Kurt Cobain – About a Son

An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana." In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life - from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame - and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations heard in the film have never before been made public and they reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood.

Roger & Me

Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film directed by Michael Moore. With sarcasm and irony, Moore portrays the regional negative economic impact of the late General Motors CEO Roger Smith's summary action of closing several auto plants in Flint, Michigan, costing 30,000 people their jobs (eventually 80,000 to date) and economically devastating the city.

American Movie

Mark Borchardt is a scruffy, eccentric, blue-collar, beer drinking movie-lover whose dream is to be a filmmaker. However, his life is beset with personal problems: he is a high school dropout who works odd-jobs delivering newspapers and cleaning the local cemetery, he has many debts, he has a strained relationship with an ex-girlfriend and three children by her, and he appears to have the beginnings of a drinking problem. In the film's voiceover opening, he explains that he was a failure and has dreams of accomplishing more with his life. In his own words: "It's not about making films or in the long-run getting some money...but to create and complete."

An Emasculating Truth

According to the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, testosterone is declining in American men at the alarming rate of one percent a year. But why? That’s what Casey Neistat and Oscar Boyson sought to uncover in their film An Emasculating Truth. Ultimately, the short film goes beyond this question to further the current dialogue about today’s definition of masculinity in light of changing gender roles. Boyson, the film’s producer and on camera emcee, came to some very personal conclusions about what it means to be a man today, turning the camera on himself and asking the question ‘what does it mean to be a man?’

An Emasculating Truth from Emasculating Truth on Vimeo.

Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, with Susan Froemke, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer. The film depicts the everyday lives of the two Edith Beales, a reclusive socialite mother and daughter of the same name who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in the wealthy Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, New York.


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Submission

The film tells the story of four fictional characters played by a single actress wearing a veil,^[ but clad in a see-through chador, her naked body painted with verses from the Quran. The characters are Muslim women who have been abused in various ways. The film contains monologues of these women and dramatically highlights three verses of the Quran, that authorize mistreatment of women, by showing them painted on women’s bodies. On November 2, 2004, Theo van Gogh was assassinated in public by Mohammed Bouyeri, Dutch-Moroccan Muslim with a Dutch passport. A letter, stabbed through and affixed to the body by a dagger, linked the murder to Van Gogh's film and his views regarding Islam. It was addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali and called for a jihad against kafir (Kafir refers to somebody who veils the truth) against America, Europe, and the Netherlands.


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Confessions of a Superhero

The film tells the life story of its four main subjects, all aspiring actors who have very different backgrounds. Dennis grew up in Los Angeles as an orphan, but claims to be the son of Oscar and Tony winning actress Sandy Dennis, though Sandy Dennis's family denies that she had any children. Wenger was a small-town cheerleader before moving to Hollywood to become an actress. McQueen moved to Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots and was homeless for four years before becoming the Hulk, and achieves the most success of any of the subjects in the film, winning a small role in Justin Lin's Finishing the Game. Allen claims to be a former mobster with a murderous past, though his wife casts doubts on his stories in the film.

Links:

Confessions of a Superhero from Brian on Veehd.

Religulous

Religulous is a 2008 American comedy/political film written by and starring political comedian Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles. A range of views on the various world religions are explored as Bill Maher travels to numerous religious destinations, such as Jerusalem, the Vatican, and Salt Lake City, interviewing believers from a variety of backgrounds and groups, including a former member of Jews for Jesus, Christians, Muslims, former Mormons, and Hasidic Jews.

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Meeting People Is Easy

Meeting People Is Easy takes place during the promotion of Radiohead's 1997 release OK Computer, containing a collage of video clips, sound bites, and dialogue going behind the scenes with the band on their world tour, showing the eventual burn-out of the group as the world tour progresses.Unlike other music documentaries, the film does not focus on the band's friendship with one another, families, or anything else outside the direct production, promotion and touring of a record. Most of the film contains footage consisting of music writing, concerts, promotional material, and abstract video footage.

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Van Diemen's Land

While not strictly a documentary by any means- The film is based on the story of Alexander Pearce. Who Led a group of transported convicts into the Tasmanian wilderness in hopes of reaching the settlements to the east. Their enthusiasm and bravado soon give way to hunger, which saps their strength and causes them to despair. Former urban dwellers, the English, Irish and Scottish convicts realise that not only are lost, but they do not even know how to hunt or fish. They eventually resort to cannibalism, killing and eating the weakest members of the group to survive.

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Man With A Movie Camera

Man with a movie camera is an experimental 1929 silent documentary film, with no story and no actors, by Russian director Dziga Vertov, edited by his wife Elizaveta Svilova who helped with the process of deleting and adding new frames into the film. Vertov's feature film, produced by the Ukrainian film studio VUFKU, presents urban life in Odessa and other Soviet cities. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have "characters," they are the cameraman of the title and the modern Soviet Union he discovers and presents in the film. Keep in mind this was a silent film and as such the link below has an added soundtrack so it is best to turn off your speakers to immerse yourself visually.

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The Thin Blue Line

Another hard to track down film: The Thin Blue Line is a 1988 documentary film about Randall Dale Adams, a man convicted and sentenced to die for a murder he did not commit. Adams' case was reviewed and he was released from prison approximately a year after the film's release. Probably one of the best documentaries ever made, From the same director of Gates of Heaven- Errol Morris
Enjoy!

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Stop Making Sense

Stop Making Sense (1984) is a concert movie featuring Talking Heads live on stage. Directed by Jonathan Demme, it was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 1983, as the group was touring to promote their new album Speaking in Tongues.

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talking heads - stop making sense (1984) from RobinBanks on Veehd.

The Bridge

The Bridge focuses on the large number of suicides that occur each year at the Golden Gate Bridge, capturing footage of the suicides and interviewing family members. Also interviewed are people who have attempted suicide at the bridge, witnesses of the suicides, and a jump survivor.
The movie was shot with multiple cameras pointed at a notorious suicide spot on the bridge during 2004. It captured 23 people as they took their final plunge, and then offers interviews with grieving families.
The most prominent suicide victim is that of Gene Sprague who is seen as a motif running throughout the entire film. Steel filmed him for 90 minutes as he walked up and down the bridge before he stood on the rail and fell backwards into the water.

Gates Of Heaven + Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Here is one that was so hard to find/dig up (no pun intended) that I was shocked when I found it. Gates of Heaven is a 1978 documentary film by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. The film, like Morris' other works, is unnarrated and the stories are told purely through interviews. It is divided into two main sections. The first concerns Floyd "Mac" McClure and his lifelong quest to allow pets to have a graceful burial. McClure's business associates and his competitor, a manager of a rendering plant, are interviewed. Eventually the business fails and the 450 animals have to be dug up and transported to the Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park. This operation is run by John "Cal" Harberts and his two sons. This business is far more successful, and continues to operate today, run by Cal's son Dan Harberts.
Noted director Werner Herzog pledged that he would eat the shoe he was wearing if Morris' film on this improbable subject was completed and shown in a public theater. When the film was released Herzog lived up to his wager and the consumption of his footwear was made into the short film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe- I provided the link to this as well below.
Enjoy!

Gates Of Heaven


Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

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Salesman (1968)

The documentary follows four salesmen as they travel across New England and Florida trying to sell expensive Bibles door-to-door in low-income neighborhoods. The film focuses in particular on the struggles of salesman Paul Brennan, an old Irish Catholic from Boston who struggles to keep up his sales.

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the OZ

Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the OZ is the pairing of the 1973 Pink Floyd music album The Dark Side of the Moon with the visual portion of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. This produces moments where the film and the album appear to correspond with each other. The title of the music video-like experience comes from a combination of the album title and the film's song "Over the Rainbow". Band members and others involved in the making of the album state that any relationship between the two works of art is merely a coincidence.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a 2007 American documentary film that follows Steve Wiebe as he tries to take the world high score for the arcade game Donkey Kong from reigning champion Billy Mitchell.


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No End in Sight

No End in Sight is a documentary film that focuses on the two year period following the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The film asserts that serious mistakes made by the administration of President George W. Bush during that time were the cause of ensuing problems in Iraq, such as the rise of the insurgency, a lack of security and basic utilities for many Iraqis, sectarian violence and, at one point, the risk of complete civil war.

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Rip! A Remix Manifesto

RiP!: A Remix Manifesto is a 2008 open source documentary film about the "the changing concept of copyright" directed by Brett Gaylor.
Created over a period of six years, the documentary film features the collaborative remix work of hundreds of people who have contributed to the Open Source Cinema website, helping to create the "world's first open source documentary" as Gaylor put it. The project's working title was Basement Tapes, (probably referring to the album of the same name) but it was renamed RiP!: A Remix Manifesto prior to theatrical release. Gaylor encourages more people to create their own remixes from this movie, using media available from the Open Source Cinema website, or other websites like YouTube, Flickr, Hulu or MySpace.

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance, is a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke. The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living".[6] The film is the first in the Qatsi trilogy of films: it is followed by Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002). The trilogy depicts different aspects of the relationship between humans, nature, and technology.

Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation

Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation, is the 1988 sequel to the experimental 1982 documentary film Koyaanisqatsi, by Godfrey Reggio. It is the second film in the Qatsi trilogy.
Powaqqatsi is a Hopi word meaning "parasitic way of life" or "life in transition". While Koyaanisqatsi focused on modern life in industrial countries, Powaqqatsi, which similarly has no dialogue, focuses more on the conflict in third world countries between traditional ways of life and the new ways of life introduced with industrialization. As with Koyaanisqatsi and the third and final part of the 'Qatsi' trilogy, Naqoyqatsi, the film is strongly related to its soundtrack, written by Philip Glass.

powaqqatsi (1998) from RobinBanks on Veehd.

Naqoyqatsi: Life as War

Naqoyqatsi: Life as War, is a documentary film released in 2002; it is the third and final film of the Qatsi trilogy by Godfrey Reggio. The film focuses on society's transition from a natural environment to a technology-based industrial environment. Koyaanisqatsi, the first of the "Qatsi" films, was released in 1983. The second, Powaqqatsi, was released in 1988.

naqoyqasti (2002) from RobinBanks on Veehd.

Art & Copy

This documentary reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time -- people who've profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry.

The Elegant Universe

Beginning with a brief consideration of classical physics, which concentrates on the major conflicts in physics, Greene establishes a historical context for string theory as a necessary means of integrating the probabilistic world of the standard model of particle physics and the deterministic Newtonian physics of the macroscopic world. Greene discusses the essential problem facing modern physics: unification of Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Greene suggests that string theory is the solution to these two conflicting approaches. Greene frequently uses analogies and thought experiments to provide a means for the layman to come to terms with the theory which has the potential to create a unified theory of physics.
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The Fog of War

Using archival footage, United States Cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the eighty-five-year-old Robert McNamara, The Fog of War depicts his life, from his birth during the First World War remembering the time American troops returned from Europe, to working as a WWII Whiz Kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to his being employed as Secretary of Defense and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to managing the American Vietnam War, as defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson — emphasizing the war's brutality under their regimes, and how he was hired as secretary of defense, despite limited military experience.

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Amazon

Processed People

"Two hundred million Americans are overweight and 100 million are obese. More than 75 million Americans have high blood pressure. 24 million people are diabetic. Heart disease remains the No. 1 cause of death for men and women, followed by stroke and obesity-related cancers. Obesity is about to overtake tobacco as the No. 1 cause of preventable deaths in the United States."- http://www.processedpeople.com/

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XTShare


Amazon
Processed People - The Documentary

The September Issue

A documentary chronicling Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour's preparations for the 2007 fall-fashion issue.

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Amazon
The September Issue

More Than a Game

This documentary follows NBA superstar LeBron James and four of his talented teammates through the trials and tribulations of high school basketball in Ohio and James' journey to fame.

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Amazon
More Than a Game

The Botany of Desire

Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration of the human relationship with the plant world -- seen from the plants' point of view. Narrated by Frances McDormand, the program shows how four familiar species -- the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato -- evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control.

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Amazon
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-eye View of the World

Big River Man

Follows Martin Strel as he attempts to cover 3,375 miles of the Amazon River in what is being billed as the world's longest swim.

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Amazon
Big River Man (2009) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2.4 Import - Australia ]

The Yes Men Fix The World

Troublemaking duo Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, posing as their industrious alter-egos, expose the people profiting from Hurricane Katrina, the faces behind the environmental disaster in Bhopal, and other shocking events.

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Amazon
Yes Men Fix the World

Capitalism A Love Story

On the 20-year anniversary of his groundbreaking masterpiece Roger & Me, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world). But this time the culprit is much bigger than General Motors, and the crime scene far wider than Flint, Michigan. From Middle America, to the halls of power in Washington, to the global financial epicenter in Manhattan, Michael Moore will once again take film goers into uncharted territory. With both humor and outrage, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story explores a taboo question: What is the price that America pays for its love of capitalism? Years ago, that love seemed so innocent. Today, however, the American dream is looking more like a nightmare as families pay the price with their jobs, their homes and their savings. Moore takes us into the homes of ordinary people whose lives have been turned upside down; and he goes looking for explanations in Washington, DC and elsewhere. What he finds are the all-too-familiar symptoms of a love affair gone astray: lies, abuse, betrayal...and 14,000 jobs being lost every day. Capitalism: A Love Story is both a culmination of Moore's previous works and a look into what a more hopeful future could look like. It is Michael Moore's ultimate quest to answer the question he's posed throughout his illustrious filmmaking career: Who are we and why do we behave the way that we do?

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Vidreel


Amazon
Capitalism: A Love Story