Television Feature length documentaries

Titticut Follies

fecking terrifying. It's like a real life version of a Polanski horror film set in the most twisted "hospital" imaginable, and it being shot in black and white somehow amplifies that feeling of uneasiness and some kind of inexplicable impending doom. Slight exaggeration perhaps but it's known for being the only American film banned from release for reasons other than obscenity or national security, and the reason it was banned was because it was a genuinely horrific portrayal of a mental hospital for the criminally insane in the 60s. There's no narration or music and very little editorial work present here, it's just a man with his camera observing a group of people stripped of all their dignity, trapped in a seemingly never-ending hell. If you watch it it's guaranteed to have an impact...but I'm not sure I'd recommend watching it.
 
Brwned said:
Titticut Follies

fecking terrifying. It's like a real life version of a Polanski horror film set in the most twisted "hospital" imaginable, and it being shot in black and white somehow amplifies that feeling of uneasiness and some kind of inexplicable impending doom. Slight exaggeration perhaps but it's known for being the only American film banned from release for reasons other than obscenity or national security, and the reason it was banned was because it was a genuinely horrific portrayal of a mental hospital for the criminally insane in the 60s. There's no narration or music and very little editorial work present here, it's just a man with his camera observing a group of people stripped of all their dignity, trapped in a seemingly never-ending hell. If you watch it it's guaranteed to have an impact...but I'm not sure I'd recommend watching it.
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Where did you see that? Sounds darkly intriguing.

Himmler: The decent one
Was on BBC4 last week and caused a bit of a hoohah. I liked it. It was made in the current vogue documentary style of no narrative, instead using a combination of real archive footage and, in this case, actors reading out diary entries and letters between him, his wife and his mistress. It was a bit of a riff on the banality of evil theme and the announcer before the programme started almost seemed to be apologising as much for it humanising Himmler who obviously had to deal with the same humdrum family issues we all do, as they were the at times graphic images of Nazi barbarism.
I'm a sucker for old video footage and although it may not have made it exactly clear why young Himmler was radicalised as he was (possibly Versailles aside), it was a strange insight into the life of one of history's most infamous characters.
 
It's hard to go wrong with Errol Morris. The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line, Gates of Heaven, and Tabloid are all top notch.

Other docs off the top of my head: Project Grizzly, Marwencol, Lemmy (although it features some incredibly annoying talking heads - Metallica, Dave Grohl, Dave Navarro), Anvil!
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Nobby style said:
Wow, great documentary, Marwencol. Very profound on so many levels. You've just got to wonder if this guy's extremely authentic and personal art will be jeopardized after being discovered by the NYC artsy fartsy crowd and ensuing art crowd fame. I would imagine so.
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Ironing Alert!! So some geezer who is all up in arms about this Bruce Jenner story and how he is being labeled as "brave" to come out as transgender posts the following photo with the text:

“As I see post after post about Bruce Jenner’s transition to a woman, and I hear words like, bravery, heroism, and courage, just thought I’d remind all of us what real American courage, heroism, and bravery looks like!”
Mark-Hogancamp-photo-800x430.png


So, the irony here is that that photo is actually a made up replica with toy army men of the artist from the brilliant documentary, Marwencol. So not only is the photo of toys in action, but the artist who makes these scenes does this because he´s become slightly mentally ill stemming from brain damage after getting his head kicked in in a bar by some dudes due to the fact that he was a cross dresser.
 
The Wolfpack:
Locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo brothers learn about the outside world through the films that they watch. Nicknamed, 'The Wolfpack,' the brothers spend their childhood re-enacting their favourite films using elaborate home-made props and costumes. Their world is shaken up when one of the brothers escapes and everything changes.
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Intriguing stuff.
 
I'm three episodes into the 26-part 'The World at War'.

Every episode is free on YouTube. It was created in the early 70s which means it's full of interviews from people who lived through the war and are able to offer unique insight - including recounts from many British and French politicians from the time.

Fantastic so far. Looking forward to seeing how it ends.
 
Anyone interested in F1 or in fact even if you're not that interested in F1 'Senna' is a brilliant documentary.
 
JamesB__ said:
I'm three episodes into the 26-part 'The World at War'.

Every episode is free on YouTube. It was created in the early 70s which means it's full of interviews from people who lived through the war and are able to offer unique insight - including recounts from many British and French politicians from the time.

Fantastic so far. Looking forward to seeing how it ends.
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Probably the best documentary series ever made.

They showed it to us in school years ago and I managed to get the whole series recorded on Sky+ a few months back.
 
Done quite a few in the last few weeks, mostly ones on Netflix.

Had a week when we got obsessed with issues around freedom of the internet and watched:

The Internet's Own Boy
Terms And Conditions May Apply
We Steal Secrets
Downloaded

Then there didnt seem to be much more on there on that subject so more recently we did:

Stop At Nothing - (Lance Armstrong story)
The True Cost (about the global impact of the fashion industry)

I enjoyed them all. The Internet's Own Boy, which is the story of Aaron Swartz, was probably the most interesting, but to be honest all four on that general subject were very good in their own way.
 
Jippy said:
Where did you see that? Sounds darkly intriguing.
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Not sure tbh - I assume it was just on one of the usual torrent sites. I'll happily send it over to you if you fancy watching it? Highly recommended if you're in the mood for something dark and disturbing!

Watched a few today in my hungover haze.

Virunga - Thought it was a nature doc about endangered gorillas, turned out to be a much more interesting, visceral doc on the ongoing Congolese war and the how Western business fuel it. One of the best I've seen in a long while. Really is a must-watch.

The Kill Team - Fairly low key doc with lots of talking heads about the infamous "kill team" in Afghanistan. The interview with the corporal charged with multiple counts of premeditated murder is horrifying. At first because it comes across as a psychopath candidly talking about his helpless, innocent victims. Later you realise it's much more terrifying than that - he's an articulate, seemingly decent man describing his deeply flawed line of thinking when he was brainwashed on duty. He doesn't explain it that way to protest his innocence, he just explains it that way because that's how it was.

Happy Valley - I find sports documentaries really dull in general but this one is well worth a watch. That same thought of brainwashing comes up here too. People's sense of morality and compassion for a truly heinous crime in the community is suppressed to the point of almost non-existence when people are forced to weigh up this crime vs. college football and its importance in their lives and the community. The community even caused a riot because their college football coach was sacked when it transpired that he knew one of his coaches raped a kid and he didn't go to the police about it. One kid even went as far to say he couldn't believe they were having a vigil to remember the multiple victims of child abuse a day before the game...because having a rally for the football team was evidently more important at that time. Quite incredible what sport can do to some people's sense of priorities.
 
Brwned said:
Not sure tbh - I assume it was just on one of the usual torrent sites. I'll happily send it over to you if you fancy watching it? Highly recommended if you're in the mood for something dark and disturbing!

Watched a few today in my hungover haze.

Virunga - Thought it was a nature doc about endangered gorillas, turned out to be a much more interesting, visceral doc on the ongoing Congolese war and the how Western business fuel it. One of the best I've seen in a long while. Really is a must-watch.

The Kill Team - Fairly low key doc with lots of talking heads about the infamous "kill team" in Afghanistan. The interview with the corporal charged with multiple counts of premeditated murder is horrifying. At first because it comes across as a psychopath candidly talking about his helpless, innocent victims. Later you realise it's much more terrifying than that - he's an articulate, seemingly decent man describing his deeply flawed line of thinking when he was brainwashed on duty. He doesn't explain it that way to protest his innocence, he just explains it that way because that's how it was.

Happy Valley - I find sports documentaries really dull in general but this one is well worth a watch. That same thought of brainwashing comes up here too. People's sense of morality and compassion for a truly heinous crime in the community is suppressed to the point of almost non-existence when people are forced to weigh up this crime vs. college football and its importance in their lives and the community. The community even caused a riot because their college football coach was sacked when it transpired that he knew one of his coaches raped a kid and he didn't go to the police about it. One kid even went as far to say he couldn't believe they were having a vigil to remember the multiple victims of child abuse a day before the game...because having a rally for the football team was evidently more important at that time. Quite incredible what sport can do to some people's sense of priorities.
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If you do have a link that would be much appreciated, cheers. The fact it's silent and in black and white presumably means that sometimes you have no clue what is going on? Sounds morbidly fascinating.
 
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine - It starts off with scenes of immense emotional outpouring right across the world for their fallen idol, and rather than building on that and deifying him further it asks the simple question of why people loved him so much. That's a refreshing change in the weird world of Steve Jobs and Apple mania but unfortunately it fell short on answering that one simple question.

It ended up just being an alternative, more critical story on the ruthless, thieving, abandoning, domineering character who lacked empathy and couldn't connect with people. If you're interested in some of the lesser known stories of Jobs as told through scorned co-workers and an abandoned daughter and her mother then it will be of interest but it just felt like the same old story about a high powered CEO from the Fortune 500.

Sadly it barely scratched the surface of something substantial which is in stark contrast to some of his other documentaries about Scientology, Enron, the Catholic Church, Afghanistan etc.
 
Randall Flagg said:
Recently watched

Cropsey
Central Park five
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Watched both of these myself on Netflix recently.

I thought Central Park Five was a great documentary. But heartbreaking on many levels. The broken lives of the victim, plus the 5 wrongly accused men. Its hard to believe how things like this can, and still do, happen. I'd strongly recommend watching the Memphis Three, its very similar

As for Cropsey, I didn't think it was as good, but still interesting none the less. Personally though I thought the evidence against Andre Rand seemed pretty flimsy, and virtually all circumstantial in the end. I doubt we'll ever know what happened to all those kids in the end. Which must be absolute agony for the families.
 
I watched Whitey last night, about the Boston gang boss Jimmy Bulger. It revolved around the court case, rather than his criminal empire, though it obviously delved into it a bit. He was supposed to have been an FBI informant and, because he allegedly helped bring down the local mafia family, they turned a blind eye to his own murderous ways.

I'm watching Black Mass, the recently released film about his life as I type this.
 
Mentioned it before but the Jason Becker documentary Not Dead Yet is great.

Guitar prodigy on the cusp of superstardom, recruited as David Lee Roth's new hotshot only to be diagnosed with ALS...it's a heartbreaking but inspiring story and well worth a watch - it was on Netflix but I don't know of that's still the case.
 
Watched PBS' Frogs: The Thin Green Line. Basically gives you a general view on the current mass extinction that's happening with amphibians all around the world and how it will affect us. You might be extra disgusted by this if you live in America.
 
All This Mayhem, a skateboarding doc about the Pappas brothers, is fecking brilliant
 
Just finished "The War" by Ken Burns. It's a bit slow paced as it focuses more on the humans than the battles. And it's purely from a US perspective, so things like the Battle of Britain will be a footnote. But if you want to see WWII from the perspective of an American it is really good.
 
Watched a couple on Netflix recently. One great, one not so good.

Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru - some self-help dickhead who's "helped" the likes of Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama yadda yadda, filmed on one of his 6 day courses called "Date With Destiny" (which costs people $5k). I'm not sure what it originally intended to be but it ended up just being a promo video for some douchebag. It's reasonably interesting to see him do his "interventions" because you can see the catharsis that comes out of it. It does feel slightly less exploitative than psychics doing their thing. There are a couple of truly touching stories too. However the centre piece of the documentary is a colossal twat and makes it mostly unwatchable. Not sure how Netflix ratings work but I find it hard to understand how it has 4 stars...

Requiem For The American Dream - it's supposedly Noam Chomsky's last documentary so it's great by default. It's mostly just looking at Chomsky's face from different angles, with the occasional bit of associated illustrations and archival footage. He doesn't touch in anything new but it's a comprehensive yet succinct summation of his view on a failing democracy, linked back to the constitution and compared against Plato's view on democracy. Compelling, persuasive and slightly terrifying in equal measure, as always.

And I am really excited about this:

 
The "Cosmos" series narrated by De Grasse Tyson was brilliant. Also, almost every episode of "Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman".
 
ArmandTamzarian said:
Ive contemplated watching this many times but just cant bring myself to, animal cruelty is someting I just dont deal with very well, it either makes my blood boil or deeply saddens me. Human cruelty I can watch but animals, nope.
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It is well worth watching, like you I hate animal cruelty but it highlights just how cruel these big american attractions if you call them that are are cruel and horrible to these poor creatures. There is one scene where a guy who captured the orcas from the wild talks about what he did and it broke my heart for the poor orcas.
 
Team Foxcatcher cashed in on the real-life murder mystery wave, like the Durst one from HBO and Making a Murderer. Not as good as either, but interesting nonetheless. Somehow I completely missed out on this story even though there was a movie made about it.
 
What Happened to Kerouac? - 1986

Thought this was a fantastic look at Kerouac from 1986 with interviews and appearances from his still youngish "beat" crowd, including Burroughs, Ginberg, Cassady, Corso and many others. Loved listening to some of these American accents that just don´t really exist anymore. The documentary highlights the genius of Kerouac´s writing and what an unwittingly revolutionary figure he really was in a fundamental change to American culture. So much of what he wrote about was of a disappearing America and setting a vision and mood and influence for what would be to come.

Kerouac´s voice reciting his prose was especially great to listen to. So often his genius was unappreciated due to some idiotic critics with too much classical culture clout, and perhaps being branded by On The Road´s massive success as literature for young people, and his own drunken final years where he came off in a rather pathetic way. It was maddening watching that unbelievably smarmy cnut, William F Buckley Jr, interviewing an obviously drunk Kerouac during his final downward spiralling years, and joyously setting him up for ridicule.

Fantastic historical document of a changing America.

 
On a bit of a tech vibe at the moment.

Deep Web: a look at the arrest and trial of the alleged creator of Silk Road, a darknet website running as basically the Amazon of the drug world. Involves the FBI/DEA/NSA potentially (likely) overstepping legal boundaries to secure evidence and the highly questionable court rulings to disallow swathes of defensive evidence and lines of cross examination.

'Dread Pirate Roberts' was the online identity and Ross Ulbricht is the man allegedly behind it. A very interesting documentary raising plenty of moral and legal questions.

Anonymous: We Are Legion: a look into the story behind Anonymous, where it spawned from and how it morphed into what we know it as today, including the several key events that changed the underlying ethos.

An interesting take on the internal divides over time and the other groups that were created off the back of it.

Features interviews with a fair number of people involved in the network both currently and formerly and gives a fascinating inside into some of the moral standings.
 
Recently saw an hour and a half long documentary on Howard Hughes. Definitely worth it. I might read his biography since most of these docs only focus on the later part of his life.
 
Vato said:
Cartel Land is one of the best documentairies I've ever seen.
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Watched it based on your comment and I must agree.

It's brilliant and has two incredibly charismatic characters to base itself around as it takes you from the joy of witnessing the uniting and powerful force of human spirit to a much murkier side of the psyche and society in general.
 
The Firestarter said:
The "Cosmos" series narrated by De Grasse Tyson was brilliant. Also, almost every episode of "Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman".
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Did the cosmos series a few weeks ago and liked it a lot, though I thought the whole make believe space ship of the imagination aspect of it was slightly overdone. Small criticism tho, didn't detract from my enjoyment of the series.
 
Saw a cracking documentary the other day, nearly 2 hours long but I simply didn't want it to end- Here is my review from the movie review thread:

SwansonsTache said:
Zero Days | http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5446858/?ref_=nv_sr_1

One of the best documentaries I have ever seen. It is about the Stuxnet virus, the people behind it, the sophistication of the virus and the political ramifications. Probably the first documentary that tells something close to the truth about this "revolution in cyber warfare" as they so apt call it. Especially interesting is the pixelated woman from the NSA which tells us about the Stuxnet virus, how it came about, and how it all in some ways went wrong. What amazes me is all the powerfull figures they got to speak on camera, you've got former NSA\CIA leaders, politicians and secret service leaders from Israel all talking about it in an almost gloating way. If you even have a remote interest in computers and technology this is a must watch.

10/10
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Definitive account of the criminal decisions which destroyed Iraq:

 
Just watching Amanda Knox now, the story about the American student that was put in jail and later deemed to be wrongfully convicted of murdering an English student in Perugia. Unfortunately it features the Daily Mail reporter, Nick Pisa, very prominently. It's made me realise that what I dislike most about journalists is how candid they are about the beauty of sensationalism. He's gleefully talking about what a great story it was with sex, blood and mystery in a picturesque Italian city, and how seeing his name associated with the story on the front page is almost as good as sex. It's very honest but feck me, talk about misplaced priorities. The sad thing is it's a good reflection of many people.
 
Brwned said:
Just watching Amanda Knox now, the story about the American student that was put in jail and later deemed to be wrongfully convicted of murdering an English student in Perugia. Unfortunately it features the Daily Mail reporter, Nick Pisa, very prominently. It's made me realise that what I dislike most about journalists is how candid they are about the beauty of sensationalism. He's gleefully talking about what a great story it was with sex, blood and mystery in a picturesque Italian city, and how seeing his name associated with the story on the front page is almost as good as sex. It's very honest but feck me, talk about misplaced priorities. The sad thing is it's a good reflection of many people.
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What I've learned in life is that it takes a certain personality to have a certain job. Politicians love the power and connections, journalists like sensationalism and seeing other people fail in life, Wall Street bankers will squeeze as much money out of the system while taking huge risks on their bets etc.
 
VorZakone said:
What I've learned in life is that it takes a certain personality to have a certain job. Politicians love the power and connections, journalists like sensationalism and seeing other people fail in life, Wall Street bankers will squeeze as much money out of the system while taking huge risks on their bets etc.
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I think most people can do most jobs, but yeah I'd agree that to really love that job and excel in it then you need to have certain personal qualities. Although I'd also say those qualities are amplified just by working in that job.

Anyway, I'd recommend the documentary. It could've been a lot more than it was by focusing on the reasons they were wrongly convicted in the first place - the media frenzy creating a chaotic urgency and the investigation being mishandled - but it still told the facts of the case in a comprehensive in a coherent manner.

It seems odd that the chief investigator is still convinced of Amanda's guilt in spite of the fact the physical evidence is almost non-existent, because the only "evidence" outside of that is what he deems to be her questionable character. He was visibly offended at the fact she had lots of sex, wasn't afraid to challenge authority and generally was a bit quirky, and he seemed to be suggesting that was indicative of the fact she could commit such a brutal crime. Exploring that and the media's insatiable desire for a "scoop" which directly contributed to the urgency at which the investigation was conducted would've been a lot more interesting.
 
Brwned said:
Just watching Amanda Knox now, the story about the American student that was put in jail and later deemed to be wrongfully convicted of murdering an English student in Perugia. Unfortunately it features the Daily Mail reporter, Nick Pisa, very prominently. It's made me realise that what I dislike most about journalists is how candid they are about the beauty of sensationalism. He's gleefully talking about what a great story it was with sex, blood and mystery in a picturesque Italian city, and how seeing his name associated with the story on the front page is almost as good as sex. It's very honest but feck me, talk about misplaced priorities. The sad thing is it's a good reflection of many people.
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Watched it, having always been interested in the story. It was clearly a shockingly poor investigation and the exoneration seemed like the right outcome. Nick Pisa was an absolute cretin as you say, and the line at the end Nick Pisa still works in journalism about summed it up. Saying something like it's not his duty to double check facts was disgusting, and then he wittered on about journalistic principles regarding the source of the diary.
 
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