The Documentarian

This footage of a NOLA Jazz funeral is a grimly appropriate way...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:37:16 +0100

This footage of a NOLA Jazz funeral is a grimly appropriate way to tip the sombrero and say adios to Les Blank, one of the most gifted documentary filmmakers of the 20th century (if not the most). He died yesterday.

Hot Pepper: The Life and Music of Clifton Chenier, 1973, by Les...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:20:33 +0100

Hot Pepper: The Life and Music of Clifton Chenier, 1973, by Les Blank

Spend it All, 1971, Les Blank. RIP LB. 1935-2013

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:46:49 +0100

Spend it All, 1971, Les Blank.

RIP LB. 1935-2013

Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London: A Pop Concerto, by...

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:07:19 +0000

Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London: A Pop Concerto, by Peter Whitehead, 1967

With a soundtrack from Syd Barrett, this 1967 psychedelic doco follows the key players in so-called “swinging London” music scene – Michael Caine, Julie Christie, David Hockney, Mick Jagger and all the rest…

God Speed You! Black Emperor, by Mitsuo Yanagimachi,...

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 09:53:45 +0100

God Speed You! Black Emperor, by Mitsuo Yanagimachi, 1976

Yanagimachi follows Japanese Motorcycle gang The Black Emperors as they do bikerish teenage things.

American Pimp, by the Hughes brothers, the twins who brought us...

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:04:00 +0100

American Pimp, by the Hughes brothers, the twins who brought us Menace II Society and, by extension, about 1bn middle-class white teenage boys fluent in ebonics. Myself included.

Link via Mariah-Carey-ish heterosexual diva Dean Slydell. As always, fuck you Dean (F.Y.D)

The Chief Architect of Gangsta Rap by Ilja Karilampi, 2009 A...

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 12:41:00 +0100

The Chief Architect of Gangsta Rap by Ilja Karilampi, 2009

A quiet, meditative biography of Dr Dre incorporating thoughts on utopian architecture, Le Corbusier and the evolution of rap. Kind of amazing. Watch it please.

Mental Channel Number One

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 19:25:00 +0100

Mental Channel Number One:

Adam Curtis just posted this brilliant 1959 BBC documentary on self-proclaimed ‘voice of interplanetary parliament’ and one-time taxi driver, George King. It’s fantastic. In it, George explains how he was contacted by Martians – initially through telepathy, later in person – and went on to become their conduit on earth, a kind of interplanetary ambassador. As is still their wont the BBC behave with great professionalism, tolerate his bizarre pronouncements and offer him the opportunity to present his case to a panel of scientists and psychologists. Indeed, they allow him to actually channel an alien voice. The experts, in turn, offer the most quiet and sensitive rebuttals to his (deranged) ideas. They’re almost apologetic. It’s very sweet.

Curtis calls it ‘one of the most wonderful, odd and touching films I have ever found in the BBC archives’ and I’m with him on that. It’s also like a super-lolzy KPAX, so…

Derrida, by Kirby Dick and some other person. Feature-length...

Thu, 31 May 2012 23:53:00 +0100

Derrida, by Kirby Dick and some other person.

Feature-length documentary on discipline-defining post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida, by two unashamed fanboys (fanpeople) in turtlenecks. Marvel as they drawl phrases like “my theory is” and “it is their condition”… Watch in horror as they actually ask him which philosopher he’d want as his mother… But, whatever you do, don’t fall into the post-snobbish trap of assuming all French philosophy is bullshit because those guys love a caveat-clause-sub-clause-caveat-clause. The obscurantism belies a genuinely rare intelligence, one that’s finessing the fuck out of a system of complexes so utterly complex you’ll want to lie down and ‘be killed’.

Rant: dunzo.

1,200 TED Talks

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:07:38 +0100

1,200 TED Talks :

Q: What’s better than watching a dotcom millionaire repeat the words “dream”, “causality” and “accomplishment” into a bubble-mic?

A: 1,204 dotcom millionaires repeating the words “dream”, “causality” and “accomplishment” into bubble-mics.

Somebody’s collected URLs to (and descriptions of) every TED talk since 2006 in one place. Here they are. Click through.

Don’t Look at Me, by Guy Girard, 1988 If you don’t...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:21:29 +0100

Don’t Look at Me, by Guy Girard, 1988

If you don’t know who David Lynch is, and you don’t want to watch this early early documentary about him, then you were probably looking for The Sockumentarian and keyed the address in badly. This is not The Sockumentarian. Now get off my site.

All thanks to Ben Reed. A guy from the internet.

The Incredibly Strange Film Show: John Waters, a C4 documentary...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:09:00 +0100

The Incredibly Strange Film Show: John Waters, a C4 documentary made in 1988

The Incredibly Strange Film Show was a series of documentaries focusing on the world of psychotronic movies, hosted by Jonathan ‘deliciouth wing of cheethe’ Ross. Episodes focus on the lives of such diverse filmakers as Hershell Gordon Lewis, Saim Raimi, Doris Wishman, Ed Wood Jr, and Tsui Hark. Here’s John Waters for ya.

Mad Dogs & Englishmen, a documentary following Joe...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:56:56 +0100

Mad Dogs & Englishmen, a documentary following Joe Cocker’s 1970 tour of the same name, by Pierre Adidge, 1971

Feat. Leon Russell, Denny Cordell and Rita Coolidge

Little Dieter Needs to Fly, by Werner Herzog, 1997 Little Dieter...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:38:53 +0100

Little Dieter Needs to Fly, by Werner Herzog, 1997

Little Dieter Needs to Fly looks at the life of Dieter Dengler, a German-born US Navy pilot downed and captured by the Viet Cong/NLF in 1966, and the various ordeals he faced as a POW and in the jungle after his escape. This is the documentary which went on to become Rescue Dawn.

Frat House, an unreleased HBO documentary by Todd Phillips and...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:26:15 +0100

Frat House, an unreleased HBO documentary by Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland

Frat boys at their absolute worst. Very (repeat infinite times) good.

The Police Tapes, by Alan and Susan Raymond, 1977 A double Emmy...

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:00:05 +0100

The Police Tapes, by Alan and Susan Raymond, 1977

A double Emmy award winning documentary on the 44th Police Precint of the South Bronx. Death, drunks and shouting. The NYT called it a “startlingly graphic and convincing survey of urban crime, violence, brutality and cynical despair”.

All credit to Arthur De Borman

Around the World: France, by Orson Welles, 1955 In 1955 the BBC...

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:56:42 +0100

Around the World: France, by Orson Welles, 1955

In 1955 the BBC commissioned Orson Welles to produce a series of travel documentaries – the above concentrates on the Pyrenees and the Basque country.

Buzzcut: A Day in the Life of The Rollins Band, MTV, 1991

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:14:42 +0100

Buzzcut: A Day in the Life of The Rollins Band, MTV, 1991

Chicken Real, by Les Blank, 1970 Industrial chicken farming a la...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:11:53 +0100

Chicken Real, by Les Blank, 1970

Industrial chicken farming a la Les Blank.

Examined Life, by Astra Taylor Potted modern philosophy from the...

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:30:51 +0100

Examined Life, by Astra Taylor

Potted modern philosophy from the chick who brought us Zizek!. Feat. Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Žižek, and Judith Butler. Pretty good.