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Documentary Thread #2


Egg Shen

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12 hours ago, waters44 said:

There is a new Sky Documentaries channel now. It’s channel 277 on Virgin, 114 on Sky. They are showing Honeyland and The Amazing Jonathan Documentary back to back Saturday night - I haven’t seen either but heard great things about them. 

I've just had a look through the On Demand stuff and there's some really great stuff on there. Bunch of classics and a load of others I have been meaning to watch for ages which is great. Just about to start McMillions.

The other day I watched There's Something Is Wrong With Aunt Diane which on paper could have been great but never really quite hits it and ends quite frustratingly. They could have saved a lot of time by just saying "I guess we'll never really know" instead of wasting everyone's time with the film.

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Honeyland was a fantastic watch. Thanks for the recommendation.

I've watched all of McMillions which probably didn't need to be quite as long as it was, but still a pretty fun watch.

Recorded The Imposter and The Amazing Johnathan.

It's a good documentary week.

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5 hours ago, Thunderplex said:

The Amazing Jonathan Documentary Was good.  Not what I expected it to be, and I won’t throw any spoilers in, but it was good.

I really loved it. As you say, certainly not what anyone expects going into it, but had a really compelling story. Quite emotional in places but funny too.

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Spelling The Dream (Netflix)

This is a very decent documentary about American Spelling Bee competitions and focusing on the Indian-American children that excel at them, and have dominated them in the recent past.

Not as good as Spellbound (which could be in a top 10 docs of all time to be honest), but it's still a very moving interesting documentary.

Features a 7 year old spelling a 45 letter word, the little show off.

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Saw that last year at the BFI as part of London Film Festival. My gf is a massive fan of Showgirls, and I am a massive fan of Paul Verhoeven, if not specifically that film. The doc is a very good watch, I came out of it feeling quite sorry for Jessie Spanno. Probably not enough analysis of the mental pool sex scene, but then how could there be? 

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I watched "Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombings" documentary on Sky last night and it was absolutely horrific.

I know the documentary is a few years old but it was an incredibly graphic, heart breaking yet hopeful account of what happened and how the survivors have battled through hundreds of surgeries and adapting to a new normal.

Worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

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Rocketman: Mad Mike's Mission to Prove the Earth Flat:

Was aware of Mad Mike due to his launches being shares virally on social media but this is the story of him preparing for a homemade rocket launch in 2018. If you like quirky stories with an eccentric cast of characters you'll probably enjoy this. If you didn't know any better you'd think it were a mockumentary, endlessly quotable, funny and quite sad and inspring at times. Mad Mike you crazy bastard. It's free with Amazon Prime.

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Next Goal Wins

Even though I'm not a football fan, I really enjoyed this doc on the American Samoa national football team's attempt to qualify for the 2014 World Cup. They're at the bottom of the FIFA rankings and haven't won a game in the teams 17 year history, and you really get behind them by the end to not only win a game but to at least score a goal.

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6 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

Next Goal Wins

Even though I'm not a football fan, I really enjoyed this doc on the American Samoa national football team's attempt to qualify for the 2014 World Cup. They're at the bottom of the FIFA rankings and haven't won a game in the teams 17 year history, and you really get behind them by the end to not only win a game but to at least score a goal.

One of my favourite documentaries of all time. Being made into a feature film by Taika Waititi, with Michael Fassbender playing Thomas Rongen :)

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Live Aid: Rockin' All Over the World (2005)

The Beeb repeated this over the past two nights and it's now up on the Player.  I can't remember if I watched it when it first aired but this is an excellent insight into what led to and was involved in putting on Live Aid.  It's three hours, so is a long watch, although if you are interested in the subject matter or just want to learn about what was a once in a lifetime event it's well worth it.  Tons of interviews from performers as well as those involved on putting the event on, some great stories (the likes of McCartney and Robert Plant don't come out of it well, while someone like David Bowie, who you may thinks has every right to have an ego has nothing of the sort, and Alison Moyet has a really funny tale about him) and it's pretty incredible that not only they pulled the event off but looking back at the footage with all the people there.

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