Documentaries about movies

[Famous Mortimer]

I was chatting about this last night, so I thought it might be an interesting topic. Anyway, I just watched:

Remake Remix Rip-Off

which is a documentary about the Turkish film industry (from the 50s to about 1990, but there's bits and pieces about films and TV made after that). Fascinating how their absence of copyright laws allowed them to steal music, special effects shots and occasionally characters from Western movies. Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Slz4rkjdo

But there's "Machete Maidens Unleashed", the Ozploitation one, and probably others. What's your favourite? Or what would you like to see a doc about?

[Z]

Off the top of my head, on the informative side of things:
Everything David Brownlow was involved in tends to be pretty good.
Woody Allen: A Documentary has an utterly shit documentary format (5 minutes on a each film in linear order, basically) but Allen has so many films that it honesty winds up giving a pretty good overview on the whole.
Mark Cousin's A Story of Film is a mixed bag but worth a try for sure, at least it is if you don't already hate Cousins
Scorsese's two big ones (on Italian and American film) are pretty good but be prepared for him to almost exclusively talk about the ending of each film he brings up.
Been a while since I saw it but Los Angeles Plays Itself was cool as fuck to me when I was like 18, probably better still if you actually know Los Angeles
Visions of Light is honestly kinda shite but it's got a lot of very good cinematographer's involved and has a fair amount of licensed footage too


I was gonna go through some making ofs but I'm sure someone else will write about most the ones I'm thinking of better than me

[Phil_A]

Electric Boogaloo, the story of Cannon Films.
Lost Souls, the making of the disastrous 1996 Island Of Dr Moreau
Burden Of Dreams, the making of Fitzcarraldo
Hearts Of Darkness, the making of Apocalypse Now
Los Angeles Plays Itself, a study of the city in film.

[Shit Good Nose]

Christ, where to begin...

Docs about specific films - kissing cousins Hearts of Darkness and Burden of Dreams (less making-ofs Apocalypse Now and Fitzcarraldo - my favourite Herzog film - more a study of men going insane in the jungle), Lost In La Mancha, A.K., Best Worst Movie, Full Tilt Boogie (much better than the film it focuses on, in my opinion), Jodorowsky's Dune (as long as you don't mind lots of Nicolas Winding Refn), Lost Soul, American Movie, The Fear of God.

More general docs - The Spaghetti West, Electric Boogaloo, Adjust Your Tracking, My Best Fiend, Z Channel, the two Kubrick ones, Jake West's video nasties trilogy, Corman's World, The Ballad of Sam Peckinpah, Spielberg, Eurocrime.

Then you've got your ones which were intended as little more than DVD/blu ray extras but have since attained near-legendary status in their own right - Dangerous Days, the Magnolia diaries one, Naked Making Lunch, Arrow's epic Hellraiser doc (I'm no fan of any of the Hellraiser films, but the doc is absolutely stunning - also cf. the numerous docs relating to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre films), A Look Inside The Godfather, The Hamster Factor, The Battle For Brazil, Terror Takes Shape, the 4-hour Frighteners doc (and, by association, the LOTR making-ofs are all still brilliant viewing even if the films themselves are no great shakes these days).

There are so many of them.

[Junglist]

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy is very good and comprehensive if you're a fan of the films.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Filmworker.

[prwc]

I've shown many people Giuseppe Makes A Movie. Giuseppe Andrews is a filmmaker I love very much, but even if you're not into his style (understandable, it's pretty deranged and raw) it's a surprisingly heartwarming and inspiring look at ceaseless creativity bringing some fulfillment to marginalized figures. Despite the extreme vulgarity he employs, a lot of warmth shines through.

Another excellent one covering high ambition/low budget filmmaking is Demon Lover Diary. That'd make a perfect companion to American Movie.

As for outstanding home video extras, I recently really enjoyed At Last... Total Terror! - The Incredible True Story of 'Axe' and 'Kidnapped Coed' and The Mysteries of Paris: Jacques Rivette's Out 1 Revisited.

[Famous Mortimer]

Demon Lover Diary is a curious one, as "Demon Lover" is absolute dogshit (as is 99% of the filmography of Donald Jackson) and the documentary makers have a fair bit of contempt for it; but they don't make themselves out to be in the right, either. They turn up weeks late to the job they agreed to and seem indifferent to how annoyed this makes Jackson, for one, and then way over-panic at the end when they think Jackson is chasing them with Ted Nugent's guns in order to kill them.

If you want to watch it, and it's definitely recommended, you'll need to pay close attention as the fuzzy film stock leaves everything looking like a mass of hair.

[madhair60]

Where can I get hold of the Arrow Hellraiser docu?

[Enrico Palazzo]

Overnight - about the massive cunt that made The Boondock Saints. The documentary effectively killed his career, though his lack of talent would probably have done that eventually.

Enjoyable watch though - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390336/

[Shit Good Nose]

Where can I get hold of the Arrow Hellraiser docu?

Available on the mega box-set and, I believe, the respective relevant parts on each film's separately released blu (although I seem to remember reading somewhere that those were truncated versions).

[Shit Good Nose]

Oh, The Shark Is Still Working, of course.

[MortSahlFan]

"A Decade Under The Influence"

[Ignatius_S]

Overnight - about the massive cunt that made The Boondock Saints. The documentary effectively killed his career, though his lack of talent would probably have done that eventually....

Eh? What about Miramax attacking Duffy? That was a significant part of the documentary and it showed what the impact on Duffy's career. The documentary was just dancing on his grave.

Duffy doesn't come across very well in the film, but I found it disturbing to watch that after Duffy fell out with Harvey Weinstein, Miramax didn't just pull out of the project but sought to destroy and discredit Duffy. It's a disturbing record of how power is wielded in Hollywood, yet seemingly, everyone just yuk-yuks over Duffy getting his due desserts.

Skip forward quite a few years and we've had people like Peter Jackson publicly talking about Miramax briefed people against female actors to "warn them" about how unprofessional and dreadful people are, when in fact it was Harvey trying to destroy them. Because of that, maybe it's worth looking at Overnight in another light?

I think it was the second viewing of Overnight, which really made me question it. Although Duffy doesn't come across well, he honoured a vague agreement with friends, whereby if one struck it rich they would all would... and although they got attached to the project, no one actually seemed to do anything. When the documentary makers challenge Duffy, insisting to talk to him while rolling (IIRC, he asked to talk to them later) over money, he challeneged them about what work they had down – going from memory, they were meant to be involved in marketing but in any case, their contribution according to them was 'Ummm' and 'Errr'.

[mojo filters]

All The President's Men Revisited is a great look back - with the actors, director, plus Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee.

It might still be up on YouTube. Originally broadcast in various formats on TV a couple of years ago.

[Shit Good Nose]

Eh? What about Miramax attacking Duffy? That was a significant part of the documentary and it showed what the impact on Duffy's career. The documentary was just dancing on his grave.

Duffy doesn't come across very well in the film, but I found it disturbing to watch that after Duffy fell out with Harvey Weinstein, Miramax didn't just pull out of the project but sought to destroy and discredit Duffy. It's a disturbing record of how power is wielded in Hollywood, yet seemingly, everyone just yuk-yuks over Duffy getting his due desserts.

Skip forward quite a few years and we've had people like Peter Jackson publicly talking about Miramax briefed people against female actors to "warn them" about how unprofessional and dreadful people are, when in fact it was Harvey trying to destroy them. Because of that, maybe it's worth looking at Overnight in another light?

I think it was the second viewing of Overnight, which really made me question it. Although Duffy doesn't come across well, he honoured a vague agreement with friends, whereby if one struck it rich they would all would... and although they got attached to the project, no one actually seemed to do anything. When the documentary makers challenge Duffy, insisting to talk to him while rolling (IIRC, he asked to talk to them later) over money, he challeneged them about what work they had down – going from memory, they were meant to be involved in marketing but in any case, their contribution according to them was 'Ummm' and 'Errr'.

All of that is correct, BUT Duffy is (or at least was) a massive cunt (even most of his closest friends thought so), a half decent writer who needed an editor and polisher/doctor, and a pretty ropey director who thought he was a genius (didn't he refer to himself without any irony as being the reincarnation of Orson Welles at some point?).  The first Boondock Saints is, at very very best, a mediocre cult film (I think its latter-day appreciation has more to do with the doc than it does re-evaluation of the film itself - having seen it quite recently, it's still an amateurish piece of work that scored lucky with some biggish names and a few decent character actors), whilst the sequel is just a terrible film all around.  All the Weinstein stuff is just coincidental shit icing on the cake.

[notjosh]

Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film is wonderful.

[non capisco]

Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film is wonderful.

I can second that, it's absolutely knockout and will make you want to gorge on silent cinema. The footage of how insane and unsafe those very early car chase stunt scenes were is quite something. It makes some of William Friedkin's later antics look like the picture of health and safety awareness.

Also, they couldn't have got a better narrator than James Mason.

[MortSahlFan]

Speaking of Orson Welles, I think he was more interesting than his movies, although I do think "Citizen Kane" is great..

Despite the title, Orson talks about movies, 90 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbUe-bM6bXg

[Sebastian Cobb]

Speaking of Orson Welles, I think he was more interesting than his movies, although I do think "Citizen Kane" is great..

Despite the title, Orson talks about movies, 90 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbUe-bM6bXg

Touch of Evil is excellent.

[marquis_de_sad]

As is F For Fake.

[purlieu]

Best Worst Movie

About the exceptionally terrible Troll 2, and how it's become a cult film. The director seems to be under the impression that all the fans like the film rather than like laughing at it, and seems offended when the latter is suggested. Really entertaining.