What Documentaries Have You Watched Lately?

[Chancer]

@Eriatarka

conspiracy theory heads (Proudly so, the only difference with a conspiracy theory and the facts is generally 6-12 month

 

[Nostromo]

Where to start! So much excellent stuff being made these days. I worked in TV many many years ago, and to be fair it was great in the 80s in terms of docs and cutting edge material..but the rise of lazy, reality shows (police body cams, security footage etc etc) is killing the art of the documentary on mainstream UK tv.
‘Wild,Wild Country’ on Netflix was fab, as was “The Looming Tower” and so many others.
Great idea for a thread!

 

[sweetpea123]

Haven’t watched it yet, but Quiet on Set comes out March 17 and 18 as part of two part series on Nickelodeon and the abuse/cover up of abuse that happened on set with the child actors. I will definitely be watching!

 

[jenh22]

I just recently watched the 'Take Care of Maya' documentary on Netflix. So sad...especially knowing how hard and frustrating CRPS can be (my sister has it).

I watched that as well. Very upsetting.

 

[InsomnicMan]

Recently started on a documentary by Voss who is former FBI. Can't recollect the name but quite interesting stuff in terns of negotiating. The art of negotiation is quite a skill to have

 

[Adrian254]

20 Days in Mariupol just confirmed for me that corrupt government of Russia have no moral limitis as how low they can go.

 

[amy43]

As you know I'm not a huge TV person, however I did find myself watching 'In the name of thy father' last night. Its a movie but it can fall under documentary being a true story. I had forgot one of the lads had married into the US Kennedy family.

@Chancer I saw that film too years ago, but it left an impact. I read an interview by the person who was falsely imprisoned, and his courage and
suffering were haunting. Powerful film, just sad that it happened and did not know that one of the lads married into the Kennedy family!

 

[Chancer]

@amy43 There was around 7 or 8 who went to prison. Its called the Guildford 4 because the others had lower (still live changing) sentences.
2 were kids 14 and 17, their grandmother too. It was his dad Giuseppe who died in prison before he was released in time. Such a nice nan, steady job, well liked.

I'm currently reading 'Eyewitness Bloody Sunday..The Truth' since we can't watch the documentary in the UK, guess they don't want the brits to realise just how corrupt & Evil they can be.

You can probably watch in other countries on Amazon, unsure where else?

 

[Chancer]

@Nostromo Agreed, more effort and creativity in the 80s. Now its like Jerry Springer on steroids. Can't tolerate Reality TV, its never anything educational. Like how scientists manage to create something or Engineers designing and building.

Its all about plastic surgery and pretending they have lives they literally don't have, all about selling the fantasy.

 

[Nostromo]

@Chancer totally agree. It is just appalling these days. My family (Dad) was a pioneer of documentary film making in the 60s and it was an art and about quality then, and for the next few decades. Now it is nothing but garbage. Pure laziness with no merit whatsoever. On any given day here, we have massive numbers of police pursuit progs, border force, car repairs, train driving, Alaskan fishing, gold mining etc etc etc. that’s before even starting on the Kardashian stuff. Utter lazy garbage!

 

[amy43]

@amy43 There was around 7 or 8 who went to prison. Its called the Guildford 4 because the others had lower (still live changing) sentences.
2 were kids 14 and 17, their grandmother too. It was his dad Giuseppe who died in prison before he was released in time. Such a nice nan, steady job, well liked.

I'm currently reading 'Eyewitness Bloody Sunday..The Truth' since we can't watch the documentary in the UK, guess they don't want the brits to realise just how corrupt & Evil they can be.

You can probably watch in other countries on Amazon, unsure where else?

@Chancer I did not know that, and the reason why it's called the Guildford 4. Shocking and tragic. I remember Giuseppe who came across in the film as a nice man.
Your reading sounds interesting and think that you are right about why they have cover ups.
I will look out for it and will probably not be able to watch on amazon as I am in the UK and a lot of things are unable to watch.

 

[amy43]

@Chancer totally agree. It is just appalling these days. My family (Dad) was a pioneer of documentary film making in the 60s and it was an art and about quality then, and for the next few decades. Now it is nothing but garbage. Pure laziness with no merit whatsoever. On any given day here, we have massive numbers of police pursuit progs, border force, car repairs, train driving, Alaskan fishing, gold mining etc etc etc. that’s before even starting on the Kardashian stuff. Utter lazy garbage!

@Nostromo In the UK, we have terrible tv with a parade of endless celebrities doing inane things like cooking, siting around in a big house gossiping about one another, or being paid huge amount of money to hang out with other celebs in a jungle and do creepy things like eat insects, etc to win food for their team mates! Cookery shows, endless quizzes, circus tv with baying audience as people are paraded on to find out who is the father of who's child, as the mob sit awaiting the DNA results of the possible father, young people dating other people and the awkward dates being filmed, plastic surgery, etc... The list goes on and so I have given up on watching tv now.
I miss the old days when there were things worth watching. And why are the Kardashian's famous, as their fame has infected the UK and I cannot think of anything that they actually do, yet people still gush about them for some reason!

 

[Chancer]

@amy43 Me too, I literally don't watch TV programmes, but I do watch a movie occasionally. Usually something older or braindead action to sleep too. You can't beat the quality when channels were genuinely trying to outdo one another with quality.

I loved things like The West Wing (the dry humour was writing genius, plus it wasn't too heavy on the politics to take away from the characters lives.

I also loved 24 and we used to go on holiday and come back and binge on that.

Documentaries are nothing like they used to be, old quality were your reputation as a professional was everything. People would verify accuracy when/were they could.

 

[Chancer]

@amy43 Oh, you can watch 'In the name of thy father' in the UK ok, bloody Sunday is a defo no on Amazon. Michael Collins you can watch which is educational (Hollywood blockbuster) but not completely accurate, close enough.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley is one of the best movies about Kevin Barry, he was Michael Collins Co Cork equivalent and they met each other. Again a few inconsistencies like the Thomson gun they didn't have at that point, the did get it later.

Then if you want you can head to Scotland for Braveheart.

 

[Chancer]

@amy43 Yes, I doubt they want the citizens to know what gets committed in their name.

The Cork football game when the army indiscriminately fired into a crowd at a football match, killing 14 including two 10 year olds. They were retaliating for an earlier PIRA assassination on their colleagues. They claimed they believed they were hiding at a football game, however it was sheer dehumanisation and pure revenge. Claims that someone fired from the crowd was nonsense, they were in armoured tanks in the middle of the field they'd just crashed through the doors. Even the British military didn't like them, they were totally uncontrollable.

Its quite fresh because England just played a game there for the first time ever, so everyone was worried it was a decision that could backfire. Fortunately both teams were respectful to the anthems and England unfortunately had to be told the history, clearly they didn't know it. Good game, Ireland won but I imagine England understood the magnitude. So they knew Ireland needed to win to let calmer heads prevail.

 

[Chancer]

Marjoe is a 1972 American documentary film produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan about the life of evangelist Marjoe Gortner. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Marjoe Gortner was a precocious child preacher with extraordinary talents, who was immensely popular in the American South. His parents earned large sums of money off of his earnings until the point he outgrew the novelty of his youthfulness.

Gortner rejoined the ministry as a young adult solely as a means of earning a living, not as a believer. He spent the next several years using his fame and status as an evangelist to earn a living from both tent revivals and televangelism. Eventually, Gortner suffered a crisis of conscience of sorts and decided to give up the revival circuit, but not any of the money he made from it. He offered a documentary film crew unrestricted access to him during his final revival tour, which took place in 1971.

The film contains scenes from revival meetings showing Gortner preaching and praying for people in Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Detroit, and Anaheim. This is interspersed with footage of Gortner admitting on camera that he was a non-believer and revealing the tactics that he and other evangelists used to manipulate people and to move them during revivals. Some of the evangelists even revealed where they bought properties kept secret and gave him advice to follow. Gortner said he studied Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, as a model for his routine.

I've always found the whole mega church preacher gig as odd, its quite surprising how many people fall for it. That's something we don't really have here in the UK although we do have questionable churches and members of various clergy. They are celebrity preachers who make a fortune, own mansions and private planes in the US. I wonder if some people just go for the celebrity aspect? I will look into it.

Don't you have child labour laws or was he old enough? In the UK the funds would be put in a Trust with the parents getting a nominal stipend. I imagine you would feel quite resentful if your parents were getting rich of your talents. Sorta like the pageants system with little kids, I detest getting makeovers that take too long, I can't imagine the pressure as a kid who would probably want to play with their bikes etc.

 

[Chancer]

I miss the old days when there were things worth watching. And why are the Kardashian's famous, as their fame has infected the UK and I cannot think of anything that they actually do, yet people still gush about them for some reason!

I suspect Kris is a sociopath. Kim got her start by pretending a sex tape was released without her knowledge. It was all arranged with her mother as the manager. Personally, I view her as a pimp. She's literally selling her kids lives ups and downs including weddings, cheating and sex drama.

She should have been arrested when she turned her focus on the younger girls, the whole Premise is vile beyond description.

 

[amy43]

I miss the old days when there were things worth watching. And why are the Kardashian's famous, as their fame has infected the UK and I cannot think of anything that they actually do, yet people still gush about them for some reason!

I suspect Kris is a sociopath. Kim got her start by pretending a sex tape was released without her knowledge. It was all arranged with her mother as the manager. Personally, I view her as a pimp. She's literally selling her kids lives ups and downs including weddings, cheating and sex drama.

She should have been arrested when she turned her focus on the younger girls, the whole Premise is vile beyond description.

@Chancer Thanks for sharing! Stunned at the insanity of such an awful family being venerated by the media and having fans!
And the mother!

 

[amy43]

@amy43 Me too, I literally don't watch TV programmes, but I do watch a movie occasionally. Usually something older or braindead action to sleep too. You can't beat the quality when channels were genuinely trying to outdo one another with quality.

I loved things like The West Wing (the dry humour was writing genius, plus it wasn't too heavy on the politics to take away from the characters lives.

I also loved 24 and we used to go on holiday and come back and binge on that.

Documentaries are nothing like they used to be, old quality were your reputation as a professional was everything. People would verify accuracy when/were they could.

@Chancer I like to watch the occasional movie and docu which has some depth to it, and is informative.
I liked the dry humour and liked the West Wing. It reminds me Yes Prime Minister, which had dry humour in it and I think a lot of truth about what goes on behind the scenes back in those days, which is much different to how things are now.
I missed 24, but liked a good quality documentary and enjoyed the variety of subjects which were covered before television went downhill.
I think it lost it's way with the inclusion of celebrities in everything and the endless antique and cookery shows. So much boring tv followed, even the interviewers stopped asking their guests interesting questions which was annoying and it became a jolly flog my book, latest film thing!
I don't think they care about accuracy anymore as the agenda seems to be as long as it is what seems popular stick it on!

 

[amy43]

Marjoe is a 1972 American documentary film produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan about the life of evangelist Marjoe Gortner. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Marjoe Gortner was a precocious child preacher with extraordinary talents, who was immensely popular in the American South. His parents earned large sums of money off of his earnings until the point he outgrew the novelty of his youthfulness.

Gortner rejoined the ministry as a young adult solely as a means of earning a living, not as a believer. He spent the next several years using his fame and status as an evangelist to earn a living from both tent revivals and televangelism. Eventually, Gortner suffered a crisis of conscience of sorts and decided to give up the revival circuit, but not any of the money he made from it. He offered a documentary film crew unrestricted access to him during his final revival tour, which took place in 1971.

The film contains scenes from revival meetings showing Gortner preaching and praying for people in Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Detroit, and Anaheim. This is interspersed with footage of Gortner admitting on camera that he was a non-believer and revealing the tactics that he and other evangelists used to manipulate people and to move them during revivals. Some of the evangelists even revealed where they bought properties kept secret and gave him advice to follow. Gortner said he studied Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, as a model for his routine.

I've always found the whole mega church preacher gig as odd, its quite surprising how many people fall for it. That's something we don't really have here in the UK although we do have questionable churches and members of various clergy. They are celebrity preachers who make a fortune, own mansions and private planes in the US. I wonder if some people just go for the celebrity aspect? I will look into it.

Don't you have child labour laws or was he old enough? In the UK the funds would be put in a Trust with the parents getting a nominal stipend. I imagine you would feel quite resentful if your parents were getting rich of your talents. Sorta like the pageants system with little kids, I detest getting makeovers that take too long, I can't imagine the pressure as a kid who would probably want to play with their bikes etc.

@Chancer I have found the mega church pastors odd, the amount of wealth they have and how people give them so much money and no one questions it! I think that frauds like Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer who are the ones with mansions and millionaire lifestyles and private planes are in it for the money and the celebrity worship. I have been to various churches in the past and found them to be behaving in ways which were discouraging and odd. I think a lot of ego's and internal disagreements go on in them. I would be interested in your views about questionable churches in the UK.

I never liked the shows with kids dressing up in make up as their mothers hovered around and seemed to live through it, found it creepy and abusive. Especially as too much emphasis is placed on looks, which can be damaging. I liked the freedom of being able to roam around and ride my bike, and play outside when I was a child. Sad that this is taken away from these children who are put under added stress.