I just watched a couple interesting documentaries this week.
"Life in a Day" - this was the YouTube clip assembled documentary, where the filmmakers advertised for people to submit video clips of whatever they did on a particular day in July 2010, and answer some questions on the video too. Some reviews I read were analyzing the film like it was supposed to have meaning or a storyline. What I read was this was supposed to be more of a video time capsule. I found it a very interesting and oddly pleasant documentary. There were some very interesting clips from cultures around the world. There was one scene that showed a cow being slaughtered in some country farm - warning to anyone wanting to watch; but outside of that, most of the rest was beautiful, some funny, some a little thought provoking.
"Inside Job" - this is a documentary that chronicles the events that lead to the financial meltdown in the US. Interestingly, some of the publications noted in the documentary (Fortune magazine and BusinessWeek) I actually still have copies and was able to read the articles cited (very interesting reads in retrospect of what happened). I found the documentary to be a fairly balanced accounting of events - although I will not say that I'm an authority on the subject matter in any way shape or form, but much of what was presented I had heard from other sources I trust at a much higher level than the documentary went. One thing I found very interesting, and was pleasantly surprised, was it kept its focus primarily on the financial industry, and did not slant much with political parties (as I feared it might). What seemed a bit more frightening, was that these events have been slowly brewing since the late 70's, and interesting enough, every administration, in their own way, contributed to making the situation worse (up to and including the present one). Perhaps after watching this, rather than blaming "this" or "that" administration for the failures, we may need to shift our focus to the industry driving this (like in the Wizard of Oz, "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..." - well, maybe we should...?). Very fascinating account, and the way it ends, you realize the people currently in charge of our purse strings are the ones 2 decades ago contributed to setting up the collapse. Will we (the big "WE") never learn?
Anyone else see either of these? What were your thoughts/impressions?
Anyone see any other documentaries they found interesting? If so, please share. I seem to be on a documentary kick and wouldn't mind some recommendations.