An entertaining documentary about people breaking records—mostly odd ones—to get into the Guinness book of world records. We understand why they do what they do and follow a few hows and so closes. We also get to see what happens to a guy's butt if he exercises on an exercycle for days on end.
A highly interesting look into the life and workings of an award-winning Japanese sushi restaurant. The behind the scenes look is simply fascinating. I would give it another star. However, towards the end, the documentary loses some of its magical quality and begins to come across as something of an advertisement.
Searching for Sugar Man is a documentary about the artist (Sixto) Rodriguez who released two unsuccessful albums in Detroit in the early 1970s and subsequently faded away from the music business back into what is described as abject poverty. Unbeknownst to him, however, his music became hugely popular in South Africa where his fans were under the impression that he was dead. This documentary retells the story of how two of his South African fans tracked him down in the late 90s.
Religulous is a documentary comedy (odd classification for sure) in which the comedian and talk-show host, Bill Maher, explores the three Abrahamic religions and their effects on the world today. It's a fun watch and effectively a platform for Maher to air his views by introducing us to the kooks and frauds of the religious world.
This is a documentary on China's economic drive to access Africa's resources. While quite fascinating, it really should have been titled When China Met Zambia as we don't see anything about the rest of Africa, for e.g., Congo and all the negative publicity the Reds have managed to garner over there. The film comes across more like a small, authorised window into aspects of the relationship between the two countries and their peoples and does not necessarily care to put forward anything overall message for the viewer to digest.
A documentary on debt or indebtedness based on a book by Margaret Atwood, Payback is a wide ranging and well put together package. While I found each of the individual stories quite captivating, I was, however, unable to really get the ultimate message. It was nevertheless an interesting watch.
Pianomania is an interesting peek into the life of Stephan Knüpfer, a piano tuner working for Steinway as he tries to keep a bunch of concert pianists such as Lang Lang, Brendel, and Ainard happy. It's fun to get a behind-the-doors look into how pianos are set up, transported, and tuned. There are also a couple of laughs here and there. It would have been nice to get a little more technical and also hear some more music. It appears that I'll have to watch "Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037" to get my wish.
