Best documentaries?

[Ziggy Stardust]

I just noticed that it has quite impressive imdb rating (User Rating: 9.8/10 (1,179 votes).

Thanks again for the recomendation. I ordered it and it came in last weekend. After watching the first couple of episodes it dawned on me how little I know about WWII.

Set me back 100 euros, but it was more than worth it. Nice case too

 

[Bast]

Shoah
An Inconvenient Truth
BBC's Planet Earth

 

[Irish Caesar]

The Corporation.

Does it eventually get better?

It's a three-part series, each part one hour, right? After watching the first segment and half of the second, myself and the people I was watching it with thought it just dragged too much. And many of the assertions that people made were just too ridiculous; some seemed like something you'd get in CFC OT after all the good discussion has left the thread.

It tried too hard to be damning, and failed; unless the third segment is a knockout punch.

 

[Narz]

Watching The Century of Self right now. Will let y'all know if it's any good.

Also, forgot to mention, The End of Suburbia was quite good.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

The Century of Self is quite hardcore, but fascinating and thought provoking.

 

[Narz]

The Century of Self is quite hardcore, but fascinating and thought provoking.

I thought it was indeed very thought provoking.

Part II is sad (the part about the banana republics especially).

Part III makes me digusted at the hippie radicals who sold out & became self-obsessed.

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

 

[Narz]

Also very good (also very poignant) was Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh. It is available in torrent form is you search for it.

 

[DNK]

I've seen ~2hrs of "Shoah" and it was amazing. They actually had a full 9-hr showing around here a while back on 35mm (or whatever), but I couldn't go

"Lessons in Darkness" +1 amazing. I love Herzog. There's also "Land of Silence and Darkness" which is really good, "Grizzly Man" I've seen some of and was good.

"Fog of War" +1

"Koyaanisqatsi" would be at the top of my list, though. It's fairly experimental to be straight documentary, but it's amazing cinematography and editing back before video and CGI came along. The shots are just stunning. Along with it the other "Qatsi"s are pretty good, too, but I prefer the first.

In the same vein, "Man with a Movie Camera" was a real blast, too. I prefer the new score to the old, though.

"War Photographer" is definitely worth seeing. http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/ some of his work (not director, but subject).

That's all that comes to mind now.

 

[The Yankee]

BBC's The World at War is amazing documentary about WW2.

That was made by the BBC? Very interesting, caught some of it on History Channel International. Good stuff there.

 

[Mark1031]

Eyes on the Prize is by far the best doc I have ever seen. It is an extremely powerful depiction of the Civil Rights movement in the US. It should be required viewing for all HS students IMO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_on_the_Prize

 

[T.A JONES]

added to my must watch list.

SOme of these where good. My friend workin Film in Vancover sent me the same links. Never had opened my eyes to anythat stuff before.
I sat with google and wiki open and would pause momentarily to look up random claims to debunk what I could. Funny, certain things I checked just prooved more then the videos had time to.

Shed light on the battle to prevent the international banksters from owning your cental bank. The fight to prevent it going back to Lincons greenbacks and Andrew Jackson to that sellout Woodrow WIlson and his sob story later over how he screwed American for all time. Good show.

 

[T.A JONES]

Sorry DP incident

 

[Julian Delphiki]

That was made by the BBC? Very interesting, caught some of it on History Channel International. Good stuff there.

Yep, BBC made it on beginning of seventies when many of actual participants to war were still alive. BBC actually got interviews from people like Speer and Dönitz. Bad thing is that many things were still classified at the time of making, so there's not much about cracking the German codes etc.

 

[Bamspeedy]

The Money Masters (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&q=The+Money+Masters&total=520&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0)

If there is any single movie/documentary that you MUST watch, this is the one. It's a 3 hour movie that takes you back in time and reveals the truth about our monetary and banking system. This is extremely valuable knowledge that many people, sadly, will never be able to possess in their entire lifetime. Recommended for all. Be patient and sit through the 3 hours, it really is a very well done documentary.

Ok, I could tell this was an older film, but I had to stop after 5 minutes (surprised I lasted that long). They introduce Charles Collins 'presidential candidate'. He was a candidate in 1996 winning a whopping 42 votes in the entire state of New Hampshire so he drops out of the republican field and joins a third party that got an astonishing 2,000 votes in the entire country in the 1992 presidential election (0.001% of the population). With him running, that party improved their votes to 0.003% of the population.....

Mother Jones, a political magazine, called Collins the "consummate internet candidate,"[6] in their opinion appealing to an online population of "isolationists, alarmists, and conspiracy theorists." His campaign advocated abolishing the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Service and other pledges noted to be similar to that of the U.S. Taxpayers Party ticket of Howard Phillips and Herbert Titus.[7] Collins and Giumarra won 8,952 votes in the election.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E._Collins

So he's an Alex Jones clone. Ok, before you say it, I'll try to actually focus on the material rather than the reputation of the actors.....

Prior to bringing this guy in, they talk about this massive economic crash that the US will suffer, that will make the depression of the 20's look like a cake-walk. More than a decade later and it still hasn't happened. Let me warn you, fringe groups have been making the claim since WWII that we will have a 'Super Depression', so don't fall for their little scare tactics. If such a thing ever does happen, of course they will then say "See we told you!", but they always act like it is going to happen tomorrow (30 years ago they acted like it would happen 'very soon'). Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (and wrong the other 23 hours and 58 minutes of every day).

Then it brings in Larry Bates who says that Federal Reserve bill was 'secretively' passed by the senate because 3 senators did a voice vote when everyone else had already left for the holidays. Hogwash.

The Federal Reserve Bill passed by a vote of 54 to 34 in the Senate. There were a few minor details that needed to be worked out between the house version and the senate version (like the house bill said there should be at least 12 regional banks, while the senate bill said there should be 8-12 banks) so a conference committee was created containing members from both parties. The committee reached a compromise and it passed the house and senate. Look, news headline says "Conference Report Adopted in Senate by vote of 43 to 25".

http://www.bos.frb.org/about/pubs/begin.pdf (page 33-34 is where it gets to the final versions of the bill)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Fed_Reserve.JPG (the headline)

And having already seen the bogus information posted by other 'anti federal reserve' people, I'm sure the next three hours would have been much of the same, with out-of-context quotes from famous people, and quotes from Abraham Lincoln and JFK who never made those comments or speeches.

 

[Stapel]

A few years ago, the ZDF (German) and a Russian TV-station have made a documentary about the Batlle of Stalingrad. Of course, this can only be a dramatic documentary, simply becuase it was the bloodiest battle in human history (though I have no doubt this can be debated, just like anything).

The documentary shows interviws with survivors. What struck me most, is a old German man, telling about christmas 1942. You could see the tears in his eyes when he told he and his fellow soldiers were extremely lucky to find a dead horse in the frozen Volga. They managed to get it out, defrost it, slaughter it and make 4 meatballs each. This showed anything in life is relative. When the situation is bad enough, even a christmas meal of 4 horse-meatballs from a frozen horse can be considered a true feast.

Another impressive part was the return of some PoWs in 1950-55. Each town showing 1000s of women waiting for their Hans or Werner, whereas only dozens would be rejoined with their completely mentally and physically screwed up husbands.

 

[T.A JONES]

Ok, I could tell this was an older film, but I had to stop after 5 minutes (surprised I lasted that long). They introduce Charles Collins 'presidential candidate'. He was a candidate in 1996 winning a whopping 42 votes in the entire state of New Hampshire so he drops out of the republican field and joins a third party that got an astonishing 2,000 votes in the entire country in the 1992 presidential election (0.001% of the population). With him running, that party improved their votes to 0.003% of the population.....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E._Collins

So he's an Alex Jones clone. Ok, before you say it, I'll try to actually focus on the material rather than the reputation of the actors.....

Prior to bringing this guy in, they talk about this massive economic crash that the US will suffer, that will make the depression of the 20's look like a cake-walk. More than a decade later and it still hasn't happened. Let me warn you, fringe groups have been making the claim since WWII that we will have a 'Super Depression', so don't fall for their little scare tactics. If such a thing ever does happen, of course they will then say "See we told you!", but they always act like it is going to happen tomorrow (30 years ago they acted like it would happen 'very soon'). Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (and wrong the other 23 hours and 58 minutes of every day).

Then it brings in Larry Bates who says that Federal Reserve bill was 'secretively' passed by the senate because 3 senators did a voice vote when everyone else had already left for the holidays. Hogwash.

The Federal Reserve Bill passed by a vote of 54 to 34 in the Senate. There were a few minor details that needed to be worked out between the house version and the senate version (like the house bill said there should be at least 12 regional banks, while the senate bill said there should be 8-12 banks) so a conference committee was created containing members from both parties. The committee reached a compromise and it passed the house and senate. Look, news headline says "Conference Report Adopted in Senate by vote of 43 to 25".

http://www.bos.frb.org/about/pubs/begin.pdf (page 33-34 is where it gets to the final versions of the bill)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7a/Fed_Reserve.JPG (the headline)

And having already seen the bogus information posted by other 'anti federal reserve' people, I'm sure the next three hours would have been much of the same, with out-of-context quotes from famous people, and quotes from Abraham Lincoln and JFK who never made those comments or speeches.

Thanks fo that. I was wondering about that secret HoldayBill pass. It Sounded strange to me.
Anyway IM glad I was able hear your thoughts on the matter. They seem accurate and well founded.

That part on the absence of a Fort Knox audit for atleast 40 years, now that is questionable. Aparently its the world most valuable holding. WHy not audit the bitc$?

 

[Bamspeedy]

Thanks fo that. I was wondering about that secret HoldayBill pass. It Sounded strange to me.
Anyway IM glad I was able hear your thoughts on the matter. They seem accurate and well founded.

That part on the absence of a Fort Knox audit for atleast 40 years, now that is questionable. Aparently its the world most valuable holding. WHy not audit the bitc$?

Since that documentary is so long, could you tell me where in the film (the minutes) it talks about this, so I can skip right to it?

Does this wiki entry cover this?

Conspiracy theory
A popular and recurring conspiracy theory, as alleged by Edward Durrell, Norman Dodd, Tom Valentine, Peter Beter and others, claims that the vault is mostly empty and that most of the gold in Fort Knox was removed to London in the late 1960s by President Lyndon Johnson.[2] In response, on September 23, 1974, Senator Walter Huddleston of Kentucky, twelve congressmen, and about 100 members of the news media toured the vault and opened various cells and doors, each filled with gold. Radio reporter Bill Evans, when asked if it seemed like the gold might have been moved in just for the visit, replied that "all I can say is that I saw gold there" and that it seemed like it was always there.[3] Additionally, audits of the gold by the General Accounting Office (in cooperation with the United States Mint and the United States Customs Service in 1974 and the Treasury Department) from 1975-1981 found no discrepancies between the reported and actual amounts of gold at the Depository.[4] However, the audit has been described as a peculiar process because it was only a partial audit done over an extended period of time.[5] The report states only 21 percent of the gold bars were audited as of 1981 (the audit report's issue date) and that the audit has "covered more than 212.7 million fine troy ounces of gold" which "represents over 80 percent of the total amount of United States-owned gold of 264.1 million fine troy ounces."[4] A small amount of gold is removed for regularly scheduled audits to ensure the purity matches official records.[1] The theory continues to persist, however. In 2007, KPMG will carry out an independent audit[citation needed].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bullion_Depository

 

[STATS]

I really enjoyed the enron documentary

 

[T.A JONES]

Since that documentary is so long, could you tell me where in the film (the minutes) it talks about this, so I can skip right to it?

Does this wiki entry cover this?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bullion_Depository

YA I think that covers it. Basicly with this one doc all the drama was leading up to the long efforts in the Passing of the bill. Once done then they talk about the depression being triggered to scheme over hold of all the gold and siver to screw future resource backed economies stability or some $hit. Seems a lil far out don't it ? Ya I guess, but thats all lead in for when they bring on the fort knox conspiracy. Its much like its discribed in your Wiki so that does answer some more of my questions.

If I find it Ill pm you but not point really (it might have been the movie with Risso so ya I have to check to make sure)

THanks though.

 

[EconomistBR]

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

I 've just watched it and it is trully great, McNamara speaks from his heart and is very honest.

Thanks nonconformist, Rambuchan, Madroc and DNK for indicating this documentary to me.