Was laid up with a nasty head cold this weekend, so I watched a handful of documentaries that had been sitting in my queue. My reviews from worst to best...
Commune - Story of a commune in North California that started in 1968 built on the premises of "Free Land for Free People". Interesting mostly because there was lots of old footage with bare hippie boobies. Story itself was kind of meh.
The Wild and Wonderful Whites - The Whites are a train-wreck of a family from WV. Drug addicted, self-centered, mean-and-nasty rednecks, who quite frankly dont deserve the spotlight. Not an endearing character in the whole movie. Sadly, there are probably more people like this in small towns across America than most people realize.
Facing the Habit - Story of a heroin addict that tries a controversial treatment using Iboga, a halucinagentic root found in West Africa, to beat his addiction. They had some theory about it "resetting" your brain to where it was before you became addicted, but it seemed more like you just tripped your way through detox. 8 hours of hell + 2 days of sleep. Most addicts came out claiming the urges were gone, but most relapsed. Pretty wild to watch.
The End of the Line - Exposes the effects of commercial fishing. It started in the 1950's and by 1988, it had reached dangerous, unrecoverable levels. Unfortunately, no one realized this until 2002 because the Chinese government was lying about the amount of fish they were catching. Its too late for several species and will take serious government intervention to protect many more. Just another embarrassing example of how our generation is destroying the earth without thought of future repercussions.
I Like Killing Flies - Story of a hole-in-the-wall diner in Greenwich Village. The owner/chef is an extremely quirky/interesting character who speaks his mind, yells at customers, and generally feels that people need to earn the right to eat his food. His place is an absolute mess and the man is a total slob. Its hard to believe the health inspectors even allow him to operate, yet he cranks out incredible food day-after-day. Kind of like a chef-savant or something. Unfortunately there werent any other noteworthy characters and the story wasnt that exciting, but it was worth the watch just to hear him rant and to see them miraculously clean out the restaurant and move it down the street when the rent became too high.
Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox - Ever see those bottles of all-in-one soap with words all over the labels? Ever read them? Well it turns out Dr. Bronner was an extremely intelligent and eccentric 7th generation soap maker who escaped from an insane asylum and was using the soap labels as a way to spread his "Moral ABC's" and "All-One-God" theories. Sometimes his words sounded deep and profound when talking about Jesus, Allah, and Buddah, but next thing you know he's ranting about Gorbachev and Mark Spitz and he's making no sense at all. In the early days, he'd basically give the soap away to anyone who would listen/discuss his theories with him and he was eventually accepted by the counter-culture (hippies, black panthers, etc). Today, thanks to a retro resurgence, its a 6 million dollar company being run by his family. Dr Bronner was crazy and the old footage/stories of him make this movie worthwhile enough, but his son is delusional and crazy in a different way and really puts the movie over the top. I could watch him interact with people all day long. As if this isnt enough, he also meets some great characters along the way. The skateboarding, doper, piano playing guy he meets at the end is icing on the cake. Cant recommend this one enough.
and read what i may have missed
there are tons of tid-bits you will not catch
Can't wait for season 2.
doh!
