Top documentary movies…

[bboyblu]

I’m sure everyone has their favorites documentaries, and I’m guessing
that most of them would be well-known ones such as “Fahrenheit 911”
or “Schindler’s List”. About a month ago though, I caught a film at the
Hamptons Film Festival that really moved me and was hoping to make it a
point of discussion here. It’s called “The First Amendment Project”.
Has anyone heard or seen this movie before?

In short, it exposes a case in which the Fox News Channel tried to stop
the publication of a book that exposed the wrongdoings of major news
organizations. Fox lost the case. Now, it might seen pretty simple, but
to think about how many people these news channels influence daily, and
then to see how they are trying to limit what people know and hear
about them, is pretty frightening.

I’m not an actress, director or anything associated with the film, but
I am an advocate of exposing the truth, and this film does just that.
In case you are interested, you can google.com the film to learn more,
or if you want to see if for yourself, I know that Court TV bought the
rights to air it next Tuesday (12/7) at 10pm.

Bob

[adamark]

I don't watch the news anymore.

So the news doesn't affect me.

But I'm still affected by dolts who still plug into the mind control machine.

I'll see if I can catch this movie.

[My Lead Airbag]

Was that the whole Al Franken thing?

Also, Schindler's List wasn't really a documentary. It's a movie.

SUpersize Me was pretty good.

[ChaosMage]

I really need to see Supersize Me...speaking of which...*head over to Suprnova* This is probably also really well known, but I just recently purchased Bowling for Columbine, and I found myself enjoying it, though simultaniously frightened to live where I do, which I suppose was the point of the movie.

[AerodynamicHair]

"Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns" is a great documentary about They Might Be Giants, and I suggest you buy the dvd seeing as how it has an incredible amount of extra features as well as five music videos (including my favorite TMBG song, Ana Ng). It also is general enough and interesting enough that people who don't know anything about TMBG would be easily entertained by it.

And if you're looking for something political, I recommend "Unconstitutional." It goes over some of the patriot act's side effects and does the normal kind of mud-rakeing thing without resorting to Michael Moore-type tricks.

Right.

[Ravenhurst]

Hmm, documentaries. . .

Capturing the Friedmans was exceedingly well done but quite disturbing. You left the movie hating everyone in it (including the guy who made it) and feeling sick to your stomach, but that aside, I highly recommend it.

Spellbound was cute and fun. Not particulary thought-provoking, but very interesting.

Michael Moore's really funny, and a darn-good filmmaker. He is the master of implication, juxtaposing two things in such a way so as to get you to assume something false, but never saying that false thing outright.

I found The Corporation very frightening. Go see it, it's phenomenal.

Outfoxed was a leftwing hatchet-job. Yes, we know Foxnews has a bias, get over it. I did like the bit about the memos though.

Lucky People Center International, I'm not sure you could call this a documentary, but it was trip. Really. A freakin' acid trip.

[Viper Daimao]

Ive been wanting to see Michael Moore Hates America (http://www.michaelmoorehatesamerica.com/). its not really a slime on moore as the title would suggest, but rather an antithesis to his movies, showing all the good things about america. Plus its gotten great reviews.

I havent seen Supersize Me, but have read about it. What did everyone take away from that movie? It seemed to make some good points, and some stupidly obvious ones. on a side note, while searching on the internet, I found this documentary (http://www.swoorv.com/BowlingForMorgan/) where a guy does the mcdonalds thing for 30 days to see if it really is that bad. you can watch the whole thing on the website there.

[Ravenhurst]

What I don't understand about the "MM Hates America" documentary is, why did the filmmaker call it that if it's not really about Moore? The only things I know about it I learned from the Daily Show segment about it, which mostly mocked the director and featured a cameo by Moore. As for Supersize Me, I liked it. If you want a real fast-food expose, read "Fast Food Nation", a far more extensive (and disgusting) book about fast food.

[Dynamite220]

They would mock it, liberal jackasses. The reason that it is called MM Hates America, even though it isn't about Moore, is because it IS about his movies. I've never seen Super Size Me, but I have also read about it and I already had most of that information. That was a clever way of making it more real to the average citizen though.

[ChaosMage]

I watched Supersize Me over the weekend, it is indeed available on Suprnova. I would say watch it, its good stuff. I'll take a look at the guy who lost 20 pounds while eating only McDonald's. I'm skeptical right off the bat though, because Morgan Spurlock's methods were pretty solid. Here were his rules:
1) He has to eat everything at least once during the 1 month period.
2) He can only supersize if they ask him. (Occured 9 times out of 90 meals)
3) He must eat 3 meals a day.

Also, he spoke to a whole bunch of experts, and after determining that the average American walks something like 3000 steps, he rationed himself to only 4000 steps a day (because he lives in New York City, and everyone walks everywhere there). To avoid walking, he took cabs or what not.

EDIT: Oh, and because the average American gets almost no physical activity on a daily basis, he was allowed no exercise.

[adamark]

If i made a movie I would stick on Michael Moore's name just because he is so well known anything with his name will make money. It's a very poetic form of capitalism.

[Viper Daimao]

and where did he get this "average american" info?

the guy who lost weight, had hamburgers, sometimes saladas, and diet cokes. you see him running around doing crazy stuff sometimes, so i guess he gets some exercise.

what I dont get about supersize me, is whats the point? if you eat a shit load of food and get no excercise you get fat? yeah i knew that. He did have some good points with the school cafeteria and little kids drinking cokes and such. that deserved more attention I think.

[ChaosMage]

The information on the average American stuff came from several places. The average amount a person walks every day is information he got from an interview with the senior editor a magazine, which if I recall correctly, is called Walking Monthly, so I think it'd be safe to say he knows what he's talking about.

The point of the movie is explained in the beginning: After two girls sued McDonald's, the lawyers for McDonald's claimed that there were absolutely no grounds for the case unless the girls could prove that eating McDonald's every day for every meal was harmful. Also, the reason he only ate McDonald's to the exclusion of everything else is because the guy who is heading up the campaigns to hold fast food companies accountable, a prof at Washington University, said that on average we eat 40% of our meals at fast food places and furthermore that its fairly common for people to eat McDonald's two times a day at least twice a week.

As far as Morgan's diet goes, I don't think he ate the salads too often. He didn't like them very much, and I think his description was something along the lines of 'tastes like vomit.' His reasons for eating everythingon the menu at least once was because a general sample of people will have eaten most things on the menu. He probably had the diet coke once simply to satisfy "Have everything on the menu atleast once" rule, but thats about it.

[adamark]

One man did a documentary on eating all McDonalds food and LOSING weight. The title escapes me...

[ChaosMage]

Yeah, we're dicussing it right now...its called Bowling for Morgan. *points up about 5 posts*

[My Lead Airbag]

Actually, he didn't eat the salad because they didn't taste too good AND the fact that if you put the dressing on it (shich he 'had' to) it has about the same dietary content as most of their burgers.

I didn't even think the whole 30-day thing was the real draw, it was just a filler/bumper of sorts between the actual documentary stuff.

[ChaosMage]

Ok. So I just finished watching Bowling for Morgan. First off, I'd like to say that movie had the worst cinematography ever. Not just poor picture quality, but poor camera work. Second, Scott Caswell is a dumbass. That said, I've got alot of criticism for the movie:
1) His diet isn't typical of what people eat at McDonald's. Salads? When was the last time you went to McDonald's for a salad? Diet cokes?
2) He lost 20 pounds. I'd like to know what his diet was before this started. Its actually not that hard to lose weight that way. For example, this summer I cut down my eating a little bit by not having rice after every meal, only if I felt like it, and I lost 13 pounds without ever stepping on a treadmill.
3) I'd like a clearer picture of his exercise regimine.
4) More informationa bout his previous diet could explain why his bloodwork actually got better.

Side note, the guy does make a good point that McDonald's doesn't shove a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese with a supersized fry and coke down your throat every time you walk in there, but all the same I'm siding with Morgan on this one.