Share Your Favorite Documentaries Thread!

[Rubin Farr]

Some of this was interesting, but it went on and on and on, almost 4 hours. The first half is somewhat forgettable; childhood, other comedians stroking his reputation, and his "square" persona. About 30 minutes into episode 2, it starts to focus on the most interesting bit, his final evolution as a cultural spokesman. In the 90s and 00s, Carlin embraced the character of his bitter, jaded independent thinker, his most biting "reinvention", but it still focuses either on his ego and vices, or others speaking about him, not much else they could do I guess. His daughter went thru a lot, as both parents were cokeheads for years, but she's made peace with it. Ends on a real bummer when they reveal his younger brother just died.

B+

[Hail Sagan]

 

[ManjuShri]

 

[iococoi]

 

[Nebraska]

loved this. really felt bad for those kids

 

[Rubin Farr]

looks interesting, if it's not all George Lucas talking

 

[MaartenVC]

Watching The Green Planet (2022) nature documentary tv mini series on plants and their relationship with animals, humans and the environment, produced by the BBC, narrated and presented by the one and only David Attenborough. (He's 96, holy guacamole, what a legend.)

Plants live secret, unseen lives. But they are as aggressive, competitive and dramatic as animals - locked in life-and-death struggles for food and light, taking part in fierce battles for territory, and desperately trying to reproduce and scatter their young. Using pioneering new filmmaking technology and the very latest science, The Green Planet reveals this strange and wonderful world of plants like never before.

...Utilising time-lapse photography, drones and specially designed camera rigs called "Triffids", the series aimed to show plant movements over prolonged periods, but sped up into real time...

Highly recommended.

[ManjuShri]

 

[J3FF3R00]

Just finished watching the Paradise Lost trilogy last night (HBO MAX). I had heard about the West Memphis 3 before but didn’t know the whole story (if you don’t know anything, don’t Google it and start with Paradise Lost… as that is how basically the entire world found out). If you are into true crime doc series at all, this is a mandatory watch. It definitely feels like it created the mold for every modern true crime doc series that would follow. 
Metallica/10

Edited September 12, 2022 by J3FF3R00

[logakght]

https://mubi.com/films/sans-soleil

[J3FF3R00]

 

Crazy story.  Modern urban legend many of you have no doubt heard of by now. The first two episodes feel a bit paint-by-numbers but then stuff starts going bananas in ep3. Pretty fun watch. 

[auxien]

WHEN ABORTION WAS ILLEGAL: Untold Stories : Dorothy Fadiman, Daniel Meyers : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

idk if it's possible to embed archive.org videos here but probably not i guess since we can't do html anymore.

anyway... 30 minutes. kind of horrifying, kind of illuminating. very real.

[rek]

[Rubin Farr]

 

[Rubin Farr]

A good recap of the Wax Trax! family and story, they were hugely influential not only on the Industrial / EBM scene, but Jim & Dan's original store was so iconic, it was Amoeba before Amoeba, that every band stopped by in the 70s & 80s, helping to influence the American punk & post punk scenes. Most of the original crew are interviewed, there's no footage of MBM or the other Play It Again Sam bands, as they never had any direct contact with Wax Trax, unless they came to the US on tour. The similarities to Warp are striking; a record store started by 2 guys, that became the hangout, that became the record label, that became the genre. What they didn't mention was any relationship with Chicago Trax studios, which I was never sure if Jim & Dan owned it, partially owned it, did Al Jourgensen & Paul Barker have an ownership stake? That would have been good to sort out. Otherwise, it's a good time capsule, and leads up to the 2011 Wax Trax reunion concert, which is now the annual Cold Waves Festival in Chicago. 

[Rubin Farr]

A touching look back on Robert Downey Sr’s life and film career, lots of warm footage to counter the somewhat grueling narrative of both men reflecting at death‘s door. You can see the regret they have, but also the peace they made with each other, and embracing getting old and family. It’s not a crier, but it’s sweet.

[Rubin Farr]

They really tried to make this salacious, like a Behind the Music episode. She told everyone a different story about who she was and where she came from, similar to Angelyne. The gist is she was abused as a child, and possibly formed multiple personalities to deal with the trauma, to the point she possibly believed she was Miss Cleo, kept an altar in her home and did the rituals. But she also willingly helped the owners of Psychic Friends Network bilk callers out of $1 billion. It sounds like she kept the fake accent to the very end, so maybe sociopathic as well? She did stand up for the LGBTQ community in the 90s, in Florida, and that took some balls.

[iococoi]

 

[J3FF3R00]

 

I’m still chugging through every true crime doc series I can. Very few left I haven’t seen at this point, on most major platforms. This one was pretty good.

Better than the new Madoff series, though that was still worth watching. 

 

[J3FF3R00]

Still on my True Crime Doc spree. I’m literally running out of things to watch on most platforms. I’ve seen probably everything worth watching on Netflix, HBO, Prime, Apple + and Hulu (seriously, you name it and I’ve probably seen it or at least started watching it and said “no thanks”) but I just tapped into Peacock so there’s a whole new stream of stuff to watch. 
Having said that, not every show or series is worth taking the time to post about but this story is very interesting and unfolds like an onion in a way that can’t be imagined. It’s actually on HBO…

I’m not sharing the trailer because I feel it’s much more entertaining not knowing what is coming. 
Definitely worth the 6 hour commitment / 10

[J3FF3R00]

Just finished watching both 4 episode seasons (8 total) of this doc series. I had seen Into The Abyss (which was fantastic) but I didn’t even know about this until very recently. 
It’s classic herzog with a subtle American TV edge to it. As far as true crime docs go, it is far less sensationalistic than a lot of them tend to be. 

WH interviews death row inmates / 10

Edited January 23, 2023 by J3FF3R00

[Wunderbar]

West of the tracks from wang bing. very beautiful and human.

It documents an Chinese industrial area's economic collapse and the effect it has on the workers.

It is filled with beautiful eraserhead esque cold and  grimy industrial shots.

its 9 hours long so you probably want to split it up.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389448/

One of the beautiful things i found was the optimism of one the guys being followed trough all the tragedy.

[J3FF3R00]

Started watching this…

… because I thought there would be a different take on the story than this…

… but it turns out that the Netflix one is the same shit as the HBO one, but not as well made. I’m watching the 3rd episode and there is nothing different. 

I mean, why make a documentary series about something that was already made into a documentary series within the past year or two?? 

[ManjuShri]

Never knew game dev Will Wright held a Cannonball Run record in the early 80's.
 

 

[ManjuShri]

Bossman Tobias Capwell doing a BBC4 documentary on armour.