Since yesterday I'm watching some of the documentaries of the ESPN 30 For 30 series. Just finished The Two Escobars: http://30for30.espn.com/film/the-two-escobars.html
and it's the best one so far. others I watched: the one on Len Bias, the Allen Iverson story, the OJ Simpson pursuit day and Reggie Miller against the Knicks
highly recommended. you can easily find torrents
"Still Bill"
documentary about Bill Withers thats really worth a watch. hes an inspiring dude
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRetUqQbDc4
Finally saw it. Five stars to me.
So much stuff I liked.
Kory Withers!
That Cuban Friend song!
Bill!
Priorities.
Bill was a lucky guy. If he had not been signed by a label who paired him with Booker T Jones and let him be himself we may have never heard his music. There are a limited number of producers and musicians who will say, "even though you are unschooled and some of your songs are not formatted right, just be yourself and we sill follow you". Which is why he had so much trouble at Columbia. I read an interview in the 80s that said he gave Columbia lps, but they wouldn't release them. He recorded Two Of US with Grover Washington because Columbia wouldn't release it.
If he made the stuff he has written in the last 15 years available the neo-soul and neo-folk artists would be lining up to record it.
Very painful to watch, but also has something beautifull as to see young kids being so wise, and have such pride and will to survive and help their families.
But when seeing that little girl and when she told her story..i wont even front..I shed some tears.. If I had the resources I would really want to adopt some of these kids..
pffff... this world...damn.
Very painful to watch, but also has something beautifull as to see young kids being so wise, and have such pride and will to survive and help their families.
But when seeing that little girl and when she told her story..i wont even front..I shed some tears.. If I had the resources I would really want to adopt some of these kids..
pffff... this world...damn.
Its basically the result of one year's filming of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004, which captured a number of suicides, and additional filming of family and friends of some of the identified people who had jumped off the bridge. Incredibly moving.
Very painful to watch, but also has something beautifull as to see young kids being so wise, and have such pride and will to survive and help their families.
But when seeing that little girl and when she told her story..i wont even front..I shed some tears.. If I had the resources I would really want to adopt some of these kids..
pffff... this world...damn.
Really, really heavy and I wanted to steal them, too.
the person that made this was (partially?) funded with a fullbright scholarship. i guess i assumed that someone with a fullbright scholarship would make top notch shit. and its good dont get me wrong, but it doesnt live up to what i thought a fulbright scholar would produce.
that said the scene with the little girl (and boy) was gut wrenching. mostly because the shot of them walking off along the tracks, its almost certain that they are fucked. but also when she started to cry she was fully trying not to show emotion. and that broke my heart that a child has to be so guarded.
oh, also, for some reason netflix was streaming the posthumously completed doc "divine horsemen: the living gods of haiti". its since been completely removed from the site. you cant even get the dvd but the description is there. its just ok. but the archival footage and the religious ceremonial stuff is beautiful and rare.
just watched this last night--so good. informative about Lee Scratch Perry, but also has lots of great OG footage of him at the black ark & elsewhere. gets you behind the liner notes to get a sense of (a tiny bit of) what's going on inside the man's head.
Its basically the result of one year's filming of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004, which captured a number of suicides, and additional filming of family and friends of some of the identified people who had jumped off the bridge. Incredibly moving.
Here's the trailer.
And here's the full documentary:
This was a tough watch for me. The first 3 minutes alone was kind of tense because the camera was focusing in on different kinds of people walking and standing on the bridge and I was wondering the whole time which one of them, if any of them, was going to jump. All of the stories were compelling and hard to deal with, but I think Gene's story overshadowed each one. Everytime he walked up and down the bridge I was saying to myself, "Please don't do it! Get away from there!"
Its basically the result of one year's filming of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004, which captured a number of suicides, and additional filming of family and friends of some of the identified people who had jumped off the bridge. Incredibly moving.
Here's the trailer.
And here's the full documentary:
This was a tough watch for me. The first 3 minutes alone was kind of tense because the camera was focusing in on different kinds of people walking and standing on the bridge and I was wondering the whole time which one of them, if any of them, was going to jump. All of the stories were compelling and hard to deal with, but I think Gene's story overshadowed each one. Everytime he walked up and down the bridge I was saying to myself, "Please don't do it! Get away from there!"
The film maker did immediately call the patrol as soon as he thought someone was a jumper, but like you said - its really hard to know who has suicide on their mind when the vast majority of people walking up and down are stopping and peering over the railing for long periods.
What I found quite hard to accept is how Gene's family seemed to acknowledge that they expected he would commit suicide at some point, and were half like 'Well.. you gotta do what you gotta do'... I think one relative even said 'Don't go without saying goodbye' ... That's almost a pre-supposition that its going to happen. I was pretty shocked about that.
Did anyone ever think of saying 'If you do this, we will never recover and you will devastate the lives of the people around you who love and care about you. It takes you a second, but we have to live with it' etc etc...
I just watched the two documentaries by Louis Theroux about the Westboro Baptist Church, "The Most Hated Family In America" and "America's Most Hated Family In Crisis." The one titled "In Crisis" basically talks to some of the members who had left and how the family reacted to them leaving. But the highlight of all those documentaries was this, to me.
Loved those two documentaries, some of Theroux's best work and the follow up was possibly even more painful than the first, probably mainly due to the fact that I was waiting for the daughter who he bonded with in the first one to turn up again and it didn't quite work out like I'd hoped. I'm sometimes left cold by Theroux's style (turn up somewhere unusual, talk to the wierdos in a smug patronising manner then leave with some monologue beginning "As I left them I couldn't help feeling " etc) but I think he nails it in those particular instances.
Saw Catfish last night. Ignoring the fact that the reveal was pretty obvious five minutes in the whole thing left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
[SPOILER]
The constant cutting between the Facebook profiles and the mentally disabled kids was a pretty unpleasant damning judgement on the family and the conversations with the real Vince seemed intended to portray him as some sort of naif when he seemed quite a focused, if slow talking, individual . Also bits like getting Alison to talk in her Megan voice. She was obviously just a depressed woman with some issues and it felt more and more exploitative as it went on. Wasn't helped by the fact that the whole thing reeked of some kind of superiority.
What I found quite hard to accept is how Gene's family seemed to acknowledge that they expected he would commit suicide at some point, and were half like 'Well.. you gotta do what you gotta do'... I think one relative even said 'Don't go without saying goodbye' ... That's almost a pre-supposition that its going to happen. I was pretty shocked about that.
Did anyone ever think of saying 'If you do this, we will never recover and you will devastate the lives of the people around you who love and care about you. It takes you a second, but we have to live with it' etc etc...
Suicide is a personal right and what you are suggesting would be emotional blackmailing.
Spending time with a suicidal person and giving him love and support and trying to motivate him/her to carry on would be the right thing to do but saying something like "if you're going to kill yourself, you're guilty of making us feel bad" is bullshit.
Saw Catfish last night. Ignoring the fact that the reveal was pretty obvious five minutes in the whole thing left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
[SPOILER]
The constant cutting between the Facebook profiles and the mentally disabled kids was a pretty unpleasant damning judgement on the family and the conversations with the real Vince seemed intended to portray him as some sort of naif when he seemed quite a focused, if slow talking, individual . Also bits like getting Alison to talk in her Megan voice. She was obviously just a depressed woman with some issues and it felt more and more exploitative as it went on. Wasn't helped by the fact that the whole thing reeked of some kind of superiority.
[/SPOILER]
I thought Catfish was a shit movie.
It was obvious that it was at least partially scripted. The film makers and Angela had clearly met before and my guess is that they got Angela to agree to being on camera in an attempt to peddle her shit art which wouldn't even qualify as "outsider art" if she'd be a child, it's just a bad way of spoiling good canvas. Not even mentioning that there obviously would be more pressing and rewarding things she could do with her time.
I felt sorry for the twins and for Vince but Angela was just a completely disgusting person, just as yucky as Nev and his creepy, sticky attempt at his idea of boyish charm. Just plain revolting.
The whole thing was just very boring, full of fake and very "eeeeh..."
thats gotta be Carol Kaye in there, right?
looks good.
i saw the latest Werner Hertzog doc on cave drawings found semi recently in france
beautiful and haunting, but you gotta be in the mood ofr it or yo umay end up sleeping through some of it. weird Hertzogian epilogue
Weird, I just watched this last night before bed. While it was totally predictable, I liked it 'cause it was a story about two different worlds colliding out of boredom, mental illness or whatever it was.
I do have to say, maybe he was all superior about the whole situation, Yaniv did handle it well. Also, so did Angela! Which, is kinda suspect! I had mad heeebeeeegeeebeees the whole time.
Even though I know that you never know who is behind the keyboard on the other side, it did open my eyes to how people really work hard at living "another life". I ain't got time for that schitt! Impressive.
Weird, I just watched this last night before bed. While it was totally predictable, I liked it 'cause it was a story about two different worlds colliding out of boredom, mental illness or whatever it was.
I do have to say, maybe he was all superior about the whole situation, Yaniv did handle it well. Also, so did Angela! Which, is kinda suspect! I had mad heeebeeeegeeebeees the whole time.
Even though I know that you never know who is behind the keyboard on the other side, it did open my eyes to how people really work hard at living "another life". I ain't got time for that schitt! Impressive.
What I hated most about it was that it was so obviously more DIY Reality-TV than a documentary. Sure, most of it was "real" but it was scripted. The film maker's brother turned subject was acting (and doing a horrible job at it) the whole time. Those guys knew that Angela's online persona was not real. They knew that there was no art gallery etc. it's not rewarding enough to get too deep into it but the whole thing just really stinks.
Then there's the angle of Angela having two handicapped sons in diapers which would be a full time job for any caring person yet she finds time to paint her shit paintings and to top it all off escape into a fake world and fake identities for some cyber romance. So gross on so many levels.
Talhotblond is also kind of gross and full of disgusting people but it's a real documentary and just 100x more entertaining. It was also shot earlier and maybe even served the Catfish film makers as an inspiration.
Weird, I just watched this last night before bed. While it was totally predictable, I liked it 'cause it was a story about two different worlds colliding out of boredom, mental illness or whatever it was.
I do have to say, maybe he was all superior about the whole situation, Yaniv did handle it well. Also, so did Angela! Which, is kinda suspect! I had mad heeebeeeegeeebeees the whole time.
Even though I know that you never know who is behind the keyboard on the other side, it did open my eyes to how people really work hard at living "another life". I ain't got time for that schitt! Impressive.
What I hated most about it was that it was so obviously more DIY Reality-TV than a documentary. Sure, most of it was "real" but it was scripted. The film maker's brother turned subject was acting (and doing a horrible job at it) the whole time. Those guys knew that Angela's online persona was not real. They knew that there was no art gallery etc. it's not rewarding enough to get too deep into it but the whole thing just really stinks.
Then there's the angle of Angela having two handicapped sons in diapers which would be a full time job for any caring person yet she finds time to paint her shit paintings and to top it all off escape into a fake world and fake identities for some cyber romance. So gross on so many levels.
Talhotblond is also kind of gross and full of disgusting people but it's a real documentary and just 100x more entertaining. It was also shot earlier and maybe even served the Catfish film makers as an inspiration for their.
I will check out Talhotblond tonight. I am still uncertain how I feel about Catfish. I guess it just grossed me out!
Saw Catfish last night. Ignoring the fact that the reveal was pretty obvious five minutes in the whole thing left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
[SPOILER]
The constant cutting between the Facebook profiles and the mentally disabled kids was a pretty unpleasant damning judgement on the family and the conversations with the real Vince seemed intended to portray him as some sort of naif when he seemed quite a focused, if slow talking, individual . Also bits like getting Alison to talk in her Megan voice. She was obviously just a depressed woman with some issues and it felt more and more exploitative as it went on. Wasn't helped by the fact that the whole thing reeked of some kind of superiority.
[/SPOILER]
I thought Catfish was a shit movie.
It was obvious that it was at least partially scripted. The film makers and Angela had clearly met before and my guess is that they got Angela to agree to being on camera in an attempt to peddle her shit art which wouldn't even qualify as "outsider art" if she'd be a child, it's just a bad way of spoiling good canvas. Not even mentioning that there obviously would be more pressing and rewarding things she could do with her time.
I felt sorry for the twins and for Vince but Angela was just a completely disgusting person, just as yucky as Nev and his creepy, sticky attempt at his idea of boyish charm. Just plain revolting.
The whole thing was just very boring, full of fake and very "eeeeh..."
Try Talhotblond instead:
Cheers for the recommendation Frank, will check that out. No real arguments about Catfish, like I said, left more and more of an unpleasant taste in my mouth as the movie went on and the combination of scripted scenes with the sniggering of the filmmakers left me pretty cold. I know it was billed as the first real Facebook movie because of the subject matter but in many ways I think that tag was more appropriate for the fact that the movie was shallow, image obsessed and entirely throwaway.
I watched Waiting for Superman last night. It's a documentary about public education in the U.S., which is a topic I'm interested in. The film follows a few kids and their public school situations, and ends with the kids waiting to see if they are assigned--by lottery--seats in high performing schools in their areas which are their only alternatives to attending "drop-out factories."
The film is an eye-opener if you are unfamiliar with inner city public education. It's pretty disheartening. I recommend it if you are at all concerned about education or if you just need a decent documentary to watch. It has about an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and while I'd definitely recommend it, I wouldn't say it's the greatest documentary out there. Of course the filmmaker can only present so many viewpoints, and the film does shine negative light on teachers unions and the tenure system. But overall, I enjoyed it. It's hard not to have your heartstrings pulled by some of these kids.
If I remember correctly, in NY they have the "Rubber Room"...
if this shit is true, it's completely beyond belief.
I don't think the Rubber Room exists anymore, at least not in the same form it was in when the documentary was filmed. For those who are unfamiliar, the RR was where incompetent teachers sat waiting to be reassigned/assessed or whatnot. They were paid to sit there and read the paper or simply doze off at taxpayers' expense, at an average duration of 3 years. I think most went back to teaching at the end of the process. Like you said, beyond belief.
As for the tenure situation, Michelle Rhee states in the movie that the institution of tenure fosters a notion of entitlement to a job, whereas Rhee feels that teaching should be seen as a privilege to be earned. It's harder to fire a teacher than it is for a doctor to have his/her license revoked or a lawyer to get disbarred. And unions are another story and another thread.
Comments
and it's the best one so far. others I watched: the one on Len Bias, the Allen Iverson story, the OJ Simpson pursuit day and Reggie Miller against the Knicks
highly recommended. you can easily find torrents
But damn can he draw.
His illustrated Bible was at the art museum but I never made it down.
What was disturbing was that he came off as the least disturbing person in his family.
Dude has problems that record collecting can't cure.
Finally saw it. Five stars to me.
So much stuff I liked.
Kory Withers!
That Cuban Friend song!
Bill!
Priorities.
Bill was a lucky guy. If he had not been signed by a label who paired him with Booker T Jones and let him be himself we may have never heard his music. There are a limited number of producers and musicians who will say, "even though you are unschooled and some of your songs are not formatted right, just be yourself and we sill follow you". Which is why he had so much trouble at Columbia. I read an interview in the 80s that said he gave Columbia lps, but they wouldn't release them. He recorded Two Of US with Grover Washington because Columbia wouldn't release it.
If he made the stuff he has written in the last 15 years available the neo-soul and neo-folk artists would be lining up to record it.
Very painful to watch, but also has something beautifull as to see young kids being so wise, and have such pride and will to survive and help their families.
But when seeing that little girl and when she told her story..i wont even front..I shed some tears.. If I had the resources I would really want to adopt some of these kids..
pffff... this world...damn.
http://stagevu.com/video/fiikvvmrcsmv
Really, really heavy and I wanted to steal them, too.
Its basically the result of one year's filming of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004, which captured a number of suicides, and additional filming of family and friends of some of the identified people who had jumped off the bridge. Incredibly moving.
Here's the trailer.
And here's the full documentary:
the person that made this was (partially?) funded with a fullbright scholarship. i guess i assumed that someone with a fullbright scholarship would make top notch shit. and its good dont get me wrong, but it doesnt live up to what i thought a fulbright scholar would produce.
that said the scene with the little girl (and boy) was gut wrenching. mostly because the shot of them walking off along the tracks, its almost certain that they are fucked. but also when she started to cry she was fully trying not to show emotion. and that broke my heart that a child has to be so guarded.
just watched this last night--so good. informative about Lee Scratch Perry, but also has lots of great OG footage of him at the black ark & elsewhere. gets you behind the liner notes to get a sense of (a tiny bit of) what's going on inside the man's head.
KOTB NYC 2010 FULL FILM from pritt on Vimeo.
This was a tough watch for me. The first 3 minutes alone was kind of tense because the camera was focusing in on different kinds of people walking and standing on the bridge and I was wondering the whole time which one of them, if any of them, was going to jump. All of the stories were compelling and hard to deal with, but I think Gene's story overshadowed each one. Everytime he walked up and down the bridge I was saying to myself, "Please don't do it! Get away from there!"
The film maker did immediately call the patrol as soon as he thought someone was a jumper, but like you said - its really hard to know who has suicide on their mind when the vast majority of people walking up and down are stopping and peering over the railing for long periods.
What I found quite hard to accept is how Gene's family seemed to acknowledge that they expected he would commit suicide at some point, and were half like 'Well.. you gotta do what you gotta do'... I think one relative even said 'Don't go without saying goodbye' ... That's almost a pre-supposition that its going to happen. I was pretty shocked about that.
Did anyone ever think of saying 'If you do this, we will never recover and you will devastate the lives of the people around you who love and care about you. It takes you a second, but we have to live with it' etc etc...
Loved those two documentaries, some of Theroux's best work and the follow up was possibly even more painful than the first, probably mainly due to the fact that I was waiting for the daughter who he bonded with in the first one to turn up again and it didn't quite work out like I'd hoped. I'm sometimes left cold by Theroux's style (turn up somewhere unusual, talk to the wierdos in a smug patronising manner then leave with some monologue beginning "As I left them I couldn't help feeling " etc) but I think he nails it in those particular instances.
Saw Catfish last night. Ignoring the fact that the reveal was pretty obvious five minutes in the whole thing left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
[SPOILER]
The constant cutting between the Facebook profiles and the mentally disabled kids was a pretty unpleasant damning judgement on the family and the conversations with the real Vince seemed intended to portray him as some sort of naif when he seemed quite a focused, if slow talking, individual . Also bits like getting Alison to talk in her Megan voice. She was obviously just a depressed woman with some issues and it felt more and more exploitative as it went on. Wasn't helped by the fact that the whole thing reeked of some kind of superiority.
[/SPOILER]
Suicide is a personal right and what you are suggesting would be emotional blackmailing.
Spending time with a suicidal person and giving him love and support and trying to motivate him/her to carry on would be the right thing to do but saying something like "if you're going to kill yourself, you're guilty of making us feel bad" is bullshit.
I thought Catfish was a shit movie.
It was obvious that it was at least partially scripted. The film makers and Angela had clearly met before and my guess is that they got Angela to agree to being on camera in an attempt to peddle her shit art which wouldn't even qualify as "outsider art" if she'd be a child, it's just a bad way of spoiling good canvas. Not even mentioning that there obviously would be more pressing and rewarding things she could do with her time.
I felt sorry for the twins and for Vince but Angela was just a completely disgusting person, just as yucky as Nev and his creepy, sticky attempt at his idea of boyish charm. Just plain revolting.
The whole thing was just very boring, full of fake and very "eeeeh..."
Try Talhotblond instead:
Saved to queue.
looks good.
i saw the latest Werner Hertzog doc on cave drawings found semi recently in france
beautiful and haunting, but you gotta be in the mood ofr it or yo umay end up sleeping through some of it. weird Hertzogian epilogue
Weird, I just watched this last night before bed. While it was totally predictable, I liked it 'cause it was a story about two different worlds colliding out of boredom, mental illness or whatever it was.
I do have to say, maybe he was all superior about the whole situation, Yaniv did handle it well. Also, so did Angela! Which, is kinda suspect! I had mad heeebeeeegeeebeees the whole time.
Even though I know that you never know who is behind the keyboard on the other side, it did open my eyes to how people really work hard at living "another life". I ain't got time for that schitt! Impressive.
What I hated most about it was that it was so obviously more DIY Reality-TV than a documentary. Sure, most of it was "real" but it was scripted. The film maker's brother turned subject was acting (and doing a horrible job at it) the whole time. Those guys knew that Angela's online persona was not real. They knew that there was no art gallery etc. it's not rewarding enough to get too deep into it but the whole thing just really stinks.
Then there's the angle of Angela having two handicapped sons in diapers which would be a full time job for any caring person yet she finds time to paint her shit paintings and to top it all off escape into a fake world and fake identities for some cyber romance. So gross on so many levels.
Talhotblond is also kind of gross and full of disgusting people but it's a real documentary and just 100x more entertaining. It was also shot earlier and maybe even served the Catfish film makers as an inspiration.
I will check out Talhotblond tonight. I am still uncertain how I feel about Catfish. I guess it just grossed me out!
Cheers for the recommendation Frank, will check that out. No real arguments about Catfish, like I said, left more and more of an unpleasant taste in my mouth as the movie went on and the combination of scripted scenes with the sniggering of the filmmakers left me pretty cold. I know it was billed as the first real Facebook movie because of the subject matter but in many ways I think that tag was more appropriate for the fact that the movie was shallow, image obsessed and entirely throwaway.
The film is an eye-opener if you are unfamiliar with inner city public education. It's pretty disheartening. I recommend it if you are at all concerned about education or if you just need a decent documentary to watch. It has about an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and while I'd definitely recommend it, I wouldn't say it's the greatest documentary out there. Of course the filmmaker can only present so many viewpoints, and the film does shine negative light on teachers unions and the tenure system. But overall, I enjoyed it. It's hard not to have your heartstrings pulled by some of these kids.
That's putting it mildly...
If I remember correctly, in NY they have the "Rubber Room"...
if this shit is true, it's completely beyond belief.
I don't think the Rubber Room exists anymore, at least not in the same form it was in when the documentary was filmed. For those who are unfamiliar, the RR was where incompetent teachers sat waiting to be reassigned/assessed or whatnot. They were paid to sit there and read the paper or simply doze off at taxpayers' expense, at an average duration of 3 years. I think most went back to teaching at the end of the process. Like you said, beyond belief.
As for the tenure situation, Michelle Rhee states in the movie that the institution of tenure fosters a notion of entitlement to a job, whereas Rhee feels that teaching should be seen as a privilege to be earned. It's harder to fire a teacher than it is for a doctor to have his/her license revoked or a lawyer to get disbarred. And unions are another story and another thread.
Bouncing Cats Trailer from Bouncing Cats on Vimeo.