If you liked Restrepo then you'll like this documentary that follows the British Marines in the Helmand Province Afghanistan in 2006. 8 of a must. This documentary takes you 'into' the rubble. It's only 58:58 I've never really seen the British side of the war in Afghanistan and this movie does a good job of presenting it. There's even laughter in the movie at 30:55 when the Marines are in a fire fight and one of the Afgan Army guy Jumps out on the roof and starts firing at the Taliban, and no sooner than he's 'in the open' do the bad guys return fire and shoot thefrickingmagazine OFF his gun. And he laughs about it! As does the Marine that shooting this home video. Then at 32:00, it's like......GoNE. And can you imagine being that marine at 50:00! This could have ended very very badly for this marine if he would have been in close combat. I'm sure when it happened......his heart STOP!

Here's a few links that will get you up to date on the 'happenings' as of late. http://www.daylife.com/topic/Helmand_Province (just 1 page)

And this one is picture view of Camp Phoenix (The United States Marine Corp is now homed here.) http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2011/...ince.html#more (another 1 page of scroll pics)

And now, for my feather presentation I give you.......... http://www.free-movie-page.com/watch...le-For-Helmand


And I only ask that, when you get to the end, at the 56ish mark when they start showing those young men. That didn't make it home. Please put their pic on pause and take a good look at these young, strong, brave, forever heros. Just stop and look and try to imagine what type of person he was, wonder what it is he wanted to do with life, Did he have a family? Does he know he (or she) is loved by soooooooooooooooooo many people and that he or she is a Hero Forever?

This is a really good movie and i'm bout ta watch it again.

Also, I got into "Ben Diary of a Heroin Addict". This is self filmed and wow....it was a real shame that Ben couldn't see the very thing he wanted us to see. Him dying. Him killing himself. If Ben would have only realized earlier that the path he was on could only end in destruction. This movie shows the effects that an addict in the family can have upon those around them.

And a few mins past the part where Ben's father says, "Ben, you have to stop this, I can't afford it"....... what does Ben's father then do, drives him around town so he can get his fix on. So, they failed Ben almost as much as Ben fails himself.

I would have handled things differently but,.....that's them. (the mom and dad i mean)

I'll watch again.

any of you words with friends or scrabble players will enjoy "Word Wars" I saw it a long time ago i think i'm going to re watch it. Send me a pm with your words with friends username if you want to have a match.
trailer link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL4Uf...eature=related


Here's a scrabble video i just stumbled upon, it's 60 minutes long http://scrabble.wonderhowto.com/foru...umentary-1224/

Have run out of tv shows to marathon, and good movies to watch so am now focusing on documentaries. Was pointed in the direction of this thread for recommendations and from what I've read so far is a great source.

So far have watched (before getting here) :

- Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S Thompson

Really enjoyed it. Didn't know much about the man other then he was responsible for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Highly recommend.

- Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke

A very good look at the personal suffering of and plights of those affected by Katrina. Quite a bit of racial bias via Mr. Lee, be it justified or not. At over 4 hours it got to be a lot of repetition. Still, worth the watch.

- Supersize Me

A guy eats only McD's for a month and gets fat and sick. Big surprise there. Meh, was okay. I guess it probably helped to educate people, but if you didn't already know eating **** food day in and out was bad for you, chances are you're kinda thick to begin with. Watch it if ya want, but no shocking revelations here.

- March of the Penguins

A beautifully shot and powerful story. It is stuff like this that should make us all want to be better people. Seeing what lengths and endurance of hardship our fellow creatures will go to perpetuate the species. A must watch, imo.


- Spellbound

An interesting look into dedication to a goal. For some kids. As well, in some cases, what parents will do to push their kids to extremes for what I think is some kind of vicarious exploiting. Kinda like toddlers and tiaras, except for smart kids. Interesting and worthwhile watch.

- Jesus Camp

There are few words to describe this for me. Other then if you want to see how exploitation of innocence in the name of religion can work, and in this case trying to integrate it with a political agenda, sit back and be fascinated. And maybe appalled.

Have cued up to watch and will report back my thoughts on:

- Capturing the Friedman's
- Enron: the Smartest guys in the Room
- King of Kong
- The Cove
- The Fog of War
- Bastards of the Party
- Cocaine Cowboys
- The Thin Blue Line
- Digi!

Have watched other doc's, for eg, When We Were kings, Anvil: the Story of Anvil, but that was a while ago, not in a marathoning way like I am doing here now.

So thanks for the thread, will be using it for a guide and appreciate people's thoughts and opinions on what they have seen as it helps me decide.

for the first time in a long time i'm going to go see a doc in a movie theater- mostly i use netflix.


Buck

http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/wat...d-winner-buck/

""Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you may not like what you see. Sometimes, you will." Sundance Selects and IFC Films have debuted the official trailer on Apple for Cindy Meehl's Buck, the documentary about real-life "horse whisperer" Buck Brannaman that won the Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year."

-from website


i'll report on it after i see it.

@the same theater soon thereafter- Project Nim will be showing which is (very condensed) about a Chimp in the 70s who was born and placed in an experiment where people wanted to see what would happen if you raised a chimp like a human baby (complete w/ smoking weed with it when it was a teenaged and other odd activities)

looks amazing, director of Nim also did "Man on a Wire" which i'm sure was covered in this thread before.

Am curious if anyone knows a great documentary about something like:

1) Inside the life of a real hacker/genius type person that works for google/microsoft/apple or something like that?

thanks

WWII Behind Closed Doors 5 hour documentary by the BBC is very good.

+1 would be interesting in something like this

i watched Transcendent Man on netflix instant again last night and man is it good. like not only does it follow Ray Kurzweil explaining his vision of the progression of technology and the technological singularity to various people/groups, which to me is fascinating. but they also showcase his dystopian detractors and their own visions of a god-like AI's impact on humanity, as well as Ray's own motivations that are shaping or driving his predictions.

ray's first book published in 1990 predicted computer technology will produce a computer that will beat a human in 1998. deep blue beat kasparov in 1997. in the same book he predicted the fall of the soviet union and the rise of the internet as the world's prime informational and social medium.

ray predicts the technological singularity will occur in 2045.

I can't say I've been as inspired by a documentary as when I recently watched Forks Over Knives, which promotes a plant-based whole foods diet (no animal products nor processed foods) to improve personal health and well-being. That preceding point may seem obvious (or worn) to us all, but when watching the movie the evidence - mainly shared by two renowned U.S. researchers - is overwhelming and very convincing.

The film promotes its message by tracking health improvements in individual case studies of people with heart disease and other ailments who have adopted this diet, in addition to showing all the research evidence that this diet/lifestyle can have powerful results on various health metrics.

It's a lot more than "eat better and you'll feel better." One of the film's experts, for example, calls heart disease (#1 cause of death in U.S.) a "toothless paper tiger that need never exist. And if it does exist, it need never progress. It is a food-borne illness."

If anyone else had a similar viewing experience, I'd be happy to talk more outside this thread about the film and its message. It was truly eye-opening, even when going in to see the movie, I thought I was pretty well-versed on the topic.

movie website
trailer

my fav documentary was this one about russia and tetris

Post this in Health and Fitness and you get a discussion (and possibly raped). You will find some discussion about vegetarian diets (and why they are stupid) there.

Haha, I know what would be coming if I started a thread about it. Honestly I've got a lot of reading and research on my own to do before I enter a larger discussion with others. And there's a lot of, just, noise when these topics are discussed - my primary interest now is as it relates to heart disease for myself and my family.

The movie especially hit home for me because my family has a significant history of heart disease and I'm barreling down the same track. If there's something I can do now to mitigate my risk as I reach middle age (talking diet only here), I'd be foolish not to look into it with an open mind.

There surely has to be something that involves meat.

I havent seen the documentary, but the increase in heart diseases has also to do with the increase in life expectancy. Paired with the fact, that the previous generations all ate meat, I cant be convinced that meat is the weak point here.

What they feed the meat might be though.

Either way, I don't really give a **** to be honest. Just saying that if I were (giving a ****), I'd be pretty disgusted at eating animals that I hadn't raised, fed and killed myself.

Just finished watching "exporting Raymond" and it was quite good. It's about bringing the show Everybody loves Raymond to Russia and the difficulties with relating the typical american family to the typical Russian family

I thought "Exporting Raymond" was quite good also, something like 8/10. I also have seen two recently that haven't been mentioned yet. "Racing Dreams" and "Into Eternity" which were both great imo, both 9+/10. Recently I have been going down the top 100 of rotten tomatoes' documentaries and watching everything I haven't seen. Next up is "I For India".

Forgot to mention that I watched it after reading Daniel Negreanu's tweet where he said he was going to watch it.

Kevin Mitnick is a security consultant now. Pretty sure there are a few documentaries about him.

Favela on Blast by Diplo was awesome.

ive probably seen 10-15 of the documentaries on netflix instant that you guys have recommended with pretty much no complaints (the most gripping and probably best one so far was dear zachary but I could see arguments for restrepo being more powerful)

anyways, can someone recommend me a gripping or shocking crime or conspiracy docs, ive seen most of the big name ones on 9/11 and like cocaine cowboys but any other ones people think I should check out would be appreciated, also there are like 4 or 5 jfk docs on netflix streaming that I want to watch but ide really just rather watch the best one, i was thinking the 2 disc one would probably be the best but im not too sure

I started DVRing "Wonders of the Universe with Brian Cox" after I saw him on Colbert. Terrible. He just wanders all over the earth for no reason and says one vague kind of scienc-y thing every 5 minutes or so. And his cheesy smile and accent really tilt me. "Wondahhhs of the Yoooonivehhs". Ugh.

This is like science for people who hate science, but I guess like to see Brian Cox wax dreamily from every corner of the globe. Most ridiculous analogy: "Imagine the sun is like this abandoned Rio prison..." Not kidding. He even apologizes for being too technical the one time he shows a light spectrum printout that tells us what elements are in a given star.

The only good thing is I actually do like the amazing footage they get of all these beautiful wild places.

Dont know if you can get access to it, but there is a 4 part documentary about the Mafia either by National Geographic or History Channel (I think the former). It's about the history of the Mafia in the US and I think it's the best documentary about the Mafia.

Fat Head
About a guy that tries to lose weight by eating fast food, and while on his journey to doing so finds out a lot of interesting stuff about diabetes, heart disease, cause of obesity, and so on.

I really enjoyed it and felt I learned something, I'll try to watch another raw/whole food docu. just to make sure I'm not being biased. The losing weight part of the diet is quite silly since we all know you can lose weight eating anything as long as calories out > calories in. However his check ups provide interesting results and the information presented a long the way about the food/health industry makes for an interesting watch.

Thingssss can only get betttterrr!!!(he was in the band D ream as well.)
Not a bad series though.