Scots Taffer on 12/3/2010 at 01:22
I gotta ask. Beyond being a thesis on why we should be vegetarians, a lot of us are probably fairly aware of the abuse contained within the meat industry as well as any other fringe issues like cruelty to animals in zoos, safaris, and other such things - so as long as you aren't ignorant to those issues, what do you take away from something like this other than an appropriate sense of horror and disgust?
Those who care enough already probably buy free range and organic and so on, as much as we can afford to anyway, and we probably don't have time to become activists. Plus given the size of the industry and the amount of dollars it turns over, what can any band of protesters effectively accomplish?
witherflower on 12/3/2010 at 01:39
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
I gotta ask. Beyond being a thesis on why we should be vegetarians, a lot of us are probably fairly aware of the abuse contained within the meat industry as well as any other fringe issues like cruelty to animals in zoos, safaris, and other such things - so as long as you aren't ignorant to those issues, what do you take away from something like this other than an appropriate sense of horror and disgust?
Those who care enough already probably buy free range and organic and so on, as much as we can afford to anyway, and we probably don't have time to become activists. Plus given the size of the industry and the amount of dollars it turns over, what can any band of protesters effectively accomplish?
If all one takes away after watching this is horror and disgust then we are
truly in trouble.
Buying a product is casting a vote. I can't possibly afford buying organic
foods exclusivly, but I can at least go for it once in a while to make
a small statement. If everyone did that I'm pretty sure it would make a difference.
The consumer really has all the power.
Scots Taffer on 12/3/2010 at 01:56
Quote Posted by witherflower
Buying a product is casting a vote. I can't possibly afford buying organic foods exclusivly, but I can at least go for it once in a while to make a small statement. If everyone did that I'm pretty sure it would make a difference.
The consumer really has all the power.
Agreed! Sounds worthwhile for anyone who buys cheap meat and enjoys Big Macs with regularity.
PigLick on 12/3/2010 at 04:38
I watched that Cocaine Cowboys that Muz recommended, very interesting viewing. Also has a bitchin soundtrack by Jan Hammer, who wrote the Miami Vice theme.
Thirith on 12/3/2010 at 09:39
I thought that the two
Paradise Lost films ((
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_3) about the West Memphis Three) were pretty good, although both make one or two pretty capital mistakes: the former brings up a surprise suspect in the last quarter of the film (which doesn't work structurally and feels like the filmmakers are cheating), the latter falls into the same trap the film decries, namely pretty much sentencing a weirdo suspect without making a strong case - once the film decides that this person is the culprit, it keeps hammering that point. Still, if you have a chance of checking the two documentaries out, I'd recommend that you do so.
The Alchemist on 13/3/2010 at 00:06
Quote Posted by Muzman
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_Cowboys) Cocaine Cowboys.
The tale of the Miami drug trade's rise and the rise of Miami itself as we know it today. Basically the story of how
Miami Vice wasn't exaggerating and even toned the reality down an awful lot. Even
Scarface was tame by comparison.
So much mayhem the hardened gangsters couldn't stomach it any more by the end. The original trafficking guys keeping their hands clean and running circles around the cops repeatedly is pretty funny though.
Sadly true.
Sulphur on 17/3/2010 at 19:31
We Live in Public. Just watched it, and it's a brilliant study of a man with a visionary and uncompromising yet ultimately almost childlike mind. The project - the documentary's namesake - by itself was the kind of social experiment that alternately titillates and chills, and the story coils on itself and unwinds in a sadly poignant way by the end.
I don't put much stock in the preachy moral overtones of the wrap-up at the end (we're mindlessly helping faceless internet monsters and our privacy is bought and sold wholesale a la Google), but the facts are solid, and as a character study of "the biggest internet pioneer you've never heard of" and as a comment on the way facets of the internet have affected our lives, it grabbed pretty much all of my attention.
Scots Taffer on 21/3/2010 at 14:09
Capturing the Friedmans
Holy shit, what a story. It's hard to imagine compressing that whole thing down to a manageable size, yet Jarecki does so and takes you on a journey of conflicting discovery. The most interesting thing is observing how the process of inquiry many years after the event displays truth in its many changing forms; the cop who searched the house recalling "knee-high stacks of kiddy porn mags everywhere" whereas the photos and report show only the small stash found behind the piano, the abused kid who says that the interference only happened in private then immediately contradicts that with recalling a depraved group sexual "game". The mass hysteria in the climate at the time definitely lends an intriguing air to the stories of a parent who recalls being pushed, and effectively bullied, by other parents to convince their child to admit to being abused when the child said nothing of the sort. Still, there's the question of what the hell the Friedmans were all about anyway, the father was clearly guilty of some wrongdoing, but the bizarre behaviour of family with the home-videos, the gleeful (insane?) acting-out on the courtroom steps, and given that we know that Jesse supposedly "plea-bargain" (lied) in court, the performance he turns in mirrors some of the weird shit we see in the rest of the family's videos.
Great film, really puts a completely ambiguous mystery in the centre stage and lets the audience pick it apart.
What I've got lined up: Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer, Iceman: Confessions of a Mafia Hitman, Power of Nightmares, Gates of Heaven, Standard Operating Procedures, Man on Wire, some History/Discovery channel hour-longs on ancient civilisations and The Knights Templar. Also getting Cocaine Cowboys (and the sequel?) and The Cove.
Muzman on 28/6/2010 at 14:45
...after months scrambling waist deep in leech infested bogs, reduced to but a shell, driven on only by the dreams of Lassiter, Rhodes, Avarice I had found it. The Motherlode. And I knew it was here I would spend my remaining days...(
http://documentaryheaven.com/)
(a fair bit of kooky stuff in there, but holy cow)
