Anyway, I watched TOKYO SORA..
Kept drifting off. Seemed like a 9/10. Will give it a more attentive watch later.
A friend on cinemageddon asked me to make a list of documentaries for him to check out. Since I've invited half the people who posted on this thread over there, here's some favs you can get on there, or on btjunkie...
- streetwise (10-14 year old kids living on the street, doing drugs and having sex. fascinating and genuinely depressing)
- american movie (dorks make a movie. well, they try to. a true testament to clueless people with dreams. Funny and entertaining as hell)
- my kid could paint that (exposes the art world as a sick, twisted place, where everyone just cares about "ideas" and "concepts", and "hooks". There is no difference between good and bad art, it's all about a good STORY. Starts like a regular old documentary on a little girl making abstract art so convincing that jackson pollack would probably be jealous, the documentary COMPLETELY CHANGES and becomes almost an anti-documentary in a way, where the documentary making kinda questions himself, perhaps questions his own stupidity.
- exit through the gift shop (another anti-art doc, in a way, about the commericalization of street art and grafitti. Seems to become a big prank/mockumentary by the end, and the way they go about this is just genius)
- nerds 2.0: brief history of the internet (about 5 hours long. Weird as hell, really, but I found it fascinating. not for everyone.)
- darkside of porn (altogether, this is about 10 hours long, and it focuses on everything from aids to beastiality. Truly some sick and twisted and hilarious people and stories. honestly, despite being "anti porn" seemingly, it comes off as non objective. It just presents this sick and twisted and crude and vile shit to you, and you make your own judgement. about as neutral as something called DARK SIDE OF PORN can be. But anyway, it's endlessly fascinating. This was shown on television, as was HOOKED, which is a GREAT documentary on drugs. It's about 4 hours long and focuses on every drug ever made. I didn't even know what GHB was until I saw this doc.)
- thin blue line (erol morris is my favorite documentary filmmaker, period, and if you combine all his movies -- vernon, florida.. fast cheap and out of control ... his television show FIRST PERSON.... he probably ranks as one of my favorite filmmakers, period. anyway, i'm highlight this one in particular as one of the only documentaries that really, truly CHANGED something -- getting a man off of death row. would be my fav doc ever, except it's incomplete -- you gotta wikipedia it to find out that after getting off of death row, the guy didn't thank the director, he SUED him, for making money off of his "life story", he said!!!!! can you imagine? "you got me off of death row, but you made money! i'm going to sue you!" Anyway, required viewing)
- god's angry man (herzog made a lot of good documentaries and pseudo documentaries, like fata morgana which is really beautiful. This one just happens to have my favorite subject matter.
- AGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY 101 (i put this up on cg.. this is cool stuff, especially part 5, which is just a guy screaming about being molested and how good saved him, for an hour ... turns out this guy was a child molestor himself! no, that's not cool, but seeing this fat idiot blabber on and then finding out he's in prison sure is.
- manson (i really enjoy manson documentaries, but this one -- simply titled MANSON -- is the BEST. 1973 I believe. dark as hell. fascinating as hell, manson himself is barely in it -- if you want to see lots of manson screaming and dancing and ranting, check out CHARLES MANSON SUPERSTAR. haha.. But if you just want a great portrait of the time, and the crazy family, check into this one)
- helvetica (a doc on a font? Yeah. But it's really really great. Entertaining as hell. objectified and manfuactured landscapes are worth watching as well)
great music docs - kraftwerk and the electronic revolution, pioneers of electronic music, beefheart: under review, the artist formely known as captain beefheart, don van vliet: some yo yo stuff, jandek on corwood, the 4 or 5 harry partch, documentaries (many on youtube), the devil and daniel johnston, half japanese: the band who could be king.
great mockumentaries:
fear of a black hat
special needs
where's marlowe
last polka
THE COMPLEAT WEIRD AL which is endlessly fascinating and I'm not even a weird al fan really. But the mockumentary stuff on there is genius.
HATED (don't even like gg but this is great).
finally, i want to make a special mention of 5 mocks/docs that aren't for everyone but they absolutely blew me away. Consider this the "special mention" top 5, in that these documentaries are pretty much only for a very specific type of person, whereas the documentaries above could be enjoyed by pretty much everyone:
5 - jefftowne (focus on a mentally handicapped man. Extremely entertaining, almost makes you feel bad for laughing at times, but the documentary isn't portrayed as making fun of Jefftowne... you laugh on cue, if that makes sense. The director was accused of being EXPLOITATIVE, but he clearly was good friends with a man who loves porno, william shatner, and wrestling. Downright HEARTWARMING at times.)
4 - story of a junkie (the most brutal depiction of drug use ever. Very real. There is a real dead body. There are real junkies strung out and shooting up. It shows real withdrawal. This movie is great, but what's even more insane/greater is that the director somehow got all this footage. New York from the mid-80's, so it's scummy as hell. Peopel think I'm joking when I tell them how disturbing this thing is. I highly reccomend listennig to the commentary, where the director talks about LIVING with these people, and paying off junkies with money and junk so that they continued to allow filming. Still, the director had a knife pulled out on him and was beaten up. Again, this is one documentary that isn't for everyone, but I love looking at the sick, crude, twisted, vile part of society. And here it is.)
3 - BURROUGHS (simply titled. Burroughs was extremely cooperative during this shoot. Which led to some awesoem footage. This is on ubuweb)
2 - paradise lost (made by the director of metallica: some kind of monster, this is disturbing as hell. It shows little children dead, so it's really hard to watch. But the court footage, and the jail footage, and all the news articles, paint a picture of small town hysteria, and one of the boys' dad -- can't remember his name, but he's a physically abusive "preacher" who is clearly INSANE -- makes this film worth watching. You will sit, glued to your tv for 2 1/2 hours, no problem. Just one of the most captivating films ever, and one of the few that was really really hard for me to watch.)
2 - VIDEO DIARIES OF RICARDO LOPEZ (yes, there are 2 # 2's. this is downright the sickest, most twisted, most insane thing I've ever seen. This is the video diaries of the guy who stalked bjork, mailed an acid bomb to her, and then killed himself. I will never watch this again. I can't. It is the only video I've ever seen to make me physically ill. You literally see a man lose all touch with reality.)
1 - PERVERSE PREACHERS, FASCIST FUNDAMENTALISTS, AND KRISTIAN KIDDIE KOOKS... okay, this is by far and away my favorite documentary/mockumentary/prankumentary/WHATEVER. It's 2 hours long, and it's more like a video mix tape. There isn't anything setting up what you're seeing. So, it's actually a bit sloppy. But this is the most fascinating thing I've ever witnessed. And everyone else who has seen it has agreed. Basically, you can't really put this thing into words, it's hard to do it justice, but ... it's mostly "random" clips of television news reports (anti-religious ones, of course), Christian television shows, Christian commercials (including a super creepy anti abortion ad with "the termintor" shooting a little child in the head!), sermons... I mean, it's the whole 9 yards, literally EVERYTHING -- EVERYTHING -- you would ever want in something like this. I mean, wow, I just can't d othis justice, 10 minutes of footage covers like 30 commercials and 40 random weird ass clips from crying preachers and stuff... it's just SO absurd, SO ridciulous, SO completely fucking INSANE -- but endlessly watchable and fascinating. And it's downright creepy! I had a million thoughts running through my head after the first viewing. This is on cinemageddon, as well as stumpydisks.com (which is where I bought it a few years ago), and other bootleg sites.. here's a more detailed description:
" the editors of Boston's Zontar magazine painstakingly sat through hours of cable xian programming and news stories to extract the weirdest, scariest, and wackiest bits that make up this classic compilation, one of the all-time great party tapes. Watch a rapping pirate puppet, revelation doomsayers, airbrushed pulpit bullshit artists, scumbag shysters begging for cash, Illuminati/CFR conspiracies, bizarre new-age organizations, plus a big section covering the most embarrassing moments of Robertson, the Bakers, Oral Roberts, and Swaggart (his famous, teary post-hooker confession; just simultaneously beautiful and horrifying to watch). If christianity is starting to look appealing in your old age, watch this tape for a shock back to reality."
...another one, closely related, I reccomend on cinemageddon is "FIRST FAMILY OF SATANISM, which is a 2 hour interview with lavey's daughter and her husband, and they just rant and rant and rant about Satanism. Finally, SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, the lavey documentary made by lavey, is brilliant as well.
I LOVE documentaries, and there are TONS of great ones on torrent sites, most of which have never come out on DVD for some reason. Hope this list was useful to someone.