Recommend me a documentary....
 

For whatever reason, i've never given much thought to documentaries but last night I watched "King of Kong" and loved it! Anyone have any suggestions for similar, slice of life type films like this? Not really looking for depressing Rwanda type documentaries either. Thanks!

Hated...the GG Allin documentary. Enjoy!

:hscratch: You hated it, but recommend it to me?

Double Dare
Grizzly Man

Thanks chris, those both sound good.

"Hated" is the film's name. It's pretty graphic. I'd recommend Crumb and Hoop Dreams.

cheers,

-the Jesus

Hearts of Darkness

D'oh! I would edit out my stupidity from above....but oh well.
And Crumb sounds good, thanks.

Well here a few that you may like to see:
Hoop Dreams - The Criterion Collection (1994)
One Day in September (1999)
Kurosawa (2001)
Rites of Autumn - The Story of College Football (2001)
Jim Brown: All American (2002)
The Fog of War (2003)
March of the Penguins (2005)

Those are my pick and for what it's worth The Fog Of War is must watch and own DvD.

yeah, Hated is great

crumb
slasher
paradise lost
mr. death



one of my fave films is the Salesman- criterion dvd

Hoop Dreams, definitely.

Spellbound (2002)
Music From the Inside Out

The nature documentary Planet Earth if you haven't seen it yet. Especially in HD.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Spellbound and Hoop Dreams in particular both sound like what I was looking for.

Beyond The Mat is great. The Backyard is good too. You don't have to be a wrestling fan to enjoy either of them.

I hear Air Guitar Nation is really good.

Hands on a Hard Body

Twenty-four contestants compete in an endurance/sleep deprivation contest in order to win a brand new Nissan Hardbody truck. The last person to remain standing with his or her hand on the truck wins. An absurd marketing gimmick at first glance, the contest proves to be much more...

American Movie.

Ugh, when that chick starts gushing about the cow being slaughtered is the most beautiful sight she's ever witnessed I had to turn away. Fucking awful.

As for the OP question, I recommend Planet Earth.

Crumb is one of my favorites.

Speaking of, I need to get this.

Small Town Gay Bar
Maxed Out
The Bridge

I found the mondo caine documentaries riveting

"I Want Something Creepy Yet Thought-Provoking" Doc:
Capturing the Friedman's

"I Wonder Why We Fight" Doc:
Why We Fight

"What Lengths Would I Go To Survive" Doc:
Into the Void (equally decent book also)

"I'm Never Eating Fast Food Again - Well..Not as Much" Doc:
Supersize Me

"This Just Doesn't Seem Right" Doc:
Jesus Camp

Ah, good 'ol GG Allin. I will never forget the night my flatmate and her boyfriend came home after seeing him in San Francisco. They were literally covered in shit, blood, spit and whatnot. Good times...

I liked all of these and found them similar in style to the KoK

Spellbound -- Spelling Bee
Wordplay -- Crossword Puzzle Contest
Word Wars -- Scrabble Contest
Murderball -- Wheelchair Rugby

I also really enjoyed Dig! which is a doc on 2 bands, the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. (neither of which I know very well or care particularly about)

And I agree with Grizzly Man and Into the Void (kind of a recreation doc, like something off of Discovery) recommendations.

There's been a lot of good recommendations already, but here's a few more slice-of-life docs to consider:

The Up documentaries, of which there are 7 to date (7 Up, 14 Up, 21 Up, 28 Up, 35 Up, 42 Up, and 49 Up) by Michael Apted.

Following Sean (2006)

Stevie (2002)

51 Birch Street (2005)

More obscure stuff:
Dancing Outlaw (1991) -- Available only from the director through Amazon

Portrait of Jason (1967) - not available in R1 but damn good!

I haven't seen it myself, but I hear that Metallica's "Some Kind of Monster" is pretty entertaining.

I'll second Murderball, Word Wars and Jesus Camp, and add The Bridge, Discovery Atlas - Italy, The Staircase and Prom Night in Kansas City.

I don't want the discussion to go off topic, so I will ask people to refrain from bashing my picks:

I can recommend anything by Michael Moore. Now some will say things are being presented in a certain way, but he has a certain kind of touch that actually makes things interesting. But of all of his films, Bowling for Columbine is probably the one to seek out.

Also anything by Errol Morris is good. "Deliver Us From Evil" is amazing, but it can be difficult to watch. American Movie is fantastic, as is Hoop Dreams, Born into Brothels, Enron; The Smartest Guys In The Room, The Corporation, Wilco; I am Trying to Break Your Heart, The Kid Stays In The Picture, Murderball...almost anything that was listed above.

Lastly, check out the documentaries that come with the movie "Dust Devil", the one about the Holy Grail and the Nazis search for it is incredible. As well as the other two. The Secret Glory, Voice Of The Moon, and The White Darkness are the names.

Jesus Camp

I could not take my eyes away from this film. The fact that there are people out there who take religion and the bible so literally really scares the shit out of me.

Also...

When Stand-Up Stood Out
Indie Sex
Fuck (yes, that is actually the name of the doc)
Trekkies (I'm not a Star Trek fan but this doc is hilarious)

I don't want to go off topic either so let's all try to keep in mind what the OP asked for:

I feel I answered the question correctly. Although I guess my definition of slice of life is different I suppose.

I think it's relevant to the topic to pin down what constitutes a slice-of-life documentary, so here's Wikipedia's definition as it applies to fiction:

A slice of life story is a category for a story that portrays a "cut-out" sequence of events in a character's life. It may or may not contain any real plot, and often has no exposition, action, conflict, or denouement, with an open ending. It usually tries to depict the every-day life of ordinary people.

Try as I might I can't come up with any definition of a slice-of-life doc broad enough to include Nazis looking for Holy Grails, and Michael Moore polemics about gun control, other than perhaps "A documentary featuring humans."

I'll second "51 Birch Street." And toss in "Crazy Love" -- although that's a slice of life with a twist of pathology...

Was going to recommend this one.

Also, don't know if it could be catergorized technically as a documentary, more of a re-enactment with documentary-style interviews: Touching the Void.

Another cool documentary is Long Way Round which was originally shown on tv. It has a lot of humor in it and stars Ewan McGregor.

http://pridefc.com/img/store/smashingmachine.jpg

The Smashing Machine

Children Underground
Dark Days
Grey Gardens

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. There are several I am going to rent. Looking over my collection I realize I have one that nobody mentioned and I really like it a lot.... Trekkies.

Nobody except for jpoppe, that is.

^^

Oops. Just didn't see it for some reason. Sorry jpoppe and GREAT suggestion! :D

I strongly recommend
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http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...BL._AA240_.jpg

No worries.

Just saw Trekkies 2 this weekend. Wasn't nearly as good as the first, but still had some interesting "characters."

Side note: I just checked out the IMDB page for the geeky mulleted (sp?) kid from the first movie and he's actually become a pretty successful guy in the special effects arena.

link: http://imdb.com/name/nm0462933/