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^^^ That sounds like a good one! Along those lines, Young At Heart is fantastic - about a senior citizens' choir that does songs by Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Coldplay, etc.
I just finished watching Michael Wood's Story of England on PBS. Awesome. It's one little village which represents the whole of English history. But its told through the things found in trenches dug in the ground an old books and the names of the people who still live there. This sense of a tie to a very long past is so strong, making the history a very personal thing (especially if your own background is there). I highly reccomend it. It's currently scheduled on my pbs station in repeats for a week.
The "Up" series of documentaries. Beginning at the age of seven, a small group of diverse British school children were the subjects. Every seven years, they've produced a new film. Michael Apted directed them. This year, 56 Up came out. I've not seen it, but have seen the others. Really fascinating.
"Harlan County USA" - Kentucky coal miners on strike
I am not a sports fan at all. I mean at all. But I love, love, love Ken Burns' Baseball. I have it on DVD and re-watch it every couple of years. It's so interesting to see American history through the lens of baseball.
I have to second "Alone in the Wilderness." It was a guy in the 70s who decided to go off into the wilds of Alaska and live alone, filming his experiences with fishing, hunting, building his cabin, etc. I can watch it over and over a not get bored (though some find it really boring). I think it brings out my fantasy of one day going off and living alone in the wilderness myself.
While we're on PBS documentaries, I loved their Things That Aren't There Anymore and More Things That Aren't There Anymore. These were locally-made docs, so the ones I saw were about the Philadelphia area. It was all about old landmarks, buildings, travel destinations, restaurants, etc, that have been torn down, but showed what they had bene in their heyday. I can't find these online on DVD (I only found some of the Pittsburgh version for sale.)
I also enjoyed the recent History channel series on the rise of the third reich (forget the exact name of it). History channel has done thousands of things on WWII and on the Hitler & the Holocaust, but this was different, in that it showed how the ordinary people in Germany were swept up in the Nazi propaganda, and how normally good decent people got sucked in, and how they eventually realized it (some of them anyway).
I posted somewhere else about this one, but it was recently on Oprah's network: 65 Red Roses. It was a documentary of a beautiful, strong young woman dying of cystic fibrosis. Just watching it made me grateful to be able to breathe.
While surfing netflix, I found America the Beautiful 2 - The Thin Commandments. I really enjoyed this one. As an overweight (technically obese I guess) woman, I definitely feel the pressures of weight and how it is shoved down our throats. This documentary is more about accepting ourselves the way we are.
The Civil War (self explanatory) Eyes on the Prize (about the Civil Rights Movement) If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise (about New Orleans/Hurricane Katrina)
Inside Job (about Wall Street financial institutions' role in creating the recession)
Hot Coffee (about so-called tort reform and how corporations are lobbying politicians to limit their personal injury liability)
I really like some of the PBS Secrets of the Dead shows, but for some reason, I haven't noticed any of those lately.
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