What's your favorite documentary?

I love documentaries but I don't watch as many as I might otherwise because I don't want to get hyped up for something that turns out not to be as good as I thought.

Here are my top 3 and I'd love to hear yours:

1) Inside Job (2010). Narrated by Matt Damon, this documentary does a deep dive into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. Here's the trailer:



2) Kedi (2017). This documentary follows street cats in Istanbul who are treated like family by everyone. It's so upbeat and sweet. It opens with a little momma cat getting a piece of bread from a bakery to bring back to her kittens. Here's the trailer:



3) Grey Gardens (1975). This documentary follows Big Edie and Little Edie who live in the titular dilapidated mansion. Big Edie was the aunt of Jackie Kennedy. An interesting look at both their lives and the times. Here's the trailer:

 

Fake documentaries allowed? "Crash 2030" (environmentalism, Germany 1994) and "The War Game" (nuclear war, UK 1965).

 

Those all look fascinating. I think I would particularly enjoy the one about the cats.

 

Cosmos (the Carl Sagan version, although NDT's re-boot was pretty good, too.)

 

Hey! No fair! That's not a....never mind. You're right.

 

We are living it...and have been for a while.

 

Not a documentary but based on real events, The Big Short. The MD/Financial genius (Michael Burry) who figures everything out is fascinating.

Also, a reminder that underlying financial issues (good or bad) are rarely as simple as one President. The 2008 financial crisis goes back to the Clinton Administration (not his fault exactly). According to NPR, when Alan Greenspan appeared before Congress he admitted he screwed up and way back then hadn't seen the issues that would eventually cause it.

I need to study more Nassim Taleb (Black Swan Events). Great academic pedigree and like the guy above has made millions.

 

Will check it out.

 

Dr. Taleb's Black Swan was called one the the top 12 most influential books since WWII by The Sunday Times.

The author is brilliant and insightful but the reading level is not easy (but what do you expect from a guy with a Masters from Wharton and his PhD from the University of Paris) and this Amazon review of the Incerto Series captures some of what comes across about him personally.

"The ideas are interesting, maybe even important, but the writing style is pretty hard to get through. He comes across as a huge narcissist – anyone who's not doing things his way is wasting their life. Antifragile has so many personal attacks I got the feeling he did so just so that there'd be nobody who could criticize the book that he couldn't accuse of just getting back at him for what he wrote. It's filled with obscure references, which would be educational if I took time to look them up, but having to run to the internet every five minutes while I'm reading a book kind of defeats the purpose for me.

(I did enjoy the irony when he said that something along the lines of one of his hobbies being making fun of people who take themselves too seriously. I don't think he realized he could have been talking to himself.)

I have no problem with people who are full of themselves, and I wouldn't avoid reading something that someone like that wrote, but when it comes across as strongly as it does in these books, it really affects the writing. The fact that I continued to read them despite the style speaks to what I think of the content. For people who can ignore the former, I'd recommend these books."

 

Sorry, the "Inside Job" is a lot of bullshit. In a few days I am giving a lecture at a prestigious University in the US on the fall of Lehman Brothers. I know of what I speak.

 

Source: trust me bro

 

• Kids for Cash
• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

 

I love watching Nomac's travel stories on Youtube.
His chanel is so relaxing to watch.
He visits Pakistan, Iraq, Iran as a western tourist.
Every time I'm so curious for his stories.
Plus he has a wonderful personality.

 

Winter Soldier, which is about the Vietnam War and has a section with John Kerry. Not to mention some brutal video footage from the war.

Anything about Nanjing/Nanking the features Minnie Vautrin's story with the women from the "district" helping the girls at the school. For one, it humanizes the women and shows them as heros in comparison to the villan or victim tropes often seen. I cannot remember what my favorite documentary was but it was the opposite of the romanticized ending version of the Flowers of War (which was a great fictional movie with some half-truths). The end of the one I thought was better epitomized the idea of "give a mouse a cookie" to the point that the women from the district were "taken" to the point of being killed. They were essentially given permission to do whatever. Essentially, the women from the district were committing suicide by putting themselves in the place of the girls from the school. They knew what was going to happen going into that situation, but they are heros for doing so... and sadly we will probably never know the names of most of them.

More recently, I have a series of documentaries I have been loving called This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy.

For anyone who really loved The Big Short, I highly suggest watching JLo's 2019 crime/comedy that shall remain nameless. It is also not fully documentary but also not fully fiction. I would say it actually is more fact than fiction. There is a correlation between the two that many are still unaware of with issues that were happening from a broader perspective. I suggest watching them back to back. Needless to say, I now have zero faith in these mortgage companies, the government, or the bond market when it comes to regulation... and I have very solid reason. We have the other thread debating cryptocurrency but these issues are exactly the sort of reason why people are going to end up opting for cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies.

 

I think a lot of people lost confidence (though how long that lasts is another issue). We put a lot of confidence in a system and in people. Dr. Alan Greenspan was the "Maestro". He kept Clinton in line and helped usher in (or was seen to) prosperity. When Bush was elected someone's mother said that were okay as long as that "nice Mr. Greenspan was still there". He could seemingly do no wrong. No one is suggesting it is his fault but he wasn't as omniscient as people thought and admitted before Congress he missed the set up that brought down the economy in 2008 (and had been there under everyone's noses for years). It was Dr. Burry who figured it out. So, today we could be sitting on another powder keg brought about by greedy people and relying on experts may not help.

The Big Short made a good point that next to no one was punished for crippling our economy and putting everyone on the brink. A guy like Garner dies while struggling with police who were trying to arrest or restrain him for reselling cigarettes he purchased. But the financial guys, meh! And the self indulgent greed crosses part lines. As a movie character said "Greed is good" if of course you have the right education and status.

 

I forgot to mention this one, which guven that this is an education forum it really should be mentioned: College Behind Bars

 

Great documentary! And we have a thread here: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/college-behind-bars.59687/

 

Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War

Vietnam: A Television History (based on the amazing book, Vietnam: A History, by Stanley Karnow)