I admit I didn't listen to the last couple of podcasts (yet), mainly because I think it's harder to engage with "documentaries" one hasn't seen than it is for fiction.
For traditional "documentaries" the message or the story is all. For fiction films -at least the best ones- there's not necessarily any message and even the story can be incidental.

Of course there are exceptions -and I agree with your earlier point that non-fiction movies are becoming better than & replacing what we used to consider "movies" (ie. fiction movies) -better paced & structured and made with more care & attention.

For this reason, I think (what we formerly knew as) documentaries are doing for movies what non-fiction books have done for publishing.. ie. keeping it alive.

Nobody reads fiction anymore. On the whole (disgracefully) it's considered a childish pastime -or for women on holidays. Men don't read fiction. Why is this? ...It's because fiction has been categorised and formulaised and dumbed-down and dumbed-up to near-extinction. Books are written and targeted to specific audiences. Men don't like being targeted -or knowing that someone else has targeted a sector for their particular needs. It makes them (us) rail against it. Again there are always exceptions.

But also, kids and teens and women are easier to corral and to appeal to (I know I'll duck for cover after I hit send), so it's "not worth" trying to appeal to men en masse (from a business sense) because they can't be fathomed and boxed and packaged neatly.

Without being too melodramatic about it, I see the future of film being cartoons, horror, Mama Mia... "and documentaries for dad". It's a sad future.

(Actually I don't believe this _will_ be the case, but already _IS_ how the market is being attempted to be easily divided by the main studios).

I *LIKE* fiction. I *LOVE* fiction. In the same way I see Fiction in books as being the only TRUE type of book, I like documentaries but refuse to look on them as "FILM".

Think you make a lot of valid points StanleyRumm; at the end of the day I was more invigorated by the pics I saw at FullFrame then any 'fiction' / 'staged cinema' movies we've reviewed recently on TFT.