As a documentary, this is pretty cliched. It feels like a TED Talk with some additional segments and some old time footage strewn throughout. Despite the tired approach, the message is good and I agree with the politics.
Robert Reich has a bunch of short videos about economics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozMpjCSUuWk
Inequality For All basically feels like one of those except it’s 90 minutes long.
Gut reaction: 3/5
This is difficult.
I pretty much love this film. I’ve seen only a small fraction of the films that came out in 2013. If I saw more maybe this would fall lower into the ranks, but as of right now it’s in my top ten.
Gut reaction: 4.5/5
One film I liked less: Stories We Tell
After watching this film, I’m surprised that the critical praise for it is so pronounced. It looks good and the use of archival footage/re-enactment is done well, but the story is just not that compelling. In it Sarah Polley interviews different friends and family members about her late mother. During this process, she starts to ask questions about a longstanding rumor that the man who raised her is not actually her biological father. Overlaid with this is a philosophical discussion of narrative and the discrepancies that exist when we tell stories. My basic problem with the film is that the story at the heart of it is just not very interesting. There are some moving moments and some interesting aspects of the lives of the subjects of the film, but it doesn’t really seem like it warrants a film.
The discussion about the search for truth is poorly done in my opinion. The way Polley gets here is by pointing out discrepancies in the stories people are telling about her mother. The problem is that there are surprisingly few discrepancies in their stories. It almost seems like this was added as an afterthought to make up for the fact that the story itself is not that compelling. It seems to me that if the story was better, it wouldn’t need this. Similarly, a film about narrative inconsistency could be based on stories about any event. All the stories would require is significant difference.
The film doesn’t do a good job of explaining who is talking and what their relationships are to Diane Polley. At the end of the film, there is as sequence where it runs through all the people who talked about her throughout the film. I didn’t know who several of these people were.
I like the interviews with Michael Polley. That guy is interesting. I also like the idea of using him as a narrator. At one point, he reads an email he wrote to his daughter about the film. He too seems suspicious of the theme of truth-telling vs. storytelling.
Gut reaction: 2.5/5
One film I liked more: Capturing the Friedmans
One film I liked less: The Aristocrats
I showed this film to my students in a class on disability and education. It’s good for provoking discussion. That’s why I use it. It’s not an incredible documentary but it’s an important issue and deserves attention. I’ve seen it five times now.
It can be streamed here: http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/8924/Including-Samuel
Banjo is missing!
This is the second film in our completist run of Herzog films. We talked about it a lot last night after we viewed it so I’m not going to recreate that conversation here. If you haven’t caught up with this film, you probably should.
Next up we are going to watch Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht. After that we will hopefully be viewing some additional Herzog films during the Four from Herzog series that is running this fall in Madison, WI.
Gut reaction: 4/5
I’m a gangster; a free man.
I’ve been anticipating this film since I first heard that Werner Herzog and Errol Morris were executive producers on it. It opened at Madison’s Sundance 608 this weekend and I was able to catch the late Saturday show after my daughter was asleep. At this point, I can’t really write much about it. There are fine summaries all over the internet that explain the context and the controversies involved.
I think The Act of Killing is a great film and one that should be watched by many more people than will be able to see it in theaters. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an MPAA rating and it is only showing in 29 theaters in the United States.
Gut reaction: 4.5/5
This is a documentary about so-called tort reform. It uses the famous spilled coffee lawsuit to talk about the politically motivated reforms to the civil court system. It makes a confusing and misunderstood issue accessible.
If you want to be pissed off beyond belief, you should watch this documentary.
I’m excited to see more work from director Susan Saladoff.
Gut reaction: 4/5
One film I liked more: The Thin Blue Line
One film I liked less: Capitalism: A Love Story
Here is another high quality documentary from Frontline. With footage starting in the early nineties, Bill Moyers follows two families from Milwaukee. Lots of great stuff here.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/two-american-families/
Directors used to call him 20 questions.
I watched this short documentary (39 min) while doing my laundry this afternoon. I’ve loved John Cazale since I saw him in Dog Day Afternoon. When I was in high school and shortly after, my friend Chase had a couch and old TV set up in the third car stall of his parents garage. We used to watch movies out there late at night. We would eat Jack’s Pizza and drink Dr. Pepper. Dog Day Afternoon was one of the films we watched together and I remember talking about Cazale’s performance. At the time, I think we probably realized that he had played Fredo, but I don’t remember talking about his incredible career and his death at 42. Years later, I would hear details about his career and his relationship with Meryl Streep, but I didn’t know there was a movie about his life until I heard Jonah Hill talking about him on the WTF? podcast. Luckily, I live in Madison, WI where there is a great video shop where you can rent things like this.
John Cazale was an accomplished theater actor. He appeared in five feature films before his death from lung cancer in 1978. The five films he made were each nominated for Best Picture.
1. The Godfather
2. The Conversation
3. The Godfather: Part II
4. Dog Day Afternoon
5. The Deer Hunter
He died before The Deer Hunter was released. The Conversation is the only film of his that I haven’t seen. According to Francis Ford Coppola (interviewed in this documentary), he wrote the part in that film specifically for Cazale after working with him on The Godfather.
The documentary is really just a bunch of clips from his films and interviews with his friends, co-stars (Pacino, De Niro, Hackman), and actors that were influenced by his performances (Buscemi, Rockwell, Hoffman). It’s interesting because the actors they interview talk specifically about his performances and then they show the clips that they refer to. It’s cool.
I think purses are a good investment. If you ever get into a bind, you can sell them on eBay.
I told them that they might have to go to college now.
These people are monsters. The film feels like agitprop. It makes me want to get a group of people together with pitchforks and head to Orlando.
The idea of this rich asshole crying during the Miss America pageant drives me nuts.
The sales staff at Westgate are basically the same thing as police officers and firefighters. They save lives.
The real estate agent mispronouncing Versailles made me cringe. I don’t know what that says about me.
Gut reaction: 2.5/5
One film I liked more: Arthur (1981)
One film I liked less: Marie Antoinette (2006)
Viewing Diary 