what Documentaries did you watch last night.

[John the Monkey]

Mark Cavendish: Born Racer (PVR'ed a while back)

I forgot that I'd recorded this, back in 2012. It's interesting as a snapshot of Cavendish at the very height of his power, and ends at the Olympic Road Race in 2012.

If you're interested in him, this is worth watching, although it seems to me to verge on being a puff piece rather than a thorough examination of his career - the plinky plonky "isn't this amusing" music chosen for scenes of his domestic life grated on me too. It's a shame, as I'm sure that there's a great film to be made about such a forceful character.

 

[fossyant]

BBC2 about the Halley Ice Station in Antarctica and the big crack !!

 

[Haitch]

Little Angels. The documentary-maker interviews his aunt about his grandmother and discovers she was an Auschwitz/Mauthausen survivor whose first two children were murdered by the Nazis. Followed by a Q&A session with the documentary-maker himself.

 

[swee'pea99]

Mary Beard's latest on the Romans. I've heard people complain that she dumbs it down, but not too far for me. Aided by my limitless ignorance I always learn something new. Such as, last night, that around the year 0, Rome had a population of about one million - the same as the whole of England one thousand years later.

 

[GuyBoden]

One of my favs, "More or Less" the BBC Radio program that explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd/episodes/player

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Watching

Pantani: the accidental death of a cyclist.

Right now.

makes me wonder if owt has changed.

 

[John the Monkey]

Mr Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leutcher (PVR'ed some time ago)

Errol Morris' documentary about a man who goes from designing and maintaining execution equipment to darker things. (If, like me, you'd never heard the name before, I don't want to spoil the film for you). Fascinating, in a fairly dispiriting way.

 

[Booyaa]

Montage of Heck. A Film About Kurt Cobain. Probably the best docu/film I have seen about him.

 

[John the Monkey]

Timeshift: The Battle to Film The Himalayas (iPlayer)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04z23k9

Following on from "The Epic of Everest", this tells the wider story of a time when the high mountains of the Himalayas were that generation's moonshots - fascinating, and with excellent contributions from the likes of Wade Davies and Stephen Venables, among others. Try to catch it while it's still on iPlayer, if you can.

 

[coffeejo]

I've been watching Auschwitz: The Nazis and the "Final Solution" on Netflix. I know I'm a decade late in seeing it but it's taken that long to convince myself that I can stomach it. I've got one episode left: thus far, it's every bit as gruelling as expected but well worth it.

 

[macp]

All on Netflix and all superb

How to win the US presidency
Austin to Boston
Race for the whitehouse
Unbranded

 

[captain nemo1701]

There are some great documentaries on Youtube including taped talks by the likes of Brian Cox that won't make it onto TV or DVD.

 

[swee'pea99]

I watched the first part of The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs (having previously watched pt2 - I know, what am I like?) Very interesting. There was a woman who'd been taking major league painkillers for her shoulder for 20 years, I think it was, so he decided to come up with some way to prove to her that they were doing absolutely nothing. (Needless to say, she took some convincing.)

He got one of those pill boxes - 14 days of drugs, except (as he told her) some days were placebos. He also got her to complete a pain chart, on which she marked how bad the pain was that day. Will the chart correspond with the 'real' drugs? Come the day, come the reveal, the chart is all over the place - up down up down - but there's no clear pattern. It's basically pretty much the same from beginning to end. Which is when he tells her that her 'paracetamols' have been placebos from day 3 onward, and for the last five days, the 'codeine' have been too. So for the last five days she's had nothing but placebos, but the chart for the last five days looks no different to the chart on days 1-5. Needless to say, she's gobsmacked. A couple of weeks later and she's better than she's been for decades, working purely on exercises.

 

[John the Monkey]

Cartel Land (Netflix)

Dispiriting documentary about two vigilante militias, one in Mexico, and one in the US, formed to guard against drug cartels. Whether it's a matter of access, or just that the situations are very different, the US one seems to be slightly delusional in comparison to the Mexican counterpart, which deals with truly hideous stuff. That does seem to lead to the Mexican militia becoming more violent by far (at least in what we see). Whilst the US militia makes (it seems) fairly uneventful patrols (they capture some claimed cartel lookouts, non-violently - they are handed over to Border Patrol officers) we see the Mexican militia escalating in violence, with running gun battles in the streets, threatening and physical abuse of prisoners, and eventually, their being absorbed by the forces of the state as a rural defence force. In equal parts, the film is interesting and horrifying.

 

[postman]

I watched more than one on You Tube.It seems Paul McCartney died in 1966 and a lookalike took his place.