I have a love for documentaries, and soon after watching one, I feel the need to go online to search for more information. I also try to find conflicting viewpoints to find if the director was telling the whole story, or if it was just an editorial. One great documentary that made me cry was entitled "The Central Park Five". This was made by one of the men who as a teenager was convicted as a rapist for the attack on a jogger in Central Park, New York City. The incident occurred when I was in high school, and five teenagers were convicted and served up to 13 years for a crime they did not commit. I think this is just one of the many films that should be viewed by all. I would like to add that I had no idea these men were ever found to be innocent and released. Our media is so slanted.
I couldn't agree with you more. I love watching documentaries and some of them are hard for me. I still remember the following documentaries: Ghosts of Rwanda, Citizen King, RFK, and A Lion In The House. All of them aired on PBS and two of them (Ghosts of Rwanda and A Lion In The House) were very hard to watch. The first focused on the genocide in Rwanda and you literally saw filming that included the actual deaths of people as it happened. The second documentary was about children with cancer, some of whom died during filming. I heard of The Central Park Five documentary. I am building up some patience to see it because I know me and I know how angry I will get upon seeing the documentary and the injustice done to those teenagers.
There was a documentary I saw a while ago called "Supersize Me". You may have heard of it because it's kind of a well-known documentary. It was about an American man who was quite healthy before his experiment to eat McDonald's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for 30 days. It was an experiment to see how his health would do after that. Not well. He gained a lot of weight (30 pounds), his cholesterol raised drastically, he was impotent, he felt lethargic, and he got so addicted to the food that if he missed a meal, he would go through withdrawal symptoms like migraines. It definitely taught people that if they want to enjoy fast food, they should do it in moderation.
Except most of the move was pretty much made up for effect, just as most of Michael Moore's stuff. Log In ..and that's the prime example of why I don't watch any of these high budget, high publicity documentaries. Poorly source, manipulated, only made to push a narrative.
Agreed, Aladar. I once was a believer of Supersize Me too until I watched Fat Head and realized that everything in the previous documentary was overly exaggerated. I'm still a fan now because it still is very entertaining, but it's very disheartening to watch it again knowing that he pretty much is sensationalizing everything. As for my own recommendation, one I recently watched that I found entertaining was Grizzly Man. It was a story that mixes light hearted and dark tones very well, and it really is best to just watch it without much intro so all I will say about it is that it is a story about a troubled man who found comfort in being with bears in their natural habitat.
I liked the documentary Craigslist Joe, but I just find it a little unrealistic that he didn't run into any evil/crazy people on his cross country trip across America via the kindness of strangers. I wonder if there are any scenes on the cutting room floor of people he met on Craigslist that weren't so great.
I know a lot of people who have a craze for documentary movie. I have watched very few of them and some of them I love quite a lot. But I have not come across any documentary that can be remembered forever. I guess I should do more research on finding the best documentary. I also love the fact that they try to display the plain truth using documentary films.
If people think documentaries are not bias, think again quickly, because all documentaries are bias and filter a lot of information. The best one can do, is watch a documentary and then follow up with your own research regarding the subjects and supposed facts, and verify if its true or not. I personally used to watch a lot of documentaries, but I never took any of the info wholly, and always asked who produced the film and what are their agenda(s). Documentaries are formulated from a lot of edited materials of film or recordings for time limitation(s), and most usually leave me with more questions than answers.
being convicted for a crime you didn't do is just the most unjust thing that could happen to a innocent. you probably can't trust anyne after that. i also lke documentaries but my tastes goes to history channel and animal planet.
Indeed. Even these "independent" documentaries made with handheld camcorder uploaded to YouTube are always biased. Case in point: VICE. The whole site is pushing their own agenda so hard I can't even believe people actually read/watch their content. They may be even worse than FOX News, and that's really saying something there..
