documentaries

PBS is debuting the first episode of a new Ken Burns documentary on its iPhone and iPad apps ahead of the actual launch of the series on TV.

"Prohibition," a documentary about the country's move to outlaw alcohol in the 1920s, will premiere tomorrow on the PBS app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The free app offers streaming access to both previews and full episodes of notable PBS shows, as well as a schedule guide.

Created by filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, "Prohibition" will then segue to TV screens, with the first episode … Read more

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I was emotionally invested in a film that largely focuses on teenagers rapidly tapping keys on their phone.

That speaks to the quality of "Thumbs," a surprisingly entertaining documentary that follows a dozen or so competitors through a grueling national texting championship.

The key to its enjoyment came from the attachments you formed with the various competitors. "Thumbs" spends a good chunk of time building an emotional core with several of the teenagers around the country who have formed bonds with each other through … Read more

One year ago, famous filmmakers asked YouTube viewers to upload a video reflecting a day in their lives. According to the filmmakers, people from all over the world uploaded a cumulative 80,000 videos, with 4,500 hours of footage.

The result of their edited efforts is the 90-minute documentary "Life in a Day." It's been described as "a historic cinematic experiment to create a documentary film about a single day on Earth."

Presented by YouTube and National Geographic, the film was made by a mighty duo of producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin Macdonald. … Read more

I loved Tower Records, but I never felt a thing about any of the other big record store chains like Sam Goody, Virgin, or HMV Records. I'm sure that over a 20-year period I bought 1,000 albums at Tower Records in New York City, vs. maybe one or two at the other chains. It's easy to explain why; the other majors weren't interesting enough to hold my attention. Their inventories were too superficial; when they'd have just a small handful of Miles Davis titles, Tower had a hundred.

Tower stores were in sync with the … Read more

If you own a Blu-ray player and a set of eyeballs, you absolutely, positively must add "Planet Earth" to your library. I insist.

This four-disc BBC documentary series has a list price of $99.99, but Best Buy has "Planet Earth" on Blu-ray for $24.99, plus sales tax in most states and $2.49 for shipping. (You can save on shipping by heading to your local Best Buy brick-and-mortar, though I'm not positive the price is the same in-store.)

Another option: Amazon also has it for $24.99, with no sales tax, but you'… Read more

More than three years ago, even before Charles Ferguson was nominated for an Oscar for his Iraq war documentary, "No End in Sight," the former tech exec told CNET he would continue to make films "if the world lets me."

Well, the world is not just letting him--it's giving him some of the highest accolades. Last night Ferguson, who founded one of the first Internet software companies in the early dot-com days, accepted the Academy Award for Documentary Feature for his latest film, "Inside Job," which is about the recent fiscal crisis.

And … Read more

Jason Scott's first documentary in 2005 was about bulletin board systems (BBSs), which were in a sense the PC world's parallel evolution of the early Internet. This documentary, really more a multi-disc series of interviews with BBS pioneers than a documentary film as such, brought back to me my early years in personal computing and my subsequent forays into shareware software development through the mid-1990s.

Now, Scott has tackled a subject from roughly the same era: the text adventure game. My involvement here was more peripheral but no less a part of my memories.

As his new "… Read more

Note: This is an update of a post I wrote last October, which focused on the iPhone version of this app.

Do you like indie films? Documentaries? Animation? Then I'm about to make your day: NFB Films for iPad lets you watch over a thousand movies on your tablet. For free.

"NFB" stands for National Film Board, a bona fide Canadian treasure. The app taps the NFB's mammoth library of documentaries, features, animated films, trailers (for upcoming NFB releases), and more.

All the movies are streamed to your iPad (via Wi-Fi only), but there's also … Read more

What better way to celebrate Earth Day than with two of the best documentaries ever made about Earth?

Today only, the Discovery Channel Store is offering an outstanding bundle: the BBC series "Planet Earth" and "Life" on Blu-ray for $50.

Shipping will run you another $4 (choose "7-14 days" at checkout), but here's an added bonus: if you sign up to be on the store's mailing list (enter your e-mail address in the upper-right corner of the page and click Sign Up), you'll immediately get a code for $5 off your … Read more