I recently watched "Who killed the electric car?" which was quite informative and interesting.

"Sharkwater" was also very good.

"The NASA Missions: When We Left Earth" is fantastic. The stories about the Mercury, Gemini and Appolo missions give great insight into the sheer genius of the engineers and the ridiculous bravery of the astronauts. Given the technology of the times, it's amazing that we didn't have more than three disasters.

quote:

"The NASA Missions: When We Left Earth" is fantastic.

I have this saved on my DVR, looking forward to watching it.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out.

This isn't new, released in 2004, but The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is my favorite documentary. I've seen it probably a couple dozen times.

Not really.
TV is so dumbed down and spiced up that I rarely learn anything.
Content takes a back seat to glitz even in serious shows.
One hour of documentary is equivalent to 5 minutes of reading (if that?).

Who was it that said that television was a "Vast wasteland" and who said "The medium is the message"

But if I had to pick recent favorites.
Monster Garage (or is that reality TV?)

Earth, power of the planethas a few moments.

Errol Morris is a supremely talented filmmaker.

His film reminded me of when McNamara was on a speaking tour when his earlier book (1996) was released, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam". At the time, I regarded it as a far-too-late, revisionist attempt to rehabilitate himself far-too-long after the fact. I'm not totally sure I believe he's not still looking for absolution from America. And yet, the last words he speaks in the film are "I don't want to go any further into this."

Morris, one has to believe, wasn't making a film to finally "reveal the truth" about Vietnam -- if he were, he didn't succeed. His intent was to reveal the character of the man, Robert McNamara and the ironies and contradictions that fhave followed his career.

quote:

Who was it that said that television was a "Vast wasteland" and who said "The medium is the message"

1) Newton Minow
2) Marshall McLuhan

quote:

Originally posted by Jack White:
At the time, I regarded it as a far-too-late, revisionist attempt to rehabilitate himself far-too-long after the fact. I'm not totally sure I believe he's not still looking for absolution from America. And yet, the last words he speaks in the film are "I don't want to go any further into this."

Well, I'm pretty sure history shows that McNamara supported Kennedy's decision to reduce the exposure of combat personnel inside Vietnam. I believe it was Johnson's decison to escalate against McNamara's advice.

quote:

But if I had to pick recent favorites.
Monster Garage (or is that reality TV?)

I loved that show. Did you see the two-hour version of it with Jesse James and Kid Rock riding choppers thru Mexico? I wanted to be him.

These days, I like to watch "Deadliest Catch" and "Ice Road Truckers".

My wife calls it "a guy thing".

quote:

These days, I like to watch "Deadliest Catch"

I love this show, it's on tongiht!

Super High Me

comedian Doug bensons parody on Super size me where he smokes pot for 30 days...HILARIOUS

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm making a list.

All my friends have said "The King of Kong" is excellent...I'm waiting till my semester is over to rent it...

jag

If you haven't seen the nature doc "Winged Migration" from a few years ago, I recommend highly it as a rental. It's magnificent. If you have really young kids, keep in mind it has one or two hard-to-watch scenes depicting "survival of the fittest". Otherwise, it's a perfect family film.

Speaking of nature docs, March of the Penguins was fantastic, and the BBC series "Planet Earth" is absolutely stunning... it is available as a DVD set and I highly recommend it.

quote:

Originally posted by thaterp:
Super High Me

comedian Doug bensons parody on Super size me where he smokes pot for 30 days...HILARIOUS

X 2...i didn't think his stand up stuff was that funny...but the documentarie part is funny..

I enjoyed the recent PBS documentary/ mini series/ reality tv show Carrier. They followed the crew of the USS Nimitz through an entire deployment.

Indoctrinate U, about how the left squashes all dissent on campus and how the Universities are simply incubators for leftist thought.

Superpride, about a very large, very successful pride of lions in Africa.

Superpride was an excellent film.

Your first paragraph, though, would be far more appropriately placed in another thread.