P&N's Film, Video & Documentary Thread

Genial! Gracias!

Mike Daisey - Kill the Corporation!



From the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas, 2011 Sydney

MIKE DAISEY has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections. His latest work, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, was called “the best new play of the year” by the Washington Post, and was recognized as one of the year’s best theater pieces by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and will return to the Public Theater in 2012.

C-SPAN Interview with Mike Daisey (from April 25 2011)



Their guest is monologist Mike Daisey, whose latest work is "The Agony and The Ectasy of Steve Jobs."
Topics include Apple, Steve Jobs, FoxConn, China, Corporatism, The Iraq War and 9/11.


Also... click to listen to Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory on This American Life (thanks to Chrisfromvegas for the link).

PBS two-part, four-hour documentary "Clinton"



For those who can't wait, PBS has made the first part of the documentary available on its website here.

Coming to PBS beginning Monday, Feb. 20. From draft dodging to the Dayton Accords, from Monica Lewinsky to a balanced budget, the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton veered between sordid scandal and grand achievement. In CLINTON, the latest installment in the critically acclaimed and successful series of presidential biographies, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE explores the fascinating story of an American president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage. It recounts a career full of accomplishment and rife with scandal, a marriage that would make history and create controversy and a presidency that would define the crucial and transformative period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11. It follows Clinton across his two terms as he confronted some of the key forces that would shape the future, including partisan political warfare and domestic and international terrorism, and struggled, with uneven success, to define the role of American power in a post-Cold War world. Most memorably, it explores how Clinton's conflicted character made history, even as it enraged his enemies and confounded his friends. The program features unprecedented access to scores of Clinton insiders including White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta and Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, as well as interviews with foreign leaders, members of the Republican opposition, childhood friends, staffers from Clinton's years as governor of Arkansas, biographers and journalists.

84th Academy Awards - Documentary Nominees

Sunday, Feb 26 - 7 est


THE 2011 NOMINEES ARE:

Documentary (Feature)

• “Hell and Back Again” - Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
• “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front” - Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
• “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” - Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky
• “Pina” - Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
• “Undefeated” - TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Rich Middlemas

Documentary (Short Subject)

• “The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement” - Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin
• “God Is the Bigger Elvis” - Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson
• “Incident in New Baghdad” – James Spione
• “Saving Face” - Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
• “The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom” - Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen

Professor Brian Cox: A Night with the Stars



For one night only, Professor Brian Cox goes unplugged in a specially recorded programme from the lecture theatre of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

In his own inimitable style, Brian takes an audience of famous faces, scientists and members of the public on a journey through some of the most challenging concepts in physics.

With the help of Jonathan Ross, Simon Pegg, Sarah Millican and James May, Brian shows how diamonds – the hardest material in nature – are made up of nothingness; how things can be in an infinite number of places at once; why everything we see or touch in the universe exists; and how a diamond in the heart of London is in communication with the largest diamond in the cosmos.

First Kill

















What is the psychology of war? Do soldiers become murderers when they enjoy killing? Is war beautiful? Are all humans capable of monstrous acts?

First Kill examines these and other questions, as it explores what war does to the human mind and soul.
Interviews with several Vietnam veterans evoke the contradictory feelings that killing produces – fear, hate, seduction and pleasure.

First Kill also includes a discussion with Michael Herr, the former war correspondent who wrote the screenplays to Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket, and wrote Dispatches, the best and most important book about the experiences of the combat soldier in the Vietnam War.

Animated GIFS: Birth of a Medium



GIFs are one of the oldest image formats used on the web. Throughout their history, they have served a huge variety of purposes, from functional to entertainment. Now, 25 years after the first GIF was created, they are experiencing an explosion of interest and innovation that is pushing them into the terrain of art. The film charts their history, explores the hotbed of GIF creativity on Tumblr, and talks to two teams of GIF artists who are evolving the form into powerful new visual experiences.

David Blaine: How I held my breath for 17 min




In this highly personal talk from TEDMED, magician and stuntman David Blaine describes what it took to hold his breath underwater for 17 minutes -- a world record (only two minutes shorter than this entire talk!) -- and what his often death-defying work means to him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=mcjD0yAT-go&vq=medium

Haven't been following this thread, and these aren't political, but just watched:

"Crumb"

Considered "the father of underground comics"

"Crumb" 1994 documentary film....

Want to know more about Robert Crumb?

and "Such Hawks, Such Hounds":

RIP, Ray Bradbury

Thank you for all of your brilliant stories. You will be greatly missed.

August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012

An Evening with Ray Bradbury

On November 17, 2004, Bradbury was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts,

presented by President George W. Bush and Laura Bush.

Chalmers Johnson - The Coming End Of The American Empire

Historian and essayist Chalmers Johnson argues that unless we face up to the tremendous strain our empire is having on America, we will lose our democracy, and then it will not matter much what else we lose. This talk was given in Los Angeles, April 2, 2004.

















Chalmers Johnson believed that the enforcement of American hegemony over the world constitutes a new form of global empire. Whereas traditional empires maintained control over subject peoples via colonies, since World War II the US has developed a vast system of hundreds of military bases around the world where it has strategic interests. A long-time Cold Warrior, he applauded the dissolution of the Soviet Union: "I was a cold warrior. There's no doubt about that. I believed the Soviet Union was a genuine menace. I still think so." But at the same time he experienced a political awakening after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, noting that instead of demobilizing its armed forces, the US accelerated its reliance on military solutions to problems both economic and political. The result of this militarism (as distinct from actual domestic defense) is more terrorism against the US and its allies, the loss of core democratic values at home, and an eventual disaster for the American economy. Of four books he wrote on this topic, the first three are referred to as The Blowback Trilogy.

Jelly, I just skimmed your thread here fo the first time. Very very good work there is alot of GREAT stuff in here.

Thanks mcopley. Sorry the early parts of the thread are a mess now. Many of the links were broken when Mutt converted the site. I can't edit the old posts and I've tried to get access from him so they can be fixed, but his plate seems to be full. It hasn't motivated me to keep adding new stuff but maybe I'll get back to it one of these days...

New Sept. 11 Documentaries on Cable

The most worthwhile of the programs:

9/11 Emergency Room - Mon 8pm & 11 pm EST on TLC
The 9/11 Surfer - Tues 8 pm EST on Discovery

“Emergency Room” counters the popular conception of medical care on Sept. 11 — doctors waiting at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village for patients who never arrived — with the story of New York Downtown Hospital, which was overrun with victims from inside and outside the towers.

Doctors and nurses recall the all-hands-on-deck response as they treated the onslaught of burns, fractures and, internal injuries, with the hospital’s cafeteria turned into an impromptu triage center. Photos and videos capture the maelstrom, including the minutes when dust from the collapse of the south tower, just 600 yards away, turned the emergency room pitch dark.

“The 9/11 Surfer” is the most tightly focused of the specials, looking for the truth behind a particular Sept. 11 legend, the story that a man on the 86th floor of the north tower when it collapsed had survived by “surfing” down with the debris. The film replays the TV news accounts that propagated the tale, then circles back to its origins in the sufficiently amazing, not widely known story of a Port Authority employee named Pasquale Buzzelli.

Found by two firefighters sitting atop a seven-story pile of burning rubble, Mr. Buzzelli recalled being on the 22nd floor when the building came down. Experts disagree on the probabilities, but the soft-spoken Mr. Buzzelli is persuasive, and the videos of his late-night homecoming on Sept. 11, and his reunions in later years with the firefighters who rescued him, are irresistible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/arts/television/new-sept-11-documentaries-on-cable.html?_r=1

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1559549/



Restrepo

2016:Obama's America,full lenght here:
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2012/09/obamas-america-2016-dinesh-dsouza-film.html

Bomb Patrol Afganistan







Storyline

This documentary follows the Afghan mission of the U.S Navy's Ordinance Disposal Mobile Unit during their deployment in 2011, hunting down IEDs and disposing or detonating them. All of their missions included a camera crew, which became an integral part of the mission on several occasions. W

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2094783/

Last Train Home (Emmy nominee for Best Documentary; won Best Documentary and Outstanding Business and Economic Reporting - Long Form)

View full documentary (running time 1hr 25 min)
http://www.pbs.org/pov/lasttrainhome/full.php


Trailer


20 minute excerpt


Every spring, China's cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year in the world's largest human migration. Last Train Home takes viewers on a heart-stopping journey with the Zhangs, a couple who left infant children behind for factory jobs 16 years ago, hoping their wages would lift their children to a better life. They return to a family growing distant and a daughter longing to leave school for unskilled work. As the Zhangs navigate their new world, Last Train Home paints a rich, human portrait of China's rush to economic development.

Last Train Home will be streaming in its entirety through Oct. 27, 2011.

Better This World (Emmy nominee for Best Documentary)

The story of two men who were accused of intending to firebomb the 2008 Republican National Convention, is a dramatic tale of idealism, loyalty, crime and betrayal.

View full documentary (running time 1 hour, 27 min)
http://www.pbs.org/pov/betterthisworld/full.php

Trailer



Better This World follows the radicalization of these boyhood friends from Midland, Texas, under the tutelage of revolutionary activist Brandon Darby. The results: eight homemade bombs, multiple domestic terrorism charges and a high-stakes entrapment defense hinging on the actions of a controversial FBI informant. Better This World goes to the heart of the war on terror and its impact on civil liberties and political dissent in post-9/11 America.

Armadillo (Emmy nominee for Best Documentary; won the Outstanding Editing -Documentary and Long Form category)
Winner of the International Critics' Week "Grand Prize" at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

A platoon of Danish soldiers fight the Taliban at Armadillo, a combat operations base in southern Afghanistan.

View full documentary (running time 1 hour, 27 min)
http://www.pbs.org/pov/armadillo/full.php

Trailer


In 2009, Janus Metz and cameraman Lars Skree accompanied a platoon of Danish soldiers to Armadillo, a combat operations base in southern Afghanistan. For six months, often while under fire, they captured the lives of the young soldiers fighting the Taliban in a hostile and confusing environment, where official rhetoric about helping civilians too often met the unforgiving reality of being a foreign occupier. Winner of the Critics' Week Grand Prix at Cannes, Armadillo is one of the most dramatic and candid accounts of combat to come out of Afghanistan.

Enemies of the People (Emmy nominee for Best Documentary; won the Outstanding Investigative Journalism- Long Form category)

The Khmer Rouge slaughtered nearly two million people in the late 1970s. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain largely unexplained. Until now.

View full documentary (running time 1 hour, 25 min)
http://www.pbs.org/pov/enemies/full.php

Trailer


The Khmer Rouge slaughtered nearly two million people in the late 1970s. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain largely unexplained. Until now. Enter Thet Sambath, an unassuming, yet cunning, investigative journalist who lost his family in the conflict and spends a decade gaining the trust of the men and women who perpetrated the massacres. From the foot soldiers who slit throats to Pol Pot's right-hand man, the notorious Brother Number Two, Sambath and co-director Rob Lemkin record shocking testimony never before seen or heard, in Enemies of the People.

The Choice 2012 (PBS)

Tuesday, October 9, 2012, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET (PBS - check local listings)



Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have crafted their campaign narratives, telling you who they are, what they've done, and how they would lead America.

But there’s more to their stories.

On October 9, 2012, acclaimed FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Money, Power and Wall Street, Top Secret America) presents The Choice 2012. This two-hour long documentary journeys into the places, people, and decisive moments that made the men who are competing for the presidency. Hundreds of hours of research and dozens of original interviews reveal new details and fresh insights about the two candidates — and our choice this November.

Guns, Drug and Mormons