Tyson, a mixture of original interviews and archival footage and photographs sheds light on the life experiences of the heavyweight champ.

Click here to watch Oprah Interview Mike Tyson

The Last Truck : Closing of a GM Plant

When GM announced the closing of the Moraine, Ohio assembly plant in June of 2008, Dayton area filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar set to work on a documentary about the impact of GM’s decision and the effect on the factory workers and the local community. The resulting film The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant — which aired on HBO earlier in the month — is a moving look at a group of hard working Americans. The Last Truck focuses on the people that worked at Moraine Assembly and does a good job of getting beyond blue collar Midwestern stereotypes. As the Dayton Daily News points out, the Dayton area has a automotive manufacturing history that dates back to World War I when native Charles Kettering invented the electrical ignition.

Reposted from http://www.acontinuouslean.com

Hori Smoku: Sailor Jerry is a feature length documentary exploring the roots of American tattooing through the life of its most iconoclastic figure, Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins. Considered by many the foremost tattoo artist of all time, Collins is the father of modern day tattooing, whose uncompromising lifestyle and larger than life persona made him an American legend. Through rare interviews, photographs and hours of archival footage, Hori Smoku Sailor Jerry: The Life and Times of Norman Keith Collins, explores the past, present and future of the global tattooing phenomenon.

Until the Light Takes Us is a new documentary about Norwegian black metal. The way their website describes it:

[Norwegian black metal is] the most malevolent musical genre in existence, whose surprisingly articulate founders hold complex sets of extreme nationalist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian beliefs. Unlike musical purveyors of evil who do so only for the sake of showmanship, these young friends actually practice what they preach, engaging in rampant church burning, suicide, and – as notoriously chronicled in the European media – murder.

It’s in theaters this winter. I’m really looking forward to it, it looks like a really interesting documentary about a morbidly fascinating genre.

We Live in Public follows the vision of Josh Harris. He envisioned a live streaming Internet broadcast a decade before services like Justin.tv and Ustream came about, and actually made it happen. To Josh, this was like theater or a performance art. And what the director, Ondi Timoner realized years after filming the movie that Josh’s message and idea was the streaming services we have today, so the documentary is a very timely piece for what we can learn from past mistakes and what we can improve on present day. The movie isn’t out on DVD yet, so there are live showings in select areas, so go to their website.

American Movie is a 1999 documentary about one man, Mark Borchardt, who attempts to make his low-budget short horror film Coven, against seemingly impossible odds. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, American Movie is an inspiration, comical, and uplifting tale of an average Joe from Minnesota who followed his dreams right to the indie red carpet. Experience the full journey on Youtube.

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady filmed this documentary right after their Boys of Baraka film, Jesus Camp. This movie has an almost unbiased view on evangelical Christian children and the camp they go to. In this particular camp, we meet Becky Fisher, the leader of the camp alongside her own crew of people to get the children to be purified and believe in creationism and other heavy fundamental religious beliefs. But before the children go to this camp, they already come from a evangelical background from their parents.

The film focuses on a select few children, as it did with the Boys of Baraka, and really grasps the essence of what these children believe and what may be the outcome for these children. The things the children do in this movie go beyond what I believe that these children should be doing at their age, e.g. going to anti abortion rallies. But what I found with this particular movie that chills me is how Becky says that people in the middle east are raising their children to be soldiers to fight the war, so why can’t we build an army to aid God’s war. Of course, in a different view, you may simply agree with this, and that’s what makes this movie more powerful.

What I found with this movie is that it the overall message is different for different people. Since I come from a more liberal background, I tend to have abhorrent feelings for the leader of the camp and the children who blindly follow the religious view on politics, science, and other concepts. But a more fundamental religious person might think that the movie is a great promotion for getting Americans to be more active in their churches and political rallies.

In a follow-up interview I saw with the directors, they were asked what they felt about the whole movie and the message behind it, and they simply responded that the film expressed everything they felt. Of course, this may not make much sense because the movie tries very hard to not reveal any bias. But then again, they wouldn’t be able to get their film crew in this camp if Becky didn’t consent. So in a way, this movie captures the glimpse of a selected sect of Evangelicals without making them look like something other than human, which we, as the media and as a people, tend to do a lot of.

Overnight is a 2003 documentary follows a 4 year journey into the rise and fall of director/musician Troy Duffy, as he attempts to create his cult classic 1999 film, The Boondock Saints. See the rise and fall of one man turned bartender into filmmaker overnight in this true to life rags-to-riches-to-rags story. Watch the full length documentary on Netflix Instant. Directed by Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith.

The Boys of Baraka is a heart breaking story about young, African-American middle school boys who are headed to fail for a high school diploma. The school ran a program where selected students would travel to an experimental boarding school called Baraka in Kenya to help open the children’s eyes and hopefully instill some discipline. The movie follows these boys as they encounter the harsh life in Kenya, as well as find themselves. The movie is directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, who also directed Jesus Camp. They made this movie first, and was in production longer as the documentary spans more than a year in these childrens’ lives.