kimberly briley

I need to amend my recently watched movies list… I forgot I spent like an entire week in December browsing documentaryheaven.com.

ZOO - really vague, but also really beautiful. highly recommended!

The Trials of Ted Haggard - it is pretty interesting to me that he agreed to do this movie. did they pay him, is that why??

Extraordinary People – The Boy Who Lived Before - about children who think they were reincarnated.

A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures - sort of funny, also sort of sad and contrived…

Don’t Swallow Your Toothpaste - fluoride is poisonous!!! (just as I thought)

Rent A Rasta - not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be.

Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love - when Second Life gets too real.

Louis Theroux on Keith Harris - who cares if I don’t know who Keith Harris is. if Louis makes it, I will watch it.

Louis Theroux on Michael Jackson

Louis Theroux’s African Hunting Holiday - haha! shows how ridiculously easy it is to kill animals at one of these places. people raise lions and zebras and rhinos and gazelles in cages and then sell them to a hunting company, who will put the animal out in a certain place so some american with too much money can come and kill it on their first try and have bragging rights back home. sorry, I just ruined the movie for you. my soft vegetarian heart is hurting so much from watching this…

Louis Theroux – A Place For Paedophiles

Scientology And Me

Help Me To Speak - about stutterers.

My Brilliant Brain – Make Me A Genius - about a lady who has memorized so many chess scenarios that she can play over the phone, without even seeing the board.

Christmas break was overwhelmingly boring. Boring is nice for a little while though. I watched a ton of movies on netflix. Here they are:

non-fiction

Beautiful Losers *
The Great Happiness Space *
A Life Apart: Hasidism in America *
American Meth
Meth
A Certain Kind of Death *
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer
Frontline: Released
Bigger, Stronger, Faster
This American Life: Seasons 1 & 2 *
Witch Hunt

fiction

Mrs. Dalloway
Aimee and Jaguar
Rachel Getting Married *
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
The Girlfriend Experience
Being John Malkovich *
Never Forever
Baghead

* especially recommended

Kids - Written by the same guy who made Gummo. Gummo’s better, but this one is still provocative enough to warrant a view or two.

Magnolia - It’s a decade old, but I’m just now seeing it. The part with the frogs - the writer claims he made it up and didn’t realize it was one of the plagues in the Old Testament. I’m not sure that I believe him… There is a weird music video type thing about 3/4 of the way through that I’m not a big fan of, but the writing and acting is great all around.

Love Liza - Really heartbreaking, highly recommended. Philip Seymour Hoffman is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors.

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox - A documentary about the guy who makes (made) the soap. I’m obsessed with the stuff! (I use the liquid peppermint for showers and bar eucalyptus for hands, in case you were curious) And it’s actually not too bad of a documentary. I was expecting much worse.

The Business of Being Born - I am nowhere near being pregnant, but I suppose it’s good to be thinking about my options early. This one is about the absurdity of America’s birthing system and the alternatives to it, such as home births. I would totally be open to having a midwife, and I have even heard of something called a doula, which is a non-medical assistant who focuses more on the emotional/physical comfort of the mother. Sometimes they stick around to help out even after the birth. The most shocking thing to me was how un-traumatic the natural birthing scenes are. I expected non-medicated women to be screaming bloody murder the whole time, but they were usually relatively calm.

A Family Undertaking - On the opposite side of the spectrum, this one is about home funerals. Yeah, apparently it’s legal in most states to bury your own dead. The home viewings are sometimes three whole days (no embalming involved)! According to the people they interviewed, the decomposition process is a lot slower than we usually think. Home funerals seem to be considerably more emotionally healing, as it gives the survivors a chance to grieve in their own time and fully realize that their loved one is dead. I have some “death issues,” so it’s kind of nice to watch some real funerals that seem to be actually sort of healing for people. I mean, it’s not like they’re not really sad, but they seem to have a much better understanding of life and death and that there is beauty in both. Be prepared to see lots of dead bodies, including one in the enbalming process - ewww.

D.I.Y. or Die
Pucker Up
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
Downtown 81
Ken Burns’ America: The Shakers
The Last Temptation of Christ
Through Deaf Eyes
Protagonist
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts