Your Favorite Documentaries
 

Hey everyone,

I just saw this Archaeological Documentary called "National Geographic presents: Dawn of Atlantis"


It's basically about how early Minoan civilization was wiped out by a volcano. Basically if you look at a present day map of Santorini

http://www.decadevolcano.net/santori..._geography.gif

You can see that it's crescent shaped with two small islands (Palea and Kameni) in the center. Palea and Kameni are basically a reformed active volcano formed by an undersea lava flow. Archaologists have unearthed a huge city in Crete that was basically covered in ash from this volcano. They called this civilization which was very well preserved the Minoan civilization.

http://www.decadevolcano.net/photos/various/image11.jpg

http://community.webshots.com/s/imag...2vzCByu_ph.jpg


Well anyways, this seems very simplistic and I really enjoyed this documentary which is still on "On Demand" via the National Geographic channel. If you have any favorite Documentaries -Please mention them here so that other's may check them out.

There was a pretty kickass documentary on the great boat thing that was made for the 30day 30 night flood. (Sorry I am generally religiously ignorant and have forgotten its name.)

Anyways, they took a extreem depth of detail for both the relgious aspect of it, and a scientific view. I was impressed with it as I am on most any other. I love learning by watching things about ancient history.

Oh, it was on the discovery channel about a week ago.

Specifically anything on Egypt, Rome, or the Greek times.

Anything from 14th century on is just blah to me.

The production value that comes with the National Geographic imprimatur pretty much guarantees a quality documentary - I love them all...

I was really impressed by Walking with Cavemen when it aired on Discovery Channel.

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence...n/cavemen.html

I also really enjoy documentaries based on films, such as:

The Battle of Brazil
The Battle Over Citizen Kane
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures

I saw a documentary called "the last cigarette" about , well, cigaretts, and the western worlds affair w/ tobacco- it was damned neat, no voice over through the whole thing, the entire story was told by stringing together news footage, commercials, etc- it was damn cool

Its more of a 'mockumentary', but has The Office been shown is the US yet?

I haven't heard of it... is there a website that we can visit?

don't know if American Justice, City Confidental counts as Docs.

Anything directed by Errol Morris. Maybe the best independent producer/directors of movie documentaries working today. His specialty is the offbeat: strange behavior, interesting personalities. When I saw one of his first films, Gates of Heaven (about pet cemetaries) I spent two hours trying to figure out whether to laugh or flinch. His bio of Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time, was great, too.

http://www.us.imdb.com/name/nm0001554/

They're doing an "americanised" version of it, so you just *know* it's going to suck.

On a non-documentary note, they are also doing an "americanisation" of the wonderfully hilarious Father Ted. Also bound to suck. (Probably my favourite comedy series of all time, next to The Simpsons and Faulty Towers)

I don't get it? Why not just export these brilliant shows as they are? Admitted some of the jokes are a bit "regional", so may go over the heads of an American audience, but even still...I mean we get shows straight from America, without needing to have them "predigested" for us!

I'd have to say Bowling For Columbine

as much as i enjoyed Bowling for Columbine it contained some not that truthful information

the BBC miniseries called Blue Planet was absolutely amazing. it has some of the most intriguing underwater shots i've ever seen.

The Office is the best show ever.

Bowling for Columbine is not a documentary.

Bowling for Columbine.


HAHAHA. Yeah right. That thing isn't even really a documentary, and better yet, <B>it's PROVEN to have LOADS of bad information and editting to make things look worse than they really are.</b>

Discovery Channel- so many of them...
I still have yet to see one that really interests me, I missed it:

"If there was no moon"

I always liked the Documentaries on The Bermuda Triangle. Always fastinating.

Ali

Ken Burn's Jazz series is the best I've ever seen.

I can't remember what it's called, but it's a documentary of a guy following professional wrestlers around. Mick Foley, Terry Funk, Jake "The Snake" Roberts....really pretty sad. The latter two are doing 2-bit shows in the deep south circuit. And Mick Foley's family cries every time he gets hit with a chair, etc. Really shows the grittier side of the industry.

I watched this documentary on Emily Dickinson on PBS that was really good. The guy doing the film tried all these different ways of making the documentary to try to acurately portray Dickinson. Hilarity ensued in most cases. It was probably the most fun I've had during a documentary.

Ken Burns NYC series and the Civil War series.

Martin Scorcese's The Last Waltz was very well done. Its about the band "The Band", for those who haven't seen it. I was a little disappointed with his "The Blues" series on PBS, but it wasn't too bad.

here's a couple of great docos...

When We Were Kings

Spellbound

should also like to mention John Pilgers docos, but they're a little harder to get your hands on.

Mine is also Ken Burns "The Civil War" . I have been facinated by that period of American history since my early teens. I thought he did a fantastic job on that series. Very in depth. As a second choice, i'd pick his series on Baseball.

On April 3, 1990, Nova (probably my favourite documentary series) aired an episode called The KGB, the Computer, and Me, which documents (even dramatizes) the strange, interesting, and funny events of Cliff Stoll, where a seventy-five cent billing discrepancy (for CPU time on his server) leads him to a German hacker ring working for the KGB.

These events were chronicled in his non-fiction book The Cuckoo's Egg, written by Cliff Stoll himself. He's a decent writer and kept detailed logs during the whole affair so it's a good read.

I've seen too many wonderful documentaries to pick a favourite but this is right up there!

Ken Burns' The Civil War and Jazz - Amazing
David Attenborough's The Trials of Life, The Blue Planet, The Secret Life of Plants, The Life of Birds, The Life of Mammals... actually, pretty much everything this man has done.
PBS' The Greeks - Crucible of Civilization - Very well done, if a little light weight occasionally.
Lord Clark's Civilization - truly seminal and the first modern documentary series
Jerremy Issacs' The World at War = the definitive history of World War II with interviews of many of the leading participants, most of whom have now died.

Channel 4 in the UK did some really good ones on the Cold War and on the Yugoslavian Wars between Serbia, Croatia etc. Also The Nazis - A Warning from History and an excellent one on the German invasion of Soviet Russia (the name escapes me); chilling stuff.

I recently bought a DVD version of The Silk Road but haven't gotten around to watching it yet.

I also very much liked A&E's Hail Ceaser but have only watched the episodes on the Julio-Claudians so far.

And finally, of course, Sister Wendy's The Story of Painting - simply superb.

PBS and A&E do good stuff, but Discovery and National Geographic have recently seemed to be "dumbing down" a lot of their shows. I feel they rely on too much fancy graphics, silly sound effects etc. It may be unpopular to say so, but with the signal exception of Burns, I find that the British make far superior documentaries, in particular, and television in general. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization. :-)


Mr Mephisto

Re: Your Favorite Documentaries
 

thanks for the heads-up on this. i watched it the other day and it was pretty good.

i also enjoyed a 3-4 hour series of documentaries on finding a wooly mammoth encased in perma-frost (very cold ice that never changed states). the idea was that they would carve a huge block around the mammoth and then airlift that block out and work on extracting DNA from the mammoth. eventually (or it might be currently happening) scientists are trying to clone the mammoth with the help of an elephant's womb.

Nuclear Nightmare: Understanding North Korea on the Discovery Channel is pretty good. It goes into the history of Korea -starting at the end of WW2 and the end of a 35 year Japanese occupation.

It was at this time that America occupied Japan but was unprepared (i.e. had no plan) to occupy Korea. Russia moved in and occupied the peninsula.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9803/16/kor...s.korea.lg.jpg

Kim il Sung was a leader known for his guerrilla war against the Japanese. The documentary talks about his life and how he was able to use Confucian culture to prop up his regime.

http://www.kdvr.de/bilder/malerei/mal-06-kim-12.jpg

His son Kim Jong il was named successor and got his start in the propaganda wing of North Korea.

http://www.enterstageright.com/archi...3iljongkim.jpg

Apparently, he was dissatisfied by North Korean actresses and decided to kidnap his favorite South Korean actress Choe Eun Hee and her film producer-husband Shin Sang Ok.

http://www.sanchodoesasia.com/sdk/mu..._sang_ok_0.jpg


The movie has many interviews and is pretty good -overall. Here is a synopsis from a website selling it on DVD:
http://www.avagifts.com/n/Nuclear_Vi..._DVD_49762.htm

You can catch it on BBC America. It's the original not the "americanized" crap they're going to put out.

Astrocloud: I was watching a documentary about the plagues of Egypt that are mentioned in the Bible and they speculated that more than a few can be attributed to the Santorini blast. I know it sounds kooky, but core samples from Egypt seem to confirm.

That being said, I thought Ken Burns did a fantastic job with Jazz.
I don't really like too many documentaries, they always seem a little too esoteric to grab my attention.

But if Walking with Cavemen counts then I'll second that along with the Egyptian special the Discovery channel aired a couple of months ago.

VH1's Behind the Music - Metallica, I can watch it over and over again

This week's NOVA called "The elegant Universe" and starts off with a statement:"Welcome to the 11th dimension".

Is one of the best documentaries on theoretical physics that I've seen in a long time.

It has a cool website to match

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

I'm torn between Ken Burn's "Civil War" and "Cosmos" with Carl Sagan. They were both exceptional programs.

If you haven't seen "Capturing the Friedmans", it's definitley worth a rental. Just came out recently.
"Crumb" was pretty good.
"Hearts of Darkness" about the making of Apocalypse Now is really great if you liked the movie (it's one of my favorites).
"Everest" was great, especially seeing it on an IMAX screen.
"The Endurance" was really good too. It's the story of an expedition to Antarctica where the boat sank in an ice pack and left everyone stranded for more than a year (with all of them managing to survive).

Beyond the Mat--very, very good!

i second "Capturing the Friedmans" also good:

"american movie" -- about this guy in wisconsin who is obsessed with becoming a film maker
"spellbound" -- about a bunch of kids bound for the national spelling bee
"devil's playground" -- about the amish right of passage that allows teenagers to explore the sins (sex, drugs, rock and rool) of the "english" world.

i saw it on Tv not too long ago. It was called "The Truth Behind Black Hawk Down". I found it very interesting. I highly recommend it!

I have enjoyed and recommend:

Capturing The Friedmans
Stevie
Spellbound
American Movie
Bowling For Columbine
Hell House

Documentaries in my queue to see next:
Devil's Playground
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary
A Decade Under the Influence
Fog of War

What I want to see, but don't have access to:
Postcards from the Future: The Chuck Palahniuk Documentary

no mention of When We Were Kings ?

My latest favorite is the new doc by Melody Gilbert called Whole. It's about people who have a disorder that makes them feel incomplete until they have a limb amputated. Once it's amputated, they're happy. It's a fascinating look at this very unusual condition. It's gonna be out on DVD soon. If you like docs, this should definitely be on your must-see list.