Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Documentaries

I love a good documentary film. Editing together a coherent story culled from hundreds of hours of footage must take a lot more patience, and in some ways, perhaps even greater skill than a scripted story. I just finished watching "Comedian" for the second time since it was released on DVD several years ago. There are moments in the film that capture Seinfeld at his most vulnerable (professionally, anyway.) "Comedian" falls into the first of what I think would be one of really only three categories for documentaries. The well known, the obscure, and Ken Burns who really shouldn't need an explanation, so skip it.

The well known would be things (or people) like Seinfeld of course, 9/11, the Apollo Program, Trekkies (although there is a lot of the obscure in that one). The obscure: American Movie, Paper Clips, The King of Kong.

Recently, though, there seems to be an unlikely subcategory of documentary (no, not global warming). The web site. Granted, I've only come up with two, but I'm confident there will be more to come.
24 Hours on Craigslist, the site for which had a banner ad for:
Truth in Numbers: The wikipedia Story

As absurd as either one of those sound, the absurdity just makes me want to see them more.

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