Television Feature length documentaries

Elliott

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I found Searching for Sugar Man a little underwhelming but then my expectations were really high.

Full movie
 

Castia

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Just watched Indie Game:The Movie and it was brilliant. If you have any interest in computer games then I highly recommend it.
 

John_Jensen

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Apart from Gimme Shelter, Dont Look Back and Searching for Sugar Man. What are some good music documentaries?
Try:

No Direction Home
End of a Century: Story of the Ramones
20(Pearl Jam)
Dig!
Heima:Sigur Ros

The new Zeppelin gig DVD is brilliant too.
 

Laphroaig

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Apart from Gimme Shelter, Dont Look Back and Searching for Sugar Man. What are some good music documentaries?
A film I'm wanting to see (but haven't seen, so can't tell if it's any good) is Violeta Went to Heaven. It's actually not a documentary, but a biographical movie about Violeta Parra, a Chilean singer. Check her out.
 

Nobby style

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You have to see this. I won't give the end away but it doesn't go where you expect. How it didn't win an Oscar for best documentary is beyond me. A must see.
The Imposter doc:

Ha ha, this was brilliant. It figures once he weasels his way into Texas even he would end up being a pawn in someone else's darker psychodrama. Texas is too big for you, Frédéric. If you had shown me this script beforehand I'd've said it sounds like crap B-movie business. The ol', non-fiction-more-twisted-than-fiction schtick.

To get a grip on things, please proceed to: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/11/080811fa_fact_grann?currentPage=all
 

Elliott

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Apart from Gimme Shelter, Dont Look Back and Searching for Sugar Man. What are some good music documentaries?
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Live Forever
The US vs John Lennon
Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Marley

And I second most of the ones already mentioned.
 

Zen

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On top of them, Sound City is good. And Some Kind of Monster, and Fearless Freaks.
 

Castia

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Just watched Paradise lost part 1 and 2 (late to the party I know) and wow what a story, such an incredible documentary a must watch for everybody. Easily one of the best iv ever seen, such a horrifying event but at the same time the documentary does a great job of getting both sides of it.

I downloaded part 3 and will watch it at some point over this weekend.
 

Ivor Ballokov

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Fat, Sick and Nearly dead is quite entertaining, not sure I want a vegetable smoothie though.

How to survive a plague is depressing but very interesting.
 

Elliott

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Assault in the Ring aka Cornered: A Life Caught in the Ring

Tells the story of a tragic 1983 boxing match and how it shaped the lives of the fighters and their families forever. Very interesting indeed.
 

Nobby style

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Apart from Gimme Shelter, Dont Look Back and Searching for Sugar Man. What are some good music documentaries?
Amazing Journey on The Who. Also another really good one I can't remember the name, is just on Pete Townsend and Quadrophenia.

The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith. Good look at the Manchester music scene from the late seventies. Too bad they never showed Mark in the dynamic of how they wrote songs, seeing as The Fall has had a donkey load of musicians and Mark doesn't play an instrument. Really liked the part when Brix was in the band.

The Undertones: Teenage Kicks. Love his quivering voice, but Feargal Sharkey comes off as sort of an ass. John O'Neil has a great, whackey accent.

The Filth and the Fury. Documentary on the Sex Pistols. They started off hanging out in a clothing store, ha ha. Great stuff.

I am Trying to Break Your Heart. Great doc on Wilco as they're making the fantastic album, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel.

X - The Unheard Music. My fav about the extremely underrated 80s L.A. band, X. I saw them several times around the time of the documentary.

Shine on You Crazy Diamond (I think it's called) about Syd Barrett and his genius and descent into mental illness. Really sad.
 

Maroon Lucifer

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The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Live Forever
The US vs John Lennon
Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Marley

And I second most of the ones already mentioned.
Just watched this. Disliked it very much.
Not about music at all. It's just about some no talent manic depressive who likes to punch his guitar. Three chords all the way through. And don't forget to hammer the E and A string when you play D.
 

Laphroaig

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Apart from Gimme Shelter, Dont Look Back and Searching for Sugar Man. What are some good music documentaries?
I Think We're Alone Now. Very fascinating documentary about two Tiffany stalkers. (Not so much about music in other words.)
 

lem8sh

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I'm half way through The Impostor at the moment. It is is the story of US family losing a 13 year, runaway or kidnapped I assume, and then him being found in France 4 years later

Fascinating so far but I have no idea where this is going as the title alone seems to give the twist away.

I'll let you know how it finishes (in spoiler tags)
Halfway through this tonight, brilliant viewing.
 

R.N7

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Amazing Journey on The Who. Also another really good one I can't remember the name, is just on Pete Townsend and Quadrophenia.

The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E Smith. Good look at the Manchester music scene from the late seventies. Too bad they never showed Mark in the dynamic of how they wrote songs, seeing as The Fall has had a donkey load of musicians and Mark doesn't play an instrument. Really liked the part when Brix was in the band.

The Undertones: Teenage Kicks. Love his quivering voice, but Feargal Sharkey comes off as sort of an ass. John O'Neil has a great, whackey accent.

The Filth and the Fury. Documentary on the Sex Pistols. They started off hanging out in a clothing store, ha ha. Great stuff.

I am Trying to Break Your Heart. Great doc on Wilco as they're making the fantastic album, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel.

X - The Unheard Music. My fav about the extremely underrated 80s L.A. band, X. I saw them several times around the time of the documentary.

Shine on You Crazy Diamond (I think it's called) about Syd Barrett and his genius and descent into mental illness. Really sad.
The Syd Barrett docu was good but perhaps a bit light. The Last Waltz is the next film on my watch list.
 

Elliott

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Thanks for recommending The Imposter, Wibble. Fascinating as feck.
 

LoveInTheAsylum

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The Syd Barrett docu was good but perhaps a bit light. The Last Waltz is the next film on my watch list.
yay, my favourite music film. so many great moments.

because of their size, scorsese's series on the blues & tony palmer's all you need is love, are fantastic things to dip into. all you need is love can feel of its time (the discussion around race & music can be a bit questionnable but interesting nonetheless, & you get funny things from them trying to predict the future influence of current artists, meaning someone like gilbert o'sullivan is built up almost as a dylan-type figure). the breadth of it & the names that contribute are amazing though - the john hammond interviews on the early episodes are especially great - so i'd really recommend checking out an episode or two on topics that interest.
 

Pscholes18

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For the the conspiracy theorists out there, I just watched a docu on Netflix called 911: In Plane Site. Worth a check out. Not sure if it's anything new.
 

Maroon Lucifer

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"The History Of The Eagles Part One"

It was a well made documentary as such, but I am affraid there wasn't that much to work with for the filmmaker, not from that angle anyways. Well, if he wanted to get on Glenn Freys and Don Henleys bad side, there would be a lot of interresting stuff. Those two guys reckon they are the next Lennon/McCartney, massive egos those two. I only managed an hour of that documentary and I turned it off. The Eagles weren't much more than a pop act.
 

Saliph

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Inside Job is amazing, and it should get the people of America off their asses and into the streets. The unscrupulous plutocrats are raping their country and even after they bring on an enormous financial meltdown - enriching themselves to an obscene degree in the process - nothing is done about it. Madness. Probably one of the most important documentaries of our time, for Americans anyway. An enraging and frightening film.
 

KingEric7

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For the the conspiracy theorists out there, I just watched a docu on Netflix called 911: In Plane Site. Worth a check out. Not sure if it's anything new.
I'll have my fix with 'Sirius' when that comes out in April, that's for sure. ;)

For anyone who is interested, it will most likely go ridiculously viral and possibly blow Zeitgeist, Loose Change or anything else out the water given Steven Greer's connections as well as the proposed content of the film. Some of the most credible people yet (which is quite something given the people he has amassed) will be giving testimony regarding all sorts of subjects and Greer also says the research and footage by 'one of the world's top geneticists' on a 6-inch humanoid being will be properly revealed. According to Greer all known birth-related abnormalities and defects have been ruled out, and the difference in the cranial structure and rib cage is significant in terms of proportion and number (number of ribs that is; 10 pairs instead of 12).

This is it:




We shall see. Looking forward to it even aside from that, though; the scope of Greer's work in terms of the people he has gathered and the connections he has forged (as is evidenced by the Disclosure Project conference at the National Press Club in the US in 2001) is pretty astonishing. Whatever your take on the subject, it's going to be quite different from your typical UFO, 9/11, etc... documentary. That press conference is something everyone should watch before passing judgement to see the sort of people he has giving testimony. That was 12 years ago and the number of people to have appeared on camera, podcasts, radio shows, etc... since then is huge.

Not after another argument on here with someone about the issue but thought it'd be interesting for people to hear about a proper documentary on the subject as opposed to a lot of the fairly typical nonsense that is flying about. Many who haven't read up too much on the issue probably aren't aware of Greer's work and how wildly it differs from the norm in this field.
 

Vooon

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Anyone recommend any good war documentaries? Anything to do with World Wars, Spanish Civil War or the Troubles would be great!
I think the best I've seen is Apocalypse: The Second World War. Very refreshing since it's made by a French guy and not Americans who tend to focus too much on their own efforts and drama instead of actual events.

BBC has made a very good doco on Auschwitz, but that's a bit off I guess. I'm going to check out their take on the 30 years war soon. I'd really like to know if there's any documentaries on the German army and the eastern front, I mean from a German perspective, since I know the common soldier had to go through some pretty rough stints on their retreat after Stalingrad.
 

izzydiggler

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Watched the Jason Becker documentary, Not Dead Yet - superb!

I've known about his condition (ALS) for years and always been a fan of his guitar work and it's pretty amazing that he's even alive, never mind creating music.