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Les Blank did a great documentary about Herzog filming Fitzcarraldo, as well. A very interesting pair of films to watch -- it's titled "Burden of Dreams."

Herzog has several short docus worth seeing too. I know the one is on youtube where he goes to an evacuated town and up a volcano that's set to blow, to find a man who has refused to leave his home on the volcano's side.

+1 Herzog. His latest 'documentary', Cave of Forgotten Dreams, is wonderful.

For those that don't know Werner, he's the kind of guy that says "It's not a significant bullet" after getting shot with a pellet gun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXqc8TQ15w

I saw that in 3d in the theater. It absolutely blew my mind. It was so beautiful. It was the first (new) 3d movie I've seen. Seeing mammoth skulls covered in blankets of crystals jutting out in 3d was almost an orgasmic experience.

Great list, The Vice Guide to North Korea was what I was going to recommend

+1 Adam Curtis. Even his old works are interesting, even if they seem dated politically.

After watching some short pieces of his, he came off much too much like a British and slightly cleverer version of Michael Moore -- entertaining to watch, the editing is great, but the documentarian techniques are wholly deceptive. He'll link unrelated things with a sleight of hand, then sneak in several ideas during the shock that follows.

Do I have the wrong impression?

Based on one thing I saw, I think you may be right. One of Curtis' documentaries linked the Scottish (anti-)psychiatrist R.D. Laing to the cold war game theorists of RAND as if they were collaborators in social control. You don't have to know much about Laing to know this is spurious.

It's a pity, because I've learned things from watching Curtis. The Bernays-Freud material at the start of Century of the Self is riveting.

Ah, that's too bad. The editing and sound and done so well, he really knows how to make an engaging docu.

One of his latest ones, "It Felt Like a Kiss" is a new direction for him and pretty interesting from what I saw of it. It's almost mocking his own style in some ways -- it uses the techniques of typical TV news media to show a series of absurd and shocking material, with the context switching rapidly enough that there's no chance to reflect on what you've just seen. I suppose it's a meta-criticism of the TV news medium, mimicking it in an extreme way to show how ridiculous and harmful it is. It's an exciting trip to watch, though the content is nonsense and it doesn't have a whole lot to say -- it's more just a way to get you to reconsider the usual media you might consume.

You should check out his latest 'All watched over by machines of loving grace' -- probably his best yet.

Thanks. Can you tell me if my impression of his older stuff ("Felt Like a Kiss" aside) still applies to to this one though? Or has he changed his approach now?

I guess it depends on why you consider Michael Moore to be a bad film maker. Quite a few of Michael Moore's critics dislike his films because of his political positions, not because of his film making techniques. If you believe his political positions have no merit, one will disagree with the presentation of them.

Adam Curtis does have political opinions about society. If opinionated films bother you, and particularly ones that lean left or are not decidedly right leaning, it may be worth skipping Adam Curtis' work.

This excellent adam curtis parody about sums it up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

I'm fine with opinionated filmmaking, and I even agree with much of Moore's messages, but at more moments than I'm comfortable with I find Moore's filmmaking to be dishonest, insincere and deceptive. Very well edited and engaging though, so I wish I could like him.

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