3-minute documentary that will make you cry.
Showing posts with label DOCUMENTARY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DOCUMENTARY. Show all posts
Holy Ghost People
On any given Sunday in Holiness Church, West Virgina, the congregation sing and dance, speak in tongues, and taunt poisonous snakes.
Tonite Let’s All Make Love In London
Named after an Allen Ginsberg poem, this 1968 documentary features Syd Barret, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, David Hockney, Mick Jagger, all the faces of Swinging London.
WE WANT TO BE OURSELVES
Auteur Oliver Stone started making a documentary about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, but ended up interviewing a posse of Latin American leaders. The resulting film, South Of The Border, tells the story of how the continent has liberated itself from US economic and political control. My favourite bit of the trailer is when Argentina's president says: "For the first time in the region, the leaders look like the people they govern." Telling it like it is. Viva Chavez!
ASCENSION
A surreal, cosmic trip compiled from the previously unseen archives of the Soviet space program, Ascension is a hypnotic montage of weirdness.
EVERY GOOD MARRIAGE BEGINS WITH TEARS
Bengali girls are not allowed to fall in love. Their love lives are looked after by relatives who match them up with a man from back in Bangladesh. Some say it's a cultural practice but, more often than not, arranged marriages are made in exchange for UK citizenship. Bengali girls who refuse to do what they're told face being banished from their family home and blacklisted by their community - all because they don't want to spend the rest of their lives bowing down to some random dude they've never met before.
"Every Good Marriage Begins With Tears" is a documentary about Bengali girls from East London who rebel against the tradition of arranged marriage. Intimately shot and exquisitely put together, it's the best thing I've seen in ages.
HANDS ON A HARDBODY
HANDS ON A HARDBODY is an endurance contest in Texas where 24 people surround a "Hardbody" pickup truck and put their hands on it. Last person to remove their hands wins the vehicle. And so begins 3 to 4 days and nights of continous truck touching, interrupted only by short restroom breaks. As the physical and psychological stresses begin taking their toll on the contestants, one by one they wilt, flip out, burn out, drop out and go crazy. (A couple of years ago a contestant walked away from the truck and directly into a local K-Mart, where he picked out a 12-gauge shotgun and shot himself in the head.)
I just watched the Hands On A Hardbody documentary about the 1995 competition. The film follows contestants through their ridiculous ordeal, revealing hilarious and heart-warming vignettes about the human spirit. Of the many charming Texan characters in the cast, my favourite is the long-winded yet oddly compelling mechanic Ronald McCowan, shown here:
SO SERIOUSLY, watch this film. Do not Bitorrent it from here because that would be wrong.
HASIL "HAZE" ADKINS
Here is a short documentary about the late great one man band rockabilly chicken walkin' HASIL ADKINS.
PARTS 1 / 2 / 3
DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND
Another great documentary, DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND which documents an Amish rite of passage called Rumspringa. The film follows Amish teenagers who enter the "English World" to decide whether they will be baptised as adults in the Amish community. They deal with problems in the outside world, which the Amish refer to as "the Devil's Playground," that do not exist in their home communities, including alcohol and drugs.
PARTS 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
HOW'S YOUR NEWS 1
Susan singing 'Respect' while Sean and Bob dance
Sean interviewing a scary man
How's Your News is one of the greatest and most beautiful documentaries ever made. It follows a group of disabled people's trip across America as they interview people on the street along the way. They are currently filming a TV series, it'll probably be the greatest TV series ever, even better than Twin Peaks and Fishing With John.
Sean interviewing a scary man
How's Your News is one of the greatest and most beautiful documentaries ever made. It follows a group of disabled people's trip across America as they interview people on the street along the way. They are currently filming a TV series, it'll probably be the greatest TV series ever, even better than Twin Peaks and Fishing With John.
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