ShogunRua wrote:Now, if only they had a good show about military weapons and armor... (And no, "Deadliest Warrior" doesn't count)
Unfortunately neither are on disc but if you can find them, TV series Decisisve weapons and Weapons that made Britain were quite good for their mixture of theory and 'hands on' testing.
The sad thing is that even when a good documentary series on this subject comes up, it's virtually impossible to find anywhere. For instance, around the same time period as "Decisive Weapons" (which looks interesting, thanks), I watched an amazing documentary series called The Story of the Gun, also on A&E.
I have been trying to find a copy of it online for the past few years, but no dice.
ShogunRua wrote:Now, if only they had a good show about military weapons and armor... (And no, "Deadliest Warrior" doesn't count)
Unfortunately neither are on disc but if you can find them, TV series Decisisve weapons and Weapons that made Britain were quite good for their mixture of theory and 'hands on' testing.
The sad thing is that even when a good documentary series on this subject comes up, it's virtually impossible to find anywhere. For instance, around the same time period as "Decisive Weapons" (which looks interesting, thanks), I watched an amazing documentary series called The Story of the Gun, also on A&E.
I have been trying to find a copy of it online for the past few years, but no dice.
The extent of my knowledge of weaponry is what I've learned from exhibits at the Met and the Getty. I'd really love a good doc on the subject. Seems like it would be difficult/boring to cover weapons generally, though. It would probably need to be a bit more focused.
mattorama12 wrote: The extent of my knowledge of weaponry is what I've learned from exhibits at the Met and the Getty. I'd really love a good doc on the subject. Seems like it would be difficult/boring to cover weapons generally, though. It would probably need to be a bit more focused.
Indeed. The documentary I mentioned focused only on firearms (they briefly covered the Gatling Gun, but not cannons), although it's an very general primer over its entire history. (And even that took over 3 hours) Don't expect any in-depth examinations.
ShogunRua wrote:Or, failing that, I don't learn anything that couldn't be gleaned in 5-10 minutes of reading articles on the Internet. While this is especially a weakness of American documentaries, I have noticed that this is a problem for the genre as a whole; most documentaries are so damn uninformative!
I'd highly recommend The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer. While much information about Richard Kulkinski can be read in 20 minutes, I'd say this documentary is required viewing to really get some insight into this man. In just under 50 minutes, it chronicles his life fairly well and dives into many of his more memorable murders. Quick, informative, unsettling.
jmarkthespot wrote:I'd highly recommend The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer. While much information about Richard Kulkinski can be read in 20 minutes, I'd say this documentary is required viewing to really get some insight into this man. In just under 50 minutes, it chronicles his life fairly well and dives into many of his more memorable murders. Quick, informative, unsettling.
I've heard good things and have been meaning to check this out. Your description also reminded me of another. Tyson is a fantastic documentary that has some of the most candid confessionals I've ever seen. Although I'm sure you could read about many of the stories and information presented, hearing Tyson himself relive these memories and getting a sense of the person he is because of them is quite eye-opening.
jmarkthespot wrote:I'd highly recommend The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer. While much information about Richard Kulkinski can be read in 20 minutes, I'd say this documentary is required viewing to really get some insight into this man. In just under 50 minutes, it chronicles his life fairly well and dives into many of his more memorable murders. Quick, informative, unsettling.
I've heard good things and have been meaning to check this out. Your description also reminded me of another. Tyson is a fantastic documentary that has some of the most candid confessionals I've ever seen. Although I'm sure you could read about many of the stories and information presented, hearing Tyson himself relive these memories and getting a sense of the person he is because of them is quite eye-opening.
The problem for me with Tyson was one of too much knowledge.
I had read a litany of articles and books about Tyson, watched dozens of interviews, seen all his fights, knew everything about his relationship with Cus and Teddy Atlas, and read about every scandal. So yes, I found the documentary uninformative, diving into very little of the truly interesting nitty-gritty.
But more than that, I could tell where Tyson was dishonest or whitewashed an incident that was very different than how he relates it, or even how he would have told it back in the day.
