Best Documentaries of the 00's
This is basically what I “do,” and I’ve been shamefully behind on it. I go to film screenings about as often as I go to live shows (i.e. never). I’ve found that I can figure out if a doc is going to make it anywhere near my critical radar within about 10 minutes (basic structure, subject, and sledgehammerness all accounted for by then), but this isn’t totally fair. I’d rather go by rec’s from y’all — name one documentary that MOST PEOPLE would not put on a best of the 00’s list (yeah, yeah, we all saw Morgan Freeman lay down the family values in March of the Penguins NEXT).
Good discussion about this topic, particularly in comments, here.
For reference, here’s my list of tennish:
- S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (forced re-enactment of procedures in Khmer Rouge death camps — haven’t brought myself to watch it again in a few years)
- Control Room
- In the Realms of the Unreal (poetic and non-condescending look at Harvey Darger, as good a biopic as it is an animation project)
- This Is What Democracy Looks Like (Y’know, like “Battle in Seattle,” except without Woody Harrelson!)
- Ford Transit (Hany Abu-Assad’s doc/fiction mix of Palestinian transport through occupied territory via Ford Transit cars.)
- The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda doc)
- The Five Obstructions (Lars von Trier acts like a dick to his old prof, gets resoundingly pwned)
- Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (Metallica act like dicks, get resoundingly pwned by this film!)
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Street Fight (NJ mayoral race is a better depiction of hope goes to Washington [er, Newark] than Obama will likely ever get)
=10. Touching the Void (almost entirely for the Boney M song sequence…)
=10. Rivers and Tides (the only glorified screensaver I’d maybe stick on the list — this was a pretty potent subgenre of the decade and this one’s the best for its relative lack of pretense)
11th place nepotism — my friends Jeremy Levine and Landon von Soest made a great film on the Minutemen right-wing militia/pseudo-border-police group (nee Ranch Rescue) before they got media-savvy. It’s called Walking the Line and you should try to find it! A bizarre “remake” (not literally, just the exact subject and many of the same interview subjects) was done a few years later and had more critical acclaim, but the Minutemen had already cleaned up their media act and the film is way more falsely “even-handed” toward ‘em than they actually deserve.
Honorable Mentions (distant twelfth): Winged Migration Murderball An Inconvenient Truth Bright Leaves Lost in La Mancha Comedian Jackass: The Movie
Good post here on the subject, particularly in comments.
No — Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Adam Curtis, Robert Greenwald, Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, “Darwin’s Nightmare,” “Jesus Camp,” and Borat/Bruno aren’t getting a spot on my list; they were not oversights. Also not a fan of most “quirkumentaries,” so no profiles of the group of adorable elderly rock ‘n’ rollers who ate the most hamburgers ever while simultaneously getting the high score in Pac Man.
EDIT #1: Ah, abbyjean points out “Favela Rising,” which I haven’t seen. I thought “Rize” was great, would probably make my hon. mentions. (Glorified screensaver doc or no? Brain says yes, heart says STFU BRAIN YOU HEARTLESS BASTARD)
What was the best documentary of the decade?
