Some of the best documentaries of 2009 hardly seemed to exist. "What's the matter with Kansas," based on a best-seller, is still awaiting its fifth vote at IMDb. "The Beaches of Agnes," a luminous film by the New Wave pioneer Agnes Varda, grossed $127,605. "Of Time and the City," by a great British director, grossed $32,000. "Anvil! The Story of Anvil," a hit in terms of buzz and critical reception, brought in $666,659. "Tyson," $827, 046.
Such figures come from IMDb, which may be wrong, but if it's $1 million off, we're still not talking big numbers. What we're really talking about is eyeballs, or, as old Jewish exhibitors used to ask, "how many toochis on the seats?" The audiences for these films were found first at film festivals, and will now be found on DVD and video on demand. None
of them played more than one theater in Chicago -- five of them at Facets. Yet I take heart from the comments after my earlier list of the year's best feature films.
Many said they used critics' year-end lists as a guide for DVD watching. I was told four of my films were already available for instant viewing on Netflix. The future of video on demand is here, and I hardly noticed. Whether this will be a future in which a filmmaker can make any money is yet to be decided. We may be headed for a time when we can choose between mass-market blockbusters and a permanent series of personal classic viewings. More than a century of movies are in existence, enough to last for us awhile.Am I being ludicrously pessimistic? I hope so. I really do. I'll be going to Sundance 2010. Last year there certainly wasn't a feeding frenzy. Have you heard about "We Live in Public?" It won the Grand Jury Prize for docs at Sundance 2009. I wonder what the mood will be like this year. I expect the usual mob scenes. But are the mobs there to see, sell and buy good films -- small ones in particular? It's my impression more actual business was done at Sundance when it was half the size. But it sure makes a great business expense.
I know the comments in my blog don't represent an enormous horde of eager film consumers. But they give me optimism. I hear from movie goers in India, South Korea, Uruguay, who have seen the new movies we're discussing right now. Sometimes they go to theaters, especially if they live in large cities. Sometimes they obtain DVDs, or watch streaming video, which is easier for them because their internet infrastructure is often faster than ours. Sometimes they -- well, you know what they do. That's a fact of life, and sooner or later the industry will have to figure out how to deal with it. PIracy represents theft to the studios, and rightly so. For a marginal indie filmmaker, it represents their audience.
Well. On that cheerful note, here are my ten favorite documentaries from 2009. Look on the sunny side: You have some good films to look forward to.
Anvil! The Story of Anvil. A story of hope, dogged perseverance and rock and roll, with rock and roll only the occasion for the first two. In 1973, two friends in Toronto started a band and vowed to make r&r until they were old. Now they are old, at least for heavy metal rockers. The band has era moderate rise and a long, long fall, but they refused to give up, and loyal fans around the world kept the faith and treasure the t-shirts. The founders scrape by with telephone sales, demolition and school meal delivery, but keep on rocking. This is the sound of optimism: "Everything on the tour went drastically wrong. But at least there was a tour for it to go wrong on." Read my review.
Beaches of Agnes. Made in her 80th year by Agnes Varda, one of the founders of the French New Wave, who brims with joy and energy as she dances on the beach with her family and revisits the places of her life and such locations as the street outside her door, which she once turned into a beach. Of regrets she has few, apart from the untimely death of her beloved Jacques Demy. Includes the most poetic shot about the cinema I have ever seen: Two old fishermen, who were young when she filmed them, watch themselves years later as they push a movie projector and screen on a cart through the night streets of their village. Read my review.
Collapse. Terrifying. Michael Ruppert, a controversial blogger from way back, transcends opinion about himself by flatly and concisely laying out facts: We have passed the halfway mark in world oil consumption, and it is rising as China and India come online. We will run out in about 40 years. Alternative energy sources use oil. You do the math. We are finished by about 2050, and there's not much we can do. A mesmerizing use of images, music, and Ruppert's implacable voice. By Chris Smith, of the classic "American Movie." Read my review.
Food, Inc. A handful of giant corporations control the growth, processing and sale of food in this country, and don't want you to realize the extent of their power. They enforce their policies and threaten reprisals against those raising crops and animals by organic and Green methods. They dictate cruel and unhealthy living conditions for animals, and place our health second to their profits. And they back it all with multi-million dollar ad campaigns portraying themselves as benefactors. By Robert Kenner. Read my review.
Must Read After My Death. A cry from the grave. A woman who died at 89 left behind 50 hours of audiotapes, 200 home movies and 300 pages of documents, ending 30 years earlier on the death of her husband. It tells a story of a marriage from hell. Now assembled by one of her sons, it portrays a toxic marriage, an overwhelmed mother, and a monstrous road warrior father named Charley who was a Good Time Charley, but not at home. After his death, the woman never mentioned him again. But she kept these records. I've never seen anything like it. Read my review.
Of Time and the City. The British filmmaker Terence Davies, whose subject has often been his own life, now turns to his city, Liverpool, and regrets not the joys of his youth but those he didn't have, especially the sexual experiences forbidden by the Catholic church to which he was devoted. He was born into a modest home, shaped by the church, tortured by his forbidden homosexual feelings, and "prayed until my knees bled." His memories, mixed with those of the city, use remarkable archival footage collated from a century. Includes classical and pop music, and Davies's deep voice, sometimes quoting poems that match the images. A film of a reverie. Read my review.
The September Issue. What a piece of work is Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, the most ad-heavy magazine in history. Arguably the most powerful woman in fashion, she rules from behind dark glasses and a detached expression. Every word is law. Her staff is on tip-toes, all except for Grace Coddington, a Julia Childian former model who has been on the staff as long as Wintour and is as earthy as Wintour is aloof. Filmed behind the scenes during the ramp-up for Vogue's all-time record Sept. 2007 issue. "The Devil Wears Prada" didn't tell the half of it. By R.J. Cutler. Read my review.
Tyson. James Tobak's surprising documentary discovers a Mike Tyson we didn't know existed, a bullied little boy who grew up determined to protect himself and often fought out of fear. It's as if the victim of big kids is still speaking to us from within the intimidating form of perhaps the most punishing heavyweight champion of them all. Working with an unlikely friendship going back many years, Toback asks the right questions and Tyson opens up in ways he may never have before. What emerges is a nuanced and revealing portrait of a heavyweight champion who is anything but the "animal" many people thought they saw. Read my review.
We Live in Public. Josh Harris is billed in this film as "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of." He was a myopic visionary, a man who saw the future more vividly than his own life. His Pseudo.com, sold for $80 million circa 1990, financed a project named Quiet: About 100 of the best and brightest he could find agreed to live 24 hours a day in a cavernous space below street level. They would be under video surveillance every moment. How this worked in practice makes a doc all the more fascinating because filmmaker Ondi Timoner was on the scene from the start. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for best doc at Sundance 2009. Read my review.
What's the Matter With Kansas? Portraits of Kansans, right and left, in a state that seems to be letting them down. We meet a likable Christian mother and farmer named Angel Dillard, and a populist farmer named Donn Teske, both struggling to keep their family farms afloat after two drought years. The doc argues that voters in the heartland vote against their own economic and social well-being, because they consider hot-button issues more important. An evangelical con game is excused as the will of God. Read my review.
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Darn it, have seen only one, "Food, Inc." Must endeavor to persevere, but they don't show up around here. Want especially to see "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and "Anvil," if for masochistic reasons.
"Piracy represents theft to the studios, and rightly so. For a marginal indie filmmaker, it represents their audience."
Unfortunately that's true for many independent films but for many viewers it's down right impossible to see some of these independent movies at their local theater but quite possible for them to sit on their computer and hit download.
Two of the top torrented movies right now are The Messenger and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. These movies weren't available at my local theater or anywhere within an hour of myself but are available to me right in my own living room. It's a tragedy that I can't see either of these movies unless I travel a long distance or illegally download them.
Great list. I found Beaches of Agnes very moving, especially the re-enactments. Always a pleasure to read you. I hope you are doing well.
How could you leave off THE COVE, which you yourself said to be a sure Oscar nominee (If I recall your review correctly)?
what about the cove??
The Cove?
I watched Anvil this weekend and I honestly can't decide if it's the saddest movie I've seen all year, or the most uplifting. However, the juxtaposition of excessive cursing and passive politeness made me ever so proud to be Canadian!
||*|| CANADA ||*||
:)
I was fortunate enough to see What's the Matter with Kansas on its premiere night in Lawrence, Kansas, which was months after your initial review. Lawrence is actually a liberal college deeply rooted with history of some of the radicals the film spoke of. As I watched this movie, I couldn't help but think how it was MADE for Lawrence, as we tend to be completely opposite of of so many other Kansans. Donn Teske actually was in attendance and spoke after the show. He was not the best public speaker by any streak but gave some of his current political thoughts.
I would like to point out that the "Creation Museum" is not actually in Kansas but Kentucky. Something I am thankful for because some of those exhibits were just downright sicking...
"We are finished by about 2050, and there's not much we can do."
Every review of "Collapse" that I've read has agreed with this premise of Ruppert's and yet every critic, yourself included, seems to only care about that premise within the context of discussing the film. I mean, your review of this movie really ate away at me and I imagine the film itself would only eat away at me even more. I keep returning to "The Road" in my mind and it terrifies me. I'm nineteen right now and I don't want to have to raise any future children I might have in a world that is turning into the post-apocalyptic one of the McCarthy novel. You came in, you freaked me the hell out with your review, and then you left me there. I just feel very led on.
Ebert: The movie freaked me out and left me there.
I wish some of the Climate Deniers would watch it. They're like the band that plays while we march into global destruction.
Kris Kringle, Roger!! Here's a gift for you from the internet. Initially, I had wanted to share a particular video of the BBC Prom's "Land of Hope and Glory" conducted by Sir Andrew Davis in 1998; but unfortunately, said video had already been taken down from Youtube. Since I can't settle with any other version, not because they are the lesser but because their videos failed to capture the gala of the event, therefore I decided to skip this one, and instead bring you another of the classicals, this time with Herbert von Karajan conducting, from 1978:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O32PuoBWKC0
Happy Kris Kringle, Roger!
Ebert: Magificent!
Here is "Silent Night" sung in Celtic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtQr81k3TSk
Kris Kringle, Roger!! Here's a gift for you from the internet. Initially, I had wanted to share a particular video of the BBC Prom's "Land of Hope and Glory" conducted by Sir Andrew Davis in 1998; but unfortunately, said video had already been taken down from Youtube. Since I can't settle with any other version, not because they are the lesser but because their videos failed to capture the gala of the event, therefore I decided to skip this one, and instead bring you another of the classicals, this time with Herbert von Karajan conducting, from 1978:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O32PuoBWKC0
Happy Kris Kringle, Roger!
I agree with Roger, those of us who don't live in L.A. or NYC are blessed to be able to watch most of these via Netflix. Some now, and some later. Why illegally download them, Scott?
How does The Cove not make this list?
"Anvil! The Story of Anvil" was stupendous. There were so many heavy metal bands out there during the eighties, and only a tiny handful of them made it to be big names. I really felt for those two guys, still fighting for their dream.
I look forward to seeing the rest of these. I'm going to have to check Greencine for the titles on this list
Sometimes they go to theaters, especially if they live in large cities. Sometimes they obtain DVDs, or watch streaming video, which is easier for them because their internet infrastructure is often faster than ours. Sometimes they -- well, you know what they do.
It gets worse if you're not in a large country...I'd love to be able to pay to watch things online or download legally, since in very small countries (in the Caribbean) the range of films officially released here is miniscule. In my home country (Trinidad and Tobago) and others where there are now American-style multiplexes, you can finally have a better range of the "popular" movies and they can increase the run of a particular movie per demand. But indie films? And documentaries? Hardly. In the pirate-dvd-rental world that exists down here, you can actually get access to these things if you keep an eye out, because pirates are indiscriminate and apparently copy anything they get their hands on. Of course, where I live currently (Guyana, population 750,000 spread out thinly) even the government tv station airs pirated movies. It's very hard to escape - the cinema cancels shows due to "television piracy". People hardly bother to "rent" movies, when you can just buy a DVD for a couple US dollars.
When it comes to these parts of the world, where there's no attempt to allow alternate legal means to watch/download/purchase movies (most sites are restricted to the US...even iTunes) trying to see what you recommend as great films is nigh impossible. I guess we don't count as a large enough market...or as having enough buying power, so where's the incentive to buy? Even the cable movie channels are an issue as they refuse to give access to the US feed to us, telling the English-speaking Caribbean that we're Latin America and therefore we should watch movies targeted to a largely Spanish-speaking audience.
That being said, at least your recommendations, reviews and lists makes me aware of things I'd never know about otherwise, or never know if it was worth trying to find somewhere. This has been said many times before, but - I do not always agree with your reviews, but since I believe you have always been honest with your perspective, I can rely on them. And I like your writing anyway.
Here's a great doc but not getting too much notice. It's titled Keeping the Peace:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdEIAVurwaA
You left out the Cove. Seriously?!? Have you seen it?
I always respect your opinion Roger, but this omission is inexcusable.
I have no doubt you've seen more docs than me, but I've seen hundreds - and I have never seen one that did such a good job of combining an important story and suspenseful story development.
And I'll be proven right when it wins the Oscar!
Welcome to the new economy, the economy where Bums In Seats are worthless compared to attention. So why don't your films attract attention? You've got placements in all the right Festivals, you're in all the film magazines, there are even film-blogs buzzing about your brilliance, why can't you sell a copy?
Because those are all old-world strategies, strategies in times of scarcity. Those strategies no longer work, but as Richard Bandler rightly observed, when people do something and it works,they do it again, and then when it fails to work, they do it again, HARDER.
Thing is, people do want to know, people love documentary, but it has to be the right people, the people who are attentive to that topic. Mike Tyson fans don't go to artsy film fests, they watch ESPN. The Woody Allen Era film-fest buff who has to see everything is gone, sucked into YouTube where there's enough emotion-candy to suck on forever. Yet the Zeitgeist Addendum, a film tailored to the armchair-worldchangers lurking online sparked that online into a frenzy of downloads!
Whether it is an indy band about ecology or a film about crawfish or a symphony orchestra, you cannot depend on distribution channels anymore; google "momus superstars nein danke" and you'll see why. Today you have to go to where the audience is, the specific audience, and then engage them, talk to them, get to know them. Look how Darcy Argue single-handedly revitalized the thought-to-be-dead genre of Big Band Jazz, coming out of nowhere with no connections and no money to place his debut self-produced CD into the top-10 jazz charts of more journals than you can name!
That's the New Economy. Get into it!
Ebert: Its true, I find these films in the traditional ways.
What a joke putting Anvil on the list...the so-called documentary was edited to show events out of order...the director has a scene at a radio studio which happened in 2006 followed by a meeting which happened in 2007 followed by the band receiving their CDs in August 2007 and culminating in a concert which happened in October 2006...events appeared to be shown in linear fashion...totally manipulative and a lie...if Roger Ebert didn't know that then he was had...Anvil is nothing more than a reality TV show like Survivor...but a documentary it's not
I've only seen 4 of these, but this is still a great list. Beaches of Agnes is my favorite of the ones I've seen. (BTW, I have my 25 best of the decade up on my site, if you're interested.)
Ebert: Your list is a remarkably good one, and I tweeted it.
I, tragically, haven't seen many of these. They were all on my to-see list and somehow slipped through theaters too quick for me to make it to them. However, I'd like to thank you for once again expanding your year end list to such a wonderfully large proportion. One can never see too many great films, nor receive too many recommendations for them.
I wonder, have you heard of the Korean documentary Wonangsori (Old Partner)? I caught it at a festival earlier this year and thought it was wonderful. It's about an elderly farmer who has worked with the same ox for 40 years, refusing to adopt more modern farming methods, and follows him through the last few years of the ox's life. It's a really powerful and personal film. I'm not sure when it will get any sort of US release beyond festivals (I suppose that leads back to your comments on piracy), but if you ever get the chance to see it, I highly recommend doing so.
Coincidentally I saw Tyson just last night (NetFlix).
I never saw him as an animal but even for me it changed my perspective. He's a very emotional person. There's just a lot of anger still there even for stuff that happened to him decades ago when he was just a kid. I definitely choked up when he did. Then later on when he's talking about his kids, it becomes almost unbearable given the tragedy of his daughter's death (not part of the film).
I didn't know that Anvil! The Story of Anvil was a true documentary until about halfway in. The band peaked and disappeared a whole seven years, and #181 or something on the Billboard chart isn't exactly peaking. I went from laughing at the poor guys to feeling like a jerk for not figuring out that this was a struggling group of real people screwing up at real shows. It probably didn't help that the movie had the same narrative arc as Spinal Tap (including the hilarious cover artwork montage), but still...those poor, aging rockers.
Now I know how you despise video games, but I was on my xbox today, looking for a movie to rent. One of the most downloaded documentaries was Food, Inc. Take heart Roger, for these films, or at least some of them, are getting viewed. And isn't that what's really important? Yes, it is important that these movies make money, but as I recall you saying, these directors will continue to make movies, if only because they feel they have to. As long as there is still an audience for them, I think that all will be fine, even if they don't become huge blockbuster hits.
Then again, I could just be incredibly optimistic and spout about things I don't know about.
where's "Fall of the Republic" by Alex Jones??? Terribly list to not include this huge hitting documentary...
I agree with Scott Nash. I have seen all of the limited release movies I can in the theatre. I WILL PAY to see these movies, but that option isn't open to me. The truth is, I cannot see many of these movies without downloading them illegally. To me the uploaders are doing these movies a favor because people want to see these movies. Especially when all of the buzz is surrounding them. Until the "poor innocent studios" realize this, I will download every movie I have to because I love good movies.
Also, I believe the Cove was a great doc. I downloaded it illegally, but after watching it, I told all of my friends about it, and encouraged them to seek it out. And also followed the information during the credits of the movie to where I could send a message to my senator.
Collapse is certainly engrossing and provocative. He says something interesting when he says the only thing we can change is our way of thinking and the only resource is our own human potential.
I think the silver lining with those box office figures is that many of these are going to be discovered and cherished on Blu Ray/DVD (or what ever format comes next). Of these the only one I have seen is Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which was amazing and I firmly believe is headed for cult status.
Mr. Ebert;
Everyone should see "Collapse". I am still in shock after viewing it. The stunning thing about that film is no one, except of course you Mr. Ebert, is talking about this film! The first question at the next Presidential news conference should be "What is the state of worldwide oil reserves?"
"Food, Inc." changed the way I look at the supermarket.
Mike Tyson is not anyone I would want over for dinner, but I feel I understand him better after seeing Tobak's film. Still the way he talks about women is downright creepy.
I was glad to hear that Anvil is doing quite well thanks to the movie!
The rest of your recommendations will go on my viewing list.
Thanks again.
Anvil Photo by Brent J. Craig
(PS. You are welcome to use the photos but I would appreciate it if, when linking to full resolution copies, your editors didn't strip out the photographer's metadata.)
Ebert: I posted that as I found it. Send me a proper version and I will post it immediately!
answerman@gmail.com
Thanks for the list!
Now, I know how I will be spending my Holidays.
Happy to hear that you are going to Sundance this year.
Hope to run into you at the festival!
Where is 'The Cove'?
No "The Cove" ?????
Ebert: I ran a letter some time ago raising some questions about the methods used by the film.
A quick response to Scott Nash first...Though I understand your frustration, you do have another option - wait until those movies come out on DVD and rent them (or get from NetFlix). It's unfair that you would have to wait longer than those of us in larger cities (though I wait for many to come to DVD anyway), but if you were willing to pay to see them in theatres then rentals should be an option. I'm not getting on your case here, but if you can wait then there are options.
Getting back to Roger's picks, both Anvil and Beaches of Agnes were in my Top 10 for 2008 (which is when I saw them at film festivals) and with Man On Wire, Not Quite Hollywood, Soul Power, Dear Zachary and Waltz With Bashir, my Top 20 was pretty crowded with documentaries.
And it continues this year: L'Enfer D'Henri-Georges Clouzot, Best Worst Movie and the unfortunately little seen but exceptional Love At The Twilight Motel all make my Top 10 with a few concert docs (Wilco's Ashes Of American Flags and Iron Maiden's Flight 666) bubbling under.
With Hot Docs here in Toronto, I'm fortunate to have at least heard of just about all of your picks and to have seen a bunch more: The Cove, Big Man River, Objectified and A Good Man were all excellent and, more importantly for the genre, are very entertaining and could reach a decent sized audience if given the chance.
And to Tom, there's nothing masochistic about Anvil - it'll slap a giddy smile all over your face by the end.
I'm sincerely overjoyed to see Anvil! The Story of Anvil getting list (and potentially major award) recognition. Thank you for including it, it deserves to be noticed.
Also deserving to be noticed: It Might Get Loud.
.......hmmm?
Ebert: I ran a letter some time ago raising some questions about the methods used by the film.
Is there a link to this letter?
Ebert: I can't find it. Please post it or mail it. I'll keep your name private.
I saw Collapse this weekend, and frankly, there wasn't anything in it that I hadn't been aware of for some time. My banker told me that there have been runs on banks, but that people don't go up to teller windows anymore like they did in It's a Wonderful Life (keep that movie in mind when considering the end of life as we know it); it's done with wire transfers. He said he'd gotten $1 million transfers from banks across the street from his.
Nonetheless, despite the many cogent things Ruppert had to say, some of his claims are dubious and almost certainly unprovable, particularly the "assassinations" he claims the CIA carried out. A friend of mine who researches conspiracies says maybe only 2% of conspiracies are real, and a fraction of those provable.
If you were raised in the 60s like I was, what used to be called ecology taught us everything Ruppert advocates for survival. Not really so scary in that context.
I must agree whole-heartedly with the comments above singing the praises of Netflix. Since subscribing several months ago, my wife and I have been delighted to discover many great documenteries on their streaming service. Many of these films I had never heard of, and they would have slid right on by without me noticing had they not been given equal treatment to such other categories as 'science fiction' and 'horror'.
I was so taken by one film in particular, 'Dear Zachary', that I sent an Email to you, Roger. I also signed up various family members to the service as Christmas gifts. In general, I find Netflix to be a great way to see many independent films I would have otherwise never gotten around to.
"I wish some of the Climate Deniers would watch it. They're like the band that plays while we march into global destruction."
No kidding. They'd deny there was a fire as they were burning to death.
Ebert: They are.
All those documentaries were great in their own ways, and I loved your summaries as usual. Liked the display picture too, looks like an aged Anna Karina.
Ebert: Could be. It's Saint Agnes of Montarnasse.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/02/saint_agnes_of_montparnasse.html
I was hoping you would have had the chance to see 'It Might Get Loud.' I missed my opportunity to watch at the only local theatre showing it. I guess I'll have to wait 'til I get Netflix started up again.
Ooh, she sounds interesting. Thanks for the tip, added some of her movies to my NetFlix. Still, not a dissimilar bob, though.
Reply to: Collapse. We have passed the halfway mark in world oil consumption, and it is rising as China and India come online. We will run out in about 40 years.
The United States has a highway system. We drive large SUVs in a way that angers Europeans. We spend enormous sums protecting oil fields in the Middle East to keep the price of gas down.
The United States has ~ 300 million people, China has a billion.
China wants to build a highway system like America's. Which means, adding three cars to every one that exists today.
A few generations from now, the price of gas will be ten times what it is today, and then there won't be any gas. But it won't matter because the world population will pass ten billion and biological weapons will be in play to wage a war for resources and living space.
President Obama needs to address world population control. Yeah, right, that'll happen.
Inspite of 'The Cove' getting a four star rating it not make it your top list is more than a little baffling. I know this is your personal list & opinion but after having the movie i think it certainly deserved a spot amongst the best of the year.
Hi Roger!
I've tried looking for your piece criticizing The Cove, but I'm not finding it. I'm sure you bring up good points, but it seems your four-star review is proof of the film's effectiveness. I'd really like to see an opposing view, since the movie is pretty much universally adored.
Love the list though, particularly the Anvil mention!
Disappointed that Valentino, the Last Emperor did not make the list. Saw it here in Austin with the director hosting Q & A for the audience after. He was very humble and informative about an excellent movie made during Valentino's retirement. What luck!
"I ran a letter some time ago raising some questions about the methods used by the film [The Cove]."
I've been looking high and low on your site for this letter or article. Can you post the link here? I watched The Cove on your recommendation and was really moved by it, and would very much like to know what reservations you had later on.
Ebert: I've asked its author to re-post it.
Dear Roger,
I read your review of "Collapse" and it gutted me like a fish. It left me in complete and utter despair for hours, and I haven't even seen the film. But when I slowly recovered, I realized that you simply take this guy at face value. Other reviewers have pointed out that not even the film takes Ruppert at face value, for it also looks at the devastating impact Ruppert's reporting has had on his own life. I'd be interested if you've looked further into the issue. There are quite a few compelling arguments against Ruppert, chiefly from peakoildebunked.com.
Here's the page on Ruppert: http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2009/09/423-mike-ruppert-prophet.html
And another page for the peak oil initiated:
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/07/307-confessions-of-ex-doomer.html
I admit that I would at least like to believe that there is something we can do. The unbridled pessimism of Ruppert is useless and fearmongering. At least he could tell us how to survive post-collapse.
Here's an imponderable for you, how is it that there are dozens of TV stations that subsist entirely off of documentaries (History Channel, Discovery Channel, etc.) but even the most high profile documentary films (except for the occasional Fahrenheit 9/11 or March of the Penguins) attract relatively little attention? Is it because most of the films on this list address issues that are a little too heavy for most people? I'm sure willing to confess to avoiding most politically-oriented documentaries because I find them almost unbearably depressing, especially since documentarians, for some reason, seem unaware of the fact that when you present the populace with some dire issue that's facing us, you also need to present them with practical solutions on how we can fix it (what you can do to help). Regardless of the issues at stake, who the hell wants to watch a movie who's basic message is, "We're all screwed, have a nice day?" I'd sooner sit down to another special on the mating habits of lions.
"I wish some of the Climate Deniers would watch it. They're like the band that plays while we march into global destruction."
If the Peak Oil hypothesis, as described in Collapse, is correct, why should you care what the so-called 'climate deniers' say? If true, Peak Oil will do exactly what the proponents of climate change want - increase the cost of oil (the equivalent of a carbon tax), thereby providing a strong market incentive to decarbonize the global economy. Peal Oil will accomplish what Kyoto/Copenhagen seem unable to. Why so gloomy?
Ebert: I recommend seeing the doc. He pulls out that rug.
Great lists so far Roger. Now I'm waiting for your best films of the decade list. I greatly enjoyed your collaboration with Marty on the "Best films of the 90's." I think you did that list in December of 99'. I could probably just gather all your "best films" ratings by individual year, though, to ascertain your view of the whole decade.
I haven't seen 'Collapse,' but I can't take seriously the conclusion that the human race is 'done' in 2050 for several reasons...
First, EVEN IF oil continues to be the preferred source of energy for the next few decades, huge new reserves are continually being discovered. Look at the multi-billion barrel reserves found in the Gulf of Mexico in the last couple of years, or the tremendous success Brazil has had with offshore drilling. If the abiotic theory of oil creation is correct, then oil could be much, much more plentiful than we've thought (albeit requiring more effort to reach).
Second, EVEN IF oil production can't keep pace with demand, the supply will be matched to demand by price, so it will simply get more expensive which will help conserve it. And as the cost of oil rises, new methods of extracting it become cost effective. Extraction from shale and tar sands will become economically feasible (as they were briefly during the oil spikes of a couple of years ago). And other forms of energy (nuclear, natural gas, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind, solar, etc.) become more attractive by comparison.
Third, EVEN IF an end to oil production is in the cards, it won't happen overnight. We won't pump oil easily out of the ground one day and get nothing the next. Supplies will slowly dry up with no new ones to replace them. This gradual process would draw investment in the alternatives mentioned above and, if allowed, they would increase to pick up the slack.
Fourth, innovation can happen at any time. There's a lot of money to be made for someone who comes up with a novel, plentiful source of energy. Admittedly, you don't want to bet the farm on that, but it could happen.
Any trend projected far enough leads to catastrophe. If you gained a pound last week, does that mean you'll gain 200 pounds over the next four years? Probably not. All sorts of mechanisms are likely to kick in to keep that from happening.
So, I regret to inform you that humankind isn't on the verge of crashing. And if you want to know when the oil's running out? It'll be when you see oil company CEOs dumping their stock...
I'd like to recommend "The Way We Get By," about the senior citizens at Bangor International Airport in Maine who greet the soldiers returning from Iraq.
http://www.thewaywegetbymovie.com/
So good to see "Of Time & the City" and "The Beaches of Agnes" getting the recognition they deserve. I saw each of them at the Wisconsin Film Fest (where I met you several years back) and hoped they would be seen by many, though neither seem to have been picked up by a distributer. Both are on my best movies of the year list, with "Of Time & the City" ranking as what might be considered my favourite.
I have to say that not only was it my favorite documentary this year, but possibly my favorite film this year - "The Cove." I can't understand how it could be left off of any list.
Seeing as how I'm rather up front about catching things falling off the back of a truck, I can't resist pointing out the obvious:
How much is the ticket?
Where is the theater located?
How much is bus fare?
VS...
How much is rent?
How much are groceries?
How much are living expenses?
Alternative: Wait for the DVD release.
Problem: the world is not a vacuum and my soul needs to eat.
So to avoid being "spoiled" you'll have to avoid the internet. And people talking at a bus stop. Or waiting in line to pay for milk. You'll have to leave the room whenever friends want to discuss certain plot points. You'll definitely have to avoid late night talk shows and even the News can be tricky.
And in the end, you'll be lagging behind the pop-culture, never in sync with "the now" let alone ahead of the curve because you're having to wait until you you can afford to catch-up; by which time any conversations worth having are over now, and everyone's moved onto something else.
Imagine constantly walking into a pub after the best conversation has left for the night? Or showing up and scratching your head because a joke went over it?
There ya go dude. :)
Is "the now" only for those who can afford it? And if so, where are artists going to come from, and what are they going to produce if all they have to work with was stale bread?
I think stealing is wrong, too. That's why I pay later (rental) for what I watch now; an amount I can afford. Most people don't do that however, I know. And that's the problem.
There's also this to take into consideration...
America is not the world. Not everyone gets Netflix. And not everyone can legally download something they'd like to see; hello geoblocked - the dreaded "video not available in your area".
But in exchange for settling for less than perfect copies, no one was kicking the back of my chair either, or using a cell phone to text message or talking loudly & being an idiot. Nor was I too cold owing to the Air-conditioning, and my ears weren't ringing because the sound was TOO LOUD. I also didn't miss anything for needing to go the washroom.
So it's a trade off.
Note: I went to see two movies this year. Coraline and Harry Potter. I grabbed "The Hurt Locker" before it hit theaters because my curiosity was keeping me up at night, but when it opened in Vancouver, then it was possible to buy a ticket.
I'm guilty of working around the obstacle that is my feast or famine existence. So too, of dealing with a woodpecker on my brain called "curiosity". But no worse than that.
Ideally, you'd be asked to pay what you can truly afford. But sadly, it doesn't work that way and for there being greed on one side, and dishonesty on the other.
P.S. I went to your blog, mrG, and read your Dec 7th entry: "Record Labels Face $60 Billion Damages for Pirating Artists".
Exactly.
Multi-media corporations are stealing from Artists every day while simultaneously suing people for sharing stuff online.
And if I want to see a movie now and pay what I can for it later, in the eyes of that same corporation, "I'm" a thief?
If so, better than than a greedy p*mp in the guise of a middleman.
Just saw Collapse last night at the Music Box. My three friends and I sat in silence for half the drive home.
Thanks for the list -- seen a few, looking forward to the rest. But, you really don't see "Capitalism: A Love Story" or "The Cove" as two of the best docs of the year?? I suppose that makes me even more eager to see the entries on your list, since I know you gave "Capitalism" and "The Cove" favorable reviews. But...really?? All ten of those were 'better' in you opinion than Michael Moore's piece?
You did not like "The Cove"?
Could you give us a link to the criticism that made you think twice about "The Cove"?
(I liked it, I think, but I was a little uneasy about about it at the same time -- about the effort they put into making a film about themselves being concerned about the dolphins, or about being seen to be concerned...)
Welp. Just got back from the Merry Christmas as promised on Rodge's gifts blog.
Bro-in-law Al retired young from a fancy accounting firm, specialized in energy companies. Knows all kinds of interesting stuff, e.g., was watching Enron first hand as it collapsed.
It so happened a stranger and his wife sitting next to us were vacationing here from -- "where ya from?" "Houston," funny coincidence, Al too. Funnier, the hubby also an energy guy. They got to talking. I felt sorry for his wife, but it got too interesting. He too was there when Enron collapsed. They agreed, what actually killed them were foreign investments -- and, as somebody said, "there was nobody there to tell them 'no'."
Most interesting, it turns out there's a gigantic natural gas reserve spreading from Lake Erie down to Philadelphia. The length and breadth of it has been discovered by widening eyes in the past five years. They estimate our grandchildren will be dust long before it's depleted.
Naturally, there's the question of infrastructure. Still. I learned years ago that gasoline engines can be converted to propane, no problem.
Not to go careening off into energy again, hope we don't, but this does put a glitch in Mike Ruppert's prophecy that the world will collapse because of peak oil. And anyhow, propane's a lot cleaner. What remains, as usual, is politics.
So Rodge, I said I'd probably peek into the theater to hear what Mike Ruppert sounds like, but now that you've provided the trailer, I know. I want to see everything else, though.
Ebert: I think what killed Enron was foreign investments in foreign investments in foreign investments.
"The love of money is the root of all evil."...Michael Rupert
At least one may agree with him that every problem has roots in people's mind. The philosophy, after me the deluge. My country, first and foremost. My family, above all. That causality operates in science, but our lives are random chance.
"..... if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'ld jump the life to come...."
The choice is not between paying and free. It is between watching the only way feasible, or forget about movies, and be content with Bollywood or even better-nothing.
Marie Haws comment above is very eloquent.
i was going to watch the doc collapse till i went to your review and read
"If this man is correct, then you may be reading the most important story in today's paper.
I have no way of assuring you that the bleak version of the future outlined by Michael Ruppert in Chris Smith's "Collapse" is accurate."
so... i guess you dont know if all of these "facts" that you want me to blindly believe are truly factual... dont get me wrong i know the climate is changing but i DONT think the people looking into the reasons why (on BOTH sides) are truly looking at it from a rational point of view why the f@#$ (sorry im fed up with the dem's and the rep's on this) are people not look at the jet stream more closely??? ive been...ill admit i dont have the tech that a member of a modern day weather observatory would have but it seems that everytime a map is shown with the jet on it and the jet is oddly high northward guess what the states below it is greatly above avg in temp (im guessing whoops i mean theorizing because it blocks the cold air from the canada into the upper and mid states as aggressively as it normally would) and if the jet dips oddly north guess what happens...yes thats right just the opposite of what i wrote above...anyway im sure you have tuned out what ive been trying to add to climate change a while age (if you even bothered to see that i was trying to make a point) so i guess ill end this by saying no offense but you seem to be rather condescending to anyone that does see the world in the light that you do 100% (even if that person is trying there best to be rational about their views) and again no offense but you cry out for open mindness but seem to do so with deaf ears and blind eyes after all reality holds all of your dreams till your brave enough to lie in it for a night roger and before you start no im NOT a rep... no im NOT part of some fundamentalist group and i DONT have ANY desire storm the white house nor do i hate the pres because he is black (im half black and just as proud of that as i am being white!!!) and at the end of the day i think BOTH fox and cnn is bias when it comes to reporting the news (and yes i have watched both with a truly open mind...but at the end of the day i do keep track of the news i just use logic when reading/watching/hearing it and dont just blindly follow every bit of news i hear) and that i guess i should say im NOT some guy in a cabin in the wood/bombshelter somewhere thats "waiting for the big one to hit" im sick that if you show some of your views on life, religion or science and it does conform perfectly to a dem's pov or a rep' pov then they think your the unibomber somehow
and sorry about the lack of punctuation and grammar but its 5:27 am and i dont even know if you will half of this anyway if you have made it this far then know that even tho i said what i did (i was just being honest in how i felt) i would like to tell you that reading some of your reviews and books helped give me a little bit refuge (for a lack of better word) when i needed it it was also in a way kind of like the collage coarse i wish that i could have taken but...well you know how life is...i guess...i mean it seems like everyone is 100% positive that they do...but at the end of the everyone is contradicting everyone else and putting blind faith into something that they know little about...anyway have a good one roger...
I'm curious about something Mr. Ebert. You mentioned "climate deniers" at least a couple of times in these comments and you have used that expression in the past as well. My question is, do you label anyone who does not believe in anthropogenic global warming a denier?
What about those who understand that the global temperature is rising but question mans contribution to that rise? What about those who agree that man is contributing but don't believe that it's as critical as is being portrayed by many?
I've studied the subject as much as possible with my lack of a science background and it is fairly obvious to me that people such as Bishop Tutu, Mayor Bloomberg, Al Gore, and other doomsayers are overstating the case, to say the least.
I won't go into the intimate details here but there is conclusive evidence that the predictions of a 20 foot rise in sea levels and temperate zones being uninhabitable are alarmist at best, yet people still present them as valid concerns going into the next few decades.
I'm not sure when this happened but it seems that people have forgotten that continued claims of doom and gloom tend to jade listeners. Those who tell us millions will be dead and dying in the near future are no better than those who carry signs on the street saying, "REPENT NOW! THE END IS NEAR!
Calabogie
Ebert: Anthropogenic essentially means "caused by man." You believe that man's consumption of half the world's oil and untold amounts of coal and gas within 200 years has had no effect on the climate?
Why not carry a sign saying, "Relax! The end is nowhere in sight?"
One other thing I forgot to mention. I think one of the reasons for the lack of viewers for truly good documentaries today is the growth and pervasiveness of what I've been calling, "Political Action Docs." Michael Moore and his immitators (Bananas! is a good example) have been hogging the spotlight and getting all of the press as "documentary film makers" when in fact they are simply creating extended political commercials. There is some merit in this but I question whether those films should be considered true documentaries.
It seems that as a society we've become accustomed to having film makers tell us what we should think about a film or a subject. Very few that I've seen in the past 10 years or so have simply presented the information and/or provided the viewer the opportunity to judge for themselves. Film makers like Ken Burns don't seem to garner the attention anymore as awards are handed out to people presenting their opinions as fact.
Just my opinion of course but I think if you want to point a finger at anyone for the lack of attendence for true documentaries, it might be prudent to look at the media in general and the gullibility of the American public.
Calabogie
"Every Little Step" was the best non-fiction film I saw this year.
This "making-of-'A Chorus Line'" doc was a singular sensation indeed.
Hi, Roger. Just thought I'd let you know you sometimes miss a "the" off the beginning of a title. "Bad Lieutenant" and "Beaches of Agnes" for example.
I'm definitely interested in watching "We Live In Public" and "Collapse". Both documentaries have the type of doom and gloom scenario that, in a way, I'm actually hoping it will come to pass.
Yes, that does sound bizarre, but it may be the only way to finally instill change in the world. We are predominantly reactive creatures, and not proactive ones. We will continue to consume every possible resource on the planet until nature itself has had enough of our irresponsible behaviour and hits us so hard that half of the world population might actually disappear within a generation.
How will this happen? Will it be man-made? Or will it be the result of an incurable plague or a devastating natural event? I have no idea. But one thing's for certain. If we don't start changing our way of living pretty soon, something out there is going to change it for us on a massive scale whether we like it or not.
And it ain't gonna be pretty.
Great list- I have 8 more movies to see. Anvil and Tyson were two of my favorites for the year. I'm going to add to the chorus though and ask why The Cove isn't on your list... I think it was my favorite movie of the year.
I'm a big fan of the three top 10's but I'm not used to there not being a top film of the year. I always use your top recommendation as ammunition to get friends to watch great movies they ordinarily wouldn't see. "Yeah sure City of God has subtitles, but it's Roger Ebert's favorite movie of the year- how can you pass that up???"
interesting list. I haven't seen any of them but i'm dying to see The Beaches of Agnes. I'm unsure if its been released in Australia yet.
The best documentary i've seen this year is one from last year called Forbidden Lie$. I strongly urge to watch this fascinating documentary.
I saw Frederick Wiseman's luminous La Danse last night. I'm surprised it's not on your list, but to each his own.
Bob Turnbull: And to Tom, there's nothing masochistic about Anvil - it'll slap a giddy smile all over your face by the end.
---Not for you, maybe. Ever done those gigs? I've had a running joke with an old bandmate since 1981. It goes "Did [famous producer] call yet?"
@ Food inc
Most revolting. There has to be a difference between an animal and a cabbage. In the Old Man and Sea the old man apologizes to the fish after catching it. The real collapse in Collapse is the collapse of values. The value associated with money and resources derives with the value we grant to life, starting with human life, and going on to wood, paper and resources. As a sage states, life and it's environment are one, like a body and shadow, or a mirror reflection. By devaluing other lives, we in essence devalue our own.
Hope this is sufficiently obscure for everyday use.
Ebert: I think what killed Enron was foreign investments in foreign investments in foreign investments.
---Yeah, it went that way. Plus, as the boys discussed, all these 20somethings who weren't told not to. ("Smartest Guys in the Room" and "The Corporation" my 2 fave docs in the past 15-20 years.)
---Funny, me being on the anti gloom-and-doom side in this discussion. I don't doubt we're a-heading for a bunch of disasters. A good reading of tinfoil hat sites will get one used to the magniloquent bouquets of possibilities. Subtract Ruppert and a dozen others from it, and we're still 274% doomed -- and I'm not even counting the prophets and prophetesses who has had visions and has spokin like Mammy Yokum.
---Back in '92 or '93 I read that some geneticists had calculated that at one point there had to have been only about 15,000 human beings left on the planet. "Left," that is.
---Could be that what we're facing -- largely, the human greed Ruppert's talking about -- is small potatoes in comparison. If we're not going to get turned upside down by a planet-size intruder, the enemy must be us. We're not all that crazy. We ought instead start searching for who those people may not be. Hint: if they have Great Big Ideas that require Lots of Money, be suspicious.
Admission: Your discussion of how little money your favorite documentaries made makes me feel guilty, not because I haven't seen any documentaries this year, but because I have.
I've seen "Tyson." Although I do think it gives a better understanding of what he may really be like, I didn't feel like it was one of the best documentaries of the year. But I feel guilty, because I didn't pay to see it; I borrowed it from my local library, which is how I see most movies these days anyway. But not renting it from NetFlix means that it likely lost what little money I could have given it.
I did pay to see a documentary this year--and in the theater, too! But it still makes me feel guilty. I went to see "Art & Copy," a documentary on advertising campaigns. I went in spite of Metacritic warning that it was basically nothing more than a love letter to advertisements, that it didn't try to look at the negative side of advertising, that it wasn't really all that deep. And you know what? Everyone on Metacritic was right. It is a very shallow documentary, one that's basically just the creative guys talking about how they came up with ideas for campaigns like "Got Milk" and "Where's the Beef," with no real attempt at getting much more out of it. Couldn't they have talked to people who actually filmed these ads, and see what they thought of it? They may not have said much more than what the creative guys were already saying, but as it is, it felt like a movie about democracy that only interviews Congressmen, not bothering to talk to voters.
Admittedly, it's not like I had a wide variety of documentaries to see in a theater; it's what was playing at a local art theater with one screen that I happen to like. Still, I feel a little guilty about supporting that documentary, because by voting with my ticket, I'm saying that I'd rather see more shallow documentaries like that instead of tough, gritty, in-depth and/or beautiful documentaries.
Do I wish I'd gone to see, say, "Must Read After My Death," "Anvil," or "The September Issue?" Yes, yes, yes. Do I want to see those movies? Heck yes. Did I have the opportunity? Not really. But I still feel guilty.
To follow up on some of the responses to my comment.
Several movies I've downloaded in the past year, I purchased as soon as they come out. When the films were available to me in theaters, I went and saw them. I went and saw The Hurt Locker when it came to my theater this fall despite the fact it’s been leaked online since January, to much regret though due to the bad projector this theater has and the fact that the framing was obviously off (the days left in rotation was completely left off the screen). I went and saw An Education over Christmas break where it’s available in my parent’s town. I’ve bought over 60 movies (mostly blu-rays) since August, which for somebody who’s a poor student I think is a fairly decent amount. I want to support these filmmakers but simply am unable to other than through word of mouth and buying the home video release. When it comes down to it, I think the film industry needs to do a better job at adapting to the digital market.
@ S M Rana wrote:
"The choice is not between paying and free. It is between watching the only way feasible, or forget about movies, and be content with Bollywood or even better-nothing.
Marie Haws comment above is very eloquent."
I find a little Bollywood goes a long way. :)
And so if you're having to creatively work around certain "obstacles and impediments" akin to those I've described, well... as far as I'm concerned, better a soul fed than not.
I watch on average around 120 movies a year. Most are borrowed from the Library whose catalog I can search online. Moreover if they don't have the title I want and another branch does, they have it sent over.
They stock Kino DVD's. And Criterion Collection. They have foreign films, indie titles, action movies and block-busters too. They also have drama pieces and detective mysteries from the BBC, Showtime and HBO series. And a host of PBS titles and documentaries.
I can walk 3 blocks to my local library and borrow "The Beaches of Agnes" as they've got it.
We're actually celebrating Christmas on Dec 26th this year (that's when everyone in my family is able to get together) and so I picked up some movies for tonight.
So I'm not always plundering the internet. :)
But then, I'm lucky to live where I do, eh?
Ebert wrote: Anthropogenic essentially means "caused by man." You believe that man's consumption of half the world's oil and untold amounts of coal and gas within 200 years has had no effect on the climate?
Why not carry a sign saying, "Relax! The end is nowhere in sight?"
Interesting you should write that...
Earlier this week, late one night, I caught a book review/reading on TV for the following:
"Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil" by Peter Maass, published in September 2009.
He read selected passages from his book, and I was so captivated that I stopped painting and sat down to listen.
I was struck by his adventures, by what he saw and witnessed, but not of climate change; rather, the cost of oil in human terms. For that's what the book is about.
The price of oil on a human level.
Someone should turn it into a movie and get Kathryn Bigelow to direct it. :)
Calabogie:
Every documentary has a point of view. Your example of Michal Moore and his imitators (to which I assume you mean to include the producers of "Hillary the Movie" and "Expelled" as well) are simply more overt. To say that Ken Burns idealized America of Baseball and National Parks doesn't provide a strong point of view is, well, simply wrong. "National Parks" does everything in it's power to convince us that the parks system is among the best things we as a society have done. "Baseball"'s thesis is that American history can be seen most clearly through our national pastime. Both of those are clear points of view with debatable facts behind them that you can agree or disagree with after viewing the documentary.
What the Ken Burns movies don't do is focus on a hot button topic. All documentaries leave out some facts and keep in others. As I watched "Grey Gardens" I couldn't help but wonder what was left out in order to give us that particular picture of it's subjects. After all, to edit and document is to comment.
Going back to some of the great observational documentaries also contain a point of view. "Grey Gardens" elevated two eccentric recluses to mythic status through editing choices. Every decision made is a comment on it's subject.
"You believe that man's consumption of half the world's oil and untold amounts of coal and gas within 200 years has had no effect on the climate?"
Well, there's the problem right there, isn't it? It's about belief to you and many others, not science. Most anthropogenic global warming believers don't really know anything about science, they just blindly believe what's spoonfed them. And frankly, most of the other side doesn't understand science either. So we have a bunch of people with religious fervor setting policy based on beliefs. Great. We know how well *that* worked out with the Bush administration.
A lot of things have happened in the last 200 years. Our geologists barely understand what's going on 20 miles below the surface of the earth, but we blithely assume any changes in our planet are man's fault. How arrogant. Are you telling me that we should blindly believe this one theory that has already been shown to contain holes, or perhaps should we realize that that we don't understand what's going on, and so investigate more with an open mind before trying to fix it? If we don't, our fixes could cause more problems than they solve.
Ebert: We should accept the best available evidence, particularly when it is held by a large majority of all scientists qualified to state an opinion on a subject.
@Marie Haws
You won't find anything not in English or Indian languages, though where I live is metropolitan enough--certainly no indie, documentaries, none of the greats, European or Japanese. So little by way of soul nourishment.I share your preference for films at home, particularly you can do it in pieces, stop for a bite, go back and forth, and, of course, subtitles, which is staple for me.
I watched "Tyson", "Food Inc", and "Of Time and the City"(and "The Cove", too). I will watch "Collpase" soon. This documentary seems to have more than everything I have worried about.
"The September Issue" will be shown to South Korean audience in limited release on Jan 28
@ Shelly wrote -
"Most anthropogenic global warming believers don't really know anything about science, they just blindly believe what's spoon-fed them. And frankly, most of the other side doesn't understand science either."
I think it's a combination of factors, myself.
Ie: what have we been doing?
Well, chopping trees down in rain forests.
Paving over stuff with concrete.
Making stuff that pollutes, leading to smog etc.
So there's that.
Then there's mother nature like El Niño and cyclical weather patterns; maybe some lasting years or decades. I'm sure they had bad weather 500 years ago too, in other words.
But... what if you take the stuff "we've" been doing, and you add to the stuff that was always going to happen anyway - and it tips the scales?
Like pouring gasoline on a house struck by lighting? Yikes, eh??
That's how I see global warming.
I also tend to think in terms of the bigger picture, and so here's "earthlights" from NASA - the planet all lit up at night:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights2_dmsp_big.jpg
Takes a lot energy to do that.
Note: Canada is mostly dark. Whereas the United is lit up like a Christmas tree. I can see Chicago, too! And there's Roger's house and... hey! Someone's using his rice cooker!
Smile.
While it's obvious that we'll have to find alternate energy sources, I wouldn't worry too much about the running out of oil. There will always be oil available, because oil can be manufactured. There's not much point in manufacturing oil as an energy source, because you have to put energy into it before you can get it out, but as a useful industrial product, it can be synthesized quite easily.
Meanwhile, as long as I have your attention, you're the second reviewer I've seen who is under the impression that Doyle's Holmes was an opium addict. In fact, cocaine was Holmes' drug of choice. Hell, opium is out of character; Holmes doesn't want to be numbed, it's stimulation he craves.
A lot of people seem surprised that The Cove isn't on your list. I'm not. I was bored by the film. It didn't show me or tell me anything I hadn't already heard 30 years ago. Is there really anybody who hadn't already seen footage of the bloody dolphin hunt back in the 70s?
I honestly sort of admire this village for preserving their traditions in the face of a modern world that wants to erase their culture.
Roger,
While peak oil and climate change are related to the price of our overconsumption, they are not the same issue, and I don't like the fact that you use Ruppert's position on peak oil to stand on your soapbox and proclaim your same position. Even if our use of oil had no effect on our environment whatsoever (which I don't believe), Ruppert's argument stands in that we live in a society dependent on oil, a resource that will eventually run out. Ruppert's a bit too doomy for me (he predicted the economy would totally collapse in August and called swine flu "the beginning of the end"), but his core is totally correct, that our current lifestyles as a whole are unsustainable.
I've been looking into the issue recently, and I've come to the conclusion that I can't sit around being terrified. Though it appears you have given up, I would like to think there's still hope. How can we function if there is no hope. Now I want to learn everything I can, try to wean myself from oil, prepare for the worst, and try to spread the word in an optimistic way. We can't wait for Obama and our other leaders to be cockblocked by the Republicans; we have to make the change for ourselves. Don't ask what Obama can do for us; ask what we can do for Obama. Now what are you going to do, Roger?
Two more quotes: "Nothing is written" - TE Lawrence; "Lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for" - Jefferson Smith.
Happy holidays, Roger!
I saw "Collapse" and I couldn't help thinking about Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" - though not in ways that Michael Ruppert and Naomi Klein would approve.
They can't both be right.
Perhaps Klein should change the title of her book to "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Ecologism", or Michal Ruppert could acknowledge that you cannot simultaneously denounce something (our dependence on oil) and be afraid of its demise.
I agree with Michael Ruppert that "peak oil" won't be pretty (and it doesn't matter if it happens in 2050 or in 2500 - someday it will occur for sure). But unlike him, I am looking forward to it. It will hurt, but we deserve it.
I can't agree more with Scott Nash. I often have to travel up to 100 miles (one way) to see "Studio Movies" (i.e., The Road, Precious....). Why don't they make these movies available as "on demand"--especially if they are not going to come to certain areas of the country. I live in what is know as a "Third Tier" area. It seems all the junk ends up where I live. I saw "Collapse" and "Art of the Steal" at TIFF. Two great docs.
Bless you for flaunting arbitrary traditions with these radical lists. Make these films known.
But, like many other people, I am disappointed to not see "The Cove".
The movie may have been a bit pedantic at times, but the thrills were reminiscent of one of last year's exceptional documentaries "Man on Wire"; a great, important movie like "The Cove" deserves to be on this list.
You must have your reasons for the exclusion, but could you please explain?
To Shelly on December 24, 2009 9:57 PM
We live in strange and wonderful times that are both related. The wonders are brought about by the energy that oil has made possible. So is the strangeness. I’ve never heard anyone refer to it like this, but my opinion is that all we need to consider are concepts that we learned in grade school.
We know that oil was formed in the earth over a span of millions of years. Essentially what occurred is that all this oil in the earth is stored energy derived from the sun. Now think about it like this: what do you have if you have a great deal of energy that is released in a very short period of time? By all definitions that I know of, it is an explosion. Essentially, we are living through an explosion of sorts. The fact that we aren’t really all that aware of it does not disqualify it as what it is: the release of energy retained over a span of millions of years, released in the span of roughly 150 years. 150/100,000,000 is a ratio of 666,666,666 to one. (Actually, I just punched those numbers into the calculator I keep on my desk and I’m surprised by the 666 coincidendence.)
I'd like everyone to consider "Still Bill", "It's More Than a Game", "Facing Ali", and "Soul Power" all of which were shown at SILVERDOCS, a documentary film lovers paradise. The festival is held every June at the AFI Silver Theater outside Washington, D. C. and it's my favorite week of the year.
I'd like everyone to consider "Still Bill", "It's More Than a Game", "Facing Ali", and "Soul Power" all of which were shown at SILVERDOCS, a documentary film lovers paradise. The festival is held every June at the AFI Silver Theater outside Washington, D. C. and it's my favorite week of the year.
@Steve Vanden-Eykel: One of the worst reasons to do something is to follow in the footsteps of the past. In this case, their "culture" reeks of barbarism, and willful ignorance. That they continue in their ways stands as another stain on the human race.
Roger, given that the author of the letter regarding "The Cove" has not yet come forward, could you at least summarize its contents and why they shifted your feelings so? I have a hard time believing that the film could be guilty of, say, anything worse than Michael Moore's usual trickery (or flirtations with such), without such evidence. I have an even harder time believing that any such offenses could be so bad as to invalidate its successes, which are tremendous.
There's a joke referencing Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal somewhere in here, but I just can't put my finger on it.
Regarding "The Collapse": Didn't Isaac Asimov give 2050 as an environmental point of no return--after which we won't be able to repair the damage done? I know he figured we'd have humanlike robots by then, and he may have been right about that. Docs are all well and good, but I'll take a solid SF story if I want a reliable predictor.
p.s. "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"
Great list as always!
I was a little disappointed not to see "Michael Jackson's This Is It" on your list. While perhaps not the traditional documentary or traditional concert film, I thought it was as good as some of the films you mention here.
And didn't you give it ****?
Jeffrey Paul Bobrick
Singer and Songwriter
http://www.ilovejpb.com
Ebert:
WINNERS of the Last Annual Great Limerick Contest, their winning entries, and their prizes:
http://j.mp/7Rcq8n
Thanks for the list, Roger. With four young kids it's hard for my wife and I to get out more than a few times a year, so I rely on your lists for my rentals. Documentaries are favorites of mine, and hard to find outside of a service like Netflix. I hope the filmmaker makes money from my rentals.
Another interesting list Roger. I do like the way you've taken making end-of-year lists in another direction that better celebrates the year as a whole.
I'm also interested in your afterthoughts re: "The Cove." It was such a heartbreaking film to watch, regardless of the ethics that went into getting some of the most disturbing footage. It's one of those cases, I think, where the urgency subject kind of supercedes the way it was accomplished.
I'm actually glad not to see "Capitalism" on here. I'm a fan of Michael Moore's, but I really wasn't as big a fan of his latest. It had too much of the grandstanding his detractors dislike about it, and wasn't as populist I felt as "SiCKO" or "Roger & Me" was. This type of approach worked- I felt- for "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," but for the topic at hand, I would have rather he stuck more with focusing on the people hurt by the economic collapse instead.
My one complaint of the list- of course, unfortunately I haven't seen many of these films- is, no "This is It?"
While I didn't get to see many docs this year, I really enjoyed Crude. Rather morose tale of indigeonous people in Bolivia being poisoned by oil companies. Socially conscious and interesting characters. Damn good film, I say.
Very happy you included the Beaches of Agnes.
There were 6 people in the theater when I went. 30 minutes through, half of them had left.
The rest of us remained entirely mesmerized. It was such a fulfilling little autobiography with a truly refreshing and surrealistic narrative, piloted of course by one of the most brilliantly charming women in cinema.
It's funny; I don't remember much the contents of the film, rather the wonderful feeling I had while watching it. What poetry!
Thank you Roger for the list. I put 7 of the 10 documentaries on my netflix list. Don't despair, some of us deeply care about film and want to seek out new types of movies that entertain and challange us.
Thank you so much for this list.
"Didn't Isaac Asimov give 2050 as an environmental point of no return--after which we won't be able to repair the damage done?"
Asimov, Clarke, and a good number SF writers of the time period predicted a point of no return about 1995 (aka, in Heinlein's history, the Crazy Years).
Greg Bear in "The Wind from a Burning Woman" predicted that humanity would not die off in the 1990s but that Asimov, Clarke, and a good number of SF writers of the time period probably would.
This really doesn't prove anything but I've noticed that when people see the end of the world coming, it's either in the immediate future or corresponding with the prophet's life expectancy.
For all lovers of documentaries and music, please check out the promotional featurette for "SANDMAN: At Your Service." The film revisits the exceptional and unconventional life of Mark Sandman, late lead singer of the band "Morphine."
http://vimeo.com/7804512
So if "Hoop Dreams" came out in 2009 instead of 1994, would it have made your top ten best films or top ten best documentaties, and why?
So if "Hoop Dreams" came out in 2009 instead of 1994, would it have made your top ten best films or top ten best documentaries, and why?
Ebert: Sean, Sean, Sean.
I think 'Tyson' deserves to be up there. As well as another documentary called 'Why Do Jamaicans Run So Fast'...
http://pleasurett.blogspot.com/2009/12/these-films-rocked-this-year.html
I think Roger should have considered "Under Our Skin" as one of the most significant documentaries of 2009 because I think it has the most societal significance of any of these, even "Food, Inc" which I think is also a vitally important and very significant documentary. The problem is, by the time the general public realizes the significance of this information, it is often too late to prevent massive damage to millions of people's lives. Mark Hyman, M.D. said that there will never be a magic bullet to cure such degenerative illnesses as heart disease, cancer, even neurological illnesses such as ALS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and others, because, as he calls them, they are "pediatric illnesses with geriatric consequences", i.e. it takes decades during an individual's life often, for the damage done to be considered significant enough in terms of symptomology to be called an illness by our system of allopathic medicine. For example, in Korea and later also in Vietnam, autopsies of the bodies of soldiers killed in those wars revealed atherosclerotic plaque in the arteries of young men in their late teens. The results of those studies from Vietnam were worse than Korea, reflecting, I believe, the more ubiquitous role of fast food in our culture during that war and the decline of nutrition in the food supply for many reasons.
hello,
i just read the entire thread, and apparently there's a misunderstanding somewhere, about the list of reasons why the Cove has been left out (I didn't see it, I'm just trying to help)
people have been requesting a letter from Ebert he mentionned first in By Paul H. on December 23, 2009 1:27 PM"
but then attributed to and requested from an anonymous commenter in "By Seth R on December 23, 2009 2:23 PM"
and then mentionned again in "By Peter Luisi-Mills on December 23, 2009 4:49 PM"
and this quiproquo has had everyone waiting for Ebert to send his own letter to himself again, from what I gathered.
I hope this helps,
thanks all for the great ideas and suggestions, this is a great blog
THE COVE?????? IT'S EMBARASSING TO LEAVE THAT OUT MR. EBERT
The problem with several of these documentaries is they make fast a loose with a lot of the facts. For example, FoodInc is so riven with falsehoods you wonder if the guy ever did any real research. I live in the middle of the priciest farmland in America but have yet to see any of it bought by a corporation. It doesn't make business sense for a corporate food processor to own land. They would much rather leave that risk to the independent but the guy states the claim with nary a bit of proof or business justification. Then, he labels coprorate farming as unhealthy totally overlooking that the key element of hobby farming (using manure for fertilizer) is the primary cause of most food scares in this country. Maybe factory farms are bad for the animals but fear isn't a reason why. In reality prey animals leve in constant fear in the wild. Is fear in a cage any worse than fear of being taken by a predator. At least in the cage they eat and don't have to face starvation or hunger. People should stop acting like they know what animals think. As to Terence davies, he said a "boy" put his hand on his shoulder and he didn't want him to take it off. How old was the boy? Must Read After Death is one side of a story, it may be the truth but it is still one side of the story and that doesn't often make for good journalism. The reality is these movies fit Ebert's liberal outlook on the world and they don't have to make any efforts to justify their point since they fit Ebert's belief's. What's the matter with Kansas once agian is too narrow in its subjects. You can go to any state in the union and find people voting against their own self interests. The claim by Ebert that the woman's statement about letting a brain damaged infant die is the same as any other justification for any abortion (which she opposes)is just fraudulent. His making it makes me wonder if he is slipping in his old age. In short, most of these documentaries is what you get when you have a non expert making an agenda documentary. Light on facts and heavy on skew....
After seeing "Big River Man", I immediately thought that this is just the thing that Roger Ebert would love. I hope you have a chance to see it if you have not already.
Ebert: Anthropogenic essentially means "caused by man." You believe that man's consumption of half the world's oil and untold amounts of coal and gas within 200 years has had no effect on the climate?
I do believe that man may have contributed to warming to a very small degree but I think that all of the predictions of disaster are ridiculously exaggerated. For voicing that opinion I have often been called a "denier", even though I fall somewhere in the middle of the debate. My concern is that by using that particular word, you are suggesting that anyone who disagrees with you is either just wrong or has some sort of agenda. The word "denier" has become so loaded that once it enters a conversation, any rational debate is thrown out the window.
Why not carry a sign saying, "Relax! The end is nowhere in sight?"
I would much rather carry such a sign than carry one that says, "The end is here!" I don't have the answers and I don't claim to know the absolute truth about global warming. I simply become irritable when others who are not in the field claim they do and that I should agree with them because, "Every scientist says it's true." Is a little tolerance and openness too much to ask?
Calabogie
To: Eric L
You said: Every documentary has a point of view. Your example of Michal Moore and his imitators (to which I assume you mean to include the producers of "Hillary the Movie" and "Expelled" as well) are simply more overt.
The movies you mentioned could be included, as could what I've taken to calling the "anti-documentary" presented generally by right wing zealots in a quest to make Michael Moore look bad, something he does very well all by himself IMHO.
I agree with you that every documentary has a point of view but the truly great documentarians tend to suppress their own point of view as much as possible. While people like Ken Burns attempt to present a story of a real event, Michael Moore and others like him attempt to present a story of their own making, with the intention of pounding people they disagree with while extolling the virtues of whatever their particular brand of crazy is.
As an example, how many factual errors can be found in a Ken Burns documentary? Now how many can be found in a Michael Moore documentary? While it may be impossible to be completely objective, the least a true documentary can do is to make the attempt. Moore and others like him are lauded for doing the exact opposite and that saddens me.
What bothers me the most though is that people like Richard Schickel ("Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin" and many others) fade into even further obscurity because the faux documentarians like Moore garner all of the attention and glory at award shows. Documentaries truly deserving of awards and recognition go unnoticed and unappreciated.
Calabogie
These are all very good examples of the kinds of documentaries from some very talented producers. But for many these will be the last films you will probably ever see from them...WHY YOU ASK??? Simply because they take so long to get to the public and with most forms of traditional distribution all but disappearing (many choosing self distribution since the deals are so unbelievably horrible for producers) they will be broke and forced to take on other crappy corporate video work or worse completely leave the business altogether. Of course it does not help that piracy is an issue for independent producer stealing what little home video sales are their is the final nail in the coffin. For my film Full Moon Lightnin' which beat out ANVIL at a film festival is still struggling to make back the investment and most probably will not. This is the case with most independent films.
Support your local filmmaker Don't Steal their work.
There is something seriously wrong that Under Our Skin is not on this list. Lyme Disease is an epidemic that needs to be addressed. I personally suffered with Chronic Lyme Disease and endured the same struggles as many of those shown in the film. It's unfortunate Roger Ebert disagrees, maybe one day someone he loves dearly will cope with the battles of lyme. Then he will understand the impact of this film.
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
I was very surprised not to see "Under Our Skin" on your list. It makes me wonder whether you got it and had a chance to watch it. It is a very powerful film. I hope you take another look - it would be on my top 10 and is on the Oscar list.
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
I am disappointed and surprised that "Under Our Skin" did not make this list. It is probably the most important documentary that really needs to be seen and people need to hear about what is really going on with Lyme Disease. Nominating this movie can help the lives of so many people who are suffering from an illness that is under reported, under researched and under treated. By the time it gets the press it deserves, we will have such an epidemic of patients with a disease that doctors don't understand how to treat. Instead you support the movie, "Tyson"???? I'm sorry, I just can't find sympathy in my heart for him. I know that most perpetrators were victims themselves, but they have choices to make in their adult lives and most do not go on to victimize. I have no sympathy for anyone who chooses to continue a cycle of violence and to decide to showcase this one man's pitiful life over those of thousands of patients who are suffering with Lyme Disease is inexcusable. I'm sure there were many worthy documentaries that should be named but if you watched "Under Our Skin" and weren't moved, you couldn't have feelings or compassion. The suffering that chronic Lyme patients endure is as bad as any cancer patient and it is in the shadows and must be brought to the fore front.
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
No mention of "Under Our Skin"? IMO the Single BEST Documentary of 2009.
You must not know anyone with Lyme, perhaps you just don't believe them or they've been misdiagnosed or told that there's "no medical explanation for their symptoms".
Perhaps you have friends who are under-educated physicians, among the scads who are not thoroughly versed in the difficulty encountered in diagnosing & treating tick-borne disease.
Did you actually SEE "Under Our Skin"? If you are going by earnings, you should know that they allowed FREE screenings all across the country to try create awareness & hopefully spare some of the people being harmed by the present situation.
Boo Mr. Ebert - I give your review TWO THUMBS DOWN!
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
UNDER OUR SKIN, the dramatic documentary that exposes a hidden epidemic and shows just how pathetic our health care system really is should really be included on this list. It is a film that has been short-listed for an Oscar.
Please Mr. Ebert check out this film and write about it.
http://underourskin.com/
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
UNDER OUR SKIN, the dramatic documentary that exposes a hidden epidemic and shows just how pathetic our health care system really is should really be included on this list. It is a film that has been short-listed for an Oscar.
Please Mr. Ebert check out this film and write about it.
http://underourskin.com/
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
ROGER, why is 'Under Our Skin: The Untold Story of Lyme Disease' NOT on your list? If you missed this one, YOU NEED TO see it!
http://www.underourskin.com/
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
Sorry to see that "Under Our Skin" didn't make Mr. Ebert's list. Scary, well-made, covering the very personal, very public health, economics, and politics of what may already be the next widespread epidemic. It should be mentioned in the same breath as "Food, Inc."
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
I am disappointed that you did not include "Under Our Skin," a riveting and haunting documentary which examines Lyme disease as a largely undiagnosed epidemic...It is about a conspiracy theory which is actually true (due to egos and money interests many are not getting the antibiotics needed to prevent severe arthritis, MS-like symptoms, and psychiatric symptoms). Very well done film and I hope it gets the publicity it deserves
Martha
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
GREAT LIST!
BUT! I'm disappointed that the film on Lyme Disease: "UNDER OUR SKIN" is not included. It's a very important film about a very under-diagnosed and misunderstood disease, and your rating of it would have helped to further educate the public about its severity, and the AMA's utter lack of an appropriate response, or might I say denial...!
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
Have you watched, The Lyme disease film "Under Our Skin". That should be on your list, i mean come on.
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
It's very upsetting that "Under Our Skin" was left off your 2009 list. Chronic Lyme Disease is an epidemic/pandemic that is reaching all over the globe. There are very few doctors willing to try and treat this disease in the aggressive way that it needs in fear of losing their license. The health care system and the government want to just sweep this disease under the rug meanwhile people all over the world are suffering debilitating symptoms that are caused by Lyme disease. I am very disappointed in the lack of care people have for the victims of Lyme. Until someone they know is effected by it they all believe Lyme disease is nothing - take your antibiotics and move. Sorry - this is not an ear infection - its not that easy for everyone who gets bit by a tick. Many people go years and years before even being correctly diagnosed because of the lame blood tests that are done. Make a stand Mr. Ebert and add
"Under Our Skin" to your list!
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
Funny (true) story. I pretty much had Beaches of Agnes all lined up to play at the local Baptist college here (seemed the biggest/best venue) for some French day there. The distributor even mailed it out to the department chair. Never heard back though. Apparently there's some frontal nudity? That must've stopped it... I don't know cause I still haven't seen it (that was pretty much the best opportunity for securing THAT), although since it's Agnes Varde i'm sure it's a fairly humorous part of the film. I'll find out soon I guess.
The US Congress and the US Senate have packed their auditoriums, standing room only, with their respective health advisers and representatives to view "Under Our Skin" by Open Eye Pictures. Grand openings occurred across the country to standing ovations and packed theaters. It is hard to believe that any list of Best Documentary Films for 2009 would not have chosen "Under Our Skin" by Open Eye Pictures. I believe this was either not on your radar or missed intentionally due to the substantial political nature of its content. Either way it is an insult to the many thousands of Americans who lye in hope for treatment of this debilitating disease. It is not too late for you to reconsider this movie as others surely will. This film has already won 20 awards and may be a potential Oscar candidate. It is no sin to say "I missed one" as it would be to ignore this incredible investigative documentary.
Sincerely,
Dan Segal
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
I'm sorry to see that Under Our Skin, the documentary about chronic lyme disease and the controversy over its treatment, is not on your list. It's a very important film, and is extremely well done. Take another look please?
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
Roger,
I share your laments about the seeming non-existence of documentaries. However, I also lament the non-existence of Lyme Disease real-life horror film "Under Our Skin" from your list of ten "best" documentaries. Did you consider the fact that (a) there were roughly 400,000 new cases of LD last year, (b) LD can cause chronic illness, crippling handicaps, and even death, (c) the medical licenses of LD specialists are being removed because of insurance company complains, and (d) the attorney general of CT found serious conflicts of interest with the medical guidelines of America's largest medical society?...
In the future, you may find it helpful/instructive to provide objective criteria upon which you base and/or justify your selections.
Ebert: One of 14 messages received within an hour about a film I did not see and which did not open in Chicago.
Hey Roger,
I'm sad you left out Winnebago Man from your top 10 docs of 2009. The youtube phenomenon has affected us all and this film hilariously shows us how a cantankerous old man unwittingly became a part of this phenomenon. I think in time the doc will become significant, although even now at every festival it plays at it seems to be pretty successful. I highly suggest you give it a watch - I'm not sure if it ever went to Chicago, but there's a website at www.winnebagoman.com
Ebert: Thanks. Didn't hear about it.
Hey Rodge? Have you dug around for "conservative" documentaries about anything? I don't mean about politics, I mean "conservative" documentaries about food and money and love and such.
I lived not far from some huge corporate farms in California, by the way. I also haven't had a decent store-bought tomato since that kind of crap started. They're tasteless. Same with store bought oranges. I get tomatoes from manure-covered gardens. You can eat 'em whole, they taste great. Oranges? Those from the trees left alone, abandoned, taste like oranges, not wet pulpy matter.
Meat, the same, even chicken. The meat critters I raised and slaughtered myself are a far cry from the sad-tasting foodstuff you get at Safeway and wherever. Eggs too. They're being raised weird in the corporate farms. That'd include the privately owned spreads kowtowing to prescribed profit procedure.
I grew up in plenty o' manure in a great big farm family and we didn't get sick. I tromp through it daily, and with the New Mexico winds, doubtless we have dried poop-dust in the house. I don't get sick. As to what animals are thinking, there's one standing in the window right now thinking "I want a treat." He says so every so often in horse language.
As to prey animals living in "constant fear" out in the wilds, horse dookie. Lately, twice one of our cats has dragged a wild rabbit into the house. Twice, I picked her up, she gave me this "why do they keep doing this?" look, and back to the barn she went. Even the birds will peck around a few feet from the cats. They'll fly in here now and then and don't mind being picked up if they can't find their way out again. That's natural caution, not "fear." Humans should be so emotionally healthy. Wild herd animals know when a lion is hungry or not. They're not standing around passing out pamphlets and shuddering.
When you do squeeze a bunch of creatures together for your convenience, however, they get sick and die, a lot. Seen it often (I wouldn't do it).
So what would a "conservative" documentary on anything look like? The Real Truth? Or just another faerie tale narrated by freeze-dried clones of Pat Boone and Anita Bryant?
Ebert: The nearest thing I've seen would be on Fox News. Seriously.
I think maybe what I will do is document my life with lyme disease and 30 years Ebert or his successor will put this as a best documentary. Insane that his list doesnt include "Under our Skin" - Another great example of denial in soceity of this disease....until someone you love gets it - it is unknown! And will continue to escalate! Mike Tyson documentary is more important than a national health crisis! Give me a break. My opinion of anything he critques from here and in the future is nil!
Ebert: The movie did not play here nor had I ever heard of it until I suddenly received 18 posts for somehow being prejudiced against lyme sufferers.
Hello- I truly believe you have missed a great documentary- Under Our Skin. It reveals the true depth of the Lyme Disease epidemic which is being ignored by public health departments & the CDC. It is well researched, well played, and gets to the heart of this critical issue.
Look it up: http://www.underourskin.com/ .Thanks for your attention to this important issue.
Thank you to the couple of people who responded to me. But, while I see you reasoning the subject out, I don't see application of scientific methods, just armchair analysis. Co-occurrence does not causality make. And just because something seems like it makes sense from where you're sitting, doesn't mean that the conclusion you're coming up with is a fact; the opposite is often true. Relativity, for example, makes little sense and yet there it is, a fact.
Roger said:
"We should accept the best available evidence, particularly when it is held by a large majority of all scientists qualified to state an opinion on a subject."
That's not science, Roger. Science isn't proven by majority, it's proven by repetition and testing (otherwise, hello, flat earth!). A good theory, in scientific terms, is one that withstands testing by any new data that comes in. Yet the anthropogenic global warming models have failed at this.
When that happens in other fields, good scientists realize they need to think more and change their models. But what is alarming is that is not happening here. People's fervor, on both sides of the argument, are making them unwilling to bend, and that is science's undoing.
A scientist absolutely must be willing to question all assumptions. And the one he must be honest enough to question most stringently is himself. Anthropogenic global warming is not a given. It's not really even a workable theory (in scientific terms) at this point. Everyone needs to step back, take a breath, and come at this anew.
Some good documentaries here but with all respect, I feel you're missing off the most significant of all - Under Our Skin.
Lyme Disease has and is continuing to destroy thousands of lives, awareness is urgently needed to prevent this from happening in the future and to help those poor sufferers to regain their health and pick up their lives again.
Ebert: Comment #15 in this film. Did someone assign you to come here? I choose my list from among the flms I've seen.
I was curious if you had any elaboration on the omission of The Cove? I only ask because your earlier comments seemed to suggest that its omission may be due to reasons beyond/in addition to your own personal preference
Mr. Ebert,
Now that you know about Under Our Skin will you watch it? If you woud like I can send you my copy. As the husband of someone suffering from lyme disease I see everyday how debilitating this disease is. I will do everything in my powern not only to help my wife get better but to help spread the word about lyme disease. As you can see we are very passionate about this issue.
What about "Under Our Skin", did you even watch it. A terrifying movie, telling a story that needs to be told. Beautifully photographed.
My vote for best documentary.
Dear Roger,
I saw your last comment/question and wanted to assure you of the intent of those Leaving comments regarding film doc. "Under Our Skin".
The sufferers and supporters of those with Chronic Lymes heard that your list came out without "Under Our Skin" on it, a documentary on said topic. No one is being sent here, only those in despair asking you 'why'?
The Shock and Dismay that has been seen in the comments left here regarding those with Chronic Lymes is explained and understood Extraordinarily well in this documentary.
"Under Our Skin" won 'Best' in Huston, Sonoma, Durango and Camden as well as being the Official Selection for Tribeca and Silverdocs. And having just been chosen for Tribeca's Oscar Semi-finalists screening, I am sure you can see why so many have assumed that you would have seen it and/or that you are taking a position against it.
This a rare film in which you will understand with Clarity the way that Health Care, Disease and Politics come together to form a a nestled co-existence of mutually-beneficial Finance much to the devastation of this Nation and it's people.
No stunts, no Politically slanted expressions. Only a simple truth about the UTTER and ABSOLUTE Necesssity of Denying the existence of *This* Particular Disease while it takes on Epidemic numbers according to the CDC.
Hopefully You Will be choosing to watch this Immense Documentary Film soon and When you have become more informed will understand the Painful, Emotional stand that you had appeared to have taken, to those whose only hope has been that this film would 'Light Up' and shame those holding a well-invested stranglehold on their Literal Lives.
Hoping this brings some clarification,
Sa'bra
If you do a bing search for "Under Our Skin" and ebert you can go to a cached facebook page that has the following entry: "Lyme disease film "Under Our Skin" Roger Ebert leaves UNDER OUR SKIN off his list of best documentaries of 2009. Post your comments on his blog to let him know what he's missed!"
The current page does not seem to have this entry any longer. The last post on the topic was apparently from the filmmakers--"Thanks, folks! You're awesome for posting comments. Apparently Ebert hasn't seen UOS, so we're sending him a DVD ASAP. I think he got the point. Let's not make him crazy!"
http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=%22under+our+skin%22+ebert&d=4594610039555253&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=d3a7b043,f4310e15
I don't know how long that link will be valid but that seems to be where they all came from. Speaking for myself only, this has not in any way shape or form made me terribly eager to see the movie.
Ebert: I had a feeling.
Hey Roger
I thought Spike Lee's "Passing Strange" should have made your best docs list. It is quite a film.
Happy New Year Friend:)
Can't wait to see "Collapse", missed it at this year's CPH:DOX festival. Glad to see you included "Anvil!", biggest heart-warmer of the year :)
Curious though - did you see Burma VJ? IMHO it takes the 1st place.
I see "Under Our Skin" is available through Netflix. Some scary trailers on YouTube.
An old schoolmate of mine had Lyme disease and got away with half a heart, the other half now an artificial pump. He's getting along with it.
Frankly, I've witnessed scarier medical stories, not to downplay this one. I knew about a half dozen people now dead of AIDS (or the treatment, as my eldest brother died of it); 3 veterans rotting away from the inside from "Gulf War Syndrome" (my brother the nuke expert says there's no probable way weapons mfg'rs are unaware that so-called "depleted Uranium" doesn't do that), and lately, a jaw-dropping horror story of thousands of Worker's Comp people dead of pills waiting for relatively minor operations delayed, saving the gov't money and profiting the pill mfg'ers for whose medicine they must pay out of pocket... in effect they're being bled to death through their bank accounts.
...plus the AMA statistic I bandied around on the other thread of 225,000 people dead annually from doctor prescriptions, more proper ones than misdiagnoses. A drugstore counterman probably saved my hay-man's life telling him to stop the pills; we probably saved ma-in-law's life with the same advice, and old Pete down in Madrid seemed just fine today.
May have to gird up my loins awhile before watching "Under Our Skin." I already know enough without the added tense-sounding background music. But somebody has to start somewhere.
Hi Rog/All,
For those re: on Lyme's dis-ease, G.W.S./G.W.I. et al esoteric chronic dis-eases, I *highly* recommened you check out these!:
immed.org/illness/cancer_cell_biology_research.htm
immed.org/illness/fatigue_illness_research.html
immed.org/illness/gulfwar_illness_research.html
immed.org/illness/autoimmune_illness_research.html
mmed.org/illness/infectious_disease_research.html
immed.org/illness/molecular_biology_research.html
immed.org/illness/treatment_considerations.html
*Garth L. Nicolson, Ph.D.*
gnicolson AT immed [dot] org
Ph.D. Biochemistry/Cell Biology, University of California San Diego (1970); B.S. Chemistry, University of California Los Angeles (1965) Founded IMM 1996
Dr. Nicolson is the President, Chief Scientific Officer and a Research Professor at the Institute for Molecular Medicine. *He has over 550 [peer-reviewed] scientific and medical publications, several of which are citation classics.* He holds 9 U.S. patents. Formerly, he was the David Bruton Jr. Chair in Cancer Research, Professor and Chairman, Dept. of Tumor Biology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and he has held various other professorships including Professor of Internal Medicine and *Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine* at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and Professor of Comparative Pathology at Texas A&M University. He serves as Editor of two journals ("Clinical & Experimental Metastasis" and "Journal of Cellular Biochemistry") and as an Associate Editor of 12 other medical/scientific journals. Dr. Nicolson has held several memberships of advisory and review committees and is currently a member of national and international committees in cancer research and other scientific programs. Besides many other awards, he was honored with the Stephen Paget Award of the Metastasis Research Society, the Outstanding Investigator Award of the National Cancer Institute and the Albert Schweitzer Award in 1998. He is member of various scientific societies and held offices in the American Association for Cancer Research and Metastasis Research Society. Under his supervision 36 postdoctoral fellowships and 17 Ph.D. theses were performed. Dr. Nicolson's interests are in the biochemistry and molecular genetics of cancer progression with particular interests in the areas of metastasis or spread of cancer, paracrine growth factors and invasion enzymes. He is a Colonel (Honorary) of the U.S. Army Special Forces and a U.S. Navy SEAL (Honorary) for his work on Armed Forces and veterans' illnesses. He is also engaged in research on the role of chronic infections in a variety of chronic illnesses, such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia Syndrome, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Gulf War Illness, and various autoimmune diseases.
As w/ A.I.D.S., virtually all of these are either man-made (G.E.'d) and/or 'unintended' consequences of man's abuse of Nature!
Also, stiill available (and copyable, thanks to its being saved from self-made VHS ignominity & transferred to DVD from:
conspiracyking com/index php
========================================
"The STR*CK*R MEMORANDUM" (late-'80s) SKU: 5820
By Rob*rt Str*ck*r, M.D.~
Price: $25.00 Canadian
[96 mins: The most controversial video you'll ever see. Robert Str*ck*r, M.D., presents documented evidence that shows why A.I.D.S. is a man-made disease. Dr. Str*ck*r explains how the A.I.D.S. virus was predicted, requested, created, and sealed into the human population. This videotape debunks the green monkey theory of A.I.D.S. and presents startling evidence that reveals the true man-made origins of A.I.D.S. Dr. Str*crk*r is/ was(?) an Internist and Gastro-enterologist. He also holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and is/was(?) a trained Pathologist.]
His brother, Ted, also an M.D. was suicided a yr/2 before the VHS was made. This is not a 'crank' post!
I saw their VHS; it was strightforward and compelling.
I sure hope this is not 'spiked', as I do NOT appreciate wasting 15 mins. (trying to share good info) of what's left of the rest of my life.
tribecafilm com/news-features/blog/Docs_on_the_Shortlist_Under_Our_Skin html
Docs on the Shortlist: "Under Our Skin"
January 06, 2010 10:00 a.m. E.S.T.
*Under Our Skin*
Dir. Andy Abrahams Wilson
In anticipation of this year's Oscars, Tribeca Cinemas will be showing six groundbreaking documentaries as part of the Docs on the Shortlist hosted by the GUCCI TRIBECA DOCUMENTARY FUND this weekend, January 8 and 9. We asked each participating filmmaker five questions about their documentaries. Director Andy Abrahams Wilson fills us in on why he decided to make the documentary about Lyme disease, "Under Our Skin" (T.F.F. 2008).
Roger, first time commenting on your blog, as I felt extremely compelled to recommend Eric Daniel Metzgar's documentary, Reporter, on the chance you haven't seen it. Metzgar has a gorgeous eye (and ear) for composition - he also directed The Chances of the World Changing and Life. Support. Music. - and this is his best film yet. He follows Nick Kristof through a number of war-torn areas around the globe, and analyzes Kristof's work (and approach to it) with great intelligence. I wrote about it briefly here: http://thephoenix.com/Portland/movies/86207-10-days-of-celluloid/
The film had a very brief theatrical run before premiering on HBO, but it's the best of the many '09 docs I've seen. I also wholeheartedly recommend The Way We Get By (available on DVD) as a matter of local pride (http://thephoenix.com/Portland/movies/84823-greetings-and-salutations/), and the wrenching Rough Aunties.
We live in strange and wonderful times that are both related. The wonders are brought about by the energy that oil has made possible. So is the strangeness. I’ve never heard anyone refer to it like this, but my opinion is that all we need to consider are concepts that we learned in grade school.
We know that oil was formed in the earth over a span of millions of years. Essentially what occurred is that all this oil in the earth is stored energy derived from the sun. Now think about it like this: what do you have if you have a great deal of energy that is released in a very short period of time? By all definitions that I know of, it is an explosion. Essentially, we are living through an explosion of sorts. The fact that we aren’t really all that aware of it does not disqualify it
nike shoes outletas what it is: the release of energy retained over a span of millions of years, released in the span of roughly 150 years. 150/100,000,000 is a ratio of 666,666,666 to one. (Actually, I just punched those numbers into the calculator I keep on my desk and I’m surprised by the 666 coincidendence.)
What about THE COVE Your early pick??????
There are Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters so Smart (or Lazy) that they use your list!
Collapse documentary
We need to adapt. Take a look at this article The Great Transition: http://www.scribd.com/doc/21656220/The-Great-Transition-Navigating-Social-Economic-Ecological-Change-in-Turbulent-Times
I asked this way up top...
If you cant produce the letter that caused you to change your mind about The Cove...can you at least paraphrase the concerns that led to your change of mind?
Otherwise, all we are left with is your assertion that someone sent you something that made you change your mind about the film. Nobody can find anything you have written on this. And we are all left wondering what problem you have now with the film that you didnt have when you wrote such a glowing review.
Ebert: I can't find it and don't wish to press it any further. I shouldn't have brought it up.
I saw "Collapse" and enjoyed it, end of mankind theories are always entertaining if nothing else.
I'll differ with Ruppert on one thing: "The love of money is the root of all evil."
Does he mean materialism? Which then meeds self-centered greed? Which might just mean being self-centered? Which might mean ego?
And then were at Timothy Findley's belief that humans were doomed as soon as we started to think we could be god, that we're of higher importance than the rest of nature and not just a part of it.
Which then renders our worries about the end of our human worlds irrelevant?
But a very good movie because of the music, direction, a fascinating chain-worrying subject (who may just be collapsing himself, creating a theory to make the pieces of his life fit together... which we all do!) and, above all else, it works because the theory is the, as far as I can remember (and I might be forgetting something), the most plausible end of humans-as-we-know-us theory recorded on film.
Not that I was swayed exactly. The film effectively communicates an idea and the resulting feeling. The boldness of the movie is a tonic. So many films these days are gutless, even if they're well-made or about "important" subjects. I like that this film cuts the bullcrap, lets Ruppert get to bottom line, deepest convictions poured out, whether it be right, wrong or paranoia. Smith interjects only when he must, otherwise listens intently, lets audience think for themselves.
The thing with "The Cove" -- I *think* it's mentioned on one/+ of the IMDb.com review links is where I read it -- is that the activist and alleged expert (truly an activist and extemely avid dolphin lover) fudged some of the more brutal porions of the alleged events' footage w/ some CGI enhancment (and/or outright fictionized them, perhaps on the basis of Japanese whaling? (still), e.g., thus it was alleged to not be a true/real documentary. And the Japanese people of that area (even if they do eat and/or profit off said activities outright denied it. No surprise, if true, but I nor most have any way of knowing, so...?? F.w.i.w.
Hi Rog,
What, my opinion that "Under Our Skin" is the best (as in most important) documentary of the decade is not valid?? (Not cinematically, although it is constructed much like a very substantial thriller.) As that portion of my post was snipped. No, I've not seen every documentary of the decade, but neither have you -- by your admission re: "Under Our Skin." I hope you did/will get to view it; it is downright chilling!
And most unfortunately, it reflects to much of what we see as S.O.P. by big biz, Corps., & Pols... somewhat like "Collapse" perhaps, in that regard?
My opinion is that Iran wants to develop nuclear so that it can preserve and/or maximize profits from its own oil reserves. God forbid they should (or any other country) be able to do what they wish w/ THEIR oil/whatever, eh? How undemocratic!
I just watched Food, Inc. this weekend. I agree with your review now though Roger, its easier to watch knowing you can't eat. I liked how the first 10 minutes made me hungry, then the rest made me sick. I guess I'll be spending more money now on locally raised food. I did buy a couple of turkeys to smoke last year that were free range, and they were the best turkeys I've ever had.
And someone above asked about conservative documentaries, I don't think Food, Inc. was too political. The main problem in the documentary is corn subsidies. This is a big government, liberal ideology, even if republicans support it.
I'm going to add a few of the others on the list to my Netflix queue. I'm sure Collapse will be funny. Peak oil predictions have been around since FDR, yet we keep passing them up.
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/anything-oil/
Wow..I am truly disappointed that you have left The Cove out. It was by far the most interesting and attention getting documentary of the year. You claim there is a letter which you can't find which seems odd to me. That film deserves it's place on this list. The cameras were hidden how much could they change...? It let the truth out about Japan's brutal killing of dolphins. It deserves to be on your list and win the Oscar!
'Collapse' is a joke to anyone who seriously follows energy developments in scientific, engineering, and industry journals. Peak oil believers rarely take into account non-conventional hydrocarbons sources such oil sands, coal to gas, shale gas/oil, and methane hydrates or the increasing efficiency of hydrocarbon extraction (horizontal drilling, fracture drilling, ect). The reality is that there is still plenty of oil to be found (in fact the 2009 was a land mark year for discoveries offshore in the Gulf of Mexico), just that it is going to be more expensive to develop and exploit. The vast majority of scientists, engineers, and economists actively working in this field believe that environmental constraints will curtail the use hydrocarbons rather than peak oil.
"Like I say, you do the math. Ruppert has done his math" Clearly you did not do your homework or failed math if you think Ruppert did his math. "Nuclear power plants need to be built with oil. Electricity from wind power is most useful near its source. It is transmitted by grids built and maintained by oil." These statements would be incredibly ridiculous to anyone who did their homework (hint google the following: HVDC, EROEI nuclear, Moore's Law + Solar). I find it sad that Ebert puts a sensationalist documentary on his top 10 list about such an important subject. If anyone reading this wants to learn about this subject just search google videos for 20+ minute videos on Steven Chu (current DOE secretary) or visit Fora TV and go to the science or environment sections or even better visit your local library.
Yes! a lot of good documentaries. The Tyson documentary was amazing, a lot of hard and strong feelings. Its amazing what a life he has!
Thank you!
COLLAPSE is a documentary that personally opened a lot of questions that it answered , but still it has some extraordinary uncovers that i could bet that 70-80 percent of those who saw it didnt had a clew . So i recommend it for everyone , it can change our way we live our life .....
And i aslo recomand the Food inc documentary , that is from my opinion an OSCAR DOCUMENTARY , a masterpiece . These documentary should be put on schools , kids will have a lot to learn from it .
Tyson is the best sport documentary I've seen so far. I changed my opinion abut this great sportsman. Hopefully public TV will show it in some future.
I believe the Cove was a great doc. I downloaded it illegally, but after watching it, I told all of my friends about it, and encouraged them to seek it out. And also followed the information during the credits of the movie to where I could send a message to my senator.Cursos de ingles en el extranjero
Great documentary reviews. All are great. But I am more interested in viewing the Food,Inc., then the later remaining documentaries. Thanks for this post.
Solar energy companies should all be MCS registered. They should also always provide a cost breakdown and idea of what power you will generate. Make sure that you fully understand the numbers and how solar can work for you.
The beaches of Agnes - A beautiful documentary full of poetry and nostalgia. Agnes Varda is a very interesting, funny and moving woman. I always have a great time watching her.