Tag Archives: documentaries

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Documentaries/shows like Making a Murderer

Shows lik Making a Murderer

I’m a big fan of documentaries, but it is a genre which doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. So I really enjoyed seeing the Netflix-show Making a Murderer getting as much attention as it did. The case about Steven Avery has had quite an impact and for the right reasons. It is strange to see how that court case has resulted in a guilty verdict (whether or not he really did it isn’t even important) as there were enough reasons to have doubt. But what if you have finished it and are looking to other shows and documentaries like Making a Murderer, which are the ones you should be checking out? I’m here to help out, with a list of documentaries you should also check out. Continue reading →

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The Iceman Interviews (2003)

Review of the HBO documentaries with Richard Kuklinski

After having seen The Iceman, I wanted to see an interview with Kuklinski I saw years before. It was fascinating to listen to him talk and you could imagine him killing people without much thought. I had no idea where I had seen the interview, so I headed over to Youtube to try and see if there would be anything there. To my surprise it had the three complete interviews he did which HBO: The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer (1992), The Iceman Confesses: Secrets of a Mafia Hitman (2001) and The Iceman and the Psychiatrist (2002). I decided to watch them all in one go and it was a captivating watch. Continue reading →

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Capturing Reality (2008)

Art of documentary

Part of my moviewatching is a steady diet of documentaries. It’s a part of moviemaking that doesn’t seem to get as much love as the big movies, even though more documentaries are made than “normal” movies. A lot of people might think that they, like the title says capture reality and you can’t do much with that, but if you’ve seen your fair share of them you know they each have their distinct styles. Some directors make them as “flies on the wall”, just being there and not intervening. Others narrate and put their own opinions into it. This documentary looks at the process of making a documentary and interviews tons of directors and let’s them talk about how they think about them and what a documentary should be. Continue reading →

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The Monday Question: Reality!

Another Monday and you might have noticed the big banner on top. It is Documentary Week on My Filmviews. What does that mean? Well, all the reviews this week will be reviews of documentaries just to put a spotlight on this part of movie making as it seems they aren’t watched as much as other movies.

Personally I’m a big fan of them as I like mixing them up with my “normal movie” viewing. The feeling of watching a documentary is very different. I usually watch movies to escape reality. Documentaries though allow me to understand certain real world issues (like Inside Job making the global financial meltdown understandable) or give a fascinating look into something you never knew about. They can be very powerful and have impact on politics or corporations. Examples of this are the effect of Al Gore’s “An Incovenient Truth” on how people think about the environment, the fact that Morgan Spulock’s “Supersize Me” made McDonald’s remove its Supersize option from the menu and add a lot of healthier things or Michael Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine” resulting in Kmart stopping the sale of handgun ammunition at its stores.

This week’s question is: What are your favorite or must see documentaries? Continue reading →

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Freakonomics (2010)

Freakonomics, written by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, has been a very succesful book which has sold over 4 million copies. It looks at society using economics on subjects that most economists would not choose. With its success and the interesting subject matter it’s perfect to use the material for a documentary. Does this documentary succeed in bringing the book to life? Continue reading →

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Tales from the script (2009)

When you look at the pictures below, you probably won’t go “Ooh, that’s him and that’s that guy!”. When i write their names, Frank Darabont and Paul Schrader, you still probably won’t know who they are. Even when i name the following movie titles: The Green Mile, The Mist, Shawshank Redemption and Raging Bull, Taxi Driver it still will be hard to think of a way to connect those movies with the pictures below.

Continue reading →