Posted on February 15, 2011 at 10:28 am
National Geographic is having an amazing sale on their outstanding series of DVDs, with prices as low as $3.95 for “March of the Penguins” and $5.95 for “The Dog Whisperer.” It’s for a limited time only. Be sure to check it out!
Posted on February 14, 2011 at 8:00 am
A-| Lowest Recommended Age: | High School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG for some thematic material, mild language, and incidental smoking |
| Profanity: | Mild language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | None |
| Violence/ Scariness: | None |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Date Released to DVD: | February 15, 2011 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B003Q6D28C |
One of the most acclaimed films of the year is “Waiting for Superman,” by Davis Guggenheim, director of An Inconvenient Truth.
America brought the world the idea of free public education and we have more top universities than the rest of the world put together. But this documentary shows that we have fallen far behind when it comes to our children. America has fallen far down the list when it comes to academic achievement and opportunity. This film shows us parents desperate to give their children a chance at education through heart-wrenching lotteries that exclude everyone but the lucky few. It shows us activists like then-Washington DC schools head Michelle Rhee, fighting teachers unions that prize job security over performance. And it shows us the daunting challenges faced by everyone in the system, teachers, principals, parents, and students.
I have five copies of this acclaimed documentary to give away. Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Superman” in the subject line and tell me about your favorite teacher. Don’t forget your address! I will select winners at random a week from today.
Posted on January 26, 2011 at 8:00 am
Do you remember where you were on July 24, 2010?
I was at Comic-Con, and I was one of the thousands who sent in a video of what I was doing that day to directors Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald. I’m pretty sure it ended up on the cutting room floor, but I’ll bet you’ll get a glimpse of Comic-Con in there somewhere.
The film-makers have edited over 80,000 entries making up more than 4500 hours of footage to give the world a self-portrait of one day in our lives, the diversity and the similarity and the connections that link us all together. It will premiere at Sundance Thursday night and you can watch it live, along with the Q&A afterward, on YouTube.
Here’s a sample:
Posted on January 18, 2011 at 8:00 am
This time, I’m not reviewing a film; I am appearing in one! And I am very excited. “The Flaw,” a documentary about the financial meltdown, includes me as one of its interview subjects. And it has been accepted at Sundance — and I will be there for a Q&A following one of the screenings! Stay tuned!
Posted on January 17, 2011 at 8:00 am
A+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
| MPAA Rating: | NR |
| Profanity: | None |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Smoking, drinking |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Historical violence |
| Diversity Issues: | The theme of the series |
This is the story of the civil rights movement, from 1952-1965. Interviews and archival footage tell the story of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education that declared school segregation unconstitutional and the Montgomery bus boycott that forced the South to begin to allow equal access in public accommodations. As momentous as those events were, they were even more significant in what came next — decades of social, legal, and cultural upheavals that would lead to the Civil Rights Act, the 1967 Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia abolishing the laws that prohibited inter-marriage, and, a generation later, the country’s first African-American President. The bigotry is shocking to us today, which is all the more reason we need this documentation. And the heroes are here: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Thurgood Marshall, and more.
The PBS series, its sequel, and the companion volumes by Juan Williams are an indispensable reminder of our past and inspiration for our future. The struggle continues.
I’m not where I want to be.
I’m not where I’m going to be.
But thank God, I’m not where I was.
