channel 4 top 100 documentaries

"the war game" and "the thin blue line" are two things i have to see.

i'm also delighted that "spellbound" and "supersize me" are going to be shown on more4.

oh I get it

two-parter

i wish i'd watched more of these first time round. i still haven't seen "the power of nightmares".

was disappionted '4 little girls' wasn't in there, or 'cocksucker blues'

YOU CAN BE DENZEL'S FRIEND

Channel 4 has moved its live Benefits Street debate show back a week in a last minute scheduling move that puts it on the same night as a rival immigration debate programme on Channel 5.

Benefits Britain: The Debate will now be broadcast at 9pm on Monday 17 February, a week later than originally scheduled – and already billed in Radio Times and other TV listings weeklies.

It will be broadcast immediately after a 30-minute follow-up documentary, Benefits Street: The Last Word, being made by Love Productions, the producer of the controversial documentary series.

The late, late scheduling switch – going against billing by changing programme transmission times after the TV listings weeklies have gone to press is generally frowned upon – comes after Channel 5 this week announced a follow up to Monday's successful The Big Benefits Row: Live.

The Big British Immigration Row: Live is also being made by ITN Productions and is due to be broadcast over two hours from 8pm on Monday 17 February.

American Movie is pretty much the best film ever

Yes. In addition to everything else it is, it's also one of the most memorable accounts I've seen of what happens when a person near death starts to give up the fight.

"'There's something to live for. Jesus told me so.'"

"But you have to believe what you're saying, Bill."

"Well I don't."

is this the best thread to talk about channel 4's Child Genius series? this is a very enjoyable show imo, I get a kind of cognitive dissonance from the fact that the kids are all really endearing, but seem like they could grow up to be truly insufferable adults? I don't think it's just that I cut kids more slack, I hate most children I encounter

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44136000/jpg/_44136703_confclips_hague203.jpg

(although Hague was already insufferable at 16)

16 year old Hague addressing the Tory party conference is the kind of future I fear for some of these kids, I think part of the reason the show is compelling is that with some of the kids you feel their parents are doing their level best to turn them into arseholes and as well as rooting for them to pass the tests you are also rooting for them to not end up as jerks- you can see the risks, but there's still hope for them!

series 1 was good.

favourite bits of series 2 so far - the tiny white suit. the juicer. the 'trust me, i'm a doctor' t-shirt. and the 'what values are important to you?' question asked by the kid whose parents thought it might be an idea to buy him self-help books meant for teenagers to help him make friends.

the kids are a mix. some of them seem sorted, some seem like they are suffering from pushy parents. series one had some right tiny terrors who seemed overly demanding, looked down on their parents. haven't seen that this series (yet).

the show is also pernicious/ignoble in some ways I guess, inviting you to sneer at other people's parenting techniques, insinuating that all the pressure may not be good for the kids whilst filming them and putting then on national tv at the same time. I do enjoy watching it though

in terms of 'favourite bits' and also 'things that are more endearing coming from an 11 yr old girl than a 41 yr old commenting on guardian article'- I loved the red-haired lass boasting about how little she knows about pop music, 'I know nothing about Kylie whatever-her-name-is', this great combination of affected pretending not to know her surname and also unaffected demonstrating that she really is out of the loop, like most 11 yr olds would not choose Kylie Minogue as stand in for modern pop I don't think?

shorthand, not stand in

don't mean to sound patronising, god knows that when I was a pretentious 19th century novel reading adolescent the last thing I would have wanted was adults fining me 'endearing'

i don't like the competitive aspect of it tbh but a lot of the kids had entered themselves.

last week seemed a bit imbalanced if they were giving one point for each card remembered and one point for each logic question - the former seems much easier that the latter (given that the latter qs were quite long and time was limited)

tube map task seemed impossible.