I grew up in the 1970s, a decade that saw a blossoming of American cinema between the end of the studio system and the tyranny of the modern box office-obsessed blockbuster mentality.

Star Wars and ET have a lot to answer for, but of course at the time those movies – along with the bi-annual James Bond adventure and Disney’s increasingly erratic output – were staples of my film diet. I was too young to see classics like The Godfather, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Network and the rest first time around. These were the classics that drew critical acclaim, Oscars and respectable box office.

Even the odd flick that missed its audience in those more innocent times was covered in excellent works of reference like Danny Peary’s Cult Movies books, which offered a detailed appreciation of their many qualities.

In time, as film buffery took hold, I caught up with these films through eagerly sought TV viewings. This was not only a pre-internet and pre-DVD age but

They say a woman’s place is in the home. I am not going to risk the wrath of feminist readers by even remotely agreeing with that hoary old adage. What I will proclaim, though, with unswerving conviction is that the feature documentary belongs strictly on the small screen.

I blame Michael Moore, that smug fat git in the baseball cap, for opening if not floodgates then at least a sizeable sluice for earnest doco filmmakers to practice their prejudices in public. Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 were undeniably strong meat but certainly didn’t suffer when they subsequently enjoyed a primetime slot – and millions more viewers – on the telly.

Moore subsequently blew himself and his ego out with the likes of Sicko and Capitalism: A Love Story but by then the flame was lit for every other Tom, Dick or Harriet documentarist to assail us with grim reality tales from the frontier of life.

verything from global warming (An Inconvenient Truth) to financial meltdown