Looking for some brain-food! Specifically, documentaries...like Louis Theroux

January 27, 2009 11:20 AM

Looking for some brain-food! Specifically, documentaries...

I have been watching several Louis Theroux documentaries. I found the ones on the Westboro Baptist Church and Infomercials particularly interesting. Does anoyone have any other recommendations for similar shows/videos?

I have watched several episodes in the the MSNBC Lockdown series and enjoy those as well.

What else should I be watching? Thanks!

posted by jdlugo to education (12 comments total)

Louis Theroux started on Michael Moore's TV NATION, which is available on DVD...
and Michael Moore started out as one of the interviewers in BLOOD IN THE FACE, a documentary about white supremacists which is similar to the specials that Theroux did for the Bravo / the BBC.
posted by moxiedoll at 11:32 AM on January 27

Also, Jon Ronson has done a number of BBC specials about (mainly American) conspiracy nuts... very similar to Theroux, and usually readily available on google video.
posted by moxiedoll at 11:33 AM on January 27

I suggest Errol Morris's A Thin Blue Line.

(Afterwards, I suggest watching the faux documentary The Last Broadcast. The pairing of this with Morris's film is illuminating.)
posted by SPrintF at 11:55 AM on January 27

Marjoe
Brother's Keeper
American Movie
The Atomic Cafe
Gimme Shelter
posted by rhizome at 12:40 PM on January 27

I recommend Penn and Teller's Bullshit.

BUT, my other favorite website/forum: Something Awful has an AMAZING thread with tons and tons of great documentaries suggested by other members. It's 26 pages of documentaries and you'll get a good idea of which ones to watch based on the other comments. They're not all necessarily like Louis' Wierd Weekends, though.
posted by plasticbugs at 12:42 PM on January 27

I should add that almost every doc in this Something Awful thread are all available to watch online.
posted by plasticbugs at 12:44 PM on January 27

The Power of Nightmares kind of blew my mind when I watched it recently. I also really liked Manufactured Landscapes and Gambling, Gods and LSD.
posted by joe defroster at 2:13 PM on January 27

Can't contribute to the spirit of this thread but I thought it was interesting that brain-food now seams to mean two completely differet things:

1) Intellectually stimulating media
and
2) Edibles that improve cognitive function (I was thinking ramen, but that's probably because it's cheap)

How about that.
posted by trotter at 2:31 PM on January 27

I'm not familiar with Louis Theroux, but I did just watch An Inconvienient Truth followed immediately by The Great Global Warming Swindle... definitely an interesting comparison.

I also enjoyed Bigger, Stronger, Faster recently. It's a documentary about steroids.
posted by thekiltedwonder at 4:32 PM on January 27

As someone else has mentioned The Power of Nightmares, which was superb, I ought also mention The Trap, also by Adam Curtis.

If his documentary on the Freud family legacy and how it brought about modern culture and the Reagan and Thatcher administrations is still around online that was scarily enlightening too. Basically, anything by Adam Curtis is both terrifying and very, very interesting.
posted by opsin at 4:52 PM on January 27

Looks like my forum link doesn't work. Try this Google Cache of the first page.
posted by plasticbugs at 6:07 PM on January 27

If you like that kind of "fish out of water" Louis T thing, you will love Daniel Wallace's shows about conspiracy theorists and other assorted nutters. Not all of them are in the US, even.

Marjoe is really, really good.

Just recently, I had a chance to see We Have Ways of Making You Talk. It's about torture, and interviews professional torturers and their victims. Really well done.
posted by Grrlscout at 12:46 AM on January 28