Gates Of Heaven

There's no trailer for this on youtube, so I'll just use an excerpt from the film. The movie is about pet cemeteries but it also discusses morality, religion, and the afterlife.

I found this list of the 25 best documentaries of the last 50 years and since I've seen a fourth of them already I decided it could be a good idea to make my way through them. This one was on that list.

Honestly, I don't think this was that great. It's not that it needed it to be super exciting or have a bunch of sex crimes, mysteries, or suspense, but the things that make a documentary, to me, are the premise, how they execute that premise, the characters they choose to follow, the storylines they create, and how it's all cut together to evoke an emotional response. Now, I was paying attention to this almost the whole way through, and I was a bit confused in some parts. It was a quiet kind of thing, kind of slow at times, with no music at all and just sort of short interviews with various people involved with the story. It was fine, but I don't think I would ever put it in a list with best docs ever. Ebert disagrees, but he liked I Paul Blart. I guess I'm supposed to take everything into consideration with this one? How hard it was for Errol Morris to get it made, the fact that he went into this small town and profiled these random people, the whole Werner Herzog eating his show situation? I don't know. Maybe since I'm not a pet owner and religious, I just don't get it.

The thing with this is that to me, getting a pet is like forcing a child upon yourself that you know is going to die before you do. I don't want to go through that pain. Besides not being a pet person, that's one reason why I don't think pets are for me. It's like I'm setting myself up for terrible sadness. Millions and millions of people disagree with me, of course. And my view is probably a super cynical one. But I'm a cynic, so that makes sense. As one of the old ladies said "you miss your pets just like you miss your family." That doesn't appeal to me...except for my grandmother's dog Caesar. The best dog ever. And then they went and buried a little white dog named Caesar in the movie!

I still haven't decided if I believe in Heaven, but if there is one, the kind they show in the movies, are there pets and animals in Heaven? I find it would be quite complicated to have dead elephants, lions, and pet dogs mingling with humans inside the pearly gates. And if not, then what do they do? Separate it by class of animal. If so, what about those situations where different animals are friends. Or something like Catdog.

Food, Inc.

I remember Fast Food Nation was the freshman book we were all supposed to read as incoming college students at Ball State. We were supposed to read it and then we'd all have a big discussion about it the first week of school...or something. I never finished it and I didn't go to the discussion. I think I got through the chapter about the history of McDonald's or some other fast food joint. I wonder if the rest of it unfolded similar to the way this movie did.

The opening was pretty cool. It reminded me of the opening of Thank You For Smoking, sort of. The whole movie was very sharp and clean. I liked it. The opening voice over didn't feel so much like a VO, but more like an interview sound bite. I liked that. Use what you have and build your story with it instead of making up a script in post...although they of course could have done too. They could have shot Eric Schlosser's stuff last and used his interview to say the stuff that wasn't said by other people. Regardless, I like how they tricked me into thinking it was done the way it looks like it was done.

I found it interesting that they used some of the same sources or shots as King Corn or vice versa. Very strange. There was one shot that I swear was exactly the same. Maybe it was stock footage, but in King Corn, it really didn't look like it.

I enjoyed the graphics. I thought that really added a little something. And I thought the quiet b-roll of the grocery stores really worked with the tone of the doc. I could have gone without some of the music that went on for far too long in places where they could instead had silence, but that didn't happen too often.

Being a meat eater, I don't know if I'm allowed to be appalled at how they treat the animals at these plants and slaughterhouses. Really though, there seems like there should be a line that shouldn't be crossed. Like if you hunt for food, if you shoot the animal and it doesn't die, you're meant to "put it out of its misery." Making the animal suffer is over the top. I guess that's sort of the idea behind this. It's hard to get into a debate with someone about it when their ultimate argument would just be, "Well, you are going to eat this."

After watching that, though, there seems like there's really no excuse to not eat better. When somebody gives you picture and video proof and evidence that how you're eating is bad, unhealthy, and not good for the world, not trying to make a change to help improve yourself and the world seems silly. Especially if you have the few extra bucks to do so. One of the tags at the end recommended that "you" only eat food in season. That's going to be a tough one for me I think, but it can't hurt at all to give it a try.

March Of The Penguins

That was seriously a brutal film to watch. From the beginning of the movie, they were attempting to personify these animals because thinking of them as people with people feelings allows us humans to sympathize with them a lot easier, so it's easy for me to say this. I know it's nature and evrything, but I was less uplifted by the beautiful natural world of the antarctic and more horrified by all the death, killing, and backstabbing going on. Some of those chicks were stealing babies, sea lions and large birds were circle of life-ing all over the place and the mothers leave to find food, come back home with a throat-full, and one of the idiot dads is like "Sorry, I kilt ares!" as she looks over at the penguin icicle that used to be her baby. All unfun stuff. Everybody knows baby animals are the cutest kind of animals, and I've seen one dead baby animal too many. All in this one movie.

And that sex scene? How weird. It was like watching a porno, except they sort of wanted us to like it and think it was sensual and sweet. Like they were super connected on this deep emotional level. Like I was watching Zak and Miri Make A Porno. That's how it came off to me. But these are animals people. Doesn't that convey bestiality in some way? Probably not but whatever.

When it comes to production, that was a hard shoot. It deserves the Oscar for the shoot alone. It was beautifully shot and I can't imagine doing something like this myself. Th foley was perfect and really added to the enjoyment of the film. That's an underrated skill on nature docs like these. People always underestimate sound. It, like editing, is something you take for granted when it's there, but notice right away when it's done badly.

On another note, I find it strange that God does so much voice over work when he has such a thick, at times distracting, Mississippi accent. It's super there all the time.