inception (2010) katyn (2007) about the massacre of 22000 polish by the russian army. the american (2010)
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this documentary was awesoooome!!
it was incredible because it was a real story of a group of scientists - anthropologists i think - who decided to go to papua new guinea with the goal of knowing the place and inhabitants and of knowing an unmapped area of the island. in 1959, when it was shot, some places and rivers didn't even have a name. when they got to the coast they were quite well received by the villagers, headhunters rather violent in their daily life. they were there for the rituals and filmed everything. the communications was hard, and the way of life was extremely hard and very primitive. some villagers didn't yet use iron tools! but their task was to go to a completely unknown region. and it took them seven excruciating months to do that. in very high altitudes, between malaria, injuries, deaths they eventualy got out of the map because in the interior no villager would help them. by accident, they reach the other side of the island and consider their work done. it was really really interesting to see a discovery happening in front of our eyes, in the 20th century. sort of what our ancestors did when they arrived to new places. the beggining looked a bit fake, the narrator was too dramatic i think, but the real story was as real as possible, with the food disappearing in the river, and people dying out of tiredness... i just loved it! i believe it won an oscar as well. yesterday i finished treme, a tv series about the post-hurricane katrina in new orleans.
it's always filled with great music and color, really nice, mainly because of the music sorry, yep, another post about a documentary.
being a fan and enthusiast of street art, i've been looking forward to see this one. it's about a french man living in los angeles who starts filming street artists everynight, telling them all the thousands of tapes will eventualy become a documentary on the theme. the fun part begins when he meets banksy and starts being an artist himself. this movie has an big hand of banksy and his humour/criticism. thierry starts acting like an artist, but in all the bad aspects of it. he hires a team of artists to do the work, he makes a ginourmous opening event selling super expensive works and not so original ones... the entire thing must be a hoax, and a good one. it's really easy to deceive people into making them believe your such a grand and creative person, it just needs a bit of show and performance! i liked it a lot! my life must seam really sad now that i only speak about things i see on a screen.
but this one made me laugh, quite loud - very rare thing - and so i've seen the entire first season in three days. it's just very funny, crazy characters. looking forward to season 2! it's the second time i speak about dennis o'rourke here but this time i have to say this was one of the most impressive and well made documentaries i've seen. i think i have decided this is my favourite genre! after russia made the first tests with the h-bomb, our dear US of A were feeling pressured to evolve quicker then them communists. so nuclear tests begin in a little region in micronesia, in the bikini atoll.
they evacuated the atoll - the "savages" were very understandable - they say they analised the weather conditions and everything is set, ok, let's go and try the h-bomb in the pacific! operation bravo is launched! little detail: they evacuate the bikini atoll but don't evacuate two other islands very close to bikini. and oh wait! all of a sudden the winds change and they send all the radiation and fumes to these two islands! so, this day in march the bomb explodes, they look all surprised because of the wind change and science starts marching towards knowledge! the villagers from these two small islands (circa 300 inhabitants) start walking on radioactive ashes, eat the fish which all of a sudden turns sour, the coconuts taste funny...a few days later some people show up with burns in their feet, their throat, the air starts to fall...and only months after do the USA send doctors there. the levels of radioactivity are incredible but they always say it's not that bad. the villagers receive no explanation and they slowly turn ill. how convenient to know the effects of radiation on people, no? the story is so unbelieavable that it sounds fiction. but then you see the handicapped babies and the crying mothers who for three times in a row give birth to dead babies who look like monsters. i think everyone should see this, is just incredible. a little radioactive paradise. more information about the real story here this was an interesting documentary i've seen on my way back to braga. it's about the emerging and..."evil" tourism in bolívia.
i liked it a lot, although it's quite amateur, the way it's done and the subject is very interesting. it is about the tourists who visit the mines in potosi. every travel guidebook would mention it as an "amazing experience" or something like that, and the documentary starts to interview some tourists and kind of portraits them as a bit stupid. maybe they were not lucky finding the people to speak about why they chose to go to the mines or how they felt there. from what i understood, the miners don't have a good idea of the tourists either, and don't understand why they are the attraction. the thing is that these miners work in such horrible conditions that this is almost exotic. they work the same way as they did centuries ago. they interview the town mayor who wants to dress these miners as they did in the colonial times, just for the tourists. and they interview an ex-miner who now works at a company who organizes these tours through the mines. he feels sorry that tourism has been basically destroying the traditional culture. where women used to plant potatoes now they are knitting souvenirs...and he is quite sure that there'll be mines adapted for the tourists, just for them to see. the last scene shows some tourists all happy throwing dinamite and wanting to drink beer after being there. the miners say that the tourists are not good for these jobs because they only enjoy life. i don't know. i could easily be one of those tourists i think. as a tourist, people want to experience as much as possible, but after two long experiences abroad, i tend to value more and more the long stays and to feel more of an intruder in the short ones. my brother travelled through south america recently and he loved it, but this is true, some entire villages live of selling souvenirs. but who's to blame really? bored to death is a tv series that me and luis are watching. well, now we're just waiting for the next season.
it has great actors and it is basically about jonathan, a struggling writer who decides to try it as a private detective. the character is really sweet and inocent so it's really funny to see him dealing with criminals with all politeness. then there's ted danson's character, george, the editor of a magazine, lover of pot and women, a bon vivant! theeen, the buddy, a comics artist, chubby, with no confidence and really..not good at a lot of things. it's so funny! this one is really good one. very slow and simple, about the life of a normal, serious man who all of a sudden sees himself in the middle of all bad-luck you can imagine.
he's so unlucky it's almost funny, and it shows as well a lot of the jewish culture, satirizing it as well. |
i don't understandnerozumiem ti means "i don't understand you" in slovak. a tradition, let's say. after not understanding anything in granada, now i don't understand anything in bratislava. Archives
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