc does a great contextualizing the forgotten drummer's (when measured against the other greats) career and convincingly establishes him among the greatest (if not the greatest) drummers for a generation that hardly remembers Cream save Clapton.

And if all of that isn't a ringing-enough-endorsement, watch to see Clapton behave like a prick for yet another entire duration of his screen time.

Enjoyed this, thanks for posting.

Herv
Mar 24, 2005

Soiled Meat

Ginger Baker posted:

Keith Moon and John Bonham are poo poo

Counterpoint: (about 1 minute in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLMc6J9h3mU


Moon was a wife beater jackass but still there's something behind the hype.

Herv fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Aug 4, 2015

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rest his guts
Mar 3, 2013

...pls father forgive me
for my terrible post history...
Nice, glad you guys enjoyed that. I like all those guys but Ginger is the greatest.

Next up are two documentaries directed by the same dude about two Twin City bands: The Replacements and Husker Du.

First up: Color Me Obsessed. Here's a nice little blurb about it from Wikipedia: "hasn't a single second of their music, zero interviews with surviving band members and only briefly shows a few photos of the band at its ending, COLOR ME OBSESSED: A Film About The Replacements manages to be one of the best documentaries on any subject I've seen this year." I actually thought it was terrible because they interviewed terribly boring people and the straight interview/minor exposition format works terribly as a documentary. I'm a huge fan of the band and I couldn't pay attention for more than five minutes at a time. So, to save other people time from watching the movie, here's an interesting tidbit: the album Tim was named after the lead singer of some local garage band who passed out for the duration of his set. He is interviewed for five seconds.

The second documentary, Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart, is ostensibly about Grant Hart but I'm gonna call it a Husker Du documentary anyway. For those that don't know the backstory to Husker Du there was (and still is) a lot of contention over which of the two lead vocalists/lyricists, drummer Grant Hart or guitarist Bob Mould, were creating better songs and the band essentially imploded in part because of this tension. While Bob went on to form another marginally successful band after Du, Grant's life became a little more chaotic. The documentary provides a glimpse into the bands past, Grant's sordid past/present and slowly unravels as an homage to Grant's demonstrable songwriting ability

Here's a link to an interview of Grant Hart being weird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl7mtCQbVf4

rest his guts fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Aug 6, 2015

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