#78 Hell and Back Again (2011)

Documentary by Danfung Dennis.

#62 The Queen of Versailles (2012)

Directed by Lauren Greenfield.

An absolutely great documentary about one of the richest couples in America. It starts out focusing on the process of them building and getting ready for a new family home in central Florida—what will be the largest single-family home in the country, costing $100 million. The movie takes a turn for the better with the financial collapse of 2008, which leads to a huge loss in value of the enormous time-share company owned and run by the patriarch of the family, David Siegel. From that point on, the movie shows the process of a family gradually imploding on itself as they try to adjust to life on a budget. The main character, Jackie Siegel, is David Siegel's 25 year younger former beauty pageant winner trophy wife. The couple have 8 children under the age of 16. Jackie's pure ignorance about anything to do with the financial situation of her family, and the way in which the family's excesses is so clearly demonstrated for the cameras without even the least bit of awareness of how callous and out of touch with reality they are is fascinating. I won't go into any detail, but only highly recommend that anyone reading this should make a point of watching this film. I am a huge fan of documentaries, and this one is a really good one at that.

#59 Planet Earth: Shallow Seas

#58 Planet Earth: Jungles (2006)

#56 Planet Earth: Great Plains (2006)

#53 A Story for the Modlins (2012)

By Sergio Oksman.

A documentary short about an artistic family pieced together from a discovered box of old photos, letters, journals, a VHS tape and knick-knacks of various sorts. This awkward family appears to have attempted to escape from modern society by secluding themselves in their apartment in Madrid, Spain. The father was an unknown actor who never succeeded at getting his break in Hollywood. The mother was a talented artist who experimented with painting, sculpture and photography, although the themes of most of her works were quite bizarre. The end to this short film is as mystifying as the entire family story of these three characters. It makes you wonder if there really are so many out-of-the-ordinary people in the world or if recovered random artifacts of any normal family could be interpreted in such a way as to highlight only the bizarre characteristics and tell a story that veers quite far away from reality.

#51 Planet Earth: Ice Worlds (2006)

The sequences of both the female polar bear with her cubs and the male out on his own comprise such wonderful filmmaking. The story of the desperate male bear deciding to try and attack the herd of walruses is about the most heart-wrenching story I've seen this month. Even just thinking about the poor bear now as I write is so sad, and I'm about as big of a realist when it comes to nature and the fight for survival and understanding that mother nature has no sympathy and that's just the way of the world. Again, another episode in this documentary series that should be seen by anyone and everyone.

#49 Planet Earth: Deserts (2006)

#48 Planet Earth: Caves (2006)

I wanted to remember that this episode introduced me to the Lechuguilla caves in New Mexico, an incredible and fabulous story by itself, which were only discovered in 1986. The Planet Earth crew is likely to be the last ones who were able to get permission to film in this geological marvel for quite some time, I would guess.

                               Despite what it seems, those are not ice crystals...

#46 — #47 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentary (Part 2) (2012)

#46 Redemption — Jon Alpert & Matthew O'Neill

#47 Open Heart — Kief Davidson & Cori Shepherd Stern

This post gets a label of 5 stars primarily for this last film: Open Heart. I believe it will be the winner of the Oscar, and it deserves to be. It was a very touching story worth viewing for anybody. Even though it is only a short-length film and therefore harder to come-by, I recommend it over about 90% of the feature-length films I have on here.

#44 Planet Earth: Fresh Water (2006)

Angel Falls, Venezuela – the highest waterfall in the world

#43 Planet Earth: Mountains (2006)

#42 Planet Earth: Pole to Pole (2006)

Narrated by David Attenborough. (I just realized that the "US version" of the series is narrated by Sigourney Weaver, and am thankful that we have the non-"US version," because watching any of the BBC planet earth/life series without him just wouldn't be the same.)

We are also huge fans of the Life (2009), Life in the Undergrowth (2005), Life in Cold Blood (2008), and Frozen Planet (2011) series — all BBC and David Attenborough productions. So, we thought we should try out this series of nature documentaries. This is a good introductory episode highlighting a number of species across the planet including polar bears in the north and emperor penguins in Antarctica. Of special interest were the segments on the caribou herd in Canada and their predators, the wolves, and the African hunting dogs and their prey, the impala. The images of the great white sharks rising out above the surface of the ocean entirely in pursuit of prey are incredible, and there is a great sequence of a huge number of species migrating to the Okavango Delta in Africa for the seasonal arrival of water. The story of the journeying elephants is the best, both sad and redeeming when they finally do arrive at their destination.

#36 — #38 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentary (Part I) (2012)

#36 Kings Point — Sari Gilman and Jedd Winer

#37 Mondays at Racine — Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan

#38 Inocente — Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine

#24 The Spanish Civil War–Episode 6: Victory and Defeat (1983)

The termination of the war. The collapse of the Popular Front follows a sad but inevitable trajectory. Once the Nationalists were able to reach the east coast and split the Republican army in two, there remained few positive results left for the revolutionaries. As with all wars in the twentieth century, the final months of the war were filled with their fair share of atrocities committed by the victors while refugees attempted to escape and continue surviving in the midst of devastating poverty and the loss of their homes and homeland. The ones who were able to cross the Pyrenees and make it into France had only refugee camps awaiting them—little different from the concentration camps that were the destination of those deemed "enemies of the state" who were rounded up in Spain. A main difference, I guess, was in the camps in Spain there were still thousands of political executions waiting to happen throughout the next several years. Referred to as the "White Terror," these actions by Franco's Nationalists when added to the extrajudicial killings during the war would result in an estimated 200,000 of their fellow countrymen murdered for their beliefs. 

Such a sad chapter in history that is not so far removed from modern times. This series of documentaries does an incredible job of preserving the accounts of real-life witnesses who experienced the stories being recounted for posterity.

#23 The Spanish Civil War–Episode 5: Inside the Revolution (1983)

This episode, in contrast, explains the much more complex nature of the Republican side of the war. The different political parties that fought for their own beliefs and how conflicts arose between the neighboring factions and what that led to. There were such marked differences in political and social thought. The Popular Front was made up of anarchists, progressives, communists, syndicalists, agrarian-revolutionaries, socialists and members of the International Brigades. Unfortunately, the organization of such an agglomeration of entities was exceedingly difficult and resulted in inherent differences even up to the point of armed violence between the separate factions all belonging to the same Popular Front aligned against the fascist Nationalists. These stories comprise a sad but truly fascinating chapter in the history of Western Europe in the twentieth century. Fundamental to this unfolding experiment in social upheaval are terms such as: Revolution, Organization, Syndicalism, Collectivization, Cooperation, Libertarian Socialism, Anarchy, Fraternization with the enemy, Traitor, and unfortunately: Stalin and Trotskyist. It's unbelievably enticing to start asking "what if...?" Had the Soviet Revolution and the resulting Stalinist dictatorship not occurred, could the Popular Front have defeated Franco? Would the concepts of Socialist Revolution that were so fundamental in motivating the people have been understood or believed in without the Soviet example? Could Socialism without authoritarian dictatorship actually have succeeded in western civilization? The truth of the matter is that Stalin was more concerned with not coming into direct conflict with Hitler yet (another participant in the "politics of appeasement"), that his decisions in 37 and 38 regarding the Spanish Civil war basically decided the fate of the entire Spanish Popular Front and the Second Spanish Republic.

In Spain during almost three years, despite a civil war that took a million lives, despite the opposition of the political parties (republicans, left and right Catalan separatists, socialists, Communists, Basque and Valencian regionalists, petty bourgeoisie, etc.), this idea of libertarian communism was put into effect. Very quickly more than 60% of the land was collectively cultivated by the peasants themselves, without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganized and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high salaried managers, or the authority of the state.

Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.' They coordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men, 'survival of the fittest,' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity....

This experience, in which about eight million people directly or indirectly participated, opened a new way of life to those who sought an alternative to anti-social capitalism on the one hand, and totalitarian state bogus socialism on the other.

#22 The Spanish Civil War–Episode 4: Franco and the Nationalists (1983)

This episode focused on the nationalist side of the war. Who they were, what their beliefs were, and who their leader Francisco Franco was. 

After finishing my review of Episode 5, I realized that I had written so little for this review. The main idea that I contemplated during this episode that I would like to put down on paper is that the Nationalist side of the conflict was primarily based on three concepts: Traditionalism (societal stratification by classes, capitalism, domination of culture by the Catholic church, etc.), Patria (motherland), and Order. This final fundament of the fascist Nationalist cause was the primary difference between them and their opponents that allowed them to fight and win a military conflict. To form a functioning military, hierarchy, authority, obedience and subservience are fundamental. The anarchist revolutionaries on the opposing side with the support of individuality, free thinking, and state-opposition were the biggest deterrents to fighting a well organized military campaign. It is also why the dictator-authoritarian communist faction of the Popular Front were able to garner much of the power from their side, as they were much more suited for taking orders, carrying them out, and achieving military objectives. This together with the aide given by Stalin in the form of planes and munitions supplied with the objective of supporting the Soviet (Stalinist) version of Revolution. 

The story of the Nationalists and Franco is interesting but not nearly as fascinating as the Revolutionaries. Another interesting "what if...": if they had been able to defeat Franco and his form of fascism, how many years of upheaval would there have been in attempting to establish order following military victory? Would the libertarian-socialist principles of the Popular Front have been able to be converted into a successful peacetime government, and how would the hardships of coming out of a civil war have affected that? Would repression against Franquistas by the victors have been similar to what indeed was actually perpetrated by the fascists especially considering the policies of Stalin in the late 1930s. And most interestingly: what role would Spain have played in WWII?

#19 The Spanish Civil War–Episode 3: Battleground For Idealists (1983)

#17 The Spanish Civil War–Episode 2: Revolution, Counter-revolution & Terror (1983)

A six-part television documentary on the Spanish Civil War. Made in the early eighties, it still provides the opportunity to hear testimony from eyewitnesses. A fair and even account intended to convey the facts without choosing sides or culprits per se. This episode did a fairly thorough job of describing and explaining how extra-judicial killings and massacres of civilians were so rampant during the conflict and perpetrated by both sides. Another important topic that I believe is rarely well understood is the nature of the anti-nationalist side as it was made up of (among many other political groups) republicans loyal to the newly chosen system (democracy) and anarchists composed mainly of trade union members. In fact, anarchist ideas were adopted by a very large portion of the Spanish working class. The concept that for anarchists, regardless of how much they believed that fighting the fascists was necessary and thus shared a common objective with the republicans, the very nature of their system of beliefs didn't allow them to form a functioning army because that would require authority, organized discipline, hierarchy, commanders, and submission to orders, which all go entirely against the most important tenets of anarchism. Therefore, how could the left ever have been able to create a unified front against Franco's forces?

A good historical documentary. At the summary of this episode, a dour foreshadowing is offered as it mentions again the huge number of executions committed by both sides that were more explicitly described during the episode and says, "...and still the war was only four months old. It was to rage for another two and a half years..."

#16 Citizen King (2004)

Written and directed by Orlando Bagwell and Nolan Walker.

But it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live - a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. one day before being assissinated.  

Now that he is safely dead let us praise him, build monuments to his glory, sing hosannas to his name.

Dead men make such convenient heroes.

They cannot rise to challenge the images we would fashion from their lives.

And besides,

it is easier to build a monument than it is a movement.

– Carl Wendell Hines, "Now That He Is Safely Dead" (quoted by Joseph Lowery)