What are your favorite documentaries?

[momo4]

We love documentaries here and are always looking for new titles.

Some of the ones we have seen are:

Who killed the Electric Car?

Press For Truth - About 9/11, love the time line info for the day.

America Freedom to Facism - Covers many topics about American politics

The Future of Foods - Genetically Modified Foods

American Blackout - Black votes not being counted

Supersize Me (can be rented in a PG version) - Very entertaining. Man eats McDonald's exclusively for a month.

I would like to see Big Sugar, Fat Head, and The Price of Sugar, but I haven't been able to find them at the library. I think they all have a utube preview

[HeatherH]

Beyond Gates of Splendor - much, much better (and a different focus) than End of the Spear.

FWIW!

[kalanamak]

The Fog of War
(hours and hours of interview of Robert MacNamara put into 90 minutes...even if you aren't interested in 20th century history, this is a raw glimpse into a man, warts and all. Get the DVD with the extra scenes and the "Life Lessons" that MacNamara narrates at the end. I'm a sucker for an old man's craggy voice reciting poetry...."These five kings put a king to death")

Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control
(4 men, a robotist, a topiary artist, a naked mole rat specialist, and a lion-tamer all interviewed. What do they have in common? PASSION for their work)

Thin Blue Line
(how a man without so much as a speeding ticket ended up on death row...this movie started a movement to review the case, and once out of Texas, the courts released him. I loved the public defenders, including the one so hurt by all this, he quit the law)

Gates of Heaven
(long, slow doc about a pet cemetery...covering everything from grief to running a small business)

He has more I haven't seen yet....

Morris has the ability to interview people on camera in a way that makes me hold my breath. You almost never hear his words, only the responses, cut with filmwork illustrating it, and music. In Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control you hear one man talking about his work, and see movies of another doing his work, e.g.

[j.griff]

maxed out

[6packofun]

Paper Clips. The Farmer's Wife. Spellbound.

[WriterGirl]

nt

[Mamagistra]

Some of my favorites are already listed here, but I'll add these:

Hacking Democracy (about computerized voting :eek:)
Lost Boys of Sudan
The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia
Microcosmos
Brother's Keeper
A Family Undertaking (about DIY funerals and burials)
The Lost Children of Rockdale County (STDs in the 'burbs)
To Be and To Have
Winged Migration
Wordplay

FYI, some of these may have scenes and topics that are inappropriate for family viewing.

[JWSJ]

March of the Penguins

Planet Earth

5000 years

[momo4]

These are great! Some good ones I forgot about and lots we haven't seen. I know what you mean about McNamara, it was hard not to like him. And I just saw Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control on the shelf at the library. Kewl.

One that is cute that I forgot, is called "Cane Toads". My kids got a kick out of this one. It is about the enormous (you won't believe it) Cane Toad that was introduced to Australia to control beetles that were destroying the sugar cane. Well, they didn't eat the beetles, but they are eating everything else. Some people love them and some hate them. There is a really cute scene with a little girl playing with one and dressing it up. That is if my memory serves me correct.

[kalanamak]

I loved the poor guy who just hated them, and who got shot in the eye by one trying to kill it with a pickaxe after losing his favourite pet to them.

I also loved that loooooooong shot of the van swerving from side to side exploding them. And the way other people talked about them like a family dog.

Education with a dry sense of humor.