Your Favorite Documentary?

Wait a minute - you mean Myth Busters on TV? Yeah, I enjoy that show too, but it's not a documentary! Neither is Reno 911. Or Ghost Hunters (Most Haunted? C'mon, really?)

People, people, people...
 
Stone122 said:
"Street Fight" is incredible.

Its not what it sounds like; it covers the 2004 Newark, NJ, mayor race between Cory Booker and Sharpe James. All run-and-gun documentarians should see it.
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I really enjoyed that one. Sharpe was such a snake. Booker did eventually win the mayorship, and James is up on charges, I think. Booker was on CNN the other day.
 
yeah, I'm a pretty strong republican but Booker continues to impress me more and more. I would love to see him in the news for something other than this shooting.
 
I'm not sure if it's my favorite but The Fog of War is certainly VERY-VERY high on my best-of list. Everyone should see this movie.

JohnG
 
keynstring said:
A Documentary is not Journalism?

Wow...this is all news to me. HA!! At least here in the States I know I could find a few Journalism professors that disagree with that. THAT'S A FACT!
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I could find more than a few Journalism professors in the States,Canada, France, UK, etc. that disagree with Fox News being journalism...commence flag waving now.

Does Spielberg On Spielberg count as a documentary? I saw it again last night, and It was quite enlightening. There was a part where he talked about Schindler having to wear a little Nazi symbol on his lapel, not so much because he believed in the ideals, but because you couldn't do business if you didn't, and were suspected of all kinds of things and would come under scorn. Reminded me of the whole American flag pin thing and Oabama...

Some of my favourites...

Camp Hollywood (great little doc about the people at Highland Gardens Hotel..and the Canadian expat community there.)

Supersize Me
The Fog Of War
Bangkok Girl
Overnight
When We Were Kings

I enjoy MM's stuff, but I don't consider it straight documentary filmmaking. Then again, someone said as soon as you point a camera at a subject and they are aware of it, you influence their behaviour.

Nanook...is widely considered one of the first documentary films, born ut of some French thing, and influenced by some stuff going on in Francophone Quebec. The director is often called the father of documentary film (if I recall correctly).

There is one from early eighties about homeless guys in Alberta who made cash by recycling cans. The name escapes me, but it realy was quite good (I was just a kid then). One of the subjects ranted about our disposable society, like how garbage bags are sold in plastic bags that you have to rip open, making them useless...and immediate garbage.

The guy was ex-military, and ended up killing himself. They found out he had over $120 000 in the bank, but he never bought himself a house (or houses) or rented an apartment. He lived on the streets by choice.
 
vvalverde said:
The one that I love is pretty unconventional as compared to the documentaries named here and some might not consider it a documentary. THere is no narration or investigation in the usual sense of most documentaries but when i saw it, it was just as powerful or if not more powerful than many I had seen. It is "Baraka". it is a definate must see.
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You should see koyaanisquatsi. After this movie was made the dp went and made his own version called baraka.

best doc or me
Burden of Dreams
Hearts of Darkness
 
Some docs I've seen recently:

Murderball - Very powerful and moving.
Super Size Me - Well made and informative.
American Movie - Extremely entertaining.
Inconvenient Truth - Nothing we didn't already know.
SiCKO - This one had me in tears.
The King of Kong - Nearly perfect.
 
What a great thread!

My absolute favourite doco that blew me away with it's art and soul and style was 'Night and Fog'.

Even though dealing with the Holocaust it managed to be a stylistic tour de force.. I find many documentaries are about really interesting subject matter but are shot and edited in humdrum ways.. Give me ART!

More favourites:
American Movie
Sans Soleil
Grey Gardens (although sometimes i think it's voyeristic rubbish?!)
 
We were shown Night and Fog in my 7th grade history class (ahem - many, many years ago) and it completely shattered us. They really didn't prepare us for what we were about to see, and I don't know that any of us really even had any knowledge of the holocaust before seeing the film - so it was a rather intense introduction.

I watched it again recently and, by now, I've seen so much about the holocaust - but I still had an intense visceral reaction to it (you would have to be inhuman not to), but I was also able to appreciate the artistry of the film - though it is extremely difficult to find a way to call the film a beautiful piece of filmmaking (because it is) when nearly every image is one of unspeakable horror. But it functions also as an important document, that sometimes forgotten root of the word "documentary". It reduces any insane denial of the holocaust to vapor. Thanks for mentioning this one.

Grey Gardens - love it. Voyeuristic? Perhaps, but it's not as if the Maysles were hiding behind the curtains and snickering at the mad caperings of the Beales - they actively engaged with them and became life-long friends, and the Beales were willing and enthusiastic participants in the film, and loved the finished product.

And while they were certainly wacked, I don't think that they were so crazy as to have been under the illusion that the film showed them in any way other than how they knew themselves (I base these thoughts on the commentary tracks and on the sequel, The Beales of Grey Gardens).
 
The Callaghan Top Ten Documentaries Of All Time List

01 That's Entertainment!
02 Frank Capra's Why We Fight Series
03 Ken Burn's The War
04 The Flight That Fought Back
05 When It Was A Game
06 Combat America
07 Nine Innings From Ground Zero
08 Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
09 The Living Desert
10 Pumping Iron


EDIT:
Dammit...I forgot Ken Burn's The War...UPDATED
 
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...and before this thread (like 100% of its predecessors) is closed for invoking the name of the taboo M. Moore, I'd like to add:
Moore's "documentaries" are no more documentaries than Weird Al's "interviews" are real interviews. But at least Weird Al's audience knows this upfront, and they don't expect him to be the next Barbara Walters.
 
I don't know if it's a documentary but i like the travel to the edge with art wolf series on pbs....i wonder what camera they used.
Anyone seen "The Journey of Vaan Nguyen”? i like that a lot.
 
I know it's already part of my list (earlier in the thread) but just as a reminder since now it's available on DVD:

Iraq in Fragments

A beautiful, lyrical and very compelling doc.
Actually it will feed on the journalistic/documentary discussion.
Don't miss it!
 
I forgot to mention:

Iraq in Fragments was shot entirely on a DVX100.
It looks amazing and it's the final proof that it's NOT about the gear, but all about the usage of it.
 
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