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November 30, 2008
Documentaries that Have Helped Me Realize that I’m Not So Abnormal After All, Part 2 in a Continuing Series
Over a year ago now, I wrote an entry about documentaries I’d seen and enjoyed primarily because the people in them were perhaps more eccentric than myself. I really like this in people, and I have continued to pursue more documentaries in this vein. I thought it was time to add a Part 2 to my list. Here goes:
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Let me just say that Billy Mitchell is kind of the Wendy Pepper of videogaming, and Steve Wiebe is kind of my hero. After watching this documentary, I, too, wanted to put a Donkey Kong machine in my garage (or maybe my basement—I do live in the Northeast, and our winters are c-o-l-d). Plus, how bad do I want to visit Funspot now? It’s not even that far away. 4/5 jazz hands.
Helvetica
Typographers are weird and opinionated, and there is an amount of controversy in the world of fonts that I never would have guessed before watching this film. It made me think as much as it amused me. Got to love that. 3.5/5 jazz hands.
Vernon, Florida
This film was released in 1982, when I was in the second grade, but it’s a movie that could have been made yesterday, although I shudder to think what Vernon—a relatively rural place at the time this was made—might be like today (BOO overdevelopment). The film is only about an hour long and follows several people around town, basically just filming them while they talk and talk and talk. There isn’t a boring minute, and these people are (or were) all way crazier than me. 5/5 jazz hands.
Posted by adrienne at November 30, 2008 11:13 PM
Comments
My husband and I watched Helvetica a couple weeks ago--very interesting! I'm pretty good with fonts (identification, etc.), and he'd like to be, so we both enjoyed it and all its (and our) geekiness.
Posted by: Jena at November 30, 2008 11:48 PM
I have three words for you: Man on Wire. Go see it if you can. Or get it on Netflix if not.
Posted by: Jeffrey Lee at December 1, 2008 12:54 AM
Heee!
I, too, must needs find a few films at which I can point and say, "Oh, yeah, they're *all* nonfictional people, and they're *all* crazier than me."
It really does give one a warm, sparkly feeling, does it not? Bragging about one's relative sanity?
::snicker::
Posted by: TadMack at December 1, 2008 05:30 AM
Have you listened to This American Life on NPR? You can get it on podcasts, or just by going to http://www.thisamericanlife.org/.
Very well-done, and has the effect of making the regular person feel comfortingly normal.
Posted by: Deb at December 1, 2008 08:25 AM
I love love LOVED King of Kong - but I can't convince anybody to actually watch it! So glad I'm not alone.
Posted by: Barbara O'Connor at December 1, 2008 09:19 AM
Jena, When I went to see this film at the theatre, they had a talk by one of the guys who invented the wingdings font before the screening. It is a testament to my nerdiness that I regarded him as a total ROCK STAR.
Jeffrey, I so want to see that. I have an interest in his story from the book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, which is excellent.
TadMack, This is the kind of thing that allows me to take short breaks from the inner monologue that's always trying to tell me that I'm not crazy. ;)
Deb, I LOVE This American Life. I used to have a hard time catching it on the radio, but since I got my iPod a couple years ago, I've been listening to the podcasts devotedly. I have a bunch saved up right now to listen to on my impending trip to San Francisco (less than 48 hours now!).
Barbara, I've been wanting to watch it for months now. I'm not a video gamer myself, but video gamers tend to be My Kind of People. :)
Posted by: adrienne at December 1, 2008 10:42 AM
I'm so glad you liked Vernon, Florida. That was one of the first "films" I ever saw, as in, one of the first movies that revealed to me that there was a world beyond Tommy Boy and Die Hard that was beyond my imagining. It is still one of my all-time favorites. And Errol Morris is one of my all-time favorite directors. Him and Jim Jarmusch.
Posted by: jp at December 2, 2008 11:50 PM
I watched The Thin Blue Line on my flight today, but then I had to turn it off, like, fifteen minutes before it was over on account of we were landing. I had to just sit down and finish it once I was safely in the airport. What a story.
Posted by: adrienne at December 3, 2008 05:30 PM
I'm sorry. Maybe I'm just slow or behind, but is this jazz-hands rating system new? It made me laugh out loud very loudly.
Posted by: Jules at December 5, 2008 01:41 PM
Jules, You aren't missing anything--it's new. I tend to make up new rating systems as I go along. :) I'm glad that one made you laugh.
Posted by: adrienne at December 5, 2008 07:35 PM