Documentaries

[GostHacked]

What I hope for this section is like the other sections where we can post some documentaries we've liked. My goal here is to simply post the documentary and a short synopsis of it. You can decide to watch it or not.

So last night I caught a version of Adam Curtis' recent documentary, 'HyperNormalization' .  This guy has done some fantastic work before (Power of Nightmares, The Century of Self) and this was just as good. I really like his style and visuals to make his point. Well researched and the dots are connected in some case.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6156350/

Quote

HyperNormalisation tells the extraordinary story of how we got to this strange time of great uncertainty and confusion - where those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed - and have no idea what to do. And, where events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of control - from Donald Trump to Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant crisis, and random bomb attacks. It explains not only why these chaotic events are happening - but also why we, and our politicians, cannot understand them. The film shows that what has happened is that all of us in the West - not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but we ourselves - have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world.

 

[Moonlight Graham]

This recent documentary is on Netflix too.  It's about an African-American named Daryl Davis who accidentally began befriending members of the KKK about 25 years ago, and after becoming friends with them has convinced many of them that black people aren't so bad after all, and many of them have left the KKK because of their friendship, including high ranks within the KKK.  Daryl has collected the KKK robes (and other memorabilia) of Klan members who left the Klan, these were given to him by his ex-KKK friends.  He currently has about 25 KKK robes of friends who have left.  There's an extremely heated scene in the film where he speaks with young Black Lives Matters activists who don't agree with his whole mission.  Required viewing.

 

[Michael Hardner]

Great topic.

 

[Michael Hardner]

 

[kimmy]

I think that Inside Job is the most important documentary I have ever seen.  It's about the 2007 mortgage bubble and resulting financial crisis. I don't know if it's available for free viewing, but if you can find it on Netflix or something, it's definitely worth watching.

 

 -k

[Bonam]

11 hours ago, GostHacked said:

So last night I caught a version of Adam Curtis' recent documentary, 'HyperNormalization' .  This guy has done some fantastic work before (Power of Nightmares, The Century of Self) and this was just as good. I really like his style and visuals to make his point. Well researched and the dots are connected in some case.

The problem with documentaries is anyone can make them and they can put whatever they want into them. I listened to this one for about 15-20 mins and then gave up after the author made some claims like the following:

- Assad was a benevolent leader trying to bring peace and unity to the middle east before being betrayed by Kissinger regarding Palestinian peace talks, after which he was bent only on revenge (hint: no one gives a damn about the Palestinians, least of all Assad)

- New York was "taken over" by the bankers after no one would buy NYC bonds anymore. I don't even know if this episode references real events or not, but if it does, it was always the city's choice to go deeper and deeper into debt, and they would have been contractually beholden to any bank requirements for only so long as they continued to be in debt. 

- In 1982, Israel wanted to "break the power of the Palestinians" and attacked them in Lebanon. First... what power was there to break? Second, the first Lebanon war was in response to PLO attacks against Israel. 

Anyway, I've pretty much given up on documentaries regarding any kind of controversial or political topics. It's all fake documentaries just like so much of the BS that passes for news now is fake. Documentaries about the natural world or science can be good though. Historical documentaries can be good too, although one has to watch out for lots of revisionism when it comes to any history in the last 2000 years or so. 

[bush_cheney2004]

9 minutes ago, Bonam said:

...Anyway, I've pretty much given up on documentaries regarding any kind of controversial or political topics. It's all fake documentaries just like so much of the BS that passes for news now is fake. Documentaries about the natural world or science can be good though. Historical documentaries can be good too, although one has to watch out for lots of revisionism when it comes to any history in the last 2000 years or so. 

 

Agreed...the only way I could watch the original Planet Earth box set was to turn the audio off.   The commentary was so biased and politically motivated it detracted from the documentary.   "Fake news" was born !

[Moonlight Graham]

51 minutes ago, Bonam said:

The problem with documentaries is anyone can make them and they can put whatever they want into them. I listened to this one for about 15-20 mins and then gave up after the author made some claims like the following:

Anyway, I've pretty much given up on documentaries regarding any kind of controversial or political topics. It's all fake documentaries just like so much of the BS that passes for news now is fake. Documentaries about the natural world or science can be good though. Historical documentaries can be good too, although one has to watch out for lots of revisionism when it comes to any history in the last 2000 years or so. 

Oh you're absolutely right. I find so much fake crap in them.  Some genuinely interesting tidbit will come up in a doc and I'll google it just to get more info and it will turn out to be false.  The thing about documentaries is the filmmakers have an agenda in most them, they're trying to convince the audience of some point that's a pet passion of theirs, and for some reason sometimes will include totally made-up or half-true nonsense since they're desperate to convert the masses to their views.  They're more like 90 minute video op-eds...without an editor to rein them in.

Some of them can be good though, you just have to be a critical skeptic.

[Bonam]

4 hours ago, kimmy said:

I think that Inside Job is the most important documentary I have ever seen.  It's about the 2007 mortgage bubble and resulting financial crisis. I don't know if it's available for free viewing, but if you can find it on Netflix or something, it's definitely worth watching.

 -k

It's very funny now, issues like regulatory reform of the financial industry seem so far beyond the types of topics that are now present in US federal politics. While the buffoon slings poo around the white house and distracts all attention, the financial industry can do whatever it wants. Perhaps that's the plan? We are after all in another massive bubble now... the stock market P/E ratio just reached levels previously seen only twice before in history: right before the 2001 crash and right before the 2008 crash. 

[Michael Hardner]

I think it's odd and apparently naive to discard all documentaries because you have discovered that some are biased.  

[Moonlight Graham]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

I think it's odd and apparently naive to discard all documentaries because you have discovered that some are biased.  

If you read what Bonam and I said, we never said that.

[Michael Hardner]

13 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

If you read what Bonam and I said, we never said that.

"Anyway, I've pretty much given up on documentaries regarding any kind of controversial or political topics."

[Moonlight Graham]

5 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

"Anyway, I've pretty much given up on documentaries regarding any kind of controversial or political topics."

Well I guess you just checkmated me lol.

[Bonam]

9 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

I think it's odd and apparently naive to discard all documentaries because you have discovered that some are biased.  

A typical documentary is a ~2 hour movie. During that 2 hour period, if I'm interested in a particular topic, I can learn far more about it by perusing a variety of articles from different sources. In 2 hours, I can understand the basic issues that are at play, get a feel for the biases of different groups regarding the topic, ascertain some of the important verifiable facts, and start to form my own opinion about it, rather than being spoon-fed something by an almost certainly biased video. 

Flipping through political documentaries is just entertainment, it won't leave you any more educated or knowledgeable. Many are blatant political propaganda put out by activists for one cause or another. It's fine, it's just no different than other genres of movies which are also intended primarily for entertainment. 

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Moonlight Graham said:

Well I guess you just checkmated me lol.

Meh, you will get me next time.

if there are GOOD political documentaries from a rightward angle, post them here - I'm interested.

[Michael Hardner]

59 minutes ago, Bonam said:

A typical documentary is a ~2 hour movie. During that 2 hour period, if I'm interested in a particular topic, I can learn far more about it by perusing a variety of articles from different sources. In 2 hours, I can understand the basic issues that are at play, get a feel for the biases of different groups regarding the topic, ascertain some of the important verifiable facts, and start to form my own opinion about it, rather than being spoon-fed something by an almost certainly biased video. 

Flipping through political documentaries is just entertainment, it won't leave you any more educated or knowledgeable. Many are blatant political propaganda put out by activists for one cause or another. It's fine, it's just no different than other genres of movies which are also intended primarily for entertainment. 

I agree with you for the most part.  I don't want to watch left-wing political documentaries as they don't play the other side of the story enough.

[Moonlight Graham]

1 hour ago, Michael Hardner said:

I agree with you for the most part.  I don't want to watch left-wing political documentaries as they don't play the other side of the story enough.

What I believe is that in order to cover a subject accurately, you can't be an activist.  You have to remove your agenda and biases as much as possible from the equation and look at everything from a bird's eye view.  That way you can cover all sides fairly.  You have to look at things from an academic perspective.

I doubt right-wing docs will do that much better.

[Moonlight Graham]

I watched The Unknown Known a while back, about Donald Rumsfeld.  It's by Errol Morris, the guy who did "The Fog of War" interviewing an elderly Robert McNamara (JFK/LBJ defense secretary and Vietnam War architect).  I think someone told Rummy that The Fog of War was popular and made McNamara look better in history's eyes (he seemed like a nice, honest guy), and so maybe doing an Errol Morris interview documentary might help Rummy's image.

Problem is, Rummy was as evasive and dishonest and unapologetic as he was during the Bush Admin in the doc.  It revealed nothing new really.  Certainly not as good as The Fog of War.  McNamara had decades to reflect on Vietnam, so I think it was too soon to interview Rummy, especially since the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts were still going on.  Anyways, the whole thing is on youtube:

 

[Omni]

30 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

I watched The Unknown Known a while back, about Donald Rumsfeld.  It's by Errol Morris, the guy who did "The Fog of War" interviewing an elderly Robert McNamara (JFK/LBJ defense secretary and Vietnam War architect).  I think someone told Rummy that The Fog of War was popular and made McNamara look better in history's eyes (he seemed like a nice, honest guy), and so maybe doing an Errol Morris interview documentary might help Rummy's image.

Problem is, Rummy was as evasive and dishonest and unapologetic as he was during the Bush Admin in the doc.  It revealed nothing new really.  Certainly not as good as The Fog of War.  McNamara had decades to reflect on Vietnam, so I think it was too soon to interview Rummy, especially since the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts were still going on.  Anyways, the whole thing is on youtube:

 

I would agree that I appreciated "The Fog of War". I was convinced that he was being honest, forthcoming, reflective, and even a tad apologetic. I certainly don't get those same reactions listening to Rumsfeld. But as a sidebar I have my own little "movie" featuring Rumsfeld. I was working in Tbilisi Georgia and was just leaving my office on the airport when I saw a couple of C-17's land and I wondered if maybe the US was invading or something. They off loaded some fancy vehicles, and then in came a 757 with "The United States of America" written on the side. OK this is getting interesting, I knew it wasn't the Pres. because he rides in a 747, but since I was on the military side of the airport, and planes had all parked nearby I was able to get close enough to see none other than Donald Rumsfeld descend and get into a Limo and head for town. It took me a while to drive home but when I got there I turned on CNN and the lead story was telling me "and Donald Rumsfeld spends a third day visiting with troops in in Iraq". Huh? I emailed CNN to say I just saw him get off a plane but it wasn't in Iraq. Still haven't rec'd any reply. Oh well, I'm sure they'll get back to me. 

[overthere]

On 5/1/2017 at 0:16 AM, Bonam said:

It's very funny now, issues like regulatory reform of the financial industry seem so far beyond the types of topics that are now present in US federal politics. While the buffoon slings poo around the white house and distracts all attention, the financial industry can do whatever it wants. Perhaps that's the plan? We are after all in another massive bubble now... the stock market P/E ratio just reached levels previously seen only twice before in history: right before the 2001 crash and right before the 2008 crash. 

Obama had all the time required to change US mortgage regulations to prevent another round of economic holocaust.  He did nearly nothing, and nobody went to jail. 

 

The CDN industry and specifically residential mortgages are federally regulated.  The banks and all lenders are required to qualify every high ratio borrower under rules that are not of their making, so the risk here is far less than it is in America.

[bush_cheney2004]

19 minutes ago, overthere said:

Obama had all the time required to change US mortgage regulations to prevent another round of economic holocaust.  He did nearly nothing, and nobody went to jail.

 

This is a common myth, as there were many prosecutions and dozens of convictions with jail time resulting from the U.S. financial crisis and government bailout.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/28/news/companies/bankers-prison/

Edited May 3, 2017 by bush_cheney2004

[GostHacked]

On 5/1/2017 at 6:08 PM, Michael Hardner said:

Meh, you will get me next time.

if there are GOOD political documentaries from a rightward angle, post them here - I'm interested.

Only watch stuff that you agree with? That seems counter productive. You are wanting to select things to reinforce your current standing, but now want to watch something that might make you change your mind on some things.