I have Time Warner Digital and it does carry all of the Discovery channels, The Learning Channel, The History Channel, The Documentary Channel, et al. I understand from my cable guy they are all going HD by the end of the year. I seldom watch anything by the HD Discovery Channel as I hate stretching all those low def images to make everyone look overweight. I haven't seen "March of the Penguins" but understand it's aimed at an all ages audience and I generally don't like those documentaries. When I was younger, I did like all of the Disney documentaries like "The Living Desert" (they all had really great soundtrack music as well) and must have seen Rachel Carson's "The Sea Around Us" twenty times. I can't remember if that was in CinemaScope, will have to look it up, but a some of the footage was stock so I don't think it would hold up today against the IMAX undersea documentaries, especially in 3-D. Of those, I was enthralled with "Storm Chasers" (as much for the surround sound of the storms as the images) and "Those Amazing Caves," even reduced down to a 42" TV wide screen. As for TV series, "Planet Earth" was spectacular and I kept playing it over and over in the showroom until I got a bit tired of Sigourney Weaver's voice in the background and substituted music to go with the images.
Here are some of my favorites;
WORD WARS
SLASHER (About a used car salesman)
MAD HOT BALLROOM
THE BEAUTY ACADEMY OF KABUL
THE YES MEN
PLAGUES AND PLEASURES OF THE SALTON SEA
WHO THE #$&% IS JACKSON POLLOCK?
SPEEDO (Great Doc About a demolition derby driver)
HELL HOUSE
THE MAN WHO SKIED DOWN EVEREST
WORDPLAY
MICHAEL PALIN'S AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS
CRUMB
KEEP THE RIVER ON YOUR RIGHT
WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP
ABLE RAISES CAIN (About Alan Able, a professional prankster)
I haven't seen as many as I would've liked,
but here are my favorites so far:
5. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse - With events like rented military helicoptors being called off during a scene of Apocalypse Now, so they can go engage in an actual combat for an actual war that was going on at the time & then Martin Sheen having a heart attack between shooting scenes, all happening during the filming of this movie, the true story of how this movie was made is almost as surreal & engaging as actual the movie itself.
4. Jesus Camp - Back when I was a kid, I was sent to a Jesus camp for one summer.
I even earned a badge for being able to whistle thru my stigmatas.
3. Streetwise - An emotionally wrenching ending, because it's real life & not a script. This film focuses those who are easily forgotten & brings to the surface their reality & all the drama & emotion that the world of escapism entertainment can never really compare to.
2. 42 & Up - Taking the film segments of the various people chosen for this project as children & watching 'em up against the segments of them as adults, it's almost spooky on it's perspective & can beg the question, at what point in life do humans lose the expressionisms of freespiritness than naturally comes with being a child & become the more restrained walking representive of a crushed spirit that many adults can easily end up as?
1. Anne Frank Remembered - As with everyone else, sometimes, it gets pretty easy for me to forget how good I really have it in life. Every time I watch this movie, & hear the part when Anne writes in her diary of her waiting for things to get back to normal, as a viewer who knows that for her it never will, it serves as a great reminder to me that not taking things for granted is an act of appreciation that should never wait until tomorrow. The footage included that is the only existing footage of Anne, only serves to enhance the importance of this lesson of gratitude.
I saw "A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory" last week about Danny Williams, one of the various casualties of Andy Warhol and the Warhol Factory. These were not very nice people.
i would really like to see "jesus camp", do any of you guys know if there´s a way to download it???
