Documentaries to See Before You Die

[brummie-leinster-man]

As a bit of a fan of the old documentary, I'm always open to interesting films. What documentaries would you recommend to others to watch before they die?

For me it's:

Loose Change
7/7 Ripple Effect
Wake Up Call
Taking Liberties: Since 1997
The History Of Money
Zeitgeist
Blue Planet (the one where they go right down into the deep with all the fluorescent alien fish )

[Scott]

Inside Job

http://www.novamov.com/video/22276m0dc4yvq

[John23]

Some of the ESPN 30 for 30 I have seen are excellent, particularly the Two Escobars. I think I will treat myself to the box set.

[brummie-leinster-man]

ESPN show some really interesting stuff. I sat and watched a programme once about a kids baseball team. God knows why, it just gripped me

[Broken Wing]

Zeitgeist

Definitely worth seeing as a fantastic example of an incredibly inaccurate, misleading and badly researched conspiracy theory.

[Leinster Exile]

One day in September
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230591/

Strike: When Britain went to War

[Logorrhea]

The Root of all Evil - The God Delusion

The Two Escobars - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd5amEEVLgk

[brummie-leinster-man]

Zeitgeist

Definitely worth seeing as a fantastic example of an incredibly inaccurate, misleading and badly researched conspiracy theory.

Hmmmm, open minded I see......

Inaccurate? Badly researched? I don't know about that. While not everything in it is agreeable there's a lot more sense exhibited in this film than the evening news most nights. Certainly 2/3rds of the film are based on factual evidence that can be looked up anywhere. By any chance does 'badly researched' mean not just sticking to mainstream media?

[brummie-leinster-man]

The Root of all Evil - The God Delusion

I've just googled this. Looks like its worth a watch. I'll have a look later

[John23]

Anything by Michael Moore !

[sarah_lennon]

This is Spinal Tap

[Broken Wing]

Zeitgeist

Definitely worth seeing as a fantastic example of an incredibly inaccurate, misleading and badly researched conspiracy theory.

Hmmmm, open minded I see......

Inaccurate? Badly researched? I don't know about that. While not everything in it is agreeable there's a lot more sense exhibited in this film than the evening news most nights. Certainly 2/3rds of the film are based on factual evidence that can be looked up anywhere. By any chance does 'badly researched' mean not just sticking to mainstream media?

No, badly researched means making outlandish claims without figuring out if they are correct.

Some of it is embarrasingly simple: Zeitgeist claims Horus was the Egyptian god of the sun born on December 25th but Horus was the god of the sky and born in August. Ra was god of the sun.

Zeitgiest claims Attis was born of a virgin but nowhere (else) has anyone claimed Nana was a virgin. Nor was Attis crucified, entombed or resurrected three days later. Attis was the god of vegetation and died every winter to be reborn in spring.

Zeitgeist claims Krishna was born of a virgin which was some going given he was her 8th son.

Zeitgeist claims Orions belt was known as the three kings and that Sirius lined up with them on December 24th to point to the east giving rise to all that Christmas stuff. There are, of course, no pre-christian references to Orion's belt being called the three kings and it's common knowledge that most christian churches celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25 purely to cash in on Saturnalia while Jesus was believed to be born in May so the arrangement of stars over Bethlehem in December, which astronomical records show do not match anything like Zeitgeist claims, are completely irrelevant.

The September 11th conspiracy theory is debunked all over the internet (but that's probably the secret government's work).

The money stuff is dreadful. Reworded quotes or quotes with no source beyond other conspiracy theory sites and literature. Zeitgeist claims there's no law or statue about income tax in America? Except of course the Internal Revenue code that Zeitgeist couldn't find but google could.

The claim that America was looking for an excuse to enter WWI is fiction and the notion that the Lusitania was sent out as a sacrificial lamb to draw the US into the war is pure conspiracy theory. Look at the facts. The Lusitania was sunk in 1915. If this was to be the spark that threw the US into the war then it was a huge failure as the US didn't enter the war for another two years and it was almost 3 years after the Lusitania was sunk that US troops saw any action.

Zeitgeist then goes on with the old fiction that Roosevelt knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbour but did nothing. There is absolutely no evidence that Roosevelt knew about it. he file claims he had been inflaming tensions between the US and Japan in the lead up to the attack but in fact the US and Japan had been at loggerheads since the 1920s and this escalated when Japan invaded Manchuria. China was a US ally so when Japan invaded Indo China the US put an embargo on the sale of fuel to Japan in response. Zeitgeist, without mentioning Japan's imperial moves, claims this was done to provoke a Japanese attack.

Anywhere Zeitgeist mentions figures they are exaggerated. They even exaggerate the number killed in Pearl Harbour and massively inflate the number of US troops killed in WWI which are easily accessible facts.

Facts are stubborn things and the 2/3rd that you say can be looked up anywhere generally show that Zeitgeist deliberately misinterprets them or takes them competely out of context to suit the great conspiracy. A lie is always more believable when flavoured with a little truth.

[Logorrhea]

The Root of all Evil - The God Delusion

I've just googled this. Looks like its worth a watch. I'll have a look later

Actually, looking at the title of the thread. This is probably the one documentary you shouldnt watch just before you die

I'm pretty sure its all up on youtube.

As for Zeitgeist, looking back it was .... well.... pretty Zeitgeisty. There was/is an audience for it and it got people thinking. It was a pretty good production for what was pretty low-budget affair. It stretched a bit far for me, but asked quite a few good questions. I thought it was fun.

[Darce]

America's Game is excellent

[brummie-leinster-man]

Not being the slightest bit religious, I'll admit don't have a clue about the first section of the film.

This one gets my goat though:

The September 11th conspiracy theory is debunked all over the internet (but that's probably the secret government's work).

A hell of a lot of people seem to confuse 'Conspiracy theory' with 'asking a question'. A theory is when you look at a collection of facts and use them to draw a conclusion. E.g. "they faked the WMD's so they could go and take the oil". As much as many believe that to be true, until it is confirmed as and official reason for war then it will always be a theory.
The other side to this is looking at something logically, listening to the official account of the event and seeing if things add up.

Some of the questions raised in this case:

Why was every single USAF fighter jet used for an exercise 100's of miles from New York?

What are the chances of the 3 ONLY steel framed buildings to collapse from fire in history to happen on the same day?

Why was the collapse of WTC7 not even mentioned in the 9/11 commission report considering the importance of some of the tenants of that building?

How does a plane with a wingspan of over 100ft, including 2 engines and a tail fin, crash into a building and leave a 16ft wide hole and then completely disintegrate?

How does a plane crash into the ground and leave no debris?

How can Condoleeza Rice stand in front of a nation claiming nobody had any idea this could happen, when they have spend years developing emergency procedures for that very situation?

Zeitgeist, with all its flaws, does not claim to answer these questions. What it does is highlight the flaws in the official account. How that can be described as a 'Conspiracy theory' really is beyond me!!

As soon as you ask these type of questions, people roll their eyes and instantly your an idiot. Surely the ones who ask the questions in life are the clever ones and the ones that gobble everything up are the idiots, no?


As for the latter part, don't forget the old quote 'history is written by the winners'. I'm not saying your wrong in what you say, just that what you read in a textbook at school inst necessary an exact account. Don't forget in years to come children will learn about how George W Bush and Tony Blair won the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing democracy to the Middle East. There are plenty of autobiographical accounts of events that support some of the claims Zeitgeist makes about Roosevelt, etc..... They are all there to find if that floats your boat

[hugonaut]

No, badly researched means making outlandish claims without figuring out if they are correct.

Some of it is embarrasingly simple: Zeitgeist claims Horus was the Egyptian god of the sun born on December 25th but Horus was the god of the sky and born in August. Ra was god of the sun.

Zeitgiest claims Attis was born of a virgin but nowhere (else) has anyone claimed Nana was a virgin. Nor was Attis crucified, entombed or resurrected three days later. Attis was the god of vegetation and died every winter to be reborn in spring.

Zeitgeist claims Krishna was born of a virgin which was some going given he was her 8th son.

Zeitgeist claims Orions belt was known as the three kings and that Sirius lined up with them on December 24th to point to the east giving rise to all that Christmas stuff. There are, of course, no pre-christian references to Orion's belt being called the three kings and it's common knowledge that most christian churches celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25 purely to cash in on Saturnalia while Jesus was believed to be born in May so the arrangement of stars over Bethlehem in December, which astronomical records show do not match anything like Zeitgeist claims, are completely irrelevant.

The September 11th conspiracy theory is debunked all over the internet (but that's probably the secret government's work).

The money stuff is dreadful. Reworded quotes or quotes with no source beyond other conspiracy theory sites and literature. Zeitgeist claims there's no law or statue about income tax in America? Except of course the Internal Revenue code that Zeitgeist couldn't find but google could.

The claim that America was looking for an excuse to enter WWI is fiction and the notion that the Lusitania was sent out as a sacrificial lamb to draw the US into the war is pure conspiracy theory. Look at the facts. The Lusitania was sunk in 1915. If this was to be the spark that threw the US into the war then it was a huge failure as the US didn't enter the war for another two years and it was almost 3 years after the Lusitania was sunk that US troops saw any action.

Zeitgeist then goes on with the old fiction that Roosevelt knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbour but did nothing. There is absolutely no evidence that Roosevelt knew about it. he file claims he had been inflaming tensions between the US and Japan in the lead up to the attack but in fact the US and Japan had been at loggerheads since the 1920s and this escalated when Japan invaded Manchuria. China was a US ally so when Japan invaded Indo China the US put an embargo on the sale of fuel to Japan in response. Zeitgeist, without mentioning Japan's imperial moves, claims this was done to provoke a Japanese attack.

Anywhere Zeitgeist mentions figures they are exaggerated. They even exaggerate the number killed in Pearl Harbour and massively inflate the number of US troops killed in WWI which are easily accessible facts.

Facts are stubborn things and the 2/3rd that you say can be looked up anywhere generally show that Zeitgeist deliberately misinterprets them or takes them competely out of context to suit the great conspiracy. A lie is always more believable when flavoured with a little truth.

Enjoyed that post, Broken Wing!

[Broken Wing]

There is nothing wrong with asking questions but there is something wrong with dismissing every answer that disagrees with a set theory.

If, for example, you google "Pentagon Crash Debris" you'll find plenty of photographs of airplane debris lying around the pentagon on the day as well as eye witness accounts of the plane coming in low and clipping telegraph poles and articles explaining why what happened with the crash debris is exactly what would be expected. Despite this evidence people still believe it was hit by a missile and they will dismiss the photographs and reports as faked or whatever simply because they don't agree with the theory.

For what it's worth, what I read in a text book at school is completely irrelevant. I've spent most of my adult life reading history books and magazines and have read several books on the history of both World Wars and the claims made by Zeitgeist just do not fit the facts and questioning the claims in Zeitgeist shows that. Why, for example, would the US send out the Lusitania as a sacrificial lamb to drag them into a war they were utterly unprepared for? They had a tiny standing army, no tanks, no airforce, out dated equipment, out dated battle plans and no plan for getting what little they had to the European theatre of war nor even a prepared plan to put into action to get their military up to war footing. There was every possibility that the war would be over by the time they were even ready to take part.

[brummie-leinster-man]

There is nothing wrong with asking questions but there is something wrong with dismissing every answer that disagrees with a set theory.

The ironic thing here is that is exactly what you are doing. You are also using that word again...'theory'


There are no theories here, just a bucket load of questions.

Now, docs to see before you die or STFU!!

[brummie-leinster-man]

America's Game is excellent

Is that the one about the American Football? I watched something once about, I think, was the New York Jets when Nameth and Bubba Smith played for them. Again, no interest in the sport itself but a very interesting watch.

[Broken Wing]

The Schindler of Nanking is worth a look. It's the story of John Rabe, a Nazi in Nanking when the Japanese arrived. It was shown on RTÉ recently and I got the impression that some of the Japanese soldiers recounting their part didn't realise they were being filmed so they were more candid.

Also Discovery channel recently had a series on World War II in colour which was great for a wide scope look at the war.