Puffin’s Place

I have always been a documentary hound and find myself enjoying even some relatively bad ones hugely. So I thought I would collect here some that have most impressed me in the past few months—and the time frame is viewing, not appearance on the scene.

Today began to watch and had to turn off The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA. I contribute to PETA and support totally their main mission if not always their histrionic execution of that mission. That is, I am not for tossing pies or blood at any one, but I can understand why those who regularly expose themselves to scenes of animal abuse such as those included in this film would move over the civility line. What I saw of the film is tough to take, and I could not take it. But anyone who thinks animals are here for our whims should be forced to watch this documentary.

No End in Sight, Charles Ferguson’s doc on the way the US got into the Iraq war is a must see. Mark now, this is daddy Bush’s invasion and offers some painful contrasts to sonny’s attempt to go mano y mano with the old man. Way too bad GWB lacked the guts to take on the Oedipal battle himself rather than send Americans into a battle to slaughter Iraquis.

Sacco and Vanzetti (2007) shames so many angles of American society that it is distressing. From the legal system to the courts to the paper media to Americans on the streets, watching this lets one discover that we would kill two men before we would accept immigrants as real people.

A documentary on Alfred Steiglitz in 2000 but only now seen by me is an extraordinary look into the artist’s mind AND into a relationship, in this case, Steiglitz’s relationship with Georgia O’Keefe. Not the least of its virtues is an interview with O’Keefe.

The 2004 documentary on Al Jeezera news is a stunner. Good review of this seven-year old news operation and interesting if painful takes on western media.

Small Town Gay Bar takes a look at gay bars in the south and reminds us that gays trapped for one reason or another in the deep south—and most any non-urban corner of the country—have to struggle way harder for social outlets than do their straight brothers and sisters. Before getting too comfortable, take a look at it.

And don’t miss Touching the Void, the story of the calamatious climb that found one climber leaving his partner on the mountain, and Grizzly Man, the Californian who spent summers with the bears in Alaska, deluded himself that he was protecting them, and ended his life and that of his girl friend’s as the lunch of a starving grizzly.

Have some recommendations to make for documentaries that ought to be seen? Drop ‘em here.