The Blogging A to Z Challenge is over for 2018! I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to once again participate and the fact that it gave be both the motivation and an excuse to watch a lot of documentary films. I also feel that it was a chance to try new things in writing blog posts, and frankly I’m really proud of many of the reviews I wrote.
But before I toot my own horn, it’s also important to recognize that the best part of the A to Z Challenge is the chance to visit other peoples’ blogs, read what they wrote, and leave some comments. I’ve read terrific work by many different writers and had good discussions with some of them.
Here are some A-to-Z’s I enjoyed reading this April:
- Alexandra Heep shows us postcards from around the world
- Melanie Crouse recommends a podcast for every letter of the alphabet
- Molly Totoro visits the greatest city in the world, Boston!
- Sharon E. Cathcart shares 26 great songs by David Bowie
- If I Had a Time Machine explores books about World War II
- Sandra makes entries in her “Dear Diary,” a college romance
- Anne M. Bray creates art from the back of trucks
- Clarissa Gosling elucidates us about Dutch words
- Colin D. Smith writes 100 word flash fiction stories based on reader comments
- Zombie Flamingoes photographs The A to Z of Wabi-Sabi
- Ipsita Banerjee versifies in many different forms of poetry
I plan to check in periodically with the Blogging A to Z masterlist and read back on some of the other A to Z’s I missed. If you’d like me to read yours, leave a link in the comments.
So my own theme was to watch and review documentary films, most of which were ones I’d been meaning to watch for some time, with a few I discovered to fill in some letters of the alphabet. Many of them were fantastic, while some were not so good, but there were no true stinkers. I had no theme of what type of documentary I would watch and they vary from history to current events, arts to science, music to sports. Despite the lack of trying some themes did pop up among the films. I think all the movies touched upon one or more of these themes:
- Social justice, people and individuals fighting against discrimination and for equality
- Art and the artist, what is lost and found in the creation of art
- The human experience. Even the science and nature movies had a strong human element
Here’s the complete list of my posts for the 2018 Blogging A to Z Challenge:
A: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
B: The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
C: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
D: Decoding Desire
E: Exit Through The Gift Shop
F: Finding Vivian Maier
G: Goldman Sachs: The Bank That Rules the World
H: Hieronymous Bosch: Touched By the Devil
I: I Am Not Your Negro
J: Jane
K: Koch
L: Life Itself
M: Miss Sharon Jones!
N: No-No: A Dockumentary
O: Oklahoma City
P: Paris is Burning
Q: Quill
R: The Rape of Europa
S: She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry
T: Tower
U: Unrest
V: Vernon, Florida
W: What Happened, Miss Simone?
X: XXXY
Y: Yellowstone: The World’s First National Park
#: 13th
Z: Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait
Bonus Post: Favorite Documentaries
Bonus Post: What to Watch Next
Panorama of the Mountains 