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2017 DOCUMENTARY THREAD


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5 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Yet, it's essential. It's an amazing piece of work.

I was done when they went to the present day interview of Claire Wilson.  And yeah, totally amazing work.

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Tower made the Best Documentary shortlist, but wasn't nominated.  I'm curious if it would have qualified for a Best Animated Film Oscar.  The relevant guidelines are "a significant number of the major characters are animated, and animation figures in no less than 75 percent of the running time".  I wonder if someone at the Academy went full GLF and did the stopwatch thing to check the 75% point (probably not).

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I really knew nothing about Tower until a couple of film podcasts I listen to started talking about it on their end of the year lists. I guess either screeners got sent or it played some large market art house theaters.

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^^^ That's pretty NSFW just so all know. And pretty fucking grim too. It has an interesting history: 

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The Killing of America was initially shown in New York City in 1982 at The Public Theater,[2] but did not receive a commercial release in the United States, although it did receive a home video release in Britain.[3] The film received a wide release in Japan, where financial backers reportedly pressured Renan to add footage of peace vigils for John Lennon as a way to make the documentary less depressing.[3] Years later the documentary would receive a 2013 North American release at Fantasia Festival in Canada.[1]

It looks like somewhat of a non-faked Faces of Death, only with a conscience. Also, you can watch it in full on Youtube; the film links directly from that trailer. Me, I think that trailer was enough for today

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That's basically what it is but a little less graphic. Has that same sleazy 70s horror movie vibe. Tons of remarkable footage. It's basically just a roll call of spectacular crimes. I did have a problem with them adding audio to clips that should be silent (Zapruder film for example). 

An interesting watch. 

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THE RED PILL - Interesting documentary that sees Cassie Jaye, a young female documentary filmmaker and former actress, make an expose of the men's rights movement only to have it turn into a piece that's basically pro-men's rights.  She finds herself puzzled at what she's hearing and torn over how she should feel about the stats and arguments being put forth.  She also interviews plenty of feminists for their point of view.  The whole thing ends up a pretty fascinating look at a much-maligned political movement by someone who expected to also malign the movement.

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Toronto's annual documentary festival is coming up in a little over a month and I'm looking through the offerings.  Here are some that I thought looked interesting.
 

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Pre-Crime
Science fiction turns into disturbing fact as forecasting software, algorithms and databases quickly become the new fortune-tellers for future crimes, driving us to ask: how much are we willing to abandon for the sake of security?

Let There Be Light
Scientists are working to build a small sun on Earth, which would unleash perpetual, cheap, clean energy. After many failed attempts, a massive push is now underway to crack the holy grail of energy.

No Stone Unturned
Academy Award winner Alex Gibney delves into the unsolved 1994 murder of six men in a rural pub in Northern Ireland, uncovering a web of collusion, cover-up and explosive allegations, in this stunning real-life thriller.

Spookers
As night falls on a former psychiatric hospital, zombies and chainsaw-wielding clowns terrorize crowds at New Zealand’s largest scare park. Come for the chilling laughs but stay for an unexpectedly thoughtful look at the life-affirming power of fear.

Ramen Heads
Japan’s reigning king of ramen takes us into his kitchen, where recipes, trade secrets and flavour philosophies are shared. A mouthwatering record of the famous dish—a perfect combination of broth and noodles—and its master chefs and legions of devoted fans.

Becoming Bond
Lazenby, George Lazenby. The only man to play James Bond just once shares the stranger-than-fiction story of how he lucked into the iconic role and then walked away from one of the world’s biggest film franchises.

They're showing Nobody Speak as well, so I'll have the chance to see Bix's feature film debut.

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On Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 7:45 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Just caught the end of this one. So, in addition to who actually won, we had a rapist wanted for murder in a foreign country as second runner-up for Libertarian presidential candidate in the United States in 2016. 

 

I just watched this.  It was suitably strange and weird and crazy with McAfee bribing, threatening, killing and (probably) making illegal narcotics and then they talk about his harem of teenage girlfriends and it's crazy but not THAT crazy until they talk about

How McAfee would pay them to shit in his mouth! It's just incredible because you have these fairly quiet women who clearly learned English as a second language trying to articulate this particularly nasty behavious: "Then I would...um...poop in his mouth...I'd never done that before"

Good movie.  Fascinating and frustrating.

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Good lord I missed A LOT there. 

Spoiler

Coincidentally, I was just reading The Acid House by Irvine Welsh where in "The Granton Star Cause" they have an older couple that also get into some mouth-shitting. Just as an exclamation point on a particularly horrible fate for a character witnessing it, nothing like an actual presidential candidate getting... oh wait... #1 is already in office, #2 only lost (and in his party's second place! OH SHIT! Wokka wokka). I'd repost the Godzilla Facepalm but that would be redundant. 

BTW, that particular story was shot in the film version of The Acid House and is pretty awesome. Here's a sample:

 

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