Having just signed up with Netflix I have been hammering my documentary addiction of late with Making a Murderer, Kung Fu Elliott, Finders Keepers, Gore Vidal doc as well as revisiting old favourites like Thin Blue Line & Aileen.
I have The Square, West Of Memphis, Central Park 5 and Chuck Morris v Communism lined up but any recommendations of unusual, oddball or just plain great factual films you’ve seen lately?
Non musical as I’ve pretty much done those
BBC4 Arena and Timeshift (particularly Timeshift) throw up some very niche documentaries
Oddball docs I have enjoyed:
A Very British Map: The Ordnance Survey Story
The Engine That Powers the World (all about the Diesel Engine)
Caravans: A British Love Affair
When Wrestling was Golden: Grapples, Grunts and Grannies
There’s loads more here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006np8r/episodes/guide
I’ve seen the following this year, all excellent:
Heart Of A Dog
Where You’re Meant To Be
The Hard Stop
I Am Belfast
All Things Must Pass: The Rise & Fall Of Tower Records
What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy
and best of all, Weiner.
Re: I am Belfast
Oh yes, that’s the Mark Cousins thing, isn’t it?
I saw a video review of that. It sounded really interesting.
I may even buy the DVD at some point.
The main sticking point I have with Cousins is his speaking voice is like nails on a a blackboard for me
Yes, want to see Weiner (arf! ) as that story broke when Jon Oliver hosted The Daily Show and we got to hear all about ‘Carlos Danger’
I enjoyed this https://theafterword.co.uk/best-of-enemies/
Yep that was one of the Gore Vidal’s I watched alongside United States Of Amnesia
Super Mensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon on Netflix was good fun with plenty of Rock n Roll war stories. I’d never heard of him but it seems he’s an all round good guy.
I enjoyed the Bob Weir one.
You and me, Marge, are very different people.
I liked that one too. How long to wait for the Phil Lesh docu?
I’m watching my way through a backlog of Stoyville documentaries on BBC iPlayer. There is no common thread between them except that they are generally excellent.
Oh, and I’m a big fan of Rich Hall’s authored pieces on Americana. In contrast to the current trend where a ‘celebrity’ will go ‘on a journey’ to simplify a subject Rich Hall is smart, literate and demands that you keep up with him, not that he bring everything down to the lowest level. You can find them in YouTube – here’s on for starters https://youtu.be/x_G2VOBKXxM
Any Adam Curtis documentaries you haven’t seen will be worth the effort. Start with the Trap if you’re new to his stuff.
The Adam Curtis documentary Bitter Lake is on iPlayer & is breathtakingly good.
It makes sense of a lot of very complex things (Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the U.S. and the role this has played in the war in Afghanistan) & is one of the best I have seen.
I have not seen any of his others though so will take Bambers advice & go for The Trap next. I believe he did one about Nick Leeson too which is supposed to be excellent.
Big on history documentaries. Anything by Micheal Wood is superb of course, and I’d also recommend Ken Burns for US history documentaries, especially ‘The West’ and ‘The Civil War’.
‘The World At War’ is stand alone greatness of course, and I can also recommend Neil Oliver’s ‘Ancient/Celtic Britain’ series. Moody Byronic camera shoots aside, it’s terrific stuff. There’s a lovely BBC nature one too called ‘Ganges’ – goes very well with Michael Wood’s stunning ‘Story Of India’.
I’d thoroughly recommend the current BBC series The Somme 1916 – From Both Sides of the Wire (3rd and final part 9pm tonight). New twist is the access to the German military papers on the battle, which give a very interesting new perspective.
A timely Facebook update from TeamRock
The 21 best rockumentaries to stream on Netflix and Prime
http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-08-01/the-21-best-rockumentaries-to-stream-on-netflix-and-prime
I’ve seen a couple of them, and The Wrecking Crew is very good.
The Janis Joplin doc looks interesting
And the Thor doc looks “interesting”
and how can anyone not be tempted by We Are Twisted F**king Sister?
The Janis one is very good. And very sad.
I got The Wrecking Crew and Twenty Feet From Stardom on DVD for Christmas and they’re both terrific.
I saw Dee Snider on the US reality show Wife Swap where incompatible couples switch lives for a week and we see how they cope. Like many US Rock & Roll stars, Dee Snider is clean-leaving family man, devout Christian, works out in his own gym. A little bit boring, really. Yet the narrative (mostly from Dee) was all about his wild and crazy lifestyle.
Devout Christian? That’s a disappointment. However, we should always love Dee Snider for the great performance he gave at the PMRC hearings on record censorship alongside Frank Zappa and, er, John Denver.
The PMRC thought Dee was an inarticulate meathead rock star who they could push around. They were wrong.
This makes great reading.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/dee-snider-on-pmrc-hearing-i-was-a-public-enemy-20150918
Wife Swap also had Flavor Flav who was as you’d imagine i.e. a bit immature and not classic husband material. He had a daily routine of going ten pin bowling that was non-negotiable and caused tension in the household.
And Dweezil Zappa too (and David Justice, who has 6 cars …..)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnwoORiic1k
I can recommend Dee’s autobiography “Shut Up And Give Me The Mic”. He’s no shrinking violet but it’s an entertaining if opinionated read. He ended up broke after Twisted Sister split up, but found himself minted when Celine Dion recorded a Christmas song he wrote as a present for his wife.
He did some great podcasts – “Dee Speaks” (still on iTunes) – some of the very first I ever listened to, and isn’t shy of telling a story or two against himself. Top of the list is the time he harangued a group of Twisted Sister fans at a gig for not jumping up and clapping along when instructed. He later discovered they were all in wheelchairs.
In serious vein, Citizenfour – Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning documentary about Edward Snowden.
In lighter vein, Iris – Albert Maysles’ documentary about the 94 year-old New York fashion icon, and self-described “geriatric starlet”.
And I always go back, every now and again, to watch The Celluloid Closet – Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman’s eye-opening, wry look at the history of homosexuality in Hollywood.
Specifically on Netflix that I’ve enjoyed.
Not Quite Hollywood – about 70s Oz cinema. A hoot.
1971 – about the burglary of the FBI office and theft of documents, subsequently leaked. The perps were never caught, but have come clean now. Features J Edgar Hoover as himself. Does not feature David Hepworth.
Whatever Happened, Miss Simone? Nina, that is.
World War 2 in Colour – no surprises, but strangely fascinating.
The Irish Pub – for anyone who’s ever had a drink in Dingle.
Sinatra: All of Nothing at All
McCullin – Don, that is.
Check out “Dear Zachary” – it begins as an personal elegy about a murder victim intended for his newly-born son, and the first 20 minutes will make you think it’s going to just be a mawkish love-in of friends & relatives telling us how wonderful he was, but then it takes a wild left turn and you’ll go completely through the wringer by the end…
“The Imposter” follows the story of a guy who pretends to be the missing son of a Texas family who’d disappeared years earlier as a child. That’s not a spoiler, it’s telegraphed right from the start (and in the title), but where the film scores is in trying to establish how a family would be so desperate to see the return of their missing child, that they’d accept someone into their home who seems nothing like him…
And finally, I can’t believe no-one’s mentioned “The Jinx” yet – an amazing 6-part series based on interviews with the super-rich Robert Durst, who’s been surrounded by suicides, disappearances and murders almost all his life… DO NOT Google it for more information, the less you know going in, the better!