Malazan Empire: Documentaries: The Thread - Malazan Empire

Jump to content

  • 4 Pages +
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

Documentaries: The Thread Hot Docs, and which ones we love!

#41 User is offline   QuickTidal 

  • Frog
  • Group: Team Quick Ben
  • Posts: 21,339
  • Joined: 05-November 05
  • Location:Nowhere Specific
  • Interests:Nothing, just sitting. Quietly.

Posted 15 August 2017 - 07:06 PM

View PostDown South, on 15 August 2017 - 06:44 PM, said:

Id prefer my millennial ring in lol.


Ha! I 100% agree. Mine was SUPER lame.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora

“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
0

#42 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 17 September 2017 - 04:27 PM

Oh boy, the Ken Burns documentary: The Vietnam War: A film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick - PBS begins tonight on PBS. It's 10 parts for a total of 18 hours in length . . . yikes!
0

#43 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 27 October 2017 - 07:52 PM

Get ready for a good cry guys.

0

#44 User is offline   Silencer 

  • Manipulating Special Data
  • Group: Administrators
  • Posts: 5,674
  • Joined: 07-July 07
  • Location:New Zealand
  • Interests:Malazan Book of the Fallen series.
    Computer Game Design.
    Programming.

Posted 26 November 2017 - 01:38 PM

So for those of you who don't remember me recommending the brilliant Inequality for All a couple of pages back, the sequel has just been released: Saving Capitalism (For the Many, Not the Few).

It's not as good as Inequality for All, and I wouldn't suggest watching it stand-alone without seeing IfA first, but it's still a solid doco. Also, holy crap, there is actual video footage of Robert Reich (author of the book the documentary is based on, former Secretary of Labor, etc) predicting the growing anger and rise of populists like Trump from back in the late 90s when he was in government. I mean, in hindsight it probably wasn't that hard to spot but it is very interesting that he was publicly warning about it.
Also, to sum up the problem with politics in America: the Federal Trade Commission was shut down due to business pressure on the government over the recommendation put forward by the FTC that companies be prohibited from marketing high-sugar, unhealthy foods directly at kids. That's right, one of the consumer protection agencies was shut down (due to "underfunding") because they advocated for the protection of children from predatory advertising. JFC.

Anyway, go watch Inequality for All if you haven't already, then watch Saving Capitalism (it's on Netflix).

And if Inequality for All isn't depressing enough for you, you can always watch Inside Job, which gives a much more focused and in-depth look at the details of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, how everyone and their dog in Washington knew it was coming, in some cases years in advance, actively wrote legislation that they knew would make the economy more risky, and generally did fuck all to prevent it happening again after the fact. Oh, and also how half of the people who oversaw the corrupt as hell practices of major Wall St banks during the build up to the GFC, were promptly given jobs in the government as regulators of the financial industry. Because apparently someone thought that would be a good idea that would end well. :p
***

Shinrei said:

<Vote Silencer> For not garnering any heat or any love for that matter. And I'm being serious here, it's like a mental block that is there, and you just keep forgetting it.

0

#45 User is offline   QuickTidal 

  • Frog
  • Group: Team Quick Ben
  • Posts: 21,339
  • Joined: 05-November 05
  • Location:Nowhere Specific
  • Interests:Nothing, just sitting. Quietly.

Posted 05 April 2018 - 04:09 PM

The Netflix Doc about Rajneeshpuram WILD WILD COUNTRY, which I assumed would be good because the subject matter is endlessly interesting (and I’ve heard about it on three separate podcasts: 99PI, MFM, and ZEALOT) was…not great.

Boring would be the best word I have to describe it.

I think the documentarians (Maclain Way and Chapman Way) are (I think) trying to ape Errol Morris in the style and execution. The problem with that is that the Doc is 6 hour long episodes…and as Morris’ most recent doc-series (WORMWOOD; which was about the CIA, MK ULTRA and stuff like that) was also 6 hours and proved…you can’t stretch that style of documentary over 6 bloody hours and expect everyone to keep their attention.

Because both WORMWOOD and WILD WILD COUNTRY feature (instead of talking heads and cut scenes, and still photos like a normal documentary might) broad, sweeping lush cinematography of the landscapes involved (in WWC’s case, it’s rural Oregon) inter-spliced by mostly silent 16mm footage of actual Rajneeshpuram from the 70’s/80’s and then these medium-wide shot stationary interview clips (that are also lit like it’s some dark, fictional film)…and then it’s just THAT for 6 hours straight. It’s boring AF. Which is strange because the story of the cult and compound is FASCINATING. So how they fucked that up, I dunno.

Anyways. Bad docuseries. I only liked WORMWOOD because some of the subject matter was super interesting, WILD WILD COUNTRY refuses to allow its subject to BE interesting as it’s all couched in beige….but then I don’t think I’m all about Morris’ style in general as I find it so “filmic” as to be distracting. And I don’t want to sit for 5+ minute interview sections with some person endlessly pontification. Make it pacey. Talking heads in documentary work because they pop up (name, and occupation at the bottom of the screen), deliver a few lines of information, and disappear again. This tedious shit of watching such long-winded drivel interviews is taxing at the best of time. Let your doc have a solid narrator. Part of the reason why a crazy show like ANCIENT ALIENS (for example) has such a following is that Robert Clotworthy is a stunning and endlessly listenable narrator and his narration keeps you in when the talking heads aren't present. In both WORMWOOD and WILD WILD COUNTRY there is no narrator....and that's a problem for me.

Not recommended.

Next up I have the RAY HARRYHOUSEN documentary, so hopefully that’s better.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 April 2018 - 04:13 PM

"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora

“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
0

#46 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 04 May 2018 - 06:08 PM

Andre the Giant

Really liked it. He was a complicated man. Overall the documentary paints him in a positive light, but his tendency towards dark and anger, particularly later in his career when his health was failing, wasn't glossed over. He was in a lot of pain late in his career. Special conditions had to be implemented for him to wrestle Hogan at Wrestlemania 3. I don't know how he was able to build up the courage to let Hogan pick him up and slam him. Through it all, he was always the professional and would perform. The early footage of his career is not to be missed. Announcing him as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" as he entered the ring was not that far off the mark.
0

#47 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 11 June 2018 - 01:02 AM

Ah man. I know I'm going to lose it watching this.

0

#48 User is offline   Aptorian 

  • How 'bout a hug?
  • Group: The Wheelchairs of War
  • Posts: 24,778
  • Joined: 22-May 06

Posted 11 June 2018 - 06:27 AM

I've been watching a documentary mini-series called the 4th estate. It's about New York Times coverage of The Trump Presidency and their relationship to the administration and the people.

It's great.
0

#49 User is offline   QuickTidal 

  • Frog
  • Group: Team Quick Ben
  • Posts: 21,339
  • Joined: 05-November 05
  • Location:Nowhere Specific
  • Interests:Nothing, just sitting. Quietly.

Posted 12 June 2018 - 12:57 PM

The Netflix amalgamation of THE STAIRCASE with the three newer episodes about the more recent case info....pulled a full-on MAKING A MURDERER, in that they didn't show a bunch of vital pieces of the case to make Michael Petersen appear innocent...the whole thing is slanted that way...but people having actually read a book on the subject, and the fact that the original autopsy report is available to read...that guy is BEYOND guilty as fuck. Not just for murdering his wife, but his German neighbour (in the SAME WAY) years ago too. The doc leaving out things like the fact that Kathleen had defensive wounds, his bloody shoe print on the BACK of her pants, and the blood on the inside of his shorts, blood outside by the pool, and bits of her own hair in her hands, and the paper towel at the scene he tried to mop up...like it's literally despicable to have left out all that information which paints him as guilty and pretty much illustrates what happened...just so they could make a documentary show that rode the line and kept people guessing about him. Oh, and the 911 call is so, so fake. He's acting the entire time. It's twisted.

I'm convinced that then German woman neighbour (Ratliff) ....who's KIDS he adopted FFS!....who fell down the stairs and was exhumed after the fact (in 2003) to confirm she died of a cerebral haemorrhage and NOT a stroke as the authorities believed at the time, threatened to tell about his first wife about his extra curricular activities, so he iced her and pretended she had a stroke or seizure...and her husband died under mysterious circumstances previously too...poisoning if I recall correctly, so that's ALSO sketchy AF....and then he adopts their kids BOTH OF WHOM STILL STAND BY HIM...it's crazy. And then there is the fact that one of Elizabeth's daughters (Margaret) looks IDENTICAL to him...I wonder if she's illegitimately his and that factor figures into this. I mean, she was born in 1981, and her mother dies in 1985...If Michael is the biological father, it could help explain Elizabeth's death. Perhaps she had an affair with Michael (he admitted later that he had affairs with men and women during that marriage), Margaret is the result, and Elizabeth threatened to tell Michael's first wife Patricia about it?

I think Kathleen also found out about his extra-marital activities and threatened to leave him....all of them were in dire financial straits at that point, and I mean if she left, her money went with her...and she had a 1.4mil life insurance policy as well. I think she checked his computer (apparently between when she came inside that night and when the police showed up, they proved that she checked his computer), found the messages for him cheating, and confronted him outside. I think they got into a scuffle, and when they were inside she tried to climb the stairs and he grabbed her and he killed her.

And I mean, the guys sister Ann, Kathleen's two sisters and Kathleen's daughter (who originally stood by him) ALL think he's guilty AF now...and you'll notice the older brother lawyer (Bill Petersen) is curiously absent from the newer eps of the doc...and I think that's because they had a falling out and Bill knows that Michael did it.

Every time the guy opens his mouth, he's like a textbook sociopath. No remorse. He's never sad or crying right after it happened, and the whole family has this kind of "laugh it off" thing about them. It's disturbing.

I only recommend watching if you've never heard of the case and are interested in some of the particulars, but I advise a visit to the case subreddit or somewhere else to get the FULL amount of info on the case...because that doc is heavily skewed to favour his innocence, and that guy is NOT innocent.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora

“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon
0

#50 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 14 November 2018 - 06:52 PM


0

#51 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 13 March 2019 - 01:08 AM

Watched Free Solo. Beautifully shot movie, and I'm guessing that was the main factor that got it the Oscar win, as there wasn't that much compelling about Alex Honnold's personal journey that we haven't seen before. An individual so driven and obsessed by one thing that all other aspects of a fulfilling and balanced life are stunted or outright refused in pursuit of a personal holy grail. Interesting person, don't get me wrong, but his personal story just didn't leap off the screen as someone so compelling that he would carry the documentary to be worthy of an Academy Award. But yeah, the camera work and the bat shit crazy idea of climbing El Capitain without safety ropes or aid and capturing it on film is quit a thing to witness.
0

#52 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 01 July 2019 - 04:50 PM

CNN aired Apollo 11. Everyone should watch it. It should be compulsory viewing for K-12 educational purposes.

The documentary doesn't have any commentary, so there is nothing to get in the way of the footage shown. Sometimes, saying nothing says everything.

https://en.wikipedia..._11_(2019_film)

Quote: The film consists solely of archival footage, including 70 mm film that was previously unreleased to the public, and does not feature narration, interviews or modern recreations.

The footage pulled and pieced together starts the morning of the launch on July 16, 1969 through the return from the moon and splash down and safe return on July 24, 1969. And it is amazing footage. I think this may have aired in IMAX theaters? (damn, missed opportunity by me, I would have loved to have seen this in an IMAX
theater)

Anyway, watch it!

Oh, and the music and score is absolutely fantastic. Here's a taste.

0

#53 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 26 July 2019 - 08:49 PM

Movie review: Watch 'The Great Hack,' then delete Facebook

Quote

Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim's documentary "The Great Hack," streaming on Netflix starting July 24, should be required viewing for every American citizen (make it a double feature with the Steve Bannon doc "The Brink"). Then every American citizen should delete Facebook. At a bare minimum, we should seriously consider the devil's bargain we've entered into with the behemoth social network, trading our privacy for status updates and family photos.


0

#54 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 12 September 2019 - 04:33 AM

Daniel Johnston has died. His passing hits me hard and so the 'messing with your grove' thread just isn't the place, imo, to recognize how impactful he and his art is to a lot of people. So I thought bringing your attention to the documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, would introduce you guys to this sweet, tender soul, and be a nice way to remember him. RIP Daniel Johnston.


0

#55 User is offline   worry 

  • Master of the Deck
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 14,563
  • Joined: 24-February 10
  • Location:the buried west

Posted 12 September 2019 - 06:14 AM

Well said. Posted Image
They came with white hands and left with red hands.
0

#56 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 18 November 2019 - 04:03 PM

They Shall Not Grow Old.

You hear the phrase: "war is hell" thrown around a lot. This documentary, lead by Peter Jackson, shows footage rarely seen that hits you with the full impact of that saying. Goodness gracious it is a harrowing documentary about WWI. The soldiers' descriptions of the trenches and existing (and surviving) through that is hard to comprehend. Be forewarned, it's not for the squeamish, but excellent and well worth watching.
0

#57 User is offline   Tiste Simeon 

  • Faith, Heavy Metal & Bacon
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 11,955
  • Joined: 08-October 04
  • Location:T'North

Posted 27 November 2019 - 09:16 PM

Started watching a Netflix documentary called WILD WILD COUNTRY and 1 episode in and I'm hooked. It's about Guru Bhagwan Rajneesh and how his cult/new age movement/whatever you want to call it bought up like 60,000 acres of land in rural Oregon. I don't know much about the series but I think it's going to get mental soon. The first episode was just setting up who they were and how they ended up there. They actually interview a bunch of people who were a part of it and even a lady who was at the top of the organisation.

Really fascinating and I shall definitely watch all of it!
A Haunting Poem
I Scream
You Scream
We all Scream
For I Scream.
0

#58 User is offline   Tiste Simeon 

  • Faith, Heavy Metal & Bacon
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 11,955
  • Joined: 08-October 04
  • Location:T'North

Posted 09 December 2019 - 02:56 PM

View PostTiste Simeon, on 27 November 2019 - 09:16 PM, said:

Started watching a Netflix documentary called WILD WILD COUNTRY and 1 episode in and I'm hooked. It's about Guru Bhagwan Rajneesh and how his cult/new age movement/whatever you want to call it bought up like 60,000 acres of land in rural Oregon. I don't know much about the series but I think it's going to get mental soon. The first episode was just setting up who they were and how they ended up there. They actually interview a bunch of people who were a part of it and even a lady who was at the top of the organisation.

Really fascinating and I shall definitely watch all of it!

Oh man this stepped up a level, they be poisoning entire towns! I can't believe I'd never heard of this story before now. Think it's going to get worse before it gets better...
A Haunting Poem
I Scream
You Scream
We all Scream
For I Scream.
0

#59 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 10 December 2019 - 07:10 PM

Watched Rick Steve's travel documentary - The Story of Fascism in Europe.

The parallels to how things are trending in today's political climate around the globe are chilling. Grab that Trump supporter/voter you care about and make them watch this. Watch it with them and I know throughout the viewing you'll be saying to them "see! any of this seem familiar!" "This seems to ring true right now, agree?"

There are two breaks throughout the 90 min. where Rick Steves talks. This quote from him is noteworthy - "History is speaking to us" - that pretty much says it all, hopefully we are listening.
0

#60 User is offline   Malankazooie 

  • Elder God
  • Group: Malaz Regular
  • Posts: 6,693
  • Joined: 21-June 16

Posted 10 March 2020 - 08:14 PM

Watched The Cove.

Never seen it before, but I went in knowing what it was about. It is disturbing, no doubt about it. I know it won the 2010 Academy Award, and I remember reading about it at the time. Watching it now though, with some distance from the fervor and passion it generated, I feel somewhat conflicted. It's a horrible activity, but I can't help but feel hypocrisy in knowing what I (and we) know about factory farming and industrial stock houses. The sidebar heist narrative that they interjected seemed tone-deaf to me also, considering the subject matter. The documentary captivated me for sure, not in a pleasant way, there are images that I would not recommend for feint of heart or overly sensitive people. Especially if you love dolphins. Also, fuck vacation resorts/destinations that offer 'swim with dolphins' packages. Human beings are truly terrible.
0

Share this topic:


  • 4 Pages +
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

1 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users