30 Days of Oscar Day 22: Trouble the Water

Movie: Trouble the Water
Year: 2009
Nominations: Best Documentary Feature
Wins/Snubs: It didn't win - Man on Wire won that year, which I have seen and it's a better made film, though not necessarily a more worthy subject.   That's often the problem with the documentary short and feature films - it's almost like you're judging the subject as  much as the final product.  I've now seen 4 of the 5 nominees from 2009, and I still think Man on Wire was the best film. 

For authentic "documentary" feel, Trouble the Water is amazing - exclusively done with a hand camera and no producer.  Kim Roberts is a rap artist (one song she wrote about the experience is terrific) and she and her husband Scott spend a lot of time filming themselves and their lives in New Orleans, which became a lucky break during Katrina, as they have a ton of raw foot of the storm, and the days and weeks afterward.  It doesn't feel like a heavy handed film, or a political message, it feels like they're presenting facts as they knew them to be.  One friend who was with them was living in a halfway house during the storm, and lost everything, but as he had no proof of address left, he can't get compensation for losing everything he owned.  The main characters, Kim and Scott, don't whine.  Sure they complain about things being hard, but not in a way that makes you think they want a hand out.  After the storm, when the National Guard hadn't gotten to their neighborhood to find all the dead bodies, they started doing it themselves (the stink was taking over).  It feels very much like an authentic look at the storm through the eyes of people who couldn't believe it was happening, but did everything they could to make sure they didn't become victims.  

30 Days of Oscar Day 10: The Garden

Movie: The Garden
Year:2008
Nominations: Best Documentary Feature
Wins/Snubs: There wasn't anything that could beat Man on Wire in 2008.  Though also nominated Encounters at the End of the World, as much as I disliked Werner Herzog's film, is still better than this one.  


This documentary chronicles the loss of a community garden in South Central Los Angeles.  The landowner wants to sell the land and the city of LA is allowing him to clear the area.  Set up after the 1992 riots, the garden grows food to feed local people, most of whom speak Spanish, though the ethnicity of the people losing the land and the people owning the land isn't discussed as much as you'd expect.  The filmmakers seem to be on the side of the people trying to fight the developers by insisting the local people need the area to provide food and community support.  Ultimately they lose.  

It's kind of hard to understand why this movie was nominated for an Oscar now that I've seen it.  Given the subject material, I was pretty intrigued to watch it, but as a film, it's not particularly well made.  They used quite a few text screens to describe what happened behind the scenes and what legal issues are going on.  Instead of keeping you informed, it takes us away from getting to know the characters among the community or the players in the fight to keep the gardens.  It's not a great film, and that's pretty much death for a documentary.  Unless you have wonderful nature or history, you have to be persuasive and direct to create a good documentary.

30 Days of Oscar Day 23: Food, Inc.

Movie: Food, Inc.
Year: 2010
Nominations: Well, not too many documentaries get nominated for anything but Best Documentary Feature
Wins: The Cove took the award last year, and sadly this is the only one of last year's nominees I've seen so I can't compare the, but I know Tom over at Movie Review by Tom Clift loves The Cove so it probably deserved the win.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, watch Food, Inc. then you won't have to read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or "In Defense of Food" or "Fast Food Nation" because they'll show it to you all right here.  However, if you've already read those books, there's not a lot in the movie that you don't already know.  Though, if you're interested in a really fantastic view of where your food might come from and what our government and industry is not doing to protect us, but rather themselves, check it out. 

Written and directed by Robert Kenner and based on interviews and with Michael Pollan (author of the first two books above) and Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation"), and full of documentary footage on farms, with farmers, and cool graphics illustrating their point.  It's a very clever movie that does a terrific job of showing all the problems with how Americans in particular relate to food, and some of the consequences of those choices.  Basically, they're saying that as a country we've done a great job at creating incredible disincentives to get good, cheap, healthy food, and rather you can get 2 "hamburgers" for a buck, but not a head of broccoli.  They're also really careful about all the things they say and show you because they know that the powers that be can sue over what seems most like free speech.

Wonderfully made movie that should be shown in all classrooms, parenting classes, health class, and hell, even make it required viewing to renew your driver's license.  Is it biased, hell yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean the points they make are wrong, just that there's probably much more to the story than they present. 

180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless

This is part V of the Documentary-palooza.  You can check out the first four parts here:  Joan Rivers, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Restrepo, and The Lottery.

Corcovado National Park

180 degrees South is a reference to going directly south (I thought it referenced the South Pole, but that's only 90 degrees of latitude).  The hero of this documentary is Jeff Johnson, a free-spirited outdoorsman who wants to travel the same path as his climber heroes, Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins, on their trip to climb Corcovado in Chile.  Part of a National Park, the area today is protected as a National Park.  Jeff and two of his buddies, one a climber, one a surfer are going to join him.  But first, Jeff manages to catch a ride south from where he was working in Australia to Chile on a 55-foot cutter sailboat.  However, about halfway across their mast snaps in half.  They don't have enough fuel to motor to the mainland, but do manage to get themselves to Rapa Nui (Easter Island).  Jeff falls for a woman there while they're trying to fix the boat and get underway (it takes nearly a month), which means he has put his climb back a month meaning they've entered South American summer and the snow they intended to use to aid their summit attempt has melted.  Thankfully, these guys are smarter than some climbers and don't let poor planning cost them their lives.  The movie is a great testament to preserving beautiful areas.  From it's conservation perspective, it's very successful.  The scenery is beautiful, awe-inspiring, and thoughtfully chosen.  However, as a climbing documentary, it's well below average - Touching the Void and anything made about Into Thin Air is much more exhilarating.  However, there is a lot of history of the climbing movement mostly told by the heroes, Chounard and Tompkins.  One says about climbing, "The whole purpose of climbing something like Everest to experience some spiritual and physical gain, but if you compromise the process, you're an asshole when you start out and you're an asshole when you get back."  Basically saying from the moment you decide to do something like that you can't just insert yourself into a package to climb, but rather respect the process, learn to do the whole thing from start to finish, prepare yourself, and then respect the mountain above your own pride and ambition.  Those scenes talking about how climbing has changed as a sport is interesting, but those are just conversations.  For a movie that focuses on climbing, the filming of the actual climb is minimal.  Overall, it's still well made and a great look at one man's journey.  3.5 of 5 stars/lambs

The Lottery

This is Part IV of my documentary-palooza series.  You can check out part I, part II, and part III to get more info.  I think it's important to see the variety of documentaries out there to decide which ones are good and which are just good because the topic is interesting, and sometimes they're both.  Back in my life before blogging, I worked in the New York City school system for 2 years.  So watching The Lottery, a documentary about what it means to kids to win a lottery to get into a charter school, is something I've seen.  My first year in the schools, I worked at a public (the documentary calls them zoned schools) performing arts school in Harlem.  My first day I got to go home early because there was a bomb threat.  My second day, a kid stabbed another kid in the face with a pencil - which I could do nothing about since I wasn't covered by the school's insurance (I was a consultant) I couldn't touch the kids for any reason.  Many kids in that class really wanted to learn and were very smart.  They had obstacles I'd never seen or thought about coming from my own rural public school.  My second year, I was assigned to a Charter school in midtown Manhattan.  Their focus was on computers so all assignments were done on computer, were even assigned electronically so the parents were fully aware of them.  I worked with the kids on science fair projects and presentations.  These kids (of all races and economic backgrounds) had been exposed to computers for so long they taught me a lot about how to design a unique presentation.
So this documentary, which is pretty standard fare about things I've already seen and heard about the debate about charter schools, does a great job showing you why going to a charter school will likely be better than the local zoned school.  They talk about the statistics of failing students in the other schools.  What the movie doesn't do well is explain why the parents are protesting a charter school in their area.  The movie makes those parents seem a bit ridiculous to be protesting something that might "save their kids".  And maybe they are letting their pride or ignorance stand in the way, but the movie presents a very biased view of the school system.  It's one I agree with from my own experiences and the fact that I have no idea how to improve public schools, but the film doesn't present one either.  If you're a teacher, particularly outside a major city, this is a terrific watch because they do explain a lot about why charter schools work (I guess assuming that public schools don't do those things, which is debatable).   I haven't seen the other schools documentary Waiting for Superman, but it doesn't hit DVD for a few more weeks, but I'll definitely see it, both because the topic interests me and because it might win the Oscar.  3.5 of 5 stars/lambs

Restrepo

This is part III of the Documentary-palooza.  You can check out parts I on Joan Rivers and II  on Exit through the Gift Shop here and here.

Restrepo - A documentary created by a journalist and photographer based on the year they were embedded with the 2nd Platoon, B Company in Afghanistan.  It starts just as the group they focus on is about to ship out and you see the movie's namesake, PFC Juan S. Restrepo, as part of the platoon.  You also see how his death in Afghanistan affects the rest of his platoon, to the point they name their outpost Restrepo.  The rest of the film looks at building the outpost, interacting with local people (the Afghan with the pink beard is a bit of unintended levity), and of course the firefights with the Taliban.  The movie juxtaposes real-time footage with quick interviews and commentary on the action with the soldiers after the fact.  All the interviews and much of the footage is shown with almost overwhelming close-up.  They do a good job making you feel like you're part of what's going on and that it's the words, not the person exactly that matter the most.  The fact that the voiceover from the interviews explains what you're seeing in-country helps with that feeling.   The hand-held camera work can be off-putting, but it's a documentary in a serious war zone, so what can you expect.  Interplaying the interviews does give you respite from the shaky cam, and provides a balance for the viewer.  The movie does a good job staying very neutral about everything except that war sucks and having your friends die in war sucks a lot and you'll never forget what happens.  3 of 5 stars/lambs

Exit through the Gift Shop

Part II of my documentary round-up.  Part 1 was Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Exit Through the Gift Shop - I'd heard a lot about this movie before I saw it, so I had pretty high expectations, and the first 45 minutes lived up to those expectations, telling a great story about life in the "street art"/graffiti world.  Some of the footage of creating the art is fascinating and beautiful.  A French artist named Thierry films everything, but obviously hasn't got a clue about film making, but when he encounters an elusive street artist named Banksy, things get odder and odder.  Thierry becomes an artist himself, using the techniques of all the people he's watched to create new images and place them in newer places and in bigger venues.  I was reminded of The Gates, an installation art project of lots of orange gates in Central Park a few years ago by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.  I think that's what this movie does best is give people uninitiated with the concept of graffiti as art a place to start thinking about it.  Yes there's a subversive element to the art created in the movie, but just because they had permits and a time-frame and did things during the day, doesn't make The Gates less interesting.  There's an element of forbidden and illegal in the street art painted on buildings, but the art Thierry ultimately does is popular and expensive but still evolved from the same place.  Not an amazing film, but a good look at a world I'd barely noticed. 2.5 of 5 stars/lambs (4/5 for the first half and 2 of 5 for the second half).

Part III will be Restrepo

Documentary-palooza

I've been trying to see a whole bunch of documentaries to get ready for the Oscars - some that might be nominated for Oscars, others didn't make the short list, but were an interesting topic nonetheless.  My goal is to post short reviews of all of them before the Oscars, but we'll see.  Here's the first one:

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work This one is seriously eye-opening, and not just in a plastic surgery sense.  Joan Rivers must be the hardest working woman in show business.  I know that moniker gets handed out to almost anyone these days, but it's definitely got to be either Joan or Betty White.  The documentary shows clips of her past stand-up, particularly on TV getting her start in the business, through her marriage and the end of that and Joan's famous relationship with her daughter Melissa, right up to her most recent stint (and WIN on "The Apprentice).  Throughout, you see her in her day to day life - celebrating holidays, hiring/firing staff, getting to gigs, getting jobs, filming QVC/HSN, etc.  And then the third frame is bits of her current stand-up routine as it relates to her life - love, sex, Melissa, fame, etc.  She's very upfront about having her feelings hurt about being a joke, with people laughing at her not with her, particularly about all the plastic surgery.  I never found myself saying anything like "well, she brought it on herself" because what she complains about is really that she was no longer taken seriously for a stupid reason - her humor didn't change, she didn't look like a cat woman, she didn't kill anyone, and she was never particularly attractive to begin with so why did it matter?  That argument kind of worked on me - personally it might have been how much time she spent on Hollywood Squares back in the 80s, but maybe that was just the work she could get so she did.  If you have even the tiniest interest in pop culture, this will grab you and fascinate you.  Particularly if you're a woman or if you care about how women have risen through the ranks of Hollywood.  Check it out. 3.5/5 stars/lambs.

Coming tomorrow: Exit through the Gift Shop

DVD Round up: The Informant! and The September Issue

I've been accused many times of being a soft critic. Yes, it's true, I can usually find something to like in most movies. However, the real reason is that I tend to see movies I think I will like (particularly if I have to pay for the ticket). And second, I often don't bother to review movies I didn't like. And even less often do I bother reviewing movies I find meh. But to round out my reviewing a bit, here are two that had things to like, but overall didn't rise to the level of review-worthy.

The Informant! was the Matt Damon vehicle last fall that got him quite a few nominations or at least attention. And he was worthy of attention. He spent the whole movie spinning his heels trying to drive the thing forward. It is "based on a true story" and not having heard of the scandal they discuss throughout the film, it was as much fiction as fact to me. Damon works for a chemical company that he knows has been fixing prices with the Japanese. He reaches out to the FBI (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) who has him tape conversations about the illegal activity. However, after the whistle is blown, Damon thinks he'll get to run the company once the bad guys are taken away. Then they find out he's been taking kick-backs and bribes. Damon is an odd, odd character. He's delusional about how the FBI will work for his benefit, obviously smart enough to make lots of money and hide most of it. He forges signatures and gets caught, so the original FBI agents get in trouble for not properly checking into the guy they're basing their whole case upon. It's a movie that you hope will provide dividends once you figure out what's really going on, but you never do. Directed by Steven Soderburgh, you can feel the same clouded mystery and humor as the Ocean's movies, but as nothing actually develops and Damon's character isn't nearly as charming or compelling as Danny Ocean, this movie doesn't really go anywhere. It can't seem to decide if it's a drama or a comedy and doesn't really do a good job at either. I did like Melanie Lynsky as Damon's wife, always agreeing with his crazy ideas and helping him keep it together. 2 lambs/stars

The September Issue is a documentary about the biggest issue of Vogue ever produced, September 2007. It follows editor in chief Anna Wintour and creative director Grace Coddington as they put together a huge issue. Grace sets up photo shoots, designs the look of each, puts together the fashion within each, and then Anna cuts out tons of her hard work deciding what actually goes into the issue. There are a few fun scenes to watch as they go to fashion shows and help Sienna Miller do the cover shoot in Rome. But overall, it wasn't anything particularly innovative. It does show Anna Wintour as a real person who doesn't usually wear dark glasses, who has children who are proud of her, and she can smile and laugh, but that she's really good at her job for a reason, she's got skills. Grace Coddington was fun to watch prepping all of her things. She showed real pride in her work, and also worked from an incredibly creative point of view (though, for someone who used to be a model and works in fashion, her hair was a disaster). However, if you've seen The Devil Wears Prada, Ugly Betty or Project Runway, it didn't really tell you anything new about how they work, minus the drama of course. What do they do with designers, how they think up some of their ideas, what they use for inspiration, what it all costs, where they get to go for work, etc. A very cut and dry documentary following around people who work really hard. 2 stars

Documentaries: Botany of Desire and Good Hair

I haven't seen a lot of documentaries in the last year. Usually I'll see one or two of the Oscar nominated documentaries, but this year I hadn't seen any. However, in the last couple of weeks, I've seen two. Good Hair is an exploration of all the lengths women, mostly black women, go to in order to have "good hair." Chris Rock decided to discover why his daughters might think they don't have good hair. He interviews famous black people about their own hair, including Al Sharpton, Nia Long, Ice-T, Raven-Symone, and Maya Angelou among others. He also travels to quite a few hair salons and talks to hair stylists about what it takes to have long, smooth hair, what it costs and where the hair comes from. As a blond, white woman I admit, I didn't really have any idea what it took to create different styles of hair. I saw Chris Rock interviewed on Oprah when he was initially promoting the movie and really wanted to see the whole thing. Rock builds the story around a competition between stylists at a huge "hair show" in Atlanta. As a documentary, it builds all the pieces to explain a story with which many people might not be familiar, without condescending to either the audience nor mocking the people he's interviewing. There are a few moments when he's in total disbelief that people will pay thousands of dollars for a weave that must be professionally maintained frequently. At least I'm a little more aware of how much I don't know now that I've seen Good Hair.

Botany of Desire is a documentary based on books and writings by Michael Pollan. Narrated by Frances McDormand, they examine 4 different plants that have been influenced by humans for very different reasons. Pollan wants to flip our perspective on these plants and look at them from the plant point of view and see how these plants, if they were able to have a thought process, were able to force humans to do their bidding. The four plants are apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes. Each section is told with a background about where the plant originated, how they developed to fulfill different desires in humans: sweetness, beauty, hallucinations, and nourishment. It's a really interesting documentary told from a unique perspective. I like Michael Pollan's writings so I was already intrigued by the topic, but the depth the documentary reaches is more detailed and easier to understand than some of his books. Also, it's told for a broader audience, without Pollan's strong politics involved. Both are great films that are entertaining, and interesting. 3 of 5 for both

DVD Round up: Eagle Eye Encounters

I'm getting better slowly, but still watching mostly DVDs at this point, so you'll have to wait a bit for new reviews, but they should appear in a week or so. For now, I'll just warn you about two movies I didn't like, but really thought I would: the Oscar nominated documentary Encounters at the End of the World and the action flick Eagle Eye.

This year Man on Wire and Encounters at the End of the World were the two nominated documentary features available on DVD before the Oscars so I made an effort to see them. Man on Wire was terrific and fully deserved its win. I can't actually understand why Encounters was nominated except that people saw that Werner Herzog was the director. He narrates his trip to Antarctica to explore who lives there, what they do, and what they study. Now I'm all for science documentaries (Planet Earth, Life of Birds, etc. I've seen them dozens of times) but this was not that at all. He mocks the scientists (who I admit are a motley crew, I've been one of them (in Kenya, not Antarctica) and they're a strange bunch), and tries to explain the usefulness of their science (rarely anything beyond exploration). Herzog also tries to understand what brought them to McMurdo Station and the South Pole. They're not very interesting stories. Herzog also mocks the Station itself rather than his own misconception of what it will look like. It's minimalist and resembles a airport, with metal structures and construction vehicles and, since it's spring, lots of mud. When describing the town that has arisen to support the Station, he laughs that the town has a bowling alley and a yoga studio. I won't bore you with the rest that annoyed me about this movie, but will sum up by saying I didn't care for his style of directing or narrating his own views about the topic as if they were everyone's. Most of the nature images he photographed were beautiful and worthy of being included in an actual documentary on Antartica's beauty. 2 Stars/Lambs

The other movie that I don't think is worth renting is Eagle Eye. Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, and Billy Bob Thornton all feature prominently and all did a terrific job with very little plot. From the commercials it's a fun movie with Shia being told what to do by a woman on a phone who can obviously see everything he does. It takes more than 80 minutes before there's any more plot than that. We see "Her" controlling LaBeouf and Monaghan by having them drive through cities while "she" changes the traffic lights and controls cranes. "She" sends them to other cities and has them rob armored cars. However, not until the last 20 minutes to we find out who "she" is and why this story is taking place. In case you do choose to see it, I won't reveal the mystery, as there's no other reason to watch this movie. Too much action with very little to have any of it make sense. Shia LaBeouf is a good action star but watch Transformers again rather than renting this. 2 Stars/Lambs

DVD Round Up

It's that time of year when I try to catch up with any of the Oscar nominees available on DVD that I haven't yet seen, so here's the reviews of two movies that couldn't be more different. First, Man on Wire, a film nominated for Best Documentary Feature (along with The Betrayal, Encounters at the End of the World, The Garden, and Trouble the Water). It's the story of an act of wonder and awe that took place in 1974 in New York City that would no longer be possible today. Philipe Petit describes how he and some friends managed to rig a wire between the newly built Twin Towers and how he wirewalked for 45 minutes at 1350 feet in the air, without any sort of net or protective equipment. He previously had walked between the towers of Notre Dame de Paris, and the Sydney Bridge in Australia, both of which were illegal. They carefully describe sneaking into the unfinished top floors of the WTC, avoiding guards, stringing the wire, and then the wonder that accompanied doing something like that just because you can. Petit is a masterful performer and has such a whimsical character that watching him describe his own dreams of doing this is fun and engaging too. Just given it's popularity, I'm guessing this will win the Oscar. If you're a Netflix subscriber (and own a PC or Roku) you can stream this movie through them. 4 Lamb/Stars

The other movie I saw was Hellboy, written and directed by Guillermo del Toro (the mastermind behind Pan's Labyrinth). I told you the pairing was as random as it gets. But the reasoning for watching the first Hellboy is that the sequel was nominated for Best Achievement in Make-up, which is the category I will be documenting in the 2009 LAMB devours the Oscars feature over at the LAMB. I figured I might as well see the first one before watching the second (I've always been someone who took homework seriously!). My dad was a huge fan when it came out, so I knew it couldn't be that bad, and it wasn't. It's very funny, somewhat confusing, a little scary, and very sci-fi fantastic. This is what I think it's about. It starts during WWII, where we see a group of soldiers in Scotland trying to figure out some paranormal activity. We later learn it was Rasputin (advisor to the Czars of Russia) trying to unlock the power between worlds, which if the Nazis gain control of, they'll win the war. Our brave soldiers thwart their effort, cause things to go wrong, and somehow bring forth a devil-boy nicknamed Hellboy. He's kept undercover by the FBI, but brought out to solve crimes involving monsters. We see where he's been raised by Prof. Broom at the FBI Bureau of Paranormal Research. A new agent, Myers, has been assigned to assist Hellboy, and meets his sidekick, Abe Sapien (an aquatic contortionist acted by Doug Jones and voiced by David Hyde Pierce) who can see the past in objects. They also used to have another roommate, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), a fire-starter who now lives in a mental facility. Anyway, Rasputin returns in the modern age and our group of misfits has to go off and make sure he stays dead this time. Ron Perlman (from the old TV show Beauty and the Beast) is Hellboy, "Red", trying to fit in better by filing off his horns (hence the stubs on his forehead that always confused me) and having a wicked sense of humor. It's a very funny movie and I can't wait to see the next one. It almost makes me want to see Pan's Labyrinth just to see more of del Toro's work, but we'll see.

Young @ Heart

In the documentary spirit of King of Kong, Spellbound, and Wordplay, the film Young @ Heart presents interesting people doing interesting things, learning to excel at something and triumphing over challenges. Young @ Heart follows the story of a choir of senior citizens, some very senior, as they prepare for a new show learning new songs including James Brown's, "I feel good", and Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia". They have some troubles learning and there are obviously less talented singers, but their passion overwhelms their skill anyway. The director follows several of the more prominent singers and interviews more people. Not to give anything away, but several of the members are in or out of the hospital, changing the dynamic both of the group and the movie. It's an uplifting story, and you can sing along. They even do music video-like montages of songs from Bowie's "Golden Years" to The BeeGee's "Staying Alive". I really liked it and highly recommend it. No special mood is required to watch it, and rapt attention isn't required so watch it while you write holiday cards.