I **LOVE** documentaries - if I could only watch one toe of film, it would be docs.

I could list dozens (and will come back and list more) but for now I'll just copy the ones I had listed in my Netflix thread:

~ Praying with Lior. A documentary on a boy who has Down's Syndrome, his delight in and commitment to his Jewish faith, intertwined with the story of his mom's battle with cancer. I may be prejudiced on this one because I knew many of the people in it, but it's still moving and interesting.
~ Been Rich All My Life. Documentary on a group of women who were showgirls in Harlem in the '30s, and their experiences during that time, and their journey towards reuniting on stage as elderly (but still awesome) performers.
~ Saint of 9/11. Documentary about Father Mychal Judge, who was an openly gay priest, chaplain to the NYC fire department, and killed on 9/11.
~ Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart. Documentary on the amazing banjo player Bela Fleck and his travels to Africa to research the early origins of that instrument and play with a lot of local musicians. Fantastic for anyone who loves "world music."

I SO VERY MUCH DISAGREE! "Forks over Knives" is an EXCELLENT documentary! In fact, the reason I came into this was to list it as a must see. I like "Tapped" as well (water sources, including the "spring water", you are drinking in that plastic bottle of yours).

For those interested in food docs, including the above two:

http://www.butchfemmeplanet.com/foru...ead.php?t=4317

Great thread! I rarely watch tv but do love a good documentary. Some stand outs for me have been;

1. "Mountains Beyond Mountains" ~Focuses on the work of Dr. Paul Farmer who believes health care is a human right throughout the world. Dr. Farmer started work in Haiti on drug resistant TB and later expanded the successful program to other countries. Focus on global health care and social justice.

2. "The Shape of Water"~ Follows 5 different women from various countries and how they respond to environmental degradation, archaic traditions, lack of economic support and perils of war.

3. "Waiting for Superman"~ Highlights the work of African American educator Geoffrey Canada, charter schools and his Harlem Success Academy and how we are failing our kids in an educational system that is broken.

Katniss~~

I remember watching Tavis Smiley, interview Geoffrey Canada ...seems like a long time ago... That is an incredible story. Amaizing dude. I want to watch the documentary now. Glad they made one about him and the school. The other's sound good too. Love documentaries and PBS. Smithsonian channel. I would have to look up titles of the docs to recall those that i think are worthy of listing.

I say....oh f*** yeah...totally! would have listed Freedom Riders
and Ken Burns is awesome.

and the jesus camp is just scary...anything extreme fundamentalist that pushes hate or discrimination is scary

I loveeee documentaries!!! I have to say, my all time faves are

1. Ken Burn's Civil War

2 honestly...anything by Ken Burns...esp Lewis and Clark....

3 Planet Earth (I think its called that) narrated by Sigourney Weaver....

4. All the Nature shows....

5. I will watch anything to do with history or nature..... :)

This looks good. A documentary on the Reuther brothers.

Everything I already knew...but needed a fresh reminder about...Part of this literally made me burst into tears, a lot of the film made me angry, and some of it made me laugh...

I can honestly say that I have been half ass committed in being a responsible consumer....that changes today...

http://artscalendar.yale.edu/uploads...ing-corn_0.jpg

King Corn:
King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In the film, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm.

I second Praying with Lior.

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox.

Southern Comfort.


I *heart* documentaries!


~SAB

The Beautiful Truth

I didn't see this one mentioned. This film talks about The Gerson Miracle for curing cancer. It's an amazing, touching film that explains the truth behind the cause of most illnesses and how to cure them naturally and it's all told through the eyes of a teenager doing a home-school project. Very sobering and eye-opening.

Life (BBC TV series) narrated by David Attenborough
actually any BBC documentary narrated by Attenborough suits me just fine!

For life of me I can not think of the name of the show but it comes on the Oprah Network, if I'm not mistaken.

Has the asian lady who travels across America doing films about different types of people, culture, religions, etc. I think her name is Lisa Chang?

I have yet to see a single episode I didn't learn something from. Even the ones that make me wanna claw folks eyes out for their ignorance.



Love When Folks Help Me Expand The Noggin,
Brute.

I love it when your noggin gets expanded too!!! :fastdraq:


I think it's called something like "our america" maybe?

I just watched a Frontline episode -- aired October 9th. It's about Obama and Romney, and it's super good. It's called The Choice 2012.

The Corporation
 

Lesbian Country Music Star - Chely Wright
 

This documentary is going to premiere on Showtime this Thursday, November 15th, @ 8PM EST/PST.

No Greater Love
 

Saw this one a couple of nights ago and would highly recommend (absolutely agree with Ishiguro)....

London, England, Nov 30, 2010 / 02:54 am (CNA).- A “breathtaking” film recording the life of Carmelite nuns at a London monastery took the grand prize at the International Festival of Cinema and Religion in Italy.

Director Michael Whyte’s documentary “No Greater Love” examines the cloistered nuns of the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Notting Hill. Though centered upon Holy Week, the film covers a year in the life of the monastery and its daily rhythms of Divine Office and work.

The nuns are members of the Discalced Order of Carmelites and live without television, radio or newspapers. They maintain silence throughout the day except for two periods of recreation.

The film follows a year in which one woman professes as a novice and one of the senior nuns dies. The movie is primarily observational but interviews several nuns about their life, their faith, their moments of doubt and their belief in the power of prayer.

Writer Kazuo Ishiguro has said the film “looks breathtaking, like various Dutch Masters come to life.”

The International Jury of the International Festival of Cinema and Religion called the film “beautifully crafted” and “a powerful message for those of us who inhabit fast societies that militate against the possibility of wisdom.”

“No Greater Love” was released in the U.K. on April 9, 2010 and was scheduled to be released in Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg in November. It will be released in France on Dec. 29.

The film’s website is http://www.nogreaterlove.co.uk/.

Witness
 

Four documentaries in HBO’s series on photojournalism.

Photographers Amid Chaos

Absolutely riveting (very worth looking for after the series on HBO if you do not have HBO)

By MIKE HALE
Published: November 4, 2012

“Witness: Juarez,” the first in a series of four HBO documentaries about contemporary war photographers, is the visual equivalent of a fast-paced duet, like Mozart for still camera and video camera rather than violin and viola. The photographer Eros Hoagland and the cinematographer Jared Moossy travel the deadly streets of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, in tandem, and our view jumps between their lenses; their photographs and moving images echo and amplify one another.

The photographer Eros Hoagland is the subject of the first, “Witness: Juarez.”
The half-hour “Juarez,” a bracing, at times mesmerizing introduction to the “Witness” series, a project of the filmmaker Michael Mann and the documentarian David Frankham, who directed three of the films.

Mr. Frankham’s contributions are “Juarez” and “Rio,” about Mr. Hoagland, and “South Sudan,” with the French photojournalist Véronique de Viguerie; Abdallah Omeish directed “Witness: Libya,” which features Michael Christopher Brown.

The subsequent films are each an hour long, and while all have powerful material, particularly the South Sudan chapter.

Mr. Hoagland, a freelancer who works frequently for The New York Times, tracks down the scenes of drug-related murders in Ciudad Juárez with the help of a Mexican photographer, Guillermo Arias, and also embeds with the Mexican police, a practice he defends as “a free ride to a place we couldn’t go alone because we’d be killed.”

He offers practical tips — “You don’t want to arrive too soon, because the gunmen are still going to be there” — as well as philosophical guidelines. After he and Mr. Moossy (who photographed all four documentaries) race to the scene of a shooting and film the victim as he staggers out of his car, calling for help and dying on the street as soldiers and police officers stand by, Mr. Hoagland says: “I wasn’t there to mourn for him. I wasn’t there to console his family. I wasn’t there to — I was there to document it. It’s a piece of history.”

Mr. Hoagland’s comment that getting “too hung up on emotions” would make his work suffer — “I have to use that shield as much as I can” — takes on an extra resonance when you know that his father, John Hoagland, was killed in El Salvador in 1984 while taking photographs for Newsweek. (The photographer played by John Savage in Oliver Stone’s film “Salvador” was based on John Hoagland.)

In “Witness: Libya” Mr. Brown revisits his own direct brush with death: He was wounded by the mortar round that killed his colleagues Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in 2011. His chilling narration of the photographers’ movements that day is delivered at the scene, with current shots of blasted buildings and scarred pavement interwoven with videos and photos taken right up to the moment of the blast and in its aftermath.

The overall subject of “Libya” is the chaotic situation there in the wake of the 2011 revolution, with various factions fighting for power and revenge, and the film reflects that chaos. Images like the charred remains of the convoy that carried Col. Muammar el-Qadaffi when he was captured or an ammunition depot where stacked crates of missiles and bombs sit unguarded, are undeniably powerful. But the interviews and scenes of protests and confrontations that take up the bulk of the hour don’t cohere into a persuasive picture of the country’s current condition.

What’s more interesting is to see where the approaches of Mr. Brown and Mr. Hoagland agree or diverge. Both express the view that documenting a crisis is less about capturing the violence than about seeing the life around it — “the whole situation that people are living in,” as Mr. Hoagland puts it. But while Mr. Brown talks about the importance of identifying with his subjects — and is seen dancing with a roomful of Libyan militiamen — Mr. Hoagland reiterates the value of standing apart. “I’m not there to tell you what’s happening,” he says. “I’m there to show you what I saw, what happened to me, and then you can come upon your own conclusions.”

Witness

HBO, Monday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.

Produced by Blue Light Media and Little Puppet. Michael Mann and David Frankham, executive producers; Eros Hoagland, Michael Christopher Brown and Véronique de Viguerie, photojournalists; Jared Moossy, cinematographer; Antonio Pinto, composer. “Witness: Juarez”: Directed by Mr. Frankham; Ike Martin, Alison Kunzman and Youree Henley, producers. “Witness: Libya”: Directed by Abdallah Omeish; Julie Herrin and Josiah Hooper, producers. “Witness: South Sudan” and “Witness: Rio”: Directed by Mr. Frankham; Mr. Herrin and Mr. Hooper, producers.

A version of this review appeared in print on November 5, 2012, on page C1 of the New York edition of the New York Times, with the headline: Photographers Amid Chaos.

http://tv.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/art...ers.html?_r=1&