Watched a documentary on WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.
Like most things in life, I know very little, but what I do know I get from a documentary. ;)
I had a high-level understanding of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and PFC Manning. This documentary was pretty interesting. It gave a pretty concise holistic explanation of where WikiLeaks came from and ultimately went to. The main focus is on WikiLeaks' biggest leak...that of PFC Manning and almost a half million classified US gov't documents.
This is a good documentary. Good primer on the subject. It didn't address whether Julian bleaches his hair or if it's naturally white, but I'm pretty sure he bleaches it. Cuz that's of REAL importance.
Anyway, this is streaming on Netflix. Check it out if you want to know anything about the topic...
I watched a documentary on the Shining. Specifically, it's just about people's thematic interpretations of the flick.
There are a few different people who put forth some interesting ideas. However, none of them really present anything terribly convincing as far as I'm concerned. People see what they're most familiar with. With something as interpretative and esoteric as Kubrick symbology you're bound to come up with some wild shit. And it can't all be right. In fact, almost all of it will turn out to be wrong.
It's not about the holocaust, the manifest destiny, sexual ghosts, AND the moon landing. So what is it about?
I think there are some neat things that are pointed out in this documentary, but without Kubrick weighing in (from beyond the grave) then it's hard to really give credence to anything that's said.
The most provocative and interesting portion is the whole "Kubrick faked the moon landing footage and this is a confession" suggestion. That's the biggest pill to swallow, but probably the one with the most evidence.
Most of these people just string together two or three things and call it a theory. It's pretty fucking loose if you ask me. Especially the chick who's going on about Minotaurs. She's grasping at straws.
Honestly, I haven't seen the Shining in over 15 years. I need to watch it again. That's all I know. It scared the crap outta me at the time. Beyond creepy.
I started watching Captain America. I got 45 minutes into it and just turned it off. CGI strikes again. I just couldn't handle it. So what'd I do? Put on a fucking documentary about Master Sommeliers. The obvious choice.
It popped up on Netflix and I gave it a whirl. 90 minute doc following the lives of a few young dudes prepping for their Master Sommelier exam. It's the typical documentary formula for any situation like this. Interview the people, their families, watch them study for the exam, blah blah blah.
It actually blew my mind how intense the test was. The sheer depth of knowledge is pretty staggering. Very impressive.
If you need to kill 90 minutes and want some light viewing...give this a shot. I dug it.
The interesting thing about sommeliers and wine criticism in general, is how varied the answers can be. How varied the critiques can be. One would imagine that if you're a master of anything there shouldn't be much debate about it. It's black and white, right or wrong. It's this wine or it's that wine. We're not talking about appreciation, we're talking about identification. I think there's a weird blurring of the lines with sommeliers; on the one hand it's a hard skill, but on the other hand it's artistic. So it's hard to quantify or test the artistry. I dunno.
I was drinking Gatorade when I watched it. Whatever. It's better than Captain America.
I ended up watching two movies tonight. I just checked out A Band Called Death.
I picked up their long-unreleased album as soon as it dropped in '09. I had never heard of the single before, never heard of the band. But I heard one track online and loved it. As a forgotten black proto-punk band from Detroit it was obviously something that piqued my interest.
The album is honestly amazing. The production is crystal clear, but it's from the early 70's so it's not over-produced. It's just high fidelity. High energy. The songs are imaginative. They're visceral. They sound like the Bad Brains...but more expansive. It's genius shit.
So fast forward to 2013. I watch the documentary. It's insightful. It gives a total picture of the band from their inception, through their demise, and into their adult years. It's obvious why they were lost for so long. They didn't do shit when they were around. At least judging by this doc' it appears they were a garage band who never made it past the garage. No mention of shows or anything. They just got into the studio, laid down this album, and got rejected by every label under the sun due to their controversial moniker. Even faced with the option of taking 20k (back then) to change their name and sign a deal...they didn't.
It's kinda crazy that this dude's kid finds out his dad was in a punk band from the internet. It was such a closed chapter in his dad's history that he had never even mentioned it. Cool to see the Livewire Board and peeps I know get a mention on screen. Pops, Minicucci, etc. But anyway...the doc. It's good. It's genuine. It's not amazing. But it's definitely worth watching. Death were amazing.
I've only heard horrible things about their current live shows, though. And from what I saw on the doc...yeah, you don't really need to see em live. They've certainly mellowed as the decades marched on. Stick to the album. Watch the doc. It's streaming on Netflix.
Dust to Glory is a film by Dana Brown. His dad is the man behind Endless Summer and On Any Sunday. So you know where Dana is coming from. Like father like son.
This flick covers the Baja 1000. It's a totally insane 1000 mile race from Ensenada to La Paz, Mexico. Motorcycles, trucks, Beetles, buggies...whatever. Even dudes like Robbie Gordon and Mario Andretti get in on the action. The only crazier race than this is the Dakar Rally.
Brown's cinematography on this flick is fucking superb. Lots of helicopter footage as well as helmet-cam footage. Every angle and perspective you'd want. It's very slick. Really well put together. The Brown's have a very long history with sports documentaries and Dust to Glory does not disappoint.
This film charts the paths of some specific riders/racers, including "Mouse" who's riding all 1000 miles on a bike solo!!! If the race wasn't crazy enough...doing it solo?!
This is streaming on Netflix. Check out the trailer. It's god damn exciting stuff.
These lovely ladies aren't in the flick, but his photo came up when I did a Baja 1000 search...so.
This was really fuckin good. 90 minuted doc about Eric Bana's Ford Falcon.
I don't really know anything about Eric Bana, but this film ruled. He directed it. It's about the one car that Eric has owned since he was 15 and how it's evolved over the years and been a constant in his life.
Eric and his friends have rebuilt this car 3 or 4 times over the years. This film documents the last Targa rally he entered it in, the time leading up to the race, and a brief period after.
Jeremy Clarkson, Dr. Phil and Jay Leno round out the celebrity cast. Although it's really Eric's family and friends who have the real supporting roles in this flick. Clarkson is as funny and controversial as ever. It's good fun all round.
I don't really want to go into too much detail but this is definitely a flick that anyone slightly interested in cars can enjoy. See it.
I started watching the Ultimate Fighter last season. I dug it. And it just started again a couple weeks ago, so MMA is on my mind.
I saw Like Water come across Netflix and I decided to check it out. It's a 76 minute documentary about Anderson Silva. More specifically, it's about his 2010 title defense against Chael Sonnen (who was a couch in last year's TUF).
It was well done. Definitely more smooth and artistic than I expected. It's got a good original score and nice editing. Zero complaints. I guess the one thing...they should have shown the entire fight at the end for those of us who didn't see it live three and a half years ago. But whatever, you see the important parts and get the gist. Looked like a fucking phenomenal match!
This is definitely one of the better docs I've seen about any sort of fighting or martial art. Recommended.
A co-worker found this movie so I rented it on Amazon today. We watched it as a team.
Dug it! This was as good a documentary as anyone could make about a fucking Linotype machine. Before computers, before photosetters, there were Linotypes. The machines revolutionized the printing industry about 100 years ago when a Ottmar Mergenthaler figured out how to automate hand composition of lead type. The machine was six times faster than a man. And could leap a building in a single bound.
You type, it composes a slug of type with matrices, it then casts that slug with molten lead, spits out your finished line-o-type, and then re-files the individual matrices into their original cases. BAM!
So, this doc (or doco, as I just found out they say in Australia) discusses the history of the machine. It portraits some old operators as well as new operators, craftsmen, museum curators, educators, printers and linotype mechanics alike.
It's a low-budget flick but it tells a compelling story. You can get into it even if you're not a designer. I think...
Fifteen hours later and I'm done with the Story of Film.
This is a fifteen part documentary about film from its inception through to contemporary times. Clearly it's worth seeing or I wouldn't have stuck it out, but I almost didn't get past episode one. Why? Cuz Mark Cousins' voice is so fucking annoying.
Mark is an Irish film critic who wrote, directed and narrated the series. It's very well-done, but his intonation drives you up the wall. He makes everything sound so profound or so dramatic. He can't string two words together without making them sound like the last two words on Earth. It's tiresome. So, you eventually get used to it or you just turn it off.
900 minutes of his annoying intonation and cadence aside, you gotta give the man respect. Putting a documentary together of this scale is a ridiculous undertaking. He's gonna get panned no matter what. It's an impossible journey to take without upsetting everyone. I'm not going to begin to get into the areas and artists he left out for one reason or another, but I can't put aside the glaring omission of Guy Ritchie and Danny Boyle. At the very least he should have mentioned Trainspotting. That movie was so goddamn important to British cinema...c'mon. But I digress...
If you love cinema; watch this doc. Simply put. You'll learn a lot. You'll agree and disagree with Mark's POV at times, but it's a worthwhile trip. The man has a lot of knowledge to share. I'm hoping this is only the first series of films. If he opens it up to more detailed looks at certain countries, movements or genres, that could get really fucking cool. There's literally an infinite amount of content to cull from.
So, hats off to Mark Cousins. Hopefully there's at least another 900 minutes more to come...and hopefully he hires someone else to narrate the fucking thing.
I just got done watching the Bones Brigade documentary.
I really liked this flick. It's almost 2 hours long but it moves along w/ great pacing and it could have easily been 2.5 hours without boring me. Maybe they stopped it just at the right time. Leave the punters wanting more...
Skateboarding's never been my forte. I've always been friends with skaters, been somewhat involved with the culture, but never skated. But I can dig a good documentary about just about anything. I've never fucked a super expensive hooker (or a cheap one, or ANY hooker for the record) but Client 9 was an amazing documentary that I could definitely get into. Back to Bone Brigade...
It's created by Stacy Peralta; one half of the seminal skateboarding company Powell Peralta. He's a film-maker now, and evidently a pretty good one. This doc is well-edited, well-paced, it's got a good soundtrack, good interviews, good historical content, it really covers all the bases you want in a fine documentary film. It gives an overview of the back story, inception, rise, and eventual dissolution of his partnership with Powell while they backed the fabled Bones Brigade. It spans the years from 80–90.
I really dug the interview footage with the Bones Brigade as they are now. Dudes close to 50 in some cases. Real cool guys with a great story. They come across very humble. I loved it.
I've been diggin' on the Blueprint a lot lately, so I watched the making of J-Hova's first record: Reasonable Doubt.
After watching it I popped on Amazon and ordered four more cd's. Homeboy's one of the best. Hov>Nas (and I like Nasty Nas). Illmatic is amazing, but I think the Jiggaman has him beat from a career perspective. For sure.
Anyway, I've seen a ton of these "Classic Album" docs. They're an hour long. Most stream on Netflix or you can find em on youtube in their entirety. I dig the series. This one was a bit different because they don't often delve into albums that aren't made with organic instruments. You've got a lot of Jay-Z interview footage mixed with the Producers who cut the tracks on Reasonable Doubt. There's a couple other dudes weighing in with their 2 cents and some insight. It's cool. It flows well. But Jigga flows better.
If you like rap, watch it. If not, fuck it, there's no point. Word.
I watched Fastest earlier this year for the second time. This was my first time checking out the first in the series, Faster. The Director definitely learned a thing or two from the first movie and really improved upon it for the second.
Faster was shot ten years prior to Fastest. It's essentially the same film, but just following different riders. A different time period in MotoGP racing. He had Ewan McGregor do the voice-over for this film and got him back again in 2011 for the follow-up.
It's good. It's fascinating. But I think he did a much better job of introducing non-bikers or people who don't follow MotoGP, to the sport in his second attempt. This one is a little more disjointed. A touch more by-bikers-for-bikers. Definitely not as polished as Fastest. And as such, it doesn't have the same compelling drama. I'm not really knocking it; it's a good movie in its own right. But it's just that Fastest is considerably better.
It's interesting to see Rossi ruling the roost in 2002...and still on top in 2011! What the fuck.
Anyway, this is streaming on Netflix. Watch Fastest first. Go watch it now. Then if you need more...go watch Faster.
Some of the FSMC are making it out to the MotoGP this August in Indy. I'm planning on going. Maybe we'll see Ewan McGregor...
Life's tough when you're a young Italian motorcycle world champion.
I watched China Heavyweight last night. It's a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a boxing school in rural China. It's a Chinese production. It's pretty good.
The film follows a couple pupils in the boxing academy, and focuses on one of the trainers. He's a dude who should have been the village hero, but next quite made it far enough. Never got the belt. Well, after taking a break to train the kids he decides he wants one last shot at glory.
There's no narration. No glitz or glamor. It's just true, pure documentary film-making. I wouldn't go out of your way to watch it. But it's not a waste of time either. You'll learn something about rural China at the very least. It's interesting.
I just got back from the Arab American Museum. Where else would I possibly be on a Friday night?
Marie and I were invited to see a film by a couple friends of ours. As they know a thing or two about a thing or two, we took them up on it. I didn't know what the film was about prior to the screening, other than it was nominated for an Oscar...and it probably had Arabs in it.
Five Broken Cameras is a documentary about living in a Palestinian village that's being occupied by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers. The man behind the camera didn't go to an expensive Art School. He's not a film nerd. He's just documenting what he sees as a sort of therapy and catharsis. And he's getting shot at.
Needless to say, the film is a bit rough around the edges. But "rawness" is a value, not a criticism. Just ask Iggy.
Emad, the protagonist, loses 4 cameras to the fighting. He struggles with tear gas, live bullets, and the specter of Death on a weekly basis. That's life on the West Bank. It sucks hard. But Emad and his village soldier on. What other option is there?
We're introduced to an interesting cast of characters. It's cool to see that throughout the five year period that this was filmed in, the main characters chronicled rarely resort to any kind of violence. It's all relatively peaceful. Okay, they throw rocks here and there. But tell me you wouldn't want to be out there with an Israeli-made Uzi mowing down the bastards that just shot your brother?
Anyway, the music's good. The editing is what holds the whole thing together. It's very well paced. The footage is crude, but there was skill in taking such raw elements and weaving them into such a polished end product. Hats off.
There's a scene with an old man and his daily driver...a donkey. It just made me think about how I get up, open my garage, and decide which of my two cars or motorcycle do I want to take to work that day. It's fucked up.
The super shitty aspect about this whole thing is the needlessness of both parties' plights. Truth be told, the Israeli's have no claim to the land. But who the fuck said the Palestinians could have it either? In thousands of years of living on this planet, we still cling to archaic principles about ownership of the Earth. You'd think if people on both sides of the fence were looked at as PEOPLE, none of this would matter. There'd be nothing to fight over if we weren't slaves to a colonialist idea about ownership and conquest. I'm sure many years after I'm dead humans will be pushed to the point where they have no option but to abandon this idea. Or they'll blow everyone up arguing about it. I don't care. I'll be dead anyway.
Heard about this a few days ago from a co-worker after I was lamenting the fact that most "car movies" are utter shite compared to biker flicks. You've got Grand Prix, Le Mans, Death Proof and the jaw-dropping Senna. You can count the good car movies on one hand and still have a digit left over. Truth in 24 II may have claimed that fifth digit.
It's an 83 minute documentary narrated by Jason Statham about Audi's run at capturing the win at Le Mans in 2011. Unlike Detropia, here we have a doc' that knows how to build tension and weave a story. The final third gets real hairy. Nail-biting stuff.
Is it as good as any of those other car flicks? Not a chance. Is it a top-notch documentary? Eh, not tier 1 material. But is it worth seeing? Absolutely. It's a grade B doc'. If it had focused a bit more on the personalities and the dramas within the rivalries then I think it could have sucked you in a bit more: If it felt like there was more on the line. Like the German manufacturer it's documenting, it's a bit cold and clinical. Statham's voice and intonation does a good job of adding some humanism to the whole affair, though. Fastest is probably a close comparison to the film, but Fastest is far more intense. I looooved that flick. Going to watch its predecessor, Faster, soon.
Le Mans is a fucking mental race, man. The stamina, strength, and strategy needed to win is ridiculous. Not to mention the technical expertise and racing talent. Anyone who competes is super-human.
You can stream it on Netflix or watch the whole thing on YouTube (see above).
Do it.
Red, black, white and Helvetica: What more do you need?
You want documentaries about the city you live in to be good. Still waiting on a great one for Detroit. The best I've seen so far is the portion of Urbanized that deals with the D. Anyway, here we have a doc' about Detroit called Detropia. It's by a couple of women from the east coast. It's not very good and I'll tell ya why...
You remember those people in art school who never listened to the instructor or did what the assignment asked? The art-fags who did their own thing...and it was crap. The art-fags who did their own thing because they didn't have the talent to do what the instructor asked? That's what this documentary reminds me. Ok, that's a harsher comparison than this actually deserves, but whatever.
The documentary could have been recut and reedited 10 different ways and it wouldn't have affected the narrative. That's the problem. It's just one scene after another. There's very little in the way of beginning, middle, or ending. There's not much of an arc or denouement. It's too flighty and too loose.
I liked the opening montage quite a bit, but then I realized that the whole 82 minutes was gonna be like that and I was actually bummed. I was thinking it was a cool way to begin a film and at any moment we'd hear a narrator's voice or something. Nope. It just drifts between different people in Detroit. It checks in on the UAW, an urban explorer/vlogger, some out-of-town art-fags, and the owner of the Raven Lounge. Evidently it's a blues bar in Detroit. Never been, but the owner seems like a rad dude. Hell, the president of the UAW is pretty damn funny himself. You meet some good characters along the way.
This topic has a lot of potential but I'd like to see it handled by someone with a much stronger handle on story-telling. Client 9? Now that was a good fucking doc'.
Marie and Amy watched Searching for Sugarman at the Main last week. They came back with glowing reviews. I added it to my queue and accidentally added it to the top spot. I was surprised when it came in the mail, but interested to watch it nonetheless. I was supposed to get The Loveless. But I digress...
I had heard of Rodriguez because a friend of mine and Marie's dated his youngest daughter, Reagan. But other than testimony from one person that Rodriguez was an amazing forgotten Detroit artist, I hadn't heard anything else. Never heard anyone else talk about him and never heard his music. Forgot about him.
Turns out South Africa didn't forget about him, that's for damn sure. I can't really get into the story of the documentary because that would ruin the whole thing. It's a surprising and eventful journey as a couple of men search for their elusive folk-hero. The story is filled with so many "what if's". It's amazing how everything comes together. And how certain things didn't come together. You'll see it. It's worth it.
The film is well done. Good pacing. Good editing. The soundtrack really let the music breathe when it needed to (all Rodriguez songs, of course). Archival footage mixed with recent interviews. Very little in the way of reconstruction.
Cold Fact sales will be going through the roof due to this film. Obv.
A co-worker came across this flick. We rented it on Amazon and watched it at work today. Good shit!
It's a one hour long documentary about a wood-type museum in Wisconsin. That probably sounds boring to you. I don't blame you...but it's not. Well, from my perspective as a designer it's certainly not boring. We often think about metal type when we think about movable type, but here we have wooden type. It's an artform within an artform, with its own idiosyncrasies. It seems rather wabi sabi to me. Part of its beauty is the inherent flaws in the wood that accumulate over time. Or the uneven and unreproducible distressing that occurs from print to print. It's definitely a respectable yet endangered artform.
So, here we see the museum, the scant few who frequent the museum, and some of the artisans who worked at the wood type factory when it was still operational. It's all pretty cut and dry. No frills documentary. I wouldn't suggest this wins any awards, but if you're in the design field then you should see this flick. That's all there is to it. Everyone else...well...it's only an hour!
The Flying Skülls watched this last night. I had first checked it out last year and knew I had to see it again. Here's my original post if you want some details...
I stand by my initial assessment. Great doc for bikers and non-bikers alike. You should be streaming this right now. What are you waiting for?
I drove down to the DFT to watch this last night. Always a great way to spend a Saturday night.
I was nodding off a bit about halfway through the flick, though. It was dark and warm and it was late. But if you ever see the movie you'd understand that you could miss a few lines of dialogue here and there and be totally fine. You won't be lost.
This film is from 1967 and is only now getting its US theatrical release. Critics are going apeshit over it. I thought it was alright. It's a documentary about missing persons in Japan. The Director profiles a missing person and tries to find out why and where they could be. But he doesn't get past square one. He interviews friends, family and co-workers and really comes up with a whole lotta nothing.
Sooooo... the Director changes the whole premise of the film and throws in a bit of a twist ending. It's a comment on the very existence of a "true" documentary. It questions fact vs fiction and the illusory aspect of film-making. Perception. Reality. Meh.
The flick ends up being a hybrid documentary potentially mixed with fictional drama. The viewer ultimately doesn't really know what is what.
It was worth watching, but it's not something I'd tell everyone to rush and see before anything else. If you feel so inclined, it appears to be uploaded to youtube.
