Entertainment summer hiatus in an economic depression has rendered me a complete shut-in. The good news is I’m now eligible for Meals on Wheels.And what better way to bide time until inevitable death than with a Netflix subscription and its large selection of documentaries. As an actor, I learn a lot from scripted movies, but good documentaries show people at their most real moments.
As I wrote this up, it got a little lengthy, so here are my first five favorites, with the rest to come next week:
Paper Clips. In the rural town of Whitwell, TN – not exactly the epicenter of Judaism – a middle school teacher is interested in having her students grasp the enormity of the number of people killed in the Holocaust. She asks them to collect six million paper clips, and it’s a tremendous undertaking. But as word spreads about their endeavor, donations arrive, including some from the desks of celebrities.
Unique moment: octogenarian Holocaust survivors visit the town to share their heartbreaking stories with the children.
The Big One. Thanks to his unique use of editing and art direction, Michael Moore changed the way documentaries are made. I chose one of his more obscure films, in which Michael brings a camera along on a nationwide tour in which he promotes a book and tries to convince big companies to stop downsizing. This film, shot eleven years before our current economic crunch, resonates even more now.
Unique moment: employees at a Borders bookstore meet Michael covertly in the middle of the night and ask him to help them keep their full-time hours and benefits.
Street Fight. An Esquire article kicked off my admiration for Newark mayor Corey Booker. This doc is about his original campaign to unseat a very crooked politician.
Unique moment: the director, after having become recognized and harassed by Corey’s corrupt opponent, hands the camera over to a friend, and the friend captures some really shady shenanigans on election day.
Overnight. Maybe my favorite. Low-rent Hollywood rocker/bartender Troy Duffy writes a script entitled Boondock Saints. It grabs the interest of then-Miramax CEO Harvey Weinstein, and Weinstein greenlights Duffy to direct it. Duffy then implodes in his own success and burns every bridge. The documentary was shot by two of his friends (they managed his fledgling band) whom he screwed over.
Unique moment: Duffy leaving threatening messages on Weinstein’s voicemail, and telling his band-manager friends they weren’t going to get a penny of the money he knew they deserved.
The King of Kong. Crazy look at the best of the best Donkey Kong players. When algebra teacher Steve Wiebe earns a controversial, world record score on a game in his garage, he must travel to an arcade in New Hampshire and try to recreate his high score, thereby proving his skills and unseating the reigning champion.
Unique moment: the guys who head up an organization they formed to keep track of high scores essentially pull a B&E on Wiebe’s garage to confirm he hasn’t tinkered with the machine he used to record his score.
