finitum non capax infiniti

If you know me, or have followed this blog for some time, you know that I love watching documentaries. I think a well done documentary is absolutely fascinating as it provides an inside view of a certain issue, topic, subculture, etc. I will watch a documentary on just about anything, so long as it is well done…although I have seen my share of horribly done documentaries (i.e., anything by Michael Moore). A well done documentary, in my opinion, attempts to be as unbiased and objective as is humanly possible by presenting both sides of the argument from credible sources. Documentaries like Moore’s suffer from being extremely one sided to be a proper documentary. They are more like opinion pieces.

Anyway, I thought I would give an annotated list of some of the documentaries that I have recently watched. Some of them I REALLY liked, others were so-so, while others were just poor. At the end of each short description is my recommendation and my score of the film (out of 5 ✡’s). Here they are in no particular order:

The Protocols of Zion is a documentary done by Marc Levin to expose some of the causes of anti-Semitism in today’s world. It is an excellent documentary. I was shocked to see that some people actually believe that 9-11 was done by the Jews are are ‘in control’ of the world. I was also shocked by the blatant anti-Semitism and outright lies that appear on TV programs in the Near East, such as in Egypt and Palestine. The title is a reference to the book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was a piece of propaganda that was attributed to the Jews. It has been shown to be false over and over again, yet people still believe that it is authentically Jewish.
Recommendation: Must see documentary.
Score: ✡✡✡✡✡

Deliver Us From Evil is the true story of Catholic priest Oliver O’Grady, who sexually abused potentially hundreds of children between the late 1970s and early 1990. It includes interviews with O’Grady, who is completely honest about what he did and the feelings he had and has about his victims, as well as the victims, the priests and Vatican lawyers who were involved, and other parishioners that O’Grady affected. It is a tough documentary to watch with all of the brokenness and pain, but interesting in terms of how the Catholic Church, at that time, tried to cover it up and the moral dilemma that they faced.
Recommendation: Interesting, but don’t loose sleep if you don’t see it.
Score: ✡✡✡

Born Into Brothels is another hard documentary to watch, but it sheds light on the systemic injustice that societies can inhabit. It follows children of prostitutes in Sonagachi, which is Calcutta’s red light district. It is shot in an interesting way because the filmmakers gave the cameras to the children and used most of their footage to weave together a plot. There is a moral dilemma about the film: were these children helped by the documentary in that their lives were improved afterwards when people were informed about them, or were these children exploited by being given cameras to shoot what went onto be an Academy Award winning documentary?
Recommendation: Great documentary; should watch soon.
Score: ✡✡✡

Fall From Grace is centered around Fred Phelps and his family at Westboro Baptist Church. I have blogged about Phelps and his awful protests before and you are probably familiar with this two websites godhatesfags.com and godhatesamerica.com. The documentary is an insiders look into Westboro as it includes candid interviews with Phelps and members of his family. It also includes interviews from people who have been affected by Phelps, Phelps’ four children who walked away from the family, and local ministers. What this documentary does great is to present both sides of the argument and to come away without judging whether or not Phelps is, indeed, an incarnation of the devil himself, which is the conclusion I would have made obvious. At some points you can’t help but feel empathetic towards Phelps, even though he is a class-A idiot and the world would be much better without him (and I mean that sincerely…it would). There are some convicting points, especially towards the end after you see all of the deplorable stuff Phelps and his family have done, when local ministers are interviewed and remind the viewers that we are commanded to love, especially to love those who we are prone to hate.
Recommendation: Must see documentary.
Score: ✡✡✡✡✡

A Very British Gangster follows around Dominic Noonan and his family of thugs who run Manchester’s underground. At first you are scared of Noonan and his clan…ok, I am still terrified of him and his clan, but the documentary brings out his humanity and some of the struggles and injustices of his life that, while not excusing his actions, can at least make one empathetic towards him. During the filming of this documentary one of his brothers dies, who is the second in command of his crew, and at the end Dominic is thrown back into prison (the final interview of the documentary is via telephone). The most interesting part of this documentary for me was the affect that Dominic’s lifestyle had on his kids and those kids that were in his crew. Some of them were repelled by Dominic’s actions and motivated to not be involved in the life of a gangster, while others were motivated to push harder and go farther in the gang lifestyle than Dominic had ever gone.
Recommendation: Great documentary; should watch soon.
Score: ✡✡✡

Hell House follows the youth group of Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas as they put on a halloween ‘hell house’ that is usually seen by about 10,000 a year. You probably know these types of things: girl gets randy with her boyfriend, has an abortion, goes to hell and is sad about it and wishes she never got jiggy in the first place. These things make me absolutely sick. Not only that, but this documentary is filmed miserably. Not only did I want to shoot anyone involved in this manipulative, gospel-less production, but I also wanted to shoot myself for watching such a poorly filmed and poorly articulated digital display of fecal matter. My idea for a ‘hell house’ plot would be as follows: youth group decides to put on a hell house, filmmakers follow them around, and they all fall off a cliff. The end.
Recommendation: Idiotic documentary; if have option, watch Howard the Duck instead.
Score: -✡

What Would Jesus Buy? is a documentary produced by Morgan Spurlock (of “Super Size Me” fame) that follows around “Reverend Billy” (Bill Talen) of the “Church of Stop Shopping” who warn holiday shoppers of the impending ’shopocalypse.’ While that sounds over the top, the documentary actually focuses on the commercialization of Christmas, materialism, the over-consumption in American culture, globalization, and the business practices of large corporations, as well as their economic and cultural effects on American society. The tenseness of this issues is offset by the humor of Reverend Billy and the outrageous lengths that consumers will go to in order to get the perfect Christmas present.
Recommendation: Great film, see this holiday season (before Black Friday).
Score: ✡✡✡✡

Expelled is a well known documentary that features Ben Stein and his investigation into scientists who have been the target of the ‘anti-ID’ crowd who seem to be in power of our nation’s educational institutions. I thought it was eye-opening to see scientists basically becoming the anti-intellectual fundamentalists that they seem to be raging against. All talk is on the table, including aliens seeding the world as a valid theory of origins, unless that talk includes something about a ‘designer’ or a ‘god.’ While I liked the documentary, it did seem to be almost completely one-sided as it lacked interviews from two groups that would have made this documentary great: 1) those scientists who write about ID or are Christians and have not been persecuted or lost their jobs and 2) those middle-way scientists who don’t reject ID or the ideas of ID’s proponents outright, but are willing to listen to their arguments. Had those groups been included in the documentary, then it would have been absolutely brilliant. As it stands it seems to have been made to make a point instead of actually investigating all aspects of the issue.
Recommendation: Good documentary, rent soon.
Score: ✡✡✡

There are a few more that I have seen on topics like the Dead Sea Scrolls, Johann Sebastian Bach, the Shroud of Turin, etc., but they are all produced by either PBS, the Discovery Channel, or the History Channel, so they don’t necessarily qualify as actual documentary films.

Has anyone seen any of these? If so, what did you think?

Also, any recommendations? (Before you say it, I am going to see Religulous ASAP).