Documentary Challenge (Official, December 2022)

[maxwelldeux]

Official Documentary Challenge, 2022



Goal
Watch as many documentaries as you can through December.

Rules
- Each feature film (over 40 minutes) counts as one entry.
- 80 minutes of short films or miniseries/TV episodes counts as one entry.
- Rewatches are allowed and are good for the soul.
- Please include year of release when listing your viewings.
- Do not edit your posts to add new watches, just create a new one.
- Polite request - say something, or at least provide a rating, when you report your viewings so we know how well you liked it (or not)

Float your extra minutes of shorts/episodes!
For shorts/episodes where your total runtime is over 80 minutes, divide by 80, count those points, and float the rest in a "bank" to be used to make another full points. For example:
1-6. The Last Dance (2020, 497m) - float 17m
7. Shorts (63m + 17m from float)

Challenge runs from December 1st, 2021 - December 31st, 2021 in your local time zone

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
Academy Awards Best Documentary


Documentaries on Any Official List

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonus Challenge #1: Watch the documentary films from the ICMF-FF6 slates

Eligible films are listed below. If you watch one of these films, please note it with #ICMF-FF6

Documentary Slate
Acasa, My Home (2020) - seen 2 times
Elementa (2020) - seen 0 times
Êxtase (2020) - seen 0 times
Stop Filming Us (2020) - seen 1 times

Other Slates
V síti (2020) - seen 2 times
Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle (2019) - seen 1 times
A Metamorfose dos Pássaros (2020) - seen 0 times
Ornithes (I pos na gineis pouli) (2020) - seen 0 times
Petite fille (2020) - seen 0 times

tr][td] 1 [/td][td] blocho [/td][td] 1 [/td][/tr]

Rank	Participant	Count
1	peeptoad	1
1	ororama	1
1	magnusbernhardsen	1
1	gunnar	1
1	blocho	1
1	maxwelldeux	1

Bonus Challenge #2: Documentary Scavenger Hunt
How about a documentary scavenger hunt? You watch a documentary with one of the features, tag it with the appropriate hashtag. The first 15 are relatively straightforward... the last five are for the more hardcore players. One hashtag per documentary.
1. #Wiseman - Anything directed by Frederick Wiseman
2. #WorldLeader - A documentary that features, in some way, a head of state from any country
3. #Movies - A documentary about the movies!
4. #TrueCrime - Obvious, but please don't film yourself committing crimes.
5. #Environment - A documentary about some sort of environmental issues and/or nature.
6. #Food - A documentary about food. The thing that most of us eat. Multiple times daily, even.
7. #Nudity - A documentary with nudity in it. Nudity is restricted to humans.
8. #LGBTQ - Any documentary on LGBTQ+ issues.
9. #Sports - Another obvious one. Any sport.
10. #Biography - A biographical documentary. About anyone.
11. #Vroom - A documentary about cars, trucks, racing, etc.
12. #Pre1950 - Any documentary that was released before 1950
13. #Docuseries - Any documentary miniseries on any topic. Must complete the series to claim this.
14. #ErinLeeCarr - Anything directed by Erin Lee Carr
15. #Conspiracy - A documentary on a conspiracy theory of your choice. Like how Kubrick faked the moon landing, but insisted on shooting on location.
16. #Liberia - A documentary about the Liberian civil war and its aftermath.
17. #Import - A documentary that you had to import into ICM. You watched it, you imported it, you checked it, you get to claim this one.
18. #Insect - A documentary with some insect as its primary subject material
19. #Rothrock - A documentary featuring Cynthia Rothrock
20. #HomeSweetHome - A documentary focusing on a city where you have personally lived. Comments about your connection to it are required.

Bonus Challenge 2 Stats

Rank	Participant	Count
1	Rufus-T	20
1	sol	20
1	maxwelldeux	20
1	flavo5000	20
5	gunnar	12
5	ororama	12
7	jdidaco	10
8	blocho	9
8	magnusbernhardsen	9
10	AssonFire	7
11	Lonewolf2003	5
12	peeptoad	2
12	tourdesb	2
12	OldAle1	2
12	DudeLanez	2
16	vortexsurfer	1
16	frbrown	1
16	Silga	1
16	3eyes	1

The Documentary Players

Rank	Participant	Count
1	Traveller	114
2	gunnar	102
3	sol	81
4	flavo5000	79
5	maxwelldeux	70
6	Rufus-T	50
7	klaus78	41
8	jdidaco	40
9	AssonFire	33
10	ororama	28
11	blocho	23
12	kongs_speech	18
13	magnusbernhardsen	12
14	Lonewolf2003	11
14	DudeLanez	11
16	AB537	8
17	tourdesb	6
18	frbrown	5
18	peeptoad	5
20	OldAle1	4
20	Silga	4
22	vortexsurfer	3
23	cinewest	2
23	3eyes	2

[tourdesb]

I'm in.
The hunt for Bonus Challenge 2 seems fun, and I have some Wiseman and Ken Burns yet to watch.

[sol]

Love the look of the Scavenger Hunt Challenge, max. I wasn't planning to watch more than a few eligible films this month, but I guess I'll try to make up the 20+ points (with the plus due the miniseries, of course). I have questions about a few of the Scavenger Hunt hashtags though.

10. #Biography - A biographical documentary. About anyone.

Should this be a proper biographical documentary? With their lazy genre classifications, something like The Imposter is listed as a Biography on IMDb when it isn't really a life story about the man in question. (I have been thinking about rewatching this one)

17. #Import - A documentary that you had to import into ICM. You watched it, you imported it, you checked it, you get to claim this one.

A couple of things here:

1. On the iCM Bugs thread, there have been recent reports of difficulties with importing movies into iCM. If this happens, can we still claim the watch if nobody else has imported it and it is not yet on iCM?

2. I have imported a lot of documentaries into iCM already. Many of them Canadian (I wonder why...). Does a rewatch count of a film that you imported?

18. #Insect - A documentary with some insect as its primary subject material

Define "some". The Hellstrom Chronicle is about a bunch of different insects. Microcosmos too from memory. Should it just be about one species of insect?

I'm unexpectedly really excited for this Challenge now. Will need to do some research and see what I can come with for some the hashtags.

[sol]

14. #ErinLeeCarr - Anything directed by Erin Lee Carr

Dafuq?

"Dubbed “The Cannibal Cop,” former NYPD officer Gilberto Valle was charged with conspiring to kidnap and eat women but argued it was all a fantasy."



Never heard of Carr before, but her four feature documentaries all look super interesting, especially that one.

[maxwelldeux]

14. #ErinLeeCarr - Anything directed by Erin Lee Carr

Dafuq?

"Dubbed “The Cannibal Cop,” former NYPD officer Gilberto Valle was charged with conspiring to kidnap and eat women but argued it was all a fantasy."



Never heard of Carr before, but her four feature documentaries all look super interesting, especially that one.

Yeah - Erin Lee Carr is fascinating, and that documentary is really awesome. She does it with a neutral journalistic point of view and does a fantastic job at leaving it up to the audience. She was a really fun discovery for me during one of the recent Directed by Women challenges.

And since I'm too lazy to quote you a second time...

- I'm less concerned with it being a "proper" biography. If it feels like a biography, count it.
- Fair point on importing - go ahead and count it if it's not on ICM
- "Some" is just a placeholder for me not having an insect in mind. Multiple insects in a documentary are acceptable.

[sol]

Thanks. So, rewatches of films that we imported count then I guess.

[magnusbernhardsen]

One more official documentary list:
https://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/acad ... cumentary/

[magnusbernhardsen]

1. Kubrick by Kubrick (2020) #Movies

It was nice to hear Kubrick speak in this scrounged together docu, but there wasn't really a whole lot there. Material for r/mildlyinteresting.

[magnusbernhardsen]

2. Taming the Garden 2021, Georgia #environment

Incredible images of the process of filling the former Georgian PM Ivanishvili's grden with old trees from all over Georgia. The trees moving slowly on roads during the night, or being shipped seaways. It is a bit to artyfarty, with repetitions of the same images (I thought I had bumped into the remote and rewound the film at one point). But really, you should see this.

3. Attenborough’s Life That Glows UK, 2016 #insect

Classic Attenborough style, but this time on bioluminescence. Some incredible images - my favourite is the dog that drinks watee with dinoflagellates.

[sol]

1. Thought Crimes (2015) #ErinLeeCarr



Strange but true, this fascinating documentary circles around a police officer whose internet history led to him being arrested for conspiracy to kidnap, cook and eat women. As per the title, this was not an open-and-shut case with the cop claiming that he was merely sharing fantasy ideas, and the documentary questions the value of arresting someone for simply posting crazy ideas. It is thought-provoking since we all tend to be more expressive online in anonymity. The filmmakers also effectively include snippets of his online conversations and Google searches, which are quite chilling read out of context.

[Traveller]

01. A British Picture (1989) - 3/10
02. The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944) - 5/10
03. An Indian Day (1968) - 6/10
04. Time (2020) - 4/10

[magnusbernhardsen]

4, Frammento 53 (2015) #Liberia

Chilling interviews with several of the 'generals' from the Liberian civil war. Also some horrifying video of torture and murder.

[ororama]

1. Dziga and His Brothers/Dziga i ego bratiya (2002) * 52 min. #Movies
Simply film clips and photos with voice over narration, but fascinating for a fan like me who loves many of the movies but knows little about Dziga Vertov and his brothers Mikhail and Boris Kaufman.

*First time viewing

I was planning on watching some documentaries, but Bonus Challenge #2 (and magnusbernhardsen's bio-luminescent gif) have reminded me of others that I'm interested in and inspired me to seek and watch more.

[sol]

Spoiler

1. Thought Crimes (2015) #ErinLeeCarr

2. Maybe It's Luck? (2019) #HomeSweetHome



There weren't a lot of choices to earn this hashtag. I could have gone with a Rottnest Island documentary since that's considered part of Perth, but it's an island and I have never really lived there, so choosing one of the smattering of music docs available seemed like the more honest choice - and this was the shortest one, so here we are. I was actually a bit worried at first as the main guy travels to Cambodia for a stretch, but it is only a stretch, with him soon returning to Perth where the vast majority of discussions and rehearsals take place as the main guy tries to reunited/restart his 90s rock band. The band is called Kerb, by the way, and they were so small that I had never even heard of them before finding the documentary. They do mention Jebediah though, which was the go-to Perth rock band when I was growing up, though Eskimo Joe and San Cisco have probably overtaken them by now, but I digress.

My connections? We see some shots inside Perth Airport and some of the exteriors looked familiar, but most of the film takes place inside recording studios, homes and nightclubs, none of which were super-familiar to me. It was fun hearing them talking about things like how "we're massive in Midland" (not a compliment for non-Perth residents reading this), as well discussion of the Rosemount Hotel - which I think was the only venue that I recognised from the outside. But yeah, there was certainly some fun try-to-spot-where moments when they go driving and stand outside places at night. The film is a bit sloppily put-together (jump edits and weird cutaway shots galore) but the film does at least try to potently capture the divide between the singer and his former members who are only humouring him by getting back together (they see no chance of regaining fame) as they're worried about his mental health.

[ororama]

2. Attenborough's Life That Glows (2016) * 59 min. #Insect
Interesting movie about bio-luminescence and possible evolutionary purposes for its existence, beginning with fireflies that you might find in your yard and going into the deep sea for stranger examples, with beautiful, amazing photography.

Spoiler

1. Dziga and His Brothers/Dziga i ego bratiya (2002) * 52 min.  #Movies

*First time viewing

[sol]

Spoiler

1. Thought Crimes (2015) #ErinLeeCarr
2. Maybe It's Luck? (2019) #HomeSweetHome

3. Mirage Men (2013) #Conspiracy



Revolving around disinformation from the US government, this documentary benefits from a fascinating topic. The first third is very strong, honing in on one man deceived by the US government into believing that he was seeing evidence of aliens to cover up the fact that he had sighted top secret military training. We even meet the counterintelligence officer in charge of confiding in and misleading him and it is chilling learning about how paranoid and antisocial he became as a result. As the documentary wears on though, this case disappears into the backdrop, and the other topics are less interesting.

[Traveller]

05. Holy Ghost People (1967) - 2/10
06. We Are the Lambeth Boys (1959) - 3/10
07. Three Songs About Lenin (1934) - 6/10
08. The Titan: Story of Michelangelo (1950) - 7/10

[maxwelldeux]

1. CBS Reports: Harvest of Shame (1960) #Food
Documentary about migrant workers in farming and agriculture. Basically about how they're mistreated and how the system is entirely set up against them. And any calls for regulation at the federal level smacks of socialism. Nice to see nothing has changed in American politics for 60+ years.

2. Forgotten Silver (1995) #Movies
Peter Jackson tells the fictional story of Colin McKenzie, a forgotten pioneer of early cinema, who happened to invent tracking shots, close-ups, sound film, color film, controlled flight, and massive-scale biblical epics. Curious to see this on two separate official documentary lists, but it was quite a bit of fun and well made.

3. The Redeem Team (2022) #Sports
A doc about the 2008 men's Olympic basketball team. They won.

4-5. Fifa Uncovered (2022, 221m) Float 61m #WorldLeader
This was all about the massive-scale corruption in FIFA. Fascinating to see how all that stuff works. Calling this for World Leader since there were so many of them in there, not the least of which were Nelson Mandela and his involvement in getting the world cup to South Africa, and Nicholas Sarkozy and his "involvement" in getting Qatar the current world cup.

[blocho]

1. The Automat (2021) #HomeSweetHome
When I was a kid, my father told me about the automats that he used to patronize when he was a student in the Netherlands in the late 60s and early 70s. I got a chance to see them myself during a family trip to Amsterdam. I had no idea until now that there was also a prominent chain of automats in New York, which was called Horn & Hardart. The last location closed in 1991. This documentary is about that chain, which at its peak had 40 locations around New York as well as some in Philadelphia. This is a very affectionate, nostalgic portrait of that chain, so some of the claims seem inflated (10% of Philadelphians ate there every day) or ridiculous (Horn & Hardart was as important for New York as the subway).

2. Caught in the Net (2020) #ICMF-FF6 #Nudity
To Catch a Predator, Czechia edition! This documentary is well-intentioned, but it's not what I'm looking for with regard to this serious topic. My skepticism senses lit up a couple of times as well (that 41% figure, for example).

[magnusbernhardsen]

5. Tinnsoldatene (2004) #WorldLeader
A documentary about the Norwegian UNIFIL soldiers who witnessed the Qana Massacre in 1996, when Israeli forces shelled a Fijian compund where hundreds of people had taken refuge. The soldiers had filmed an Israeli drone over the compund, meaning that Israel should have known they were targeting UN soldiers and civilians. The documentary is interesting, but a bit unfocussed and spends a bit too much time on the other home videos made by the soldiers. WorldLeader-tag because Shimon Peres is featured a lot.

[gunnar]

1 - Caught in the Net (2020) - 6.5/10 - #Nudity - ICMF-FF6 - A documentary crew in the Czech Republic hires three young looking adult actresses to pose as 12 year olds online so that they can do a film about online harassment and sexual abuse of children by predators. I thought the film was okay, though the longest segment of the film where they were interacting with the men online seemed kind of repetitive. I also don't think we needed to see quite so many dick pics and masturbation shots. I'm not really sure what the point of the confrontation was at the end. Overall, the whole thing seemed kind of amateurish, though the sets were pretty well prepared and I didn't have any problems with the actresses themselves.

[sol]

Spoiler

1. Thought Crimes (2015) #ErinLeeCarr
2. Maybe It's Luck? (2019) #HomeSweetHome
3. Mirage Men (2013) #Conspiracy

4. The Great American Cowboy (1973) #Sports



This offers a solid look into rodeo, including the origins of the sport. The movie is principally structured around two particular champions preparing for a competition and the film feels a bit unfocused when it goes off on other tangents, but the tangents are generally fascinating. Most notable is a preteen kid with a significant eye injury happily talking about his rodeo experiences and an adult waxing poetic about how rodeo is "what America stands for; it's strength itself" with rodeo originating from cowboys betting on taming untameable horses. The film looks great too with some excellent split screening.

[tourdesb]

1. Le cas Pinochet (2001, Patricio Guzman) #WorldLeader
2. The Mayo Clinic, Faith, Hope and Science (2018, Ken Burns & Christopher Loren Ewers & Erik Ewers)
3-6. "Prohibition" (2011, Ken Burns) #Docuseries - 360m - float 40m

[klaus78]

1.-5. Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone (2022) 10/10

[vortexsurfer]

1. Vladamir Putin: Power, Greed, Obsession (Piers Garland, 2022) - 6/10 #WorldLeader
2. Fearless: The Women Fighting Putin (Sarah Collinson, 2022) - 7/10
3. Four Corners: Red Flags (2019) - 6/10, Saving the Amazon (2020) - 6/10 (91m) - float 11m

[sol]

Spoiler

1. Thought Crimes (2015) #ErinLeeCarr
2. Maybe It's Luck? (2019) #HomeSweetHome
3. Mirage Men (2013) #Conspiracy
4. The Great American Cowboy (1973) #Sports

5. Girl in the Picture (2022) #TrueCrime



Trying to contact the family of a colleague who recently died under suspicious circumstances, a group of young women discover that their friend was living under an assumed name with more twists and turns to come. While the case here is not quite as crazy and out-there as the case in the director's earlier Abducted in Plain Sight, the film similarly benefits from her penchant for eerie re-enactments to fill in the blank as interviewees share their accounts. The gradual reveals structure works well too, with the movie playing out a lot like a mystery thriller at times, though some revelations are pretty easy foresee.

[Traveller]

09. The Sky on Location (1983) - 5/10
10. The Secret Land (1948) - 5/10
11. The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty (1927) - 6/10
12. The Lion Hunters (1966) - 6/10

[maxwelldeux]

Hooray for documentaries!

1. CBS Reports: Harvest of Shame (1960) #Food
2. Forgotten Silver (1995) #Movies
3. The Redeem Team (2022) #Sports
4-5. Fifa Uncovered (2022, 221m) Float 61m #WorldLeader

6. Undefeated (2011)
Oscar Winner. About an inner-city football program that's trying to earn its first playoff game. It's sweet for what it is - an inside look into what it takes to coach these kids and get them to come together.

7. Facing Nolan (2022) #Biography
I grew up loving Nolan Ryan, so this was fun to revisit the highlights of his career, as well as learn more about the man behind the Express.

8. Into the Deep (2020) #TrueCrime
This is an absolutely bizarre documentary, and the director was faced with impossible decisions. You're doing a doc about an amateur space race, trying to be the first non-professional astronaut to get into space. You're following one of the people building the rockets, and he murders a journalist during the middle of your shoot. This is all about the case. So weird.

9-10. Pepsi, Where's My Jet? (2022, 157m + 3 float) #Docuseries
This was a fun bit of 90s nostalgia - the moment I saw the title of the series, I knew precisely what it was about. Pepsi ran an ad campaign where they "offered" a Harrier jet for 7 million pepsi points. I remember the campaign - I wanted the jet myself, but knew there was no way I could do it. But one kid did - this is all about the ensuing legal battle to get his jet. Tons of fun and remarkably well-paced.

[3eyes]

1-2. The Churchills (UK 2012, 3 eps @47m) [Bonus #2]

David Starkey examines the influence of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough's influence on the strategic military thinking of his descendant, Winston Churchill (who wrote a 4-vol bio of John).

[Silga]

1. Downfall: The Case Against Boeing (Rory Kennedy, 2022) 7/10
2. The Redeem Team (Jon Weinbach, 2022) 6/10 #Sports

Downfall: The Case Against Boeing makes a strong and unnerving case against the famed aircraft manufacturer. It struggles at first, but once it delves deeper into the operations at the Boeing company it gains momentum and paints a dark picture of money and greed over the safety of its "valued" customers.

As for The Redeem Team, it feels more like a TV special than a fully accomplished documentary, more of a private project from Lebron and D-Wade than a centerpiece of the experience of that entire team. As a Lithuanian, I followed this USA team's journey thoroughly as it often intersected with my native team. I thought that plenty of important moments were missed and omitted. Nevertheless, the doc features some of the greatest basketball players at the peak of their professional careers and it is always a treat to be reminded of that blockbuster of a final between the USA and Spain at the 2008 Olympics. Lithuania then lost against Spain in the semi-final only by 5 points (91-86). Oh, what could have been...

The director of The Redeem Team and producer of The Last Dance Jon Weinbach also produced another great and very dear to me documentary called The Other Dream Team (2012) - about the Lithuanian basketball team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. A strong recommendation from me to anyone who enjoyed The Redeem Team and would like to watch a sports documentary for this challenge.

Spoiler

[kongs_speech]

01) Caniba (2017, Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel) - 4/5

[sol]

Spoiler

1. Thought Crimes (2015) #ErinLeeCarr
2. Maybe It's Luck? (2019) #HomeSweetHome
3. Mirage Men (2013) #Conspiracy
4. The Great American Cowboy (1973) #Sports
5. Girl in the Picture (2022) #TrueCrime

6. The Secret Land (1948) #Pre1950



The title here refers to Antarctica as this circles around a US naval expedition to the icy continent. The film was apparently shot in Technicolor, but given how faded the colours are in the current available print, as well as how much footage is just sky, snow and ice, it is hard not to wonder whether the project would have looked better in black and white. The film's biggest drawback though is how dull and unfocused it is. A long time passes before they even reach Antarctica as we are walked through their training, preparation and a highly rehearsed conversation between military and government figures.

[blocho]

3. Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop (2015) #ErinLeeCarr

major plot details

The movie concerns Gilberto Valle, an NYPD officer who was arrested after his wife discovered that he participating in chats and Internet forums dedicated to murder, rape, and cannibalism. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and illegally accessing a police database (the latter, a misdemeanor, was not really disputed). After Valle spent nearly two years in jail, the judge threw out the conspiracy conviction. This movie ends with the prosecutors appealing the judge’s decision to a higher court. Though we don’t see it in the movie, the appellate court later affirmed the judge’s decision.

I remember this case well. How could I not? It concerns two topics I’m very concerned with, thought crime and the misdeeds of the New York Police Department. So I brought my own prior convictions to this movie — 1984 is my favorite novel, and the NYPD is a gang of violent thugs, one of the worst problems afflicting New York. The movie, as the title indicates, delves deeply into the topic of thought crime and the blurry crucible of the First Amendment where speech (internet chats with strangers, in this case) butts up against criminal action.

Unfortunately, the movie is almost completely uninterested in the police aspect of this story. There is immense irony in the fact that Valle, a cop, got convicted even though he never did anything violent, when NYPD officers routinely do violent things with no consequences. The NYPD engages in widespread petty corruption, made such a fetish of not wearing masks during the pandemic that they practically became a death cult, and have falsely arrested and assaulted people on a mass basis. They’ve also gotten away with numerous killings. The Valle case shows that the NYPD will arrest one of their own for thinking about killing someone. But those cops who actually do kill people are almost always just fine so long as they do it while wearing a uniform. Unfortunately, this movie doesn’t address any of this.

This documentary is broadly sympathetic to Valle’s innocence (as am I). That’s partly a result of who shows up. Valle and his family are the main characters of the movie. The defense attorneys also appear. The prosecutors do not. The only prominent voice against Valley here is one of the jurors. A couple of the talking heads also speak for his guilt, but they’re outnumbered by talking heads who speak for his innocence. Ultimately, the documentary clearly supports Valle’s innocence, but not in a way that shows undue bias. The evidence for his guilt is presented fairly.

Final note and somewhat of a digression: Apropos thought crime, it still boggles my mind that the current governor of New York, only a couple of months ago, declared that she wants to be Big Brother. And it wasn’t a joke. She meant it!

[sol]

Spoiler

1. Thought Crimes (2015) #ErinLeeCarr
2. Maybe It's Luck? (2019) #HomeSweetHome
3. Mirage Men (2013) #Conspiracy
4. The Great American Cowboy (1973) #Sports
5. Girl in the Picture (2022) #TrueCrime
6. The Secret Land (1948) #Pre1950

7. Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen (2020) #LGBTQ



While much of the content is hardly new or enlightening here (e.g. objections to transgenderism being played for laughs), all of the interviewees bring a heartfelt emotion to their discussions and the sourced film clips are well incorporated. It is also fascinating to hear Lilly Wachowski discussing making the Matrix films before coming out as trans. All in all, this is pretty interesting stuff. At nearly two hours long, it feels a bit lengthy, but it is well done for sure.

[flavo5000]

1. Big Rig (Doug Pray, 2007) #Vroom


2. V síti a.k.a. Caught in the Net (Vít Klusák, Barbora Chalupová, 2020) #Nudity


3. The Class of '92 (Benjamin Turner, Gabe Turner, 2013) #Sports


4. Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Live (1999)


5. Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle a.k.a. Just Don't Think I'll Scream (Frank Beauvais, 2019)

Spoiler

1. Big Rig (Doug Pray, 2007) #Vroom
2. V síti a.k.a. Caught in the Net (Vít Klusák, Barbora Chalupová, 2020) #Nudity
3. The Class of '92 (Benjamin Turner, Gabe Turner, 2013) #Sports
4. Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Live (1999)
5. Ne croyez surtout pas que je hurle a.k.a. Just Don't Think I'll Scream (Frank Beauvais, 2019)

[Traveller]

13. The Moon and the Sledgehammer (1971) - 3/10
14. The Fighting Lady (1944) - 4/10
15. Playboy: The Best of Pamela Anderson (1995) - 2/10
16. The Cove (2009) - 6/10

[sol]

Spoiler

1. Thought Crimes (2015) #ErinLeeCarr
2. Maybe It's Luck? (2019) #HomeSweetHome
3. Mirage Men (2013) #Conspiracy
4. The Great American Cowboy (1973) #Sports
5. Girl in the Picture (2022) #TrueCrime
6. The Secret Land (1948) #Pre1950
7. Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen (2020) #LGBTQ

8. Roger & Me (1989) REVISION #Vroom



Viewed for the first time in more than eight years, this still stands up as nicely less angry than and more personal than Michael Moore's didactic latter documentaries - but less funny too. There is plenty that is great here though and equally effective after four viewings, mostly notably the crosscutting between Roger Smith's Christmas speech and Christmas Eve evictions in Flint. The sourced songs are also excellent, especially an ironic "Wouldn't It Be Nice", while the film lovingly looks at Flint's struggle to survive as a community with failed amusement parks etc. The rabbit lady is really grating though.

[ororama]

3. When Justice Isn't Just (2016) * 42 min. #Import
A brief look at racial justice issues in policing and the criminal justice system, it raises too many issues to adequately cover in its short running time, but I found it worthwhile for going into a few things that I wasn't aware of or hadn't thought about, and it has footage that clearly shows that the killing of Tamir Rice was essentially a drive-by shooting, as I had assumed from the description of the crime.

Spoiler

1. Dziga and His Brothers/Dziga i ego bratiya (2002) * 52 min.  #Movies
2. Attenborough's Life That Glows (2016) * 59 min.  #Insect

*First time viewing

[maxwelldeux]

Hooray for documentaries!

1. CBS Reports: Harvest of Shame (1960) #Food
2. Forgotten Silver (1995) #Movies
3. The Redeem Team (2022) #Sports
4-5. Fifa Uncovered (2022, 221m) Float 61m #WorldLeader
6. Undefeated (2011)
7. Facing Nolan (2022) #Biography
8. Into the Deep (2020) #TrueCrime
9-10. Pepsi, Where's My Jet? (2022, 157m + 3 float) #Docuseries

11. Stop Filming Us (2020) #ICMF-FF6
Perspective shifting doc about outsiders documenting other populations. Comments in the ICMFFF thread.

12. Fair Play (2022) #Import
I was a little surprised this wasn't on ICM, as I like the director, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. This doc is about gender disparities in household work and what the immediate and systemic causes are. Pretty interesting look at this issue, despite it being a talking heads doc.

13-14. Undercurrent: The Disappearance of Kim Wall (2022, 125m + 35m float) #ErinLeeCarr
In a happy accident, the only unseen Erin Lee Carr film of mine was about the murder of Kim Wall, which is the same story told in Into the Deep, which I also watched day before yesterday. This took a more journalistic approach to the story, so it unfolded more as a true crime doc, but with a lot more focus on the victim.

[maxwelldeux]

2. The Redeem Team (Jon Weinbach, 2022) 6/10 #Sports

As for The Redeem Team, it feels more like a TV special than a fully accomplished documentary, more of a private project from Lebron and D-Wade than a centerpiece of the experience of that entire team. As a Lithuanian, I followed this USA team's journey thoroughly as it often intersected with my native team. I thought that plenty of important moments were missed and omitted. Nevertheless, the doc features some of the greatest basketball players at the peak of their professional careers and it is always a treat to be reminded of that blockbuster of a final between the USA and Spain at the 2008 Olympics. Lithuania then lost against Spain in the semi-final only by 5 points (91-86). Oh, what could have been...

The director of The Redeem Team and producer of The Last Dance Jon Weinbach also produced another great and very dear to me documentary called The Other Dream Team (2012) - about the Lithuanian basketball team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. A strong recommendation from me to anyone who enjoyed The Redeem Team and would like to watch a sports documentary for this challenge.

Spoiler

I kinda had a lackluster response to this one as well, largely because it felt to me more like a "let's worship Kobe" piece than a genuine doc about the tournament or even the team. And I'm not a Kobe fan, so I had a few eye rolls.

But thanks for that rec about the Other Dream Team!