Who Killed the Electric Car? is a documentary that tells the story of the EV1, the first modern electric car that was fast enough to drive on a highway. From Wikipedia: “The EV1 was the first modern production electric vehicle from a major automaker and also the first purpose-built electric car produced by General Motors (GM) in the United States. Introduced in 1996, The EV1 electric cars were available in California and Arizona as a lease only… and could be serviced at designated Saturn retailers. They were discontinued after 1999 and subsequently removed from the roads in 2003 by General Motors (except for a few). The car’s discontinuation was and remains a very controversial topic.” The documentary doesn’t explain much more than the Wikipedia entry, and it leans too much towards a conspiracy theory mentality at times, but it’s worth a look if you’re interested in zero-emission vehicles. I’m holding out as long as I can to buy a car. I’m hoping the Zenn electric car will be highway-worthy and affordable by the time I’m ready to buy.
Lost in La Mancha is a documentary about Terry Gilliam’s first attempt to make a film based on Don Quixote called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. (I say first attempt, because Gilliam plans to start up a new production in 2009.) Nothing I’ve seen captures the insanity of an out-of-control film production better than Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. Lost in La Mancha shows what can happen when you add extremely bad luck to the mix. It’s painful to watch and I’m sure there are plenty of filmmakers out there who know what it’s like. Recommended to anyone who thinks film work is glamorous.
The Blue Planet and Planet Earth are BBC documentary TV series — and they are without question the most spectacular, incredible documentaries about the natural world I have ever seen. They could easily play as a series of films in a theatre — and it would be fantastic. At times it’s like watching science fiction with creatures that seem unreal, landscapes and geological formations even the most imaginative artists couldn’t conceive, and shots of animals up close that turn into wide shots so wide you’d think the camera was fired into orbit. (I would love to work on these kinds of documentaries.) It’s not only a mind-blowing visual feast. It’s informative and dramatic. The narration reveals just enough to make you move in for a closer look — and it may transform your perception of the planet and the natural world. (My comments refer to the original BBC editions, not the US editions narrated by Sigourney “Ripley” Weaver.) I’ve spent plenty of time living on the land away from the noise and pollution of human activity. I’ve been able to feel a connection to natural things that is generally impossible to approach while living in the suburbs or a city. But watching The Blue Planet and Planet Earth comes pretty damn close to it, possibly closer than most people stuck in front of the boob tube will ever get. My highest recommendations.
I’m slowly losing my taste for films about people who do adventurous but stupid things (e.g., Grizzly Man, Into The Wild). Deep Water is a documentary about a guy who enters a competition to sail across the world non-stop by himself, and fails. It’s mostly a sad story and not nearly as gripping as something like Touching the Void, but it’s interesting, especially for viewers who know anything about sailing.
The King of Kong is a documentary about two guys going for a world record in Donkey Kong. One of them, Billy Mitchell, comes off as such a conceited jerk, you want punch him in the nose and knock him down in the mud. It may not be an important documentary, but it presents an engaging story of good vs. evil and it’s entertaining. The editor deserves an award for piecing together a compelling, exciting and entertaining story, just as good — if not better — than most dramatic feature films. I couldn’t believe the people in it are real. I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that they’re all actors and the whole story was scripted. But it’s all real. And thus surreal.
Sketches of Frank Gehry is a documentary directed by Sydney Pollack about Frank Gehry, an architect famous for designing buildings that look like things you’d see in an art gallery and wonder, “What the hell is this supposed to be?” It’s a straightforward telling of how and why he became an architect. A portrait of an artist / architect. Interesting to see how he works.
In Rescue Dawn, Christian Bale tries to escape from a Viet Cong prison camp in this by-the-numbers P.O.W. movie directed by Werner Herzog. Although based on a true story, it’s pretty light stuff compared to something like The Deer Hunter. The documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, also directed by Herzog, presents a slightly more compelling take on the story. Both films are interesting but seem emotionally cold and less affective than they could be.
In Quest for Fire, a group of Paleolithic humanoids travel across dangerous country in search of fire. Along the way they meet up with a sabre-toothed tiger, woolly mammoths, cannibals and a more technologically advanced species (homo sapiens). The story is compelling and entertaining — and probably the most accurate depiction of early humans on film. Watching Quest for Fire is like jumping into a time machine. It’s fascinating.
The Take is a sometimes moving documentary with Naomi Klein about workers taking over abandoned factories in Argentina. Interesting bonus features too. It’s amazing what national banks and corporations can get away. Some people are really getting screwed by globalization.
The camel is in the Gobi Desert and the people in the film are the real nomads who live there, though it’s fiction. The Story of the Weeping Camel is interesting as a document of their way of life, though it may have been more compelling — and more accessible — as a straightforward documentary.
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse is a documentary about the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Coppola fired his lead actor after several weeks of shooting, his replacement lead actor had a heart attack half way through the 238-day shoot, hurricanes destroyed his sets, army helicopters were called away in the middle of hugely expensive shots, and he didn’t have an ending. Good times!
Burden of Dreams is more than just the making of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. After Hearts of Darkness, there may be no better film that documents the inherent insanity of shooting a film on location (especially when that location is a hot, sticky, dirty jungle). Herzog says, “We have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.” Okay.
Michael Moore is not the most honest reporter of the facts, but at least he knows how to tell a story that makes you ask important questions, this time about how American health care is completely %$#@! There are few surprises in Sicko, but it’s worth watching as a reminder that medical care for profit is evil.
Wordplay is a documentary about people who do crossword puzzles which at times is so bizarre it seems like a mockumentary. The celebrity interviews are unnecessary (Jon Stewart’s is particularly annoying), but the regular crossword puzzle geeks, who think quite highly of what they do, are interesting and fun to watch.
Tell Them Who You Are is a documentary about Academy Award winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler — directed by his son. (I was surprised to discover that Wexler is slightly colourblind like me. He said he works more with the tone of light than its actual colour, which is exactly how I perceive light too.) The exploration of the father-son relationship is a jumbled mess of interviews and footage that goes nowhere.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a documentary about a mentally unbalanced guy who can’t play or sing worth a damn, but is a brilliant songwriter. His music may be hard to take (I wouldn’t want to listen to him sing for more than 5 minutes), but the film is a well-told story of the relationship between creativity and mental illness.
Dark Days is a fascinating documentary about a group of homeless people who live underground in abandoned subway tunnels in New York City, and shot entirely on film by someone with no previous film experience. It is one of the most incredible achievements in filmmaking I’ve ever seen. Be sure to watch the “making of” bonus material too. Documentaries don’t get much better than this.
Zelig is Woody Allen’s mockumentary about a man who goes to extraordinary lengths to fit in with the crowd is both funny and technically brilliant. It looks exactly like an old news reel documentary. Mixed with commentary from contemporary figures like Saul Bellow and Susan Sontag, it feels completely authentic. Weird.
You might not need to see this movie about the plane that was hijacked and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania on September 11th, 2001. But after watching United 93, I felt closer to the events of that day than I did when they actually happened. I don’t know if I’ll ever watch it again, but I’m glad I saw it.
I know An Inconvenient Truth isn’t really a movie. It’s a message about global warming and the end of the world in the form of a presentation given by Al Gore. But it’s solid science and it’s still worth watching — even if you think you already know everything about global warming. My only criticism: It was a mistake having a politician present the information. (My brother wrote a post about it too.)
Who Killed the Electric Car? is a documentary that tells the story of the EV1, the first modern electric car that was fast enough to drive on a highway. From Wikipedia: “The EV1 was the first modern production electric vehicle from a major automaker and also the first purpose-built electric car produced by General Motors (GM) in the United States. Introduced in 1996, The EV1 electric cars were available in California and Arizona as a lease only… and could be serviced at designated Saturn retailers. They were discontinued after 1999 and subsequently removed from the roads in 2003 by General Motors (except for a few). The car’s discontinuation was and remains a very controversial topic.” The documentary doesn’t explain much more than the Wikipedia entry, and it leans too much towards a conspiracy theory mentality at times, but it’s worth a look if you’re interested in zero-emission vehicles. I’m holding out as long as I can to buy a car. I’m hoping the Zenn electric car will be highway-worthy and affordable by the time I’m ready to buy.
At times it’s like watching science fiction with creatures that seem unreal, landscapes and geological formations even the most imaginative artists couldn’t conceive, and shots of animals up close that turn into wide shots so wide you’d think the camera was fired into orbit. (I would love to work on these kinds of documentaries.) It’s not only a mind-blowing visual feast. It’s informative and dramatic. The narration reveals just enough to make you move in for a closer look — and it may transform your perception of the planet and the natural world. (My comments refer to the original BBC editions, not the US editions narrated by Sigourney “Ripley” Weaver.) I’ve spent plenty of time living on the land away from the noise and pollution of human activity. I’ve been able to feel a connection to natural things that is generally impossible to approach while living in the suburbs or a city. But watching The Blue Planet and Planet Earth comes pretty damn close to it, possibly closer than most people stuck in front of the boob tube will ever get. My highest recommendations.
