Documentary Challenge (Official, December 2019)

[Coryn]

Goal
Watch as many documentaries as you can through December.

Usual Rules
- Rewatches allowed
- A feature film (Anything 40 minutes or over) counts as one entry
- A total of 60 minutes of short films counts as one entry
- For TV & Mini-Series (40 minute episodes or longer), each episode counts as an entry
- For TV & Mini-Series with shorter episodes, the 60 minute rule applies

Challenge runs from December 1st, 2019 - December 31st, 2019

Official Documentary Lists
100 Documentary Films (BFI Screen Guide)
IMDb Documentary
Harvard University's Suggested Film Viewing List: Non-Fiction Films (2012)
Sight and Sound -The Greatest Documentaries of All Time


Documentaries on Any Official List

Rank	Participant	Count
1	flavo5000	158
2	maxwelldeux	119
3	jeroeno	100
4	72aicm	85
5	PUNQ	68
6	sebby	60
7	weirdboy	52
8	jdidaco	42
9	allisoncm	41
10	klaus78	38
11	vortexsurfer	31
12	RogerTheMovieManiac88	28
13	Sol	25
14	blueboybob	19
15	Coryn	17
16	hurluberlu	16
17	blocho	15
18	cinephage	14
19	albajos	11
19	jvv	11
21	ororama	10
21	obgeoff	10
23	ryebass	7
23	nimimerkillinen	7
25	AB537	5
25	India Istanbul	5
27	zzzorf	1
27	shugs	1

[Coryn]

If anybody here can teach me how to put text as a link, please do so

ps. I've been thinking about the 40 minute rule for tv series as it might be quite easy here to take advantage, just give me your thoughts.

[hurluberlu]

If anybody here can teach me how to put text as a link, please do so

ps. I've been thinking about the 40 minute rule for tv series as it might be quite easy here to take advantage, just give me your thoughts.

Code: Select all

Use this :
[url=your link]your text[/url]

100 Documentary Films (BFI Screen Guide)

[maxwelldeux]

If anybody here can teach me how to put text as a link, please do so

ps. I've been thinking about the 40 minute rule for tv series as it might be quite easy here to take advantage, just give me your thoughts.

I'd really like it left as is. Not that I'm planning on watching many, I just absolutely detest having to keep track of different types of media in different ways. Everyone has the same rules, so we all can choose to play that way or not.

[maxwelldeux]

Italian documentaries for Doubles (and one Triple):

https://trakt.tv/search/movies/?genres= ... untries=it

[72aicm]

I’m in! Thank you for hosting Coryn.

[jeroeno]

How many points is OJ Made in America?

[maxwelldeux]

How many points is OJ Made in America?

*Must let Coryn host*

Personally, I'm of the opinion it should be 5 - I understand it was initially released with a small theatrical run, but it was marketed and intended as a TV mini-series. I missed it when it first came out, but it was billed as a "Television event". I literally did not know it had a theatrical release until joining this forum.

Also, the miniseries is chopped up pretty nice with good stopping points. Each episode is pretty self-contained and has a natural break; the next one starts with a VERY quick overview before going into it further.

[allisoncm]

I'm in!

[albajos]

Another reason it was only 1 point in the Academy Awards challenge is that it's not even the longest movie nominated through the years. But the others, being "normal" features, would still only get 1 point.

But there is a lot of documentaries that are in parts, but with the info missing from imdb. The Up series are getting longer and longer and are 2-3 parts now. So maybe we'll just let people count the number of end credits.

[Coryn]

Oj is in 5 parts so 5 points

Up series, is 63 up in different parts then? I thought it was 1 part.

[flavo5000]

Oj is in 5 parts so 5 points

Up series, is 63 up in different parts then? I thought it was 1 part.

It aired over three nights as a 3-part miniseries.

[flavo5000]

I'm in on this one. I'm not consciously looking to win or anything. I'm going to try to tackle some of these massively long docs I've been putting off like Tie Xi Qu and some Jonas Mekas stuff. I'm also planning to work in a lot of horror docs too just cuz I enjoy those a lot.

[blueboybob]

Does stand up comedy count?

[albajos]

Aren't you in the US? It's not december yet-

[sol]

It starts!

First in.

1. The Story of Kindness or How to Behave (1987)



Rambling and unfocused but fascinating, this documentary springboards from a group of filmmakers deciding to record one of their colleagues who is dying of a terminal illness. As they interview different citizens about what kindness means to them, the documentarians also reflect on their existence, how their job involves something that is not needed, as well as the benefit of narrative cinema when there are so many real life stories that go untold.

[Coryn]

1. First Contact (1982)
2. The Five Obstructions (2003)


Simply awesome

[sol]

Pulp Non-Fiction

1. The Story of Kindness or How to Behave (1987)

2. Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? (2008)



Morgan Spurlock is a fun personality, and much like his Super Size Me and Greatest Movie Ever Sold, this is an entertaining watch from start to finish and there some imaginative animated sequences and original songs in the mix. Spurlock does not, however, succeed in linking his search for Osama to his parenthood anxieties and spends far more time asking locals what they think of America rather than what they think of Osama and where he is.

[blueboybob]

1. RR (2007)
2. Casting a Glance (2007)
3. Deseret (1995)
4. North on Evers (1992)

[vortexsurfer]

1. Tribe: Adi (James Smith, 2005)

[maxwelldeux]

1. Caesar Must Die (2012)

Not sure why this isn't tagged as a doc on IMDB, but oh well. It's a look at an Italian prison's performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Nice cinematography, shooting prison scenes in black and white, with the live performance in color. Lots of rehearsals with a few breaks in action so you get to see the prisoners themselves a bit. Interesting blend of documentary and drama and comes across relatively innovative to me.

[Coryn]

Does stand up comedy count?

I don't want to boss around but did it have a place in prior documentary challenges as stand up comedy seems to me like something really different than documentaries.

[albajos]

The Academy Awards / Golden Globes are listed as "News" so you might wonder where the documentation ends and where the news begins.

If there is only one camera on stage, just filming the event. Then it's news
If we get backstage footage and/or interviews as well - then it's docs.

We did have a discussion about conserts when we had the poll. Any consert without interviews was not eligible

---

A Stand Up Show, to me, is just comedy.
Just like a Football Match would be just Sport

[albajos]

01. 70'ernes folk (1975) Denmark 8 checks [double]
Denmark had the 5th highest suicide rate in the world (Don't know if that included Greenland or not) So this interviews with teenagers with mental health issues. They have parents that still consider them as children and don't let them do anything.

The director was even asked "Why do you ask the youth? They don't say anything important."

[Coryn]

3. Senna (2010)

[blueboybob]

5. 11 x 14 (1977)
6. Forevermore (1989)
7. Landscape Suicide (1987)

[jeroeno]

01. Menschen, Hoffnungen, Medaillen (1960)
02. No Home Movie (2015)
03. Manakamana (2013)
04. Hand in Hand (1988)

[blocho]

01. 70'ernes folk (1975) Denmark 8 checks [double]
Denmark had the 5th highest suicide rate in the world (Don't know if that included Greenland or not) So this interviews with teenagers with mental health issues. They have parents that still consider them as children and don't let them do anything.

The director was even asked "Why do you ask the youth? They don't say anything important."

That's really interesting. Does anyone know if that social dynamic is still common in Denmark?

Suicide data is notoriously unreliable, but I believe Greenland has the highest in the world, so I believe high Danish statistics might really just be high Greenlandic statistics.

[albajos]

Grenland has a big issue with alcoholism today.

Also Sweden and Finland was in the top5 at the time. Today all us Nordic countries are on the top of the UN's happiness-meter, so things have changed.
And we have Greta Thunberg

There is a big difference having parents born before ww2 and parents born in the 70s

[blocho]

Grenland has a big issue with alcoholism today.

Also Sweden and Finland was in the top5 at the time. Today all us Nordic countries are on the top of the UN's happiness-meter, so things have changed.
And we have Greta Thunberg

There is a big difference having parents born before ww2 and parents born in the 70s

So, you think better parenting made the difference? Do you have any sense why parenting styles changed so much?

Here in the States, parenting styles also changed rapidly over the past 50 years, and continue to change. I think the cause is multifactorial, and includes people generally having fewer children and having children later in life, a somehow even more consumerist society, vast changes in leisure time (TV, video games, internet), increasing secularism, and more atomized social bonds.

[albajos]

Well, the documentary itself say that teenagers stay home longer rather than go to sea or start working, simply because it is a higher focus on higher education. Being a teenager is a stage the old parents didn't get to experience themselves.

[72aicm]

01-06. The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2015)
07. RR (2007)

[maxwelldeux]

You can't HANDLE the truth

1. Caesar Must Die (2012)

2. La flaca Alejandra (1994, Chile)

Doc on the new Chilean list - comments in the Travel the World thread.

3. The Heat: A Kitchen (R)evolution (2018)

A nice cross of the culinary arts and the movement to eliminate gender bias in the workplace. Lots of exploration on how greater societal awareness on gender issues in the workplace has affected restaurant kitchens and culinary programs. Nothing new conceptually, but a solid look at the subject from the confines of the kitchen.

4. The Great Hack (2019)

All about Caimbridge Analytica and Facebook and the awfulness of that scandal. Nothing new if you've been paying attention, but does a really good job at discussing the scope of what they were doing and why it's so icky.

5. The Civil War: The Cause (1990)

Starting in on the Ken Burns miniseries. Comments on the series will come later.

[India Istanbul]

1. Martin Clunes: Islands of Australia (2016)
2. Good Hair (2019)

[flavo5000]

1. Why Horror? (2014)
It's a looking into what attracts people to the horror genre. Fine as a high-level overview but really doesn't get to the root of the question.


2. Portrait: Orson Welles (1968)
A portrait in a very real sense in that it is a snapshot of Orson Welles and his views at a very specific point in time while making The Immortal Story and was aired along with it on French television. It's not terribly insightful but does give a little bit of a view into both Welles' impish personality as well as a taste of his pretentiousness.


3. For All Mankind (1989) REWATCH
I thought I'd show this seminal doc on the NASA Apollo missions to my son who has been really into space lately. He lost interest at times but he definitely liked parts of it.


4. That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
Another overview of Hollywood's love of song and dance courtesy of two of the titans of the form, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. If you've seen the first one, you know what to expect here.


5. Free Solo (2018)
A doc on a free solo rock climber (someone who climbs sheer cliff faces alone and without the aid of any ropes or other equipment... i.e. an insane person) who sets out to climb El Capitan at Yosemite, the climbers' mecca. This was one of the most nerve-racking things I think I have ever seen...


6. Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania (1999)
Offers a solid overview of giant monsters in film starting with Melies all the way to "present day" (as of 1999). I found it a breezy and entertaining doc that spent a LOT of time (appropriately though) on the 50s and 60s when big monster flicks were at the height of their popularity. I did find it a little weird that it highlighted the Mighty Joe Young remake at the end but failed to bring up Jurassic Park in any meaningful capacity.

Reality Is Stranger Than Fiction

1. Why Horror? (2014)
2. Portrait: Orson Welles (1968)
3. For All Mankind (1989)
4. That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
5. Free Solo (2018)
6. Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania (1999)

[Coryn]

Spoiler

1. Why Horror? (2014)
It's a looking into what attracts people to the horror genre. Fine as a high-level overview but really doesn't get to the root of the question.


2. Portrait: Orson Welles (1968)
A portrait in a very real sense in that it is a snapshot of Orson Welles and his views at a very specific point in time while making The Immortal Story and was aired along with it on French television. It's not terribly insightful but does give a little bit of a view into both Welles' impish personality as well as a taste of his pretentiousness.


3. For All Mankind (1989) REWATCH
I thought I'd show this seminal doc on the NASA Apollo missions to my son who has been really into space lately. He lost interest at times but he definitely liked parts of it.


4. That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
Another overview of Hollywood's love of song and dance courtesy of two of the titans of the form, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. If you've seen the first one, you know what to expect here.


5. Free Solo (2018)
A doc on a free solo rock climber (someone who climbs sheer cliff faces alone and without the aid of any ropes or other equipment... i.e. an insane person) who sets out to climb El Capitan at Yosemite, the climbers' mecca. This was one of the most nerve-racking things I think I have ever seen...


6. Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania (1999)
Offers a solid overview of giant monsters in film starting with Melies all the way to "present day" (as of 1999). I found it a breezy and entertaining doc that spent a LOT of time (appropriately though) on the 50s and 60s when big monster flicks were at the height of their popularity. I did find it a little weird that it highlighted the Mighty Joe Young remake at the end but failed to bring up Jurassic Park in any meaningful capacity.

Reality Is Stranger Than Fiction

1. Why Horror? (2014)
2. Portrait: Orson Welles (1968)
3. For All Mankind (1989)
4. That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
5. Free Solo (2018)
6. Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania (1999)

Free Solo is an insane documentary indeed. Alex Honnolds climbing partner died on Friday I think after a free solo attempt. His lack of empathy in the docu towards his girlfriend was obvious and a very important reason for him doing free solo climbing. Because even though he is an insane athlete, I just can't get over the fact that what he's doing is beyond stupid.

[blocho]

Free Solo is an insane documentary indeed. Alex Honnolds climbing partner died on Friday I think after a free solo attempt. His lack of empathy in the docu towards his girlfriend was obvious and a very important reason for him doing free solo climbing. Because even though he is an insane athlete, I just can't get over the fact that what he's doing is beyond stupid.

I haven't seen Free Solo, but I saw the directors' preceding movie, Meru, with a friend of mine who is an amateur climber. After we saw the movie, I pointed out that I felt one of the climbers was very irresponsible for doing dangerous climbs even though he has a wife (herself widowed by the death of a previous husband in a climbing accident) and children. My friend said something along the lines of: "You have to do the things you love." I agree with that, but the conclusion I reached was that it meant the climber in the movie loved climbing more than his family. And that's really sad.

[flavo5000]

Free Solo is an insane documentary indeed. Alex Honnolds climbing partner died on Friday I think after a free solo attempt. His lack of empathy in the docu towards his girlfriend was obvious and a very important reason for him doing free solo climbing. Because even though he is an insane athlete, I just can't get over the fact that what he's doing is beyond stupid.

I haven't seen Free Solo, but I saw the directors' preceding movie, Meru, with a friend of mine who is an amateur climber. After we saw the movie, I pointed out that I felt one of the climbers was very irresponsible for doing dangerous climbs even though he has a wife (herself widowed by the death of a previous husband in a climbing accident) and children. My friend said something along the lines of: "You have to do the things you love." I agree with that, but the conclusion I reached was that it meant the climber in the movie loved climbing more than his family. And that's really sad.

Well, Free Solo is like that times 100. The guy in this one also has a steady girlfriend (no kids though) and much of the film crew are good friends of his, and he does even dumber more dangerous things than the guys in Meru. And he basically has these very emotionless, Spock-like sentiments about it. This very 'if I die, oh well whatever' kind of mindset. I found him to be a very frustrating person to watch interact with other people.

[Coryn]

Exactly, no empathy at all. Not aware that if they die it doesn't only affect themselves, it's almost narcissistic.

[Coryn]

4. Darwin's Nightmare (2004)