Documentaries

I love doco's. Its easy to say they are boring, but there is nothing better then seeing something that is REAL versus some bollocks movie these days IMO.

If you have FOxtel you'd know that Discovery and Nat Geo have some absolute unbelievable productions. Beig on the edge of your seat about a doco that tells a story that you know is REAL and actually happened can be mind blowing. I dont know how many times I thought 'if this was movie i'd turn it off becuase its not believable' but thats what makes it great because it is real and did happen. Also the level of re-enactment these days is almost the same as todays big budget movies.

ANyway enough of my rhetoric... these off the top of my head.. will get more up soon.. PLEASE ADD ANYTHING YOU THINK WARRANTS A LOOK!!

All can be found on your local torrent site

If you can find it..
***** Abroad (cant remember the first name!) The story of two innocent English guys sucked into the world of south American drug cartels... if this story didnt actually happen i wouldnt believe it. Best thing i have seen, will have to get back to you on the exact name

As many know , I am not a fan of religion; some EXCELLENT movies about the ridiculousness of Christianity;

The God that Wasnt There ; doco from a guy raised in a Christian school, and yet it just didnt make sense to him. Destroys the notion of Jesus and the bible and shows that it all just doesnt make sense at all. Builds up and has a top conclusion. My fave , G gives 5 stars!
The Virus of Faith/The God Delusion/The Root of all Evil ; Very good doco discussing the way that 'faith' is destroying the way we live, and the world in general.
Jesus Camp ; Shows the vast number of Americans that dont send there kids to school and home school and send their children to camps to become evangelists. This is total brain washing, these kids are preaching about God and Jesus to others from about 8 years old. Crazy.
Who wrote the Bible; Only seen the start of this one, but from a heavily Christian director they after trying to learn the 'facts' of the bible cant help but question his upbringing.

Iraq;
Gunner Palace ; doco on the troops in Iraq.. takig no sides... just raw footage on the way the troops are. Worth a look.

Gangs;
Americas Deadliest Gang ; Focusses on the worlds worst gang, MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha), and discusses how they became so powerful. Another 5 star production.

Drugs;
The Worlds Most Deadliest Drug; Focusses on the Ice epidemic (mainly in the US).. very good insight.

Health;
Super Size Me; Documentary absolutely trying to de-fame McDonalds from start to finish. Although flawed in many ways , is supposed to have aided in the way Maccas have become 'more healthy' in the following years. Would have liked if they used a normal/average person to carry out the study, not some vegetarian/vegan/hippie/whatever.. of course he's be sick eating anything outside his usual routine of lentil soup. But enjoyable.

Current;
Well i cant even remember all of the docos i have seen on 911, but best is to watch them all and then make your own opinion.
Fahrenheit 911, Michael Moores anti-US version of events, a good watch, yet not necessarily based on fact
FahrenHYPE 911; the rebuttal to the Moore doco... good to watch them both and make your own opinion.

Global Warming;
An Inconvenient Truth; Excellent doco from Al gore about the possibility of what could happen to our world from Global Warming. Most frustrating thing about this is him reminding us that he was so very close to be the leader of the free world instead of Geoge W Bush... if only.

Other;
Bowling for Columbine; probably the best M Moore doco, discussing the US of A's ridiculous gun laws.. but still with the Michal Moore arorgance theat can be a tad tiring. I sometimes wonder if he does it for the camera only.

Bra Boys;
Aussie production directed by Russell Crowe; documents the lives of the leaders of the 'bra boys' meaning Maroubra Boys , from Sydney. They started as a few surfers and ended up as a 'gang'. Known for the way they handled themselves in the Cronulla riots in reconciling the problems instead of adding fuel to the fire.

Grizzly Man;
Maybe for the environmentlists, a man that dedicated his life to living with Grizzly Bears.. and so-called conservationist, it seems his death was a matter of time with the the way he acted. Interesting to see his life documented.

This Film is not yet Rated;
Discusses the MPAA which classifies film ratings.. and the almost amateur way in which it is run. An interesting watch. Amazing to see that is how fils are rated so amatuerly when its is one of the biggest industries on Earth.

Many many more to add, but thats it for now...

Watch and learn something!

Buena Vista Social Club - communist funk.

Baraka - see it, believe it.

Crumb - the best cartoon artist that was. Mad skills.

A Is For Autism - 11 minutes long. By that time you'll understand autism much better.

"The Road to Guantanamo" would be my pick of the last year

i love a good doco
*opens torrent site*

I love documentaries, I cannot think of a better way to learn about things outside of our usual...

There are some truly amazing animal docos out there... Nothing better on a cold day snuggling up and watching some really interesting stuff... I love the discovery channel....

I'm currently downloading a nature doco called life in the undergrowth. It's like another world with the inverterbrates!

If anyone can get a 1080p copy of Imax Deep Sea doco I will be very happy. Cant find a place to buy it which is a drag.

I know it exists because I have a 1080p 1 min preview/trailer for it.

Grizzly Man; haha, I found this doco rather amusing, sad that he had to drag someone down with him but his voice and the repeated "I love you! I love you!" that he squealed at the bears got me quite amused.

One particularly sad one I saw in the last few months was called "Born into Brothels" which is about kids in India who are born into sex trade and basically have no choice but to become prostitutes, some at a very young age Poor kids.

G.

Do you know exactly where this brothel is

deadliest catch is an amazing series

Give it a year I reckon they'll release it, since HD technology is still rather new, they'll prob release it on Bluray or HD DVD or both

I mean the chances of someone distributing better than DVD quality on the internet would be hard without there being an official distribution.

When new movies come out we don't get nice quality releases, we get back of the cinema jobs.

Hmmm... It's a theory anyways

Well here is the HD preview:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/imax/imaxdeepsea3d/hd/

I just want the rest of the thing! Its probably sitting on some H264 disc in every Imax projection room in the world. I just wish it was on newsgroups too :P

Cool, i'll definately be checking out some of the aforementioned doco's.. i'm slightly addicted to doco's too, definately something more entertaining about watching something real and not full of acting and scripts.

Some that i've found decent in the past: BBC The Planets, BBC Predators, BBC Journey of Life .. mostly evolution & crazy species etc. Except the planets obviously, that's just a great look at the history of humans exploration of our solar system and some pretty intriguing implications of the findings.

I pretty much just search for BBC and give anything they've made a go, haven't found a bad one yet. What would be the best search terms to find the stuff I miss that you get on foxtel etc? "discovery" ... any others ?

This week's 4 Corners is being repeated on ABC2 on wednesday night about America's using torture in the world on terror - might be worth a look, but its actually a Part 2. Link here

I thought this one might be a bit more interesting though "Air Australia"

Looks at the history of competition in the aussie airline industry, this thursday night on ABC at 8.30pm.

*edit* lasermad: try documentary as a search term, also many torrent sites have the torrents sorted into categories (such as documentaries) but in some cases it's done by the user or done poorly (or both). Good luck.

This post has been edited by jjcoolaus: Jun 12 2007, 01:43 PM

documentaries about wars are interesting i.e. chechnya..can't remember the names of ones ive seen though!

i find watching documentaries on abc/sbs is much better tv than say eddie's "1vs100" or crap like that

im not sure if you would class the stories on 60 Minutes as docos, but they have great stuff on there all the same. the story about how macau is becoming the las vegas of asia and the story on chenobyl, russia were really interesting.

I've seen most of the ones that you mentioned G, also "An elegant Universe" (if you want a good explanation of relativity and string theory) and "The root of all Evil" (Richard Dawkins using evolution to tear religion to shreds) are worth a look.

Will def try to check out that gang one.

Also, check this shit out: Free online documentaries!!! Thank me later.

I cant see how anything 1080p could be in SECAM because they are totally different standards...

oh well. Cheers anyway.

nice catch, the dvds were from france which means i meant region 2. secam is an analog standard

sorry i coudn't help.. i know a guy or two tho so ill keep my ears pricked. wouldn't mind watching them again in all their glory

This post has been edited by bgk: Jun 12 2007, 06:55 PM

Will be checking The Root Of All Evil tonite.

Myths & Logic Of Shaolin Kung-Fu - Fucking crazy doco about Shaolin Monks and the training they do to become Kung Fu masters. What they can achieve when they are fully trained is nothing short of spectacular, these guys are nuts. Full marks on this one