Grizzly Man
Werner Herzog 2005 US (1st time; big screen)
A documentary on Timothy Treadwell, who lived, in the summer, among bears, until he and his girlfriend were eaten alive by one in 2003.
The most fascinating scenes here are one where Treadwell talks to the camera as he walks about his women troubles, and then another, with him cursing and blasting the civilised world in which he has become famous through what he believes to be mockery. Together, these touch upon very fascinating insights into a character who masked himself in falsities only to escape his own deficiencies; it is at its weakest when revealing its own contradictions: Herzog warns Treadwell's ex-lover never to listen to the recording of his death, and moments later, we have a doctor telling us all the gruesome details anyway.

Der Untergang / Downfall
Oliver Hirschbiegel 2004 Germany/Italy/Austria (1st time)
The final days of Hitler and those close to him, as the Russians invade Berlin.
It looks like one of those new, crisp and suddenly popular TV dramas, too clean to be credible; it sounds like a muffled video game; it feels like a film set throughout, where, if the camera were to pan to the right at any moment, you may just see the rest of the cast fumbling about on set, ready for the next scene. Not even Ganz' sterling performance can lift it beyond its own claims of historical accuracy