Hi Metaldudes and Metalgirls

So when i have some free time, i'm dedicating myself to see some...maybe infamous (hyperbole) movies/documentaries.
And some time ago i saw a doc called Zeitgeist, all of them and i saw too Fast Food America (if i'm not wrong with the title). And this past week i saw God Bless America.
Actually i've found this movies pretty cool, it shows another\new way to see the world and what's happening to him.

My objective is to you share about this theme (an idea, a point of view, etc), or even recommend other videos/books of this kind.
I think it's a cool theme to share some opinions.

Thanks for the awesome forum

i have come to really enjoy this site - all free to watch:

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/

some of the top ones so far:

Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict (very sad doc on the true face of addiction)
Life or Death in the Gaza Strip (iA rare glimpse of the embattled Gaza Strip and a chance to see what life was like under the rule of Hamas)

id recommend just going to the categories tab and selecting that which interests you.

There is a lot of truth in Zeitgeist, but a lot of people seem to think it's hogwash. I personally think a lot of it is true.

Zeitgeist has a few compelling tidbits buried amongst misinformation but the conclusions he draws are 95% bunk.

I like the UFO documentary on topdocumentaryfilms, "I Know What I Saw." Nice compilation of credible-seeming UFO witnesses without any lying goofs like Bob Lazar. UFOs are REALLY REAL mayne.

Fantastic website. I recently watched the Morgan Freeman narrated Through the Wormhole on there. Highly recommended.

Actually i've found Zeitgeist pretty cool, specially the first "movie". But the first part has many flaws.
Now about the last Zeitgeist they made...Moving Forward i think is the name, they've become too "romantic".

Seconded. Very interesting. Plus, you get to hear Morgan Freeman talk for about an hour. What could be better than that?

Zeitgeist is full of holes... I wouldn't hold it to a very high standard.

Interesting docs on matters like these that I'd suggest include

Loose Change - raises important questions about 9/11
Food Inc. - the dominance of corn and the benefits of natural food
Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold - a look at corporate sponsorship and marketing; totally paid for by corporate sponsorship
The Corporation - a look at how corporations work, very biased but quite funny and original
Life in the Undergrowth - okay, this one isn't on social shit, but it's fucking awesome. It's a BBC nature series on insects
No Direction Home - also not on social shit; this is about Bob Dylan's early life up to his first UK tour, but it's also fucking awesome

I've sort of become interested in reading the book Spear of Destiny, which seems like a prime candidate for this thread. Can't really say a lot about it as I haven't read it, but surely some people here know it...

You were off to such a great start and then ran head first into a wall so quickly...

I wonder if conspiracy theorists ever think these theories are just misinformation to hide a more esoteric truth or to keep then thinking the governments are more in control than anything. I'm all about asking questions but a lot of Zeitgeist turned out to be wrong and seemed like paranoid exaggerations and trying to make loose connections based on little information. Entertaining though.

I think there's a good amount of misinformation in both parts I and II of the first Zeitgeist film, but I think part III is pretty solid. The idea of a few ultra-rich men who run the country has existed long, long before this movie came out. My grandmother wrote a best-selling book on the subject back in the 50's, and many years later the idea is being presented by many more people. Her ideas were considered much more crack-pot back then, than what we'd consider them today.

Chicken littles makes for horrible diplomats. Mercenary politics make for horrible economies. The Venus Project makes for pretty posters and food for thought, but social engineering is a lot harder than it looks. Homegeny vs. Hegemony. that's a lame dilemma.

I don't know if 'documentary' applies to Loose Change. That's more "media collage", I think.

Watch the latter, evaluate whatever claims or witnesses it presents to the viewer, then decide if it is worthy of a contemptuous sneer! I assure you it does not resemble the previous 2 films in the slightest. It is probably the least credulous/crazy pro-UFO documentary that's ever been made, you might as well give the best of the worst a chance, if you give any film on the subject a chance at all!

The title alone is worth of a contemptuous sneer, mate. If they "knew what they saw", they wouldn't be fucking UFOs, they would be IFOs. Also, I saw reviews by trustworthy sources, and I know it's a waste of time, like every other UFO "documentary" out there.

I usually think quoting something just to laugh is silly, but that is gold.

Hahaha! Well put. I haven't seen Loose Change in years, but it seemed a touch more professionally done than Zeitgeist. I didn't fully buy into it, but it definitely made me scratch my chin and say, "Huh... That's a bit strange." I never delved any deeper into 9/11 conspiracy, mind you.

EDIT - And it was the stuff about the fourth building and the opaqueness of the investigation that made me scratch my head, just to be clear. Perhaps I should watch it again before recommending it.

Also, this is a little off topic for the thread perhaps, but on the topic off UFOs, I've seen a few in the past month, and it's fucking trippy and I really want to know what they are. I mean UFOs in the literal sense - unidentified flying objects (as opposed to, like, alien craft or some shit) - and we saw a series of them at between 12:10am and 12:30am about a month ago, right over the skies of downtown Ottawa, and then one more last week, again, around 12:30am, right over downtown Ottawa.

The friends I saw them with and I are all skeptics, and so we figured we'd read about what the hell the odd, iridescent-orange spheres that floated over the city were. But no mention in the papers. We're actually half-pissed, because after almost 30 years of laughing at any news of UFOs, now we look like the crazy assholes.

I certainly DON'T know what I saw. But the first group looked kind of like hot air balloons, with no basket. The first one had an orange glow that trailed behind it, and headed straight south without changing its altitude. The next three (they went in sequence, separated by about five minutes) were not of a very high altitude at first, but did rise into the night sky and eventually disappeared from view. These ones glowed orange from within. They all came from the north and headed straight south, were completely silent, and were totally resistant to the wind, which was blowing quite strongly that night. We all have videos on our cell phones. A week ago, I was recording some tunes and my buddy said, "What the hell is that?" as he spotted another one from my window. This one glowed red, again was moving from north to south, and was something strange. No sequence this time and haven't seen any since.

Again, this is the capital city of Canada we're talking about, at not long after midnight, right downtown... So I don't know why I haven't seen anything in the papers that explains these phenomena. And just to add to me being a crazy asshole, my buddy linked me a youtube video of UFO sightings this year, and a whole bunch of them look a ton like the first bunch we saw. I would LOVE to know what the hell those were.

Everything David Attenburough has touched is golden. Watch the entire Life series.

Yeah OK Loose change raises important questions about 9/11. These questions have been answered though.

The only good social type of documentary that I liked was Super Size Me. You can fact check it and it holds up as being accurate. The nutritional standards, how fast food restaurants used to operate compared to how they are now, all relevant medical information, and so on.

A good documentary clearly presents the facts and doesn't need to be preachy or push an agenda cause it speaks for itself.

Man, I really have to get caught up on this 9/11 thing. I'm kind of embarrassed! But at the same time, really glad I got called on bullshit. There's nothing I like more than being wrong, because it normally means I'll be right next time.

About that 9\11 thing...
Do you Metaldudes think it was an inside job?

I think I saw a Stephen Hawking quote on FB a while ago that went something like: "If the government is covering up extraterrestrial activity, they're doing a better job at it than anything else."

You could replace "extraterrestrial activity" with any 9/11 conspiracy theory as well.

Fast Food America, do you mean Fast Food Nation? the one where the mexicans get jobs in the freezing works.
"there's shit in the meat?" "not if you cook it right"

Food Inc was good too but not as good as i thought it would be, it's the anti corn movie, i never realised how bad corn was!
i really like documentaries, the michael moore ones are pretty good value, and that tv series he did The Awful Truth

Megacities was an interesting one, the junkie in new york creeped me out big time
oh and Microcosmos is a [virtually] silent nature film, a sort of 'bugs eye view' a unique film

I saw An Inconvenient Truth in theaters when it came out. I don't recall many of the details, but it made me want to start riding my bike everywhere...that lasted for like a week, though, because I'm a lazy shit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_inconvenient_truth

If you want to spend your time watching some absolute, violently delusional rubbish for whatever reason, here are a couple recommendations: What the Bleep Do We Know?! and Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I had to see the former of these in Philosophy 101 at my local community college.

Haha, shit, I hope they were simply "Spot the fallacies!" kind of exercises... No intelligence allowed indeed.

Yes, Fast Food Nation xD

It reminds me a video i saw ("Alltime10s" channel on youtube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVjeOI_T9FA
9\11 is there and also, in this case i think Zeitgeist have some cool arguments about this subject.

SPOILER ALERT:
It is.

I don't know how many different edits of the first film they've done (last count for me, they re-edited it three times), but the original version had on average a blatant lie told every eight seconds for the first 40 minutes. And I say blatant lie because the film claimed things which weren't even mentioned in the sources they used. They've since re-edited it several times to remove some of the fluff, but anything from a director that deliberately misleading cannot be trusted. He could release a documentary that was a word-for-word narration of an encyclopedia and I still would say one couldn't trust it.




And anyone who likes Super Size Me needs to watch Fat Head (link) for a more complete understanding of fast food, nutrition, and the myths underlying Super Size Me. Specifically, the subject of SSM purposefully misled viewers about what he was actually eating at McDonald's, as his calorie numbers don't add up; and the dietary myths that SSM perpetuates as a solution to obesity don't survive scrutiny in controlled double-blind experiments.

Name some of them please.

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/ ... zeitgeist/

this long and clearly sources (unlike the movie...) essay utterly destroys the premise of every aspect of the movie.

Just quickly skimming it I found a claim that I already disagree with. He says that only a few ancient cultures believed the Sun to be God, and goes on to say that most believed in a different God, although at this point he's now getting into less ancient cultures and that is key here. He then makes a citation which is an article 9 pages in length, but doesn't give a specific sentence or even page that backs up his claim. For all we know he read the article and extracted what he wanted to from it. The next paragraph he questions why it's called "God's Sun"...does he really think he's refuting anything here? God's Sun is referring to Jesus. Can't he connect the dots? Sun = Son.

I'll definitely come back to it but first impression isn't good.

.........

AHHHH oh my.

English puns = TRUTH. Open your eyes, maaaaaan sheeple!

Morrigan, didn't you know that the Egyptians, the Incas, Mayans and ancient Orientals ALL knew English wordplay? God, it's common knowledge.

Also, what does the whole first part of that film, with the religion part, have to do with anything else in that movie....

Dude... The narrator in Zeitgeist is saying that the ancient Egyptians and a whole whack of other ancient civilizations referred to the sun as "God's Sun" (which then came to be God's son AKA Jesus). This doesn't make sense because "God's Sun" are English words. None of the ancient civilizations spoke English, which didn't exist at the time, and only in English do the words sun and son have the same pronunciation (to my knowledge). It was the second thing in Zeitgeist that made me very skeptical upon first watching it. The first thing that made me skeptical was that they mixed up a bunch of Egyptian gods. I figured if they got such easily verifiable facts wrong, then surely they would get a whole lot of other stuff wrong. And they do. Just let Zeitgeist go and watch some David Attenborough.

You aren't serious .. are you?


Agreed. Productive, educational, and fun. None of which apply to these other movies mentioned.

Morrigan, "I Know What I Saw" is actually pretty decent. I'd give it a try.