Documentaries, My Personal Ranking
Submitted by jim on Thu, 09/25/2003 - 10:30
Tags:
- Hoop Dreams (1994)
- Night and Fog (1955)
- Spellbound (2002)
- The Fog of War (2003)
- The Thin Blue Line (1988)
- Super Size Me (2004)
- Dark Days (2000)
- Roger & Me (1989)
- Murderball (2005)
- Wordplay (2006)
- Rock School (2005)
- Comedian (2002)
- Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
- Grizzly Man (2005)
- One Day in September (2000)
- Bowling for Columbine (2002)
- Winged Migration (2001)
- The Corporation (2003)
- Control Room (2004)
- Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
- Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control (1997)
- Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999)
- Nanook of the North (1922)
- Born Into Brothels (2004)
- Baraka (1992)
- The Yes Men (2003)
- Bright Leaves (2003)
- A Great Day in Harlem (1994)
- Genghis Blues (1999)
- My Best Fiend (1999)
- Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000)
- Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)
- Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator (2002)
- Devil's Playground (2002)
- The Trials of Henry Kissinger (2002)
- Lost In La Mancha (2002)
- The Aristocrats (2005)
- Cinemania (2002)
- Startup.com (2001)
Author Comments:
Above the line I liked to varying degrees. Below the line starts somewhere around indifferent and declines from there.
I've seen Brother's Keeper (1992), but don't remember it well enough to rank it.
I've been meaning to see Genghis Blues for a long time now. Just hearing the story is intriguing...
Johnny Waco
I love Netflix. There are so many movies I'd simply never get a crack at without that service, Genghis Blues being one of them. You'll have to report back with your thoughts if you see it.
Have you seen Capturing the Friedmans yet? I'm not sure it's quite as good as some people are saying, but it is completely fascinating. At times, I felt about as angry as I've ever been watching a film.
And actually, another great one is the Oscar Winner from last year, Muder on a Sunday Morning. It concerns a black teen accused of murdering a white woman in Jacksonville, FL, and covers the investigation and trial. I live in the South so I don't like blanket portrayals of the South as sickeningly racist, but this documentary makes me wonder if that label is deserved.
Johnny Waco
I haven't seen either of those, unfortunately. Friedmans was already on my "to see" list, and I just added Murder (although they both seem pretty grim, so I'm going to try to space them widely).
I can't keep from posting on a documentary list, I guess. I would also recommend two of the Maysles brothers' documentaries from the late sixties/early seventies: Salesman, which follows several door-to-door Bible salesmen, and Grey Gardens, about two mentally unstable relatives of Jackie Kennedy who live in their filthy, decrepit family mansion without running water.
Johnny Waco
Dang, I'd really like to see Salesmen, but Netflix doesn't carry it. I'm not so sure Grey Gardens will be up my alley, but I'll add it to my "someday" list.
So you're a big documentary fan, eh?
I certainly am a big documenatry fan, and I agree with most of your list. Night and Fog may be the most powerful film I've ever seen. It packs more unsentimental emotion into its thirty minutes than most films could do in hours.
I'm surprised that Netflix doesn't carry Salesman. Same filmmakers as Grey Gardens (which isn't quite as good as Salesman), and both on Criterion. Go figure.
Have you ever seen anything by one of the "fathers" of documentary filmmaking, Robert Flaherty? I could recommend Nanook of the North (a silent about Eskimos), Man from Aran (life on a desolate island off the Irish coast), and Louisiana Story (young boy growing up in the swamps).
Johnny Waco
Alrighty, Nanook is queued, and I've asked Netflix to stock Salesmen (not that I have any pull there). Maybe I'll have to mount another campaign a la The Ox-Bow Incident. It is quite surprising that they don't have a Criterion disc stocked. I would have thought they'd have all those as a matter of policy.
I thought the same as you, so I looked into buying those instead. According to Amazon.com, some of the Criterion titles are highly collectible, priced between $60 and $100. I daresay out of my and Netflix's range, eh? I think it's a marketing trick, like Disney does, withholding titles from the market in order to increase cachet.
Yeah, good list, I've only seen a handful of them. I wasn't a fan of Baraka, I must say, and I found The Corporation overrated.
Other ones that come to mind: The Thin Blue Line, Chronicle of a Summer, Dont Look Back
Cool, thanks! I don't see Chronicle of a Summer at Netflix, looking forward to the release of The Thin Blue Line in July, and is Don't Look Back to Dylan documentary?
As much as I liked The Corporation, I too found it a touch overrated. Too blatantly left-wing, even for my leftish tastes. Also, honestly, after the top 7 these get awfully hard to rank. 8-15 in particular (One Day in September to Mr. Death at the time of this writing) could be shuffled randomly and I'd probably be fine with the result.
You're like, totally, my favorite left-wing guy, for saying that about The Corporation, even though several of your choices on this list make me gag.
You mean I wasn't your favorite left-wing guy before?!
:-)
I just have to know: which ones make you gag?
You were tied for first :).
I can't even say his name. I hate anything by that guy from Detroit, in the baseball cap. He is the Death of Reason, Moral Decay, and the Downfall of Civilization.
However, I'm a big fan of free stuff: markets, speech, association, exchange of ideas, etc. It's a small price to pay to live in this glorious country of ours.
Cool. For what it's worth, while I find myself entertained by Moore and agreeing with many of his points, it certainly bothers me when he goes too far, and/or distorts facts (I keep meaning to watch Fahrenheit 9/11, but can't bring myself to for those very reasons). Of course, that happens on both sides of the aisle, and I'd love to live in a world where neither side resorted to such tactics.
As for the specific movies of his I've listed above, I understand the economics of layoffs, but still love Roger & Me for showing the effects on the area, and as my first exposure to Moore's ballsy guerilla interviewing style and stunts. And the gun control ("control", not "outlaw") issue is a favorite of mine, so of course I dug Bowling for Columbine.
Unfortunately, I don't think Chronicle of a Summer is available on DVD or VHS, though it sounds like a fascinating film. We learned about it in my film 101 class. It's about documentarian Jean Rouch going around to people in Paris asking them simply, "Are you happy?" and filming their responses. Then he shows them the footage of themselves talking and films their responses to their responses.
That sounds great! I'm bummed it's not available.
I believe Criterion doesn't actually own the rights to most of the films it puts out; it simply licenses them, often with limited-time clauses attached. Usually, the contract states that they cannot disclose the terms, so they don't advertise what that limited time is, but unless they can renew, when that time is up, the discs go out of print.
Don't shoot me if I'm wrong, but that's how I understand it...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Thanks for explaining. Makes sense.
I heartily disapprove of this practice.
I find it unfortunate, but it does often result in editions of films I adore receiving a more loving treatment than the studio might employ, or even the release of films the studio might not see a large enough profit margin behind to mess with. So it isn't perfect, but it may beat the current alternatives.
I only wish we knew how long we had before the discs went MIA; it would make scheduling around my budget a bit easier. La vie.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Yes, you have a good point. You've reminded me that the alternative to this option, at the other extreme, is the cheap crap in the dollar bins. These are the realities of the market economy. {Sigh}
If they are already out of print, they would probably be out of Netflix's range, but I've bought a couple of these documentaries from Amazon, and they were in print, and nowhere near $60-$100. I agree with you about Criterion creating a collectibles market with their DVDs, letting them fall out of print and limiting runs, but I don't think that strategy lets Netflix or any other rental service off the hook because they have plenty of opportunities to get these at normal prices.
Johnny Waco
I think they have some sort of deal with the distributors that they can't rent the OOP stuff after a certain time limit. Could there be such a thing?
That's interesting. I hadn't heard of that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Johnny Waco
Have you seen March of the Penguins (2005)?
Not yet. It's in my queue though.