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I really enjoyed Cartel Land. That was horrifying. Like ffj, I'm surprised the cameramen didn't end up in a body bag. I'm glad I don't live in Mexico or near the border.

I didn't like Cowspiracy at all. Sure, the facts are interesting but the presentation is awful. The director/narrator tries to dramatize everything and make it seem like its life or death. He also expects everyone to know these not so common facts and accuses them of hiding something or lying. It's also very repetitive and drawn out. It could have been reduced to about a 15 min clip at most. I'm not biased against it either, I'm vegan. Documentaries like Food Inc. and one on corn (I forget the title) are much better.

ffj wrote:What struck me more than anything about Cartel Land is how the film makers kept from ending up in a shallow grave themselves.

+1. brute was convinced the movie was a dramatic re-enactment by actors, there was no way they would let somebody film them doing that shit. but no.

ffj wrote:That and how absolutely corrupt everyone was in the movie. Everyone had reverted to the lowest common denominator.

this is why brute is convinced there is no "evil" in the world. there is no moral character inherent to humans, as much as they want to believe it. it's just humans with the opportunity to abuse power.

The modern trend is to merge them. But its overly simplistic to say that either is necessarily more efficient -- and that efficiency is necessarily a good thing from the perspective of an outsider.

Franz Kafka's "The Trial" and Mike Judge's "Office Space" have an awful lot in common. I wonder if Joseph K. had to fill out TPS reports.

vexed87 wrote:Cowspiracy, best thing I saw so far this year, it's about animal agriculture, sustainability and overpopulation. - http://www.cowspiracy.com/

Saw a billboard in my area this morning based on Cowspiracy, though I think the gallon figures are higher than those I read elsewhere.

Dragline wrote:Franz Kafka's "The Trial" and Mike Judge's "Office Space" have an awful lot in common. I wonder if Joseph K. had to fill out TPS reports.

brute missed this the last time. good observation.

brute thinks the broader category for this genre might be about systems initially created to help humans, but where the main goal/effect has become sustaining the system/status quo itself. in other words, bureaucracy.

Waste Land. It's about recyclers at a garbage dump in Rio, Brazil.

ffj wrote:@tylerr

What struck me more than anything about Cartel Land is how the film makers kept from ending up in a shallow grave themselves. That and how absolutely corrupt everyone was in the movie. Everyone had reverted to the lowest common denominator.

Yes, and it's nice to know many of those lovely types live here in the USA too.

Bill Cunningham New York is a documentary about the photographer who died today at 87. He took fashion photos of regular people on the street and the rich and famous. Was never mean. Refused to become beholden to big money. Only means of transport was to ride a bicycle-- in Manhattan. His is A very inspiring frugal story.

shade-tree wrote:Bill Cunningham New York is a documentary about the photographer who died today at 87. He took fashion photos of regular people on the street and the rich and famous. Was never mean. Refused to become beholden to big money. Only means of transport was to ride a bicycle-- in Manhattan. His is A very inspiring frugal story.

+1

From his obit.

He didn’t go to the movies. He didn’t own a television. He ate breakfast nearly every day at the Stage Star Deli on West 55th Street, where a cup of coffee and a sausage, egg and cheese could be had, until very recently, for under $3. He lived until 2010 in a studio above Carnegie Hall amid rows and rows of file cabinets, where he kept all of his negatives. He slept on a single-size cot, showered in a shared bathroom and, when he was asked why he spent years ripping up checks from magazines like Details (which he helped Annie Flanders launch in 1982), said: “Money’s the cheapest thing. Liberty and freedom is the most expensive.”