Relax with Dax

I’m a documentary nut. If you look at the documentary review category on this site, you’ll see a stack of reviews. Those are just the ones I reviewed, I’ve seen many more. So you can imagine the Encounters Documentary festival is something I look forward to each year. This year I was asked to preview [...]

A while backed I reviewed a documentary which impressed me. It was called The World According to Monsanto. It was a documentary about genetic modification of food, a favourite topic of mine (you can read some of my thoughts on the topic here and here). What made this documentary unique was that it did not [...]

When people around me complain about the corruption of our government in South Africa, my response is always the same. I’d rather have our corrupt government than anyone else’s. The citizens of the United States of America and to a slightly lesser extent Europe, are being milked dry and don’t even know it. At least [...]

Imagine you lived somewhere for forty years. Somewhere out in the country where the air is clean and you’re surrounded by open fields and mountains in the distance. You live a simple life, making a living from farming the land, but you’re happy. You’re healthy and your kids are healthy and life is good. It’s [...]

When I went to see End of the Line at Nu Metro in the V&A the other night, I was disappointed but not surprised. I was disappointed to see that there were only about twenty people watching the documentary while half the other movies were completely sold out. I was not surprised though, documentaries are [...]

I can’t remember exactly when I became aware of the problem of bottled water. I do have a post on Relax with Dax (The Scourge of Bottled Water) which was written in April 2006, so probably sometime before then. I personally try not to drink bottled water unless there is no alternative, but many people [...]

I loved this documentary. I had heard about the Yes Men, but it was great to actually see them in action and learn about the various stunts they pulled. Imagine this, the Yes Men pose as a Dow Chemical spokesperson and inform 300m people on BBC news that Dow has decided to clean up the [...]

I’ve never really been that impressed with South African TV, but lately that seems to be changing. I wrote about the TV series MAN which has been airing on Friday nights recently. I thought it was pretty good and I’ve also been impressed with another recent series called Way of the Warrior. The other day [...]

A Sea Change is a gentle documentary, in contrast to some of the documentaries which give you nightmares for months afterwards like Earthlings. This documentary looks at the topic of ocean acidification which is something most people are not aware of. We are aware that the oceans absorb carbon dioxide, in fact scientists have been [...]

While You Were Sleeping have organised another documentary screening at the Labia. This documentary looks at the issue of waste and is called Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home. It’s a simple and endearing documentary with a powerful and scary message. The producer, Andrew Nisker, decides to get his friend’s family to keep all their [...]

I’ve seen many documentaries about climate change in my life and most of them have been quite depressing and leave one feeling a bit hopeless. Nature of Life is the first one I’ve seen which tackles this topic from a positive perspective. Not only that but it looks at the topic from an African perspective [...]

I’ve thought long and hard why it is that we, as human beings, find it so difficult to take decisive action to combat the climate catastrophe we face. The answer is complicated and multi faceted but I think one of the biggest reasons is that the impact of our actions now will only be noticeable [...]

Few things annoy me more than product endorsements by celebrities or ‘models’. Some celebrity actress will tell you that she uses this wrinkle cream to help her look young, when in fact what helps her look young is good genetics and photoshop. The same thing for sport supplements and equipment, some sports star will attribute [...]

This documentary has affected me. I am torn between telling people to watch Earthlings because it’s important for them to know this stuff, and telling people not to watch it because it is genuinely disturbing. I closed my eyes during many scenes in the movies and I wish I had closed them more because I am [...]

While You Were Sleeping has organised a screening of Escape from Suburbia at the Labia. I went to watch the documentary last night. Often one can watch these documentaries online or obtain the DVD to watch at home, but I like to go to these screenings because the discussion afterwards is always interesting. There are often [...]