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Minz
8-19-12, 12:21pm
Can anyone recommend any documentaries about Living Simply?

I just watched "No Impact Man" last night and thought it was really great! It's about: In this engaging documentary, a Fifth Avenue family goes green when writer Colin Beavan leads his wife, Michelle Conlin, and their baby daughter on a yearlong crusade to generate no trash and otherwise make no net impact on the environment.

try2bfrugal
8-19-12, 12:36pm
I saw that documentary on Netflix streaming. I thought it was interesting. Netflix has a lot of documentaries not so much on simple living per se but quite a bit on the environment, overspending, problems with our existing agricultural model, urban sprawl, peak oil, veganism, etc. I have my queue loaded up on a bunch of those topics.

Weston
8-20-12, 9:08am
My interest in simple living began about 10 years ago when I was watching PBS and Escape From Affluenza came on. I still remember sitting there riveted for the entire length of the movie. Went out and got YMOYL the very next day. I haven't watched it since because I'm afraid that with the passage of time it won't hold up as well. But at the time I saw it, it felt life changing.

bunnys
8-20-12, 9:12am
I wish they'd put some of this stuff on Youtube. I'm too cheap for Netflix which I wouldn't get my money's worth from anyway as I don't even have a TV.

I did have access to Netflix streaming for awhile last year and liked to look at the documentaries. I found many of them to be poorly made or thinly veiled advertisements.

try2bfrugal
8-20-12, 12:21pm
Yesterday I watched a documentary on Walmart that actually seemed pretty balanced. It included many interviews with Walmart execs as well as people from the various anti-Walmart factions including the small town impact, living wage, environmental and union issues. I also watched a documentary called Chemercial about chemicals in the home, how to get rid of them and why they are so unhealthy. I thought both were well done. Some of the environmental ones are home made and hard to watch but I just delete those from the queue and move on. No impact man was cute even though it obviously had a limited production budget.

Jamie Johnson's Born Rich and The One Percent were really well done. I liked Supersize Me, too. The documentaries like these kind of come and go from the streaming queue so I just watch what is available. I don't find a lot on just simple living but there are a lot of documentaries on the various aspects of simple living or related topics. Freakonomics (the documentary) was cute and an enlightening way to think about money. For me Netflix streaming is a great deal at $7.99 a month. I always find a lot to watch.

JaneV2.0
8-20-12, 12:33pm
I highly recommend Tom Naughton's Fat Head, which addresses Supersize Me from a different perspective. The last half of it is particularly good. I hadn't thought about Netflix as a treasure trove of documentaries, which I would be much more likely to watch than fictional movies, so maybe I should rethink a subscription.

try2bfrugal
8-20-12, 1:02pm
I highly recommend Tom Naughton's Fat Head, which addresses Supersize Me from a different perspective. The last half of it is particularly good. I hadn't thought about Netflix as a treasure trove of documentaries, which I would be much more likely to watch than fictional movies, so maybe I should rethink a subscription.

I found the answer to a recurring dream I was having for decades on a Nova Dream show. If my family watches 30 shows in a month that is 26 cents a movie / documentary. Think about how much therapy figuring out that dream might have cost otherwise. :)

treehugger
8-20-12, 1:11pm
I hadn't thought about Netflix as a treasure trove of documentaries, which I would be much more likely to watch than fictional movies, so maybe I should rethink a subscription.

I have found Netflix to be particularly good source for documentaries. The have have almost anything I have ever thought to look for. Latest one watched: Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens

Kara

Minz
8-20-12, 10:48pm
I wish they'd put some of this stuff on Youtube. I'm too cheap for Netflix which I wouldn't get my money's worth from anyway as I don't even have a TV.

I did have access to Netflix streaming for awhile last year and liked to look at the documentaries. I found many of them to be poorly made or thinly veiled advertisements.


I am doing the 30 day free trial of netflix and I have an alert on my phone to cancel it before they charge me. Like you, I don't think it would be worth it for me to have a paid subscription so I'm trying to watch some interesting documentaries while I have free access. I've been watching it streaming on my laptop. There are several websites where you can watch free documentaries and they seem to have a decent collection.

Weston...I watched Affluenza recently...I could see how that could have a big impact on someone. I think the first documentary I watch that sparked my interest in living simply was on PBS and was about a man who lived in the Alaskan wilderness in a small cabin...I can't remember the name of it but it really inspired me to learn more about living simply.
Thanks for the suggestions and input.

ToomuchStuff
8-21-12, 1:24am
I think the first documentary I watch that sparked my interest in living simply was on PBS and was about a man who lived in the Alaskan wilderness in a small cabin...I can't remember the name of it but it really inspired me to learn more about living simply.
Thanks for the suggestions and input.
One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey and More Readings From One Man's Wilderness: The Journals of Richard L. Proenneke are the two books, based on his life. The dvd is also on Amazon.

Weston
8-21-12, 11:23am
Weston...I watched Affluenza recently...I could see how that could have a big impact on someone. I think the first documentary I watch that sparked my interest in living simply was on PBS and was about a man who lived in the Alaskan wilderness in a small cabin...I can't remember the name of it but it really inspired me to learn more about living simply.
Thanks for the suggestions and input.


Glad you liked it, but it wasn't Affluenza that impacted me so greatly. It was the follow up documentary Escape From Affluenza. I never saw Affluenza (the first film) until a few months ago when I found it on Youtube. Found it a little too preachy and outdated.

Minz
8-21-12, 10:38pm
Glad you liked it, but it wasn't Affluenza that impacted me so greatly. It was the follow up documentary Escape From Affluenza. I never saw Affluenza (the first film) until a few months ago when I found it on Youtube. Found it a little too preachy and outdated.

Oh...I didn't know there was a follow up documentary...I'll have to check it out! thanks.

bunnys
8-21-12, 11:04pm
One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey and More Readings From One Man's Wilderness: The Journals of Richard L. Proenneke are the two books, based on his life. The dvd is also on Amazon.


This one is actually on Youtube. It's very good.

Minz
8-21-12, 11:35pm
This one is actually on Youtube. It's very good.

Bunnys, the one I've seen is called ''Alaska, Silence and Solitude"...but ít's the same guy, Dick Proenneke living in the Wilderness but showing him years later. That was my first introduction tö the concept of "living simply''...not that I want to live exactly like him, but nonetheless he is very inspiring...I just need to discover what living simply means to me.

RoseFI
10-11-12, 5:31pm
Another frugal choice for watching (pieces of) documentaries is Vimeo. You can see clips as they are being compiled on the filmmakers sites. Two GREAT simple living documentarians are Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin of the non-profit Moving Images Video Project. Great, non-preachy, positive-outlook kind of films. Check out Good Food (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbcPgsfEBYU) - it's a great one I saw at a college screening last spring! Very positive and inspiring. You can see clips of footage from their latest film Shift Change (http://vimeo.com/user334589/videos) on Vimeo (coming out this month.) Other films of theirs include Net Loss, Another World is Possible, Not for Sale, Gene Blues, Islas Hermanas, Risky Business, Argentina: Hope in Hard Times and Argentina: Turning Around. You can also see some great interviews for the upcoming film Money & LIFE (http://moneyandlifemovie.com/) on filmmaker Katie Teague's site (disclosure: NRM co-hosted a preview and weekend workshop around the film in June.) Bullfrog Films (http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/gf.html) is an independent distributor of great docs too, that lists the filmmakers websites and if they have study guides.