Time Of Fear

-This was a standard PBS documentary. Not mind blowing, but simply meant to just educate you on a subject. I was interested to watch this one because I watched one of those It Gets Better videos with George Takei, looked up his history, and his Wikipedia page mentioned that he was in a Japanese Interment camp….which is insane to think about. Really, what was FDR thinking?!

-This was such a fucked up moment in American history. The government took a bunch of people from the same country, most whom were now citizens, took them away from their homes, had them burn their family pictures, letters, priceless mementos, and got them all together and put them in a camp. That's incredible. That's an incredible scar on our nation's history here. And it's really a shame because WWII is known as being one of the "noble wars" (if that makes sense and is not a complete oxymoron), but with this huge scar on it, it's really tarnished forever. It sort of brings to mind the recent Presidential election which was happy and momentous, but then you think about how Prop 8 passed and that will forever tarnish a great night in American history.

-I tell you what, though, it's interesting to watch this and see how conservative and paranoid the media, press and government were. Implying that all the Japanese in America should go back to Japan and never come back, implying that every Japanese person, citizen or not, was probably working undercover against the United Staes as some kind of sleeper agent. And then to NOW see how times have changed with conservatives constantly complaining that the media is too liberal. Liberal media this and liberal media that. I guess something like this would be what they'd have in mind? A close comparison you can draw to this situation is with the current war and the way this country treats and view Muslims as if they're automatic enemies of the state. To imagine the kind of government that would then take all those people, round them up, put them in a camp (basically for safe keeping), only to be backed up by all the media outlets in the country with little to no protesting on the subject until way later…that is just something I can't even fathom. Of course there's still Fox News and other ridiculous outlets that perpetuate the same hate and fear that I saw in this film. But at least there are now checks and balance when it comes to the media. To imagine prejudice like this just being backed up. At the risk of sounding completely melodramatic, it really makes me kind of sick yo my stomach.

-"I remember our parents telling us we had to do well in school because we would have to try twice as hard to get jobs and things." Well that's a funny perspective of it. And it's ver interesting, once they got to the camps, the wages for teachers inside he camps was almost double what they would make in the public schools. So the camp was staking all the good teachers, basically. And it's incredible that the Arkansas residents actually resented the Japanese in the internment camp because they're provided food, or they're getting hospital stays, or they can go to school. But they're in a camp!! There is no comparison. Absolutely none.

-When it comes to the filmmaking, it was pretty standard PBS kind of stuff. Voice over and archive footage. I tell you what, though, it's pretty tricky to cut a bunch of archive footage together as a narrative. It's like not being around during filming, and going into something completely blind without knowing what it's about or anything that was filmed. That basically is what it is.

-"Americanism is not a matter of blood and color. Americanism has always been a matter of mind and heart." Says the guy that put them in the camps in the first place; that's FDR.

Life and Debt

-This made me want to never visit Jamaica or any third world country that depends on tourism. Which I guess doesn't help. It would hep more to give them that money. But jeez, the guilt. It's like double edged guilt. I feel like the subtext of voice over narrating the Americans on vacation is like "you're an elitist privileged douche who takes what they have for granted." But it really just makes me sad seeing the employees put on their happy faces and talk to the vacationers like they're idiots who've never been on vacation. I tell you what though, if I had to hear just one more Bob Marley song over that footage, I was going to cut a bitch.

-On a similar note, I feel like I should never buy a banana again! The Honduran workers were forced by gun to go back to work during their strike. Buying Chiquita bananas seems like a carpool lane to Hell. But not buying them and getting others to not buy them has a chances of tanking a job that many people want and many people don't even have in these third world countries. It does most definitely help their economy. What a pickle.

-The way this was cut when it first started, it seemed like it was a feature and not a documentary. The shots used. And the look of it is interesting. It was clearly shot in the same time as Sound and Fury. This feels like a doc that could really only come out of the 90s. A definite product of that decade of documentary filmmaking. The way it was cut, the Day-O part in black and white and slo-mo reminded me of watching the Up series change it's doc style before my very eyes as we catch up with, not just the children, but the filmmaking crew every 7 years. Or similar to seeing Grey Gardens take shape as narrative docs just started to rise in popularity and prevalence in the United States.

-The parts of the doc that were just living just seemed like living. It was interesting to see how that came off. It seems like something that's hard to do. To set a tone like that with the b-roll scenes as if there was absolutely no camera, no releases signed, no boom mic, etc.

-Overall, I wish this were a little more...cohesive and understandable. I still don't really know what the IMF is or how it operates or why. They started out sort of introducing it, but them dropped it midway. I guess the point of this wasn't exactly to spell that out, but they could have spelled that out. What is the IMF and why do they hate Jamaica. After watching, I still don't get what the beef is. Where's the beef?

-This movie really made us come off as villains..which I supposed we are. Just ask North Korea. I mean, we don't pay taxes on the underwear we make them put together in Kingston Free Zone. We have one of the highest proportion of the IMF votes. We don't buy their bananas. We don't pay them right for their work when we outsource everything. We generally don't help them out. And no unions. But I guess England is their mother. Maybe we expect them to worry more about them.

Harlan County USA

Watched Harlan County USA, which I'd say was very apropos since the Chilean miners where just rescued. I watched this, it was hard to see how people can be okay with making their living with this kind of work. Hunched over, dirty faced, dark, sweaty work. Someone has to do it, of course, but it just seems like human doing work like this shouldn't be legal. You're wet and you come out into cold air. You breathe that terrible air down there all day. You're bent over so you mess up your back. What a way to make a living. I had to keep reminding myself that this was made 25 years ago, but, still, the world still isn't perfect. I saw Last Train Home.

What I took away from this is...lets get this going with Wal-mart. After watching A State Of Mind, which brought to mind 1984 and the proles refusing to rise up because they just didn't know that they should, this too recalled 1984. But here the metaphorical proles are, rising up. So lets get this going for Wal-mart.

It's interesting though. This has the same organization, really, that Red with Blue had. But this is excusable because it was in their early days of documentaries. Look at Grey Gardens. Hardly any organization with that. It's like a stream of consciousness doc. So we've evolved from there to the filmmaking we have now. But...who's to say we can't have the same kind of filmmaking now? Well, to make a 70s movie now, it wouldn't be good.

It's insane to think that some of these old men coal miners have been through two different strikes. The Bloody Harlan strike in the 30s and now, this one 50 years later. That's a depressing though. Also because that means that some of them were very very young men working in those coal mines.

It's too bad, it really is just too bad that people had to die to make this contract happen. Of course everyone's always hoping it wouldn't come to that. Who even does that? Uses weapons against picketers. Someone killed a man. What kind of person does it take to do that? The contract wasn't exactly what they wanted, but it took a person to die to get what they wanted. Sort of. What a shame. Makes it sort of anti-climactic.

This is movie was also yet another example of if they tried to do this now, they'd sensationalize it too much. Even as a doc. There's a great description of this in a viewer review on IMDb. It says, "Exemplary on how a filmmaker can involve herself, be in everybody's face, get every little thing on camera, but be testifying instead of exploiting." And that's very true. She's joining in and fighting for the cause. It was like watching a fellow picketer capture the action while in the middle of the action. I don't know how the camera was allowed such access. They were able to take their camera into the jail cells. They were able to take their camera to the picket line. They were able to take their camera into the court room. That's a lot of access. Shasky would love this doc. And I bet he does. It's about the characters. It stays with the characters, leaves the camera on the characters, and lets them make the story.

My Flesh And Blood

That was a drag to get through. I seriously just sorta felt like shit after watching it.. There were 13 special needs/mentally handicapped/physically handicapped kids in this movie. A family of them. That was like an hour long super depressing documentary times 13. It was difficult for me to conceptualize what it takes in a person to even take to take all of these kids. It was interesting that her mother implied that she adopted all the kids she did to fill the loneliness. That's very sad.

Adoption is so tricky. It was really interesting how they cut from one of the kids calling his birth mother "mom" and then calling the woman who adopted him "mom." And when his birth mother got married and he sat in the second row because they're "second row people"...so sad. And how does Susan feel about this. It has to feel a little crappy.

As for the overall documentary, at times, this seemed very much like a reality special. The little girl said "leave me alone" to the camera crew when she was crying in her bed. The angry kid, Joe (who I learned on IMDb was bipolar, and had ADHA, and hyperactivity, on top of his cystic fibrosis) yelled "Stop fucking filming me right now" and "I'm gonna break your camera." And they didn't leave right away. That didn't seem right. But that's how you get the good stuff I guess?

No End In Sight

Wow. Some heavy stuff. I feel so much smarter now. That's why I got into this. To learn things I didn't know before. I feel like getting into a debate with someone about the goings on of this war. I still find it crazy that I've been raised during war time. And it's so frustrating that these things are happening that no common human civilian can even do anything about. We're just stuck. They're just stuck. It sucks.

This one utilized a lot of documentary techniques. Voice overs, text, interviewer speaking on camera to the interviewees, separated sections. There's not much score really, which I think really works. It's used in a meaningful way when used. It all worked together, but at some times, each technique had its weakness. The titles sometimes were unnecessary at times when they footage could have spoken for itself. But also, I like that they weren't afraid to jump cut the interviews. Sometimes you just gotta jump cut.

Even after watching all of this, I still fail to understand how it's possible for a country to come into another country, mess it up, kill their dictator as if he's their dictator, and then go on to rule it like they have any any sort of jurisdiction within that country

This documentary watching project that I'm doing should be renamed "No room to complain" project. Cause everything I watch that explores the hardships of different countries and cultures other than my own, just gives me another reason that, by comparison, I have no reason to complain. Sad to think that this movie was made 3 years ago, but we're still in this situation today. It's insane. It's insane too that Obama inherited this problem.

I'd like to say more about this one, but it was pretty much just as depressing and hopeless seeming as I expected.

The Thin Blue Line

A man who was sentenced to die for a crime he most likely didn't commit.

I searched all over and couldn't find a trailer for this one.

Very interesting stuff. Building the case as you build the movie. It's kind of like Capturing the Friedmens that way. You're not entirely sure what to believe. You can see a guy in orange and one not in orange, but you still feel like that can't be the whole story. That can't be the end. Also, even though as you watch you begin to form your own story as to what happened, I still felt, that the filmmakers did an okay job showing both sides. Which is a weird thing to do when you're basically trying to argue for this dude's innocence.

The tone of this was really kind of cool. It was kind of dark and kind of quiet. It felt like a doc version of Blade Runner or the original Terminator. They used these reenactments of the scene of the crime from different angles and different Roshomon-esque ways of how it could have gone down. But it kept from being like a trutv/Court tv sort of documentary with how they used and reused the same scenes. I think it worked. As did other people. This is a very popular, pretty famous documentary.

Funnily enough, I feel like if you were to make this movie now, they'd overthink everything. You'd try to make it too stylistic and polished, but the simplicity of this is what made the tone of it work. Something like the reveal of the make and model of car would have been done with too many effects. So, in that way, the dated look of the whole thing really worked for it.

Something that could have helped this, and yes I know, this is a very famously "good" doc, but something that could have helped it would have been lower thirds. There were so many people talking back and forth, throwing names around. I know this wasn't made before the whole idea of compositing names over video on a documentary. I've been watching The Up Series. I know around what time they started doing that. So It could have definitely be strengthened in that way. Regardless, though, the storytelling was there, so it was okay.

One more thing I wish, where I think it would have a bigger impact, is if you couldn't tell who was already in prison. There are very few designers who would jump at making a bright orange collared shirt or jumper. So you know some of the end, which sucked, but was also sort of gratifying because it was kind of a relief to know that everything wasn't a disaster.

Also, the accents where just hilarious.

Confessions of a Superhero

I think it tried to do a little too much. I was trying to show us too much and get through all of these characters. They went home to talk to Wonder Woman's parents and talked to them about her childhood and how she got to LA. I don't know if all of that completely jelled. I don't really know what else they could do. But eventually it just sort of started dragging on and on.

You know, it did bring humanism to these people I see all the time. But I still feel like when I drive past these people...I don't know if it has changed my opinion on them. It still makes me sad to think people have to do that for a living. They're stuck in this job and it's not even that enjoyable really.

I wouldn't advise aspiring actors to watch this. In that respect, it was super depressing. It makes you think of how many people are in LA trying to act and get into movies. A very small percentage of people in Hollywood even have the talent to do what they're trying to do. On the other hand, it's not always talent that gets the grease...if that's what they say.

And on the other hand again, this thing got really cringeworthy. Superman lying about being Sandy Dennis's son. Batman lying about being a martial arts expert. Wonderwoman doing that really embarrassing audition scene on camera (This is for the...American Idol...DVD...boardgame.). The Hulk is exhomeless. It's really kind of cringeworthy, the whole thing.

On the upside of all of this, it's nice to see that most of these people have significant others though. It's nice to see that everybody can find someone for them.

Crazy Love

I strongly recommend not watching the entire trailer because I hate when trailers give too much away. Maybe stop half way.

Something I found interesting about this was that they interviewed both sides. They got both perspectives on what happened. This obviously clinically insane person, and the victim that he preyed upon. This man had to basically sit and defend himself for all of his horrible actions that were indefensible.

I thought this was going to be a slow one to watch. The actions took place mostly in the 50s and there's not much archive footage from that time, so you have to rely on pictures and interviews and. But fortunately, that exposition went mostly pretty quickly. When they got into the story, it started to take off. But even so, at the halfway mark, I couldn't even imagine it was going to go where it did.

It's always fun to get to the end of a movie and for the end of the movie to completely skew what you were watching at the beginning. They really disguised that well, I think. You have to go back and see how people answered certain questions and in what way they retold the past. It wasn't like a movie like Dear Zachary where the story is sort of building and changing as you watch. The whole story is over and done by the time they got into the production of the doc.

Eventually, to me, without giving anything away, this thing just ends up being a sad story of someone settling for something they think they deserve. Entertaining to watch though.

Born Into Brothels

This was the kind of movie where it's so easy to take for granted the difficulty in telling a story like this. This women spent 2 years on and off living in the red light district of Calcutta, getting to know and forming a deep relationship and emotional connection with these children. It's looks like they just filmed that and put it up on the screen. But it was, of course, more than that. This one was sort of a variation of the observational documentary, but not quite. It's similar in that it's mostly just watching these kids do their thing, but it also has elements of other ways storytelling. Some voice over, some stills, some "pop" music.

What I found interesting was that the fear in making something like this is to not exploit the kids of their situation. You want to call attention to the problem and the issue of the film, but without using the kids to advance that. That's a thin line sometimes. So, of course Zana Auntie couldn't just sit there and observe these kids and stick a video camera in their face. She had to take action and try to better their lives. And that's where the story came from.

In that was, it was as though the filmmaker has to be in it. If she was going to help them, she had to be an active part of the story as well. We had to see the relationship she was forming with these kids. She had to be helping them. But you still get the sense that she IS the filmmaker, even though you know she's not holding the camera.

This movie is much more uplifting than what I expected. I think I went into it thinking that the kids were the sex workers. That's why I've avoided it so long. This is only partially true. Of course they do sort of show some child and teenage sex workers, it's all about the children OF the adult sex workers and them attempting to overcome this fate. Doesn't have a Hollywood ending by any means (it's real life after all) but not a complete and utter downer either.

Last Train Home

What I find most strange about this is that the main issue of this movie is not something that's even crossed my mind in the past. Ever. I knew about China's over-population and that there are over a billion people there. I knew that there were tons of migrant workers making shoes and clothes and toys to later be stamped with the label "Made In China,"and I knew there's a holiday that they all celebrate, but I never even thought to think of the fact that these millions of people all might want to go home to celebrate this holiday with their families. All at the same time. Even the idea of that seems like an impossibility. Even when we see it happen on camera, it's still difficult to grasp what you're seeing.

This was a super heavy and depressing sort of observational documentary. The was very rare interaction with the camera or the people behind it. Even when the family was speaking aloud it seemed as if they spoke to themselves like that all the time, not the were responding to a question the filmmaker had just asked them. There were no talking heads, no on camera interviews, in the credits, it was obvious that they were working with just a skeleton crew, which really worked out since almost every scene is packed with people from frame to frame. I feel like I never get to complain about LA's crowded malls or bumper to bumper 405 traffic ever again.

Also in the movie, they touched upon the dynamics of family. The migrant working couple in the movie left their son and daughter home with the grandmother as they went off to the industrial city to make money for the family (as they'd been for 13 years) so their kids can have better. This turns into resentment as the now teenage daughter grows up feeling that her parents abandoned her and had no interests in raising her or her brother. She doesn't like her parents, has no emotional ties to them, defies and disrespects her father like I've seen no child do before in a documentary and eventually decides to make her own life for herself. It's a depressing version of cosmic irony because where she feels her parents didn't love her enough to stay home, and for this reason she quits school and works in a factory herself, the truth is that her parents loved her so much, they'd do this terrible job 24/7 almost every day of the year to make sure her life didn't turn out the way there's is.

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.

Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room

I don't know if I like the opening being like a reenactment of the guy killing himself. I haven't decided what I feel about reenactment type stuff in documentaries. I think I don't feel good about it. It was used kind of weird here.

This kind of thing is interesting. It was kind of the situation where your mother or teacher catches you doing something. And you don't know what to do, but you still don't want to admit that you're embarrassed that you got caught. That's what Jeff Skilling was like during his indictment. Awkward.

This one seemed to break a lot of my "I don't really care for that in a documentary" rules. They used a ton of pop music, they had a voice over throughout the whole thing, they had the interviewer speak on camera, etc, but it worked here. It kept up with itself and kept me engaged. It was a tight, compelling, well told story. Very confusing at times, but good nonetheless.

It is unfortunate that no one got properly blamed for something like this. Jeff Skilling is responsible for thousands and thousands of families losing their futures and all he gets is 24 years? While some guy selling crack cocaine on the corner will get life in prison? That's damn ridiculous. And then Ken Lay basically got the easy way out.That's kind of a messed up thing to say, but really, not paying for your consequences is just the easy way out. It is interesting, though, that this was made before Lay and Skilling went to jail. I guess they wanted to pump this thing out as soon as possible. That makes sense.

I can't even wrap my head around wanting to have this type of control and power in a business. To be that type of person, that type of money hungry person where you don't mind ruining lives to get a bigger bank statement...I don't get that. I can't understand it.

Another frustration to pick at: Why don't people answer how they're supposed to answer?! Answer with the question in your answer! Otherwise, the interviewer is going to be in the doc

Capturing The Friedmans

It sounds stupid to say that was awesome, but it was just really well done. I think that was one of the best ones so far. Just like another doc on the list Grey Gardens, this story was discovered while the filmmaker was attempting to make a different documentary-one about clowns in NYC. He stumbled upon this story instead.

Going over it more and more in my head, I think we were presented a pretty biased view of what happened. Originally, as I watched, I was thinking they were giving both sides. But the filmmakers knowingly presented one argument, and then immediately discounted it with one of the boys saying the complete opposite. I supposed it still allows the views to ultimately draw their own conclusions though.

One thing I like is the use of music. There's not much throughout the whole thing. It's just the natural noise of the room. It really depends on what kind of doc you're doing, but it most definitely creates a tone for the movie. I liked it. This doc really just knew what it was. It was sure of itself and its identity and the tone they wanted to capture. And it worked. It was very well done. A doc that definitely knows what it is and with multiple personality disorder, if that makes any sense. This is the ultimate he said she said. This family was just ripped apart by this horrific thing and they just don't remember it the same at all. The filmmakers have more of the whole story, but they don't let everyone else in on the whole story. It's interesting.

It's interesting though. This doesn't really seem like anything elaine wants to even talk about. And letting news like this out when it concerns someone who entertains children for a living can ruin someone's career. What the hell is he doing being interviewed in this documentary?! I really really wonder why and how they got them to reveal so much about their lives.

The method of using the interviews to slowly reveal and unravel the story is very interesting. It was done very sharply here. You use present tense to not give away the ending and not reveal the truth or what ultimately happens. As I got more and more into the story and the web of lies and half truths and fabricated truths were revealed, it really created this blanket of uncertainty. You don't know what's real, who to believe, and ultimately, when the thing was over, I still didn't know what I felt was the truth. Whose truth is the real truth? The authorities were just so sure that this happened. Even if they figured out it didn't and were sure, they' find a way to make it true. If I know anything, it's the kids are stupid. And kids will admit to anything that you tell them to be true. But on top of that, regardless of whether or not Arnold didn't touch this particular group of kids, he still had incestuous and jailbait nudie pic magazines. I mean, that's pretty horrific and terrible on its own. That alone makes him a pretty yucky guy. To then put focus on this other thing, this other particular instance where he possibly may not be guilty seems like small potatoes.

Grey Gardens

This was sort of painful to watch. Depressing. I think I was supposed to find it kind of funny (which it was at times) and fun to watch these two eccentric women bicker with each other, but it was just more just sad watching this middle aged woman cling to her mother who she really couldn't leave. With no money and no real skill to speak of to turn into money to pay someone to care for her mother...there's really no leaving. It was interesting how much Edie and her mother argued and seemed to get on each others nerves, her mother just  seemed to treat her rotten...or more like a mother treats a daughter, and Edie just takes it. And she keeps coming back for more.

This movie was also scary for the fact that it doesn't seem like it took too much to turn their house into a raccoon infested shithole. They just didn't care for it. They didn't even seem to use every room. They used the bedroom and the den dining kind of area sometimes, but they were in a huge East Hamptons house. What'd they do with all that space?

While listening to Edie speak, I did wonder how much was BS and how much she actually believed to be true. All her proposals. Her dancing skills. Im going to go ahead and go out on a limb here, but I'm thinking that more than half of it is probably embellished a bit. But it was interesting that the filmmakers were sort of part of the story because Edie and her mother needed the companions, so unlike regular docs, they spoke to the filmmakers as if they were people, not as if "pretend like the camera isn't' there." They were there. It was company they don't' usually have, so why wouldn't they speak to them? They would.

I guess now the next step is to watch the HBO movie based on this doc that Drew Barrymore won an Emmy for.

And to sum up, in the words of Little Edie Beale on the subject of her mother "She's a lot of fun. I hope she doesn't die."

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.

King Corn

I've been meaning to watch this for a while now ever since I saw the trailer...3 years ago.

This was a long piece highlighting the prevalence of corn in our diets. From the corn fed to the cattle, to the corn used in sweeteners, to the corn you drink. It's pretty hard to avoid the dangerous and unhealthy kind of corn from day to day. Two guys movie to Iowa and decide to plant an acre of corn to see how it really is, up close.

This is the kind of doc that opens with an introduction of two people, when you know they're not the focus of the whole thing, so that was kind of weird. The focus is really on corn and the corn industry as a whole. I think it was a very strange opening to the doc, music wise, editing wise, the low camera angle the took when they were late for their meeting. It was a strange set up to get into the action and the point of the film. I feel like we came in the middle of the action. They had an idea and then dropped us in the middle of it without much setup.

I feel like the relying on voice over is so easy. Like you can not worry about having to ask all the right questions while you're there. You can follow up later and plug in the statistics and facts to fill everyone in. I don't know why it draws my attention. It's a completely valid way to make a documentary and it's done quite a lot. It just seems to break the action up sometimes. Like maybe it could be show don't tell. The whole time, I found myself trying to figure out how they could have done particular things on camera instead of in voice over. I guess I came from the features school of thought where a voice over means lazy. Bt even that's not always true when it's stylistic. Heathers has a voice over. Kiss Kiss Bag Bang has voice over. Both awesome movies.

Sad to learn that corn is fed to cattle and it slowly kills them. It's cheaper because farms grow so much of it but, unlike grass, which they used to eat, corn makes them heavier/fatter but kills them. Confine them, don't let them move, and feed them corn. Yikes. And this corn make sthe cow more fatty, which makes the beef more fatty. Which meakes you ingest more fat.

I found it surprising that the guys continued to eat MCDonalds and other junk, corn-fed, terrible for you, high fructose containing, crap food. You'd think they'd at least make an attempt to cut that out of their diets a bit. Especially since they talked to Fray the cabbie and learned about his family that's been affected so heavily by diabetes. Made me feel better about the fact that I stopped drinking pop in high school.

Catfish

I saw an advance screening of Catfish to fulfill today's documentary requirement.

I really thought it was well done. It was a pretty interesting look at how far we've come, filmmaking wise. I think most of it was done of these little handheld things and a digital camera. And it looked decent. The story built itself. That was lucky. And what a story it was.

I don't think I can talk about the actual movie. One thing I will say is that it's interesting take on or societies relationship with the internet in this facebook happy-days. I signed some thing before I went in that, I'm going to be honest, I didn't really read that throughly. Long story short, I'd recommend it.

Deliver Us From Evil

I watched this one on the recommendation of Niousha after I complained at work about all the downer documentaries I was watching. This one was even worse! It's an example of, like Dear Zachary, two hours of something that completely wrecks you, but then they try to do what they can to not let the ending be too depressing. It didn't work though. Marggy was watching with me this time, though, so it felt like less of a punishment to get through this one.

Religion is a super touchy issue. I'm not really one for organized religion in general and it was interesting to go into this with that perspective. Marggy and I argued about what it means to continue to be a part of an institution with such corruption within itself. To, as a person, choose this group. It's a tricky situation, I guess. What part of you can say I can't be a part of that because of what is happening within the church and what part is able to say that this is just happening as a small percentage of isolated events from a small percentage of the priests? We didn't really come to any conclusion on that, but it's just interesting to think about. The idea of being a part of a religion like that is totally foreign to me, so I don't know if I would even have the necessary tools to even begin to come to a conclusion.

One thing that surprised me about the doc first off was that the documentaries filmmakers let that dude just roam around that park as he talked about the fact that he was not attracted to adults, but rather children in bathing suits, in underwear, etc. I don't know if they were going for a kind of disturbing tone to his scenes with the children's playing in the background as he spoke of his crimes, but that I think was almost too much for me. Like, maybe just a little over the line and not really necessary. To see a convicted child molester stare at children in a park and talk about his past abuse of them. Yuck.

It was an interesting tool when they slowly relived what this doc is about. There was no opening teaser to explain, but as we got into it, it became clear. You could find this on tv and go into it not knowing what was going on and we don't really get that messages fully until about 10 minutes in. While watching more and more, I don't know how many times I rolled my eyes at this bullshit excuses and backtracking from the priests and bishops who knew what was going on.

One thing that became completely clear to me as I got into it was that Oliver O'Grady was completely a naccist. In a different way than Billy MItchell or Troy Duffy...who are both to a comical degree. This psycho was basically the most honest person thought this entire thing. I asked my sister, the researcher of all things anti-social personality disorder related, to give me teh signs for narcissism. Unlike wit sociopathy, they recognize the difference between right and wrong but they do it anyway because they want to. But like sociopaths, they can't feel empathy, so they can't feel for their victims. The victims' feelings don't matter that only feelings that matter are theirs. And the dude was smiling and smirking and being flippant throughout the whole thing! The part where he wrote the letter to all his victims because he wanted them to come and air their grievances? That was completely fucked up. Sorry for the language. But that was insane. The whole idea that he would agree to do this documentary is unimaginable. And completely narcissistic.

Over all, I think it was really nicely done. I didn't really like the shots of O'Grady walking places and sitting around because it seems like they were telling him to do that stuff and it seemed forced, but it was cut together well and the interview footage meshed well with the action.

Maxed Out

I chose Maxed Out because of its length, basically. I chose this one because after doing 6 in a row, I'm a little bit tired of being obligated to watch things, so I think I'm going to take the weekends off to give myself a little break.

I feel like this one was a bit awkwardly edited. Under Pressure is a good song to open with (if not a bit cliche), if only for the climax of the bridge. It's a really good song for that kind of crescendo of action, but they didn't use it for that, so that made it kind of awkward when the song cut off. I can see myself mentally editing this as I watch, which is kind of distracting.

It's interesting how no two docs are the same. This one has title screens to explain information where other docs might have someone say this onscreen as a talking head. This way is certainly easier. It's what we did with All The Hours (formally known as the hours), but there's something to be said for providing the information without that jarring change in speed.

I feel like each story is a little vignette within itself and I wish that everything connected a little bit more.

All that said, it was informative, which I'm sure was its intent.

The thing with debt is that at some point, it seems like you should have a high enough intelligence and enough foresight that you shouldn't get yourself into that situation, but that's so much easier said than done. And how easy and unpredictable is it to have a sick child, get sick yourself, have your spouse die, or leave you and lose that income.

Just yet another thing wrong with our country. How hard it is to get a credit card as an adult compared to the difficulty for a college student to get, say, 12, as one of the people in the documentary did. That's insane. Makes me sort of depressed about my own credit card debt. Like I'm part of the punch line of the huge joke on our lives.

And the funny thing about debt is that it's just credit. All money is just a credit. Even paper money is just proof that you're basically "good for it." The idea of money seems silly. Lets go back to the days of bartering like the Natives. That seems good to me.