Arctic Tale

Posted on December 3, 2007 at 9:51 pm

B
Lowest Recommended Age: 4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating: G
Profanity: None
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Nature-style violence, some graphic footage of animals killing and eating each other, some disturbing images of the effects of climate change
Diversity Issues: Diverse species
Date Released to Theaters: July 30, 2007
Date Released to DVD: December 4, 2007
Amazon.com ASIN: B000WZAE0O

The people behind “March of the Penguins” have put together another endearing story of life in the coldest place on earth. This time, it is the story of two newborns, a polar bear called Nanu and a walrus named Seela. “What seems forbidding to us is home to them,” says narrator Queen Latifah, whose affectionate tone brings warmth to the frozen landscape. The story is not as linear or involving as “Penguins,” and it is overcast with more forboding, as the effects of climate change pose a greater threat to these new lives than temperature or predators.
arctic%20tale.jpg

(more…)

Related Tags:

 

Documentary Genre , Themes, and Features Movies -- format Reviews

How to Cook Your Life

Posted on November 7, 2007 at 12:58 pm

howtocookyourlife-a.jpg
Writer-director Doris Dörrie has made a wonderfully touching and inspiring documentary about zen priest and best-selling cookbook author Edward Espe Brown. It is about food and dignity and touch and mindfulness, sufficiency and abundance, physical, spiritual, and emotional hunger, anger and satisfaction. It is funny and moving and inspiring and even in its own way nourishing. And it has a wonderful score. It is worth seeing just for the scene when Brown recites the poem his mother included in a letter just before she died, about a duck that “reposes in the immediate as if it were infinity — which it is. He has made himself a part of the boundless by easing himself into just where it touches him.”

(more…)

Related Tags:

 

Documentary

11th Hour

Posted on August 20, 2007 at 12:22 pm

Leonardo DiCaprio has produced a thoughtful, important film about a vitally important subject, the devastating impact of industrial development on the fragile environment. He has assembled an impressive collection of scholars and world leaders to emphasize the precariousness of the situation and the urgency of action to reverse the effects of human opportunism and greed, to change our idea of “progress” from growth and acquisition to sustainability and respect for the fragility of the environment that sustains us.


He is so concerned about not being overly alarmist or controversial that it is all a bit too stately. DiCaprio and his experts are specific and vivid when talking about the “infected organism” our environment has become, where “every system is in decline and the rate of decline is increasing….There isn’t one living system that is stable or improving.” But when they talk about the failures of our institutions to consider the long-term effects, they get vague. They briefly point to corporations and government. This is where he needed Al Gore to come in with some Powerpoint, or better yet, Michael Moore to name names and show exactly who got how much money from lobbyists for which companies.


The movie’s greatest strength is its breadth of compelling participants. They do more than describe our failures and the damage we have done. They question our assumptions, our smug certainty that nature exists to serve humans and will be eternally replenished. They explain that the uniquely human ability to think about and affect the future has created this problem; but that it can also help us to recognize and solve it. And they provide assurances that all the technology we need is already available; all it takes is the will.


Each of them has an important lesson to teach. Perhaps the one that is by iteself the reason for every middle- and high-schooler to see the film is this quotation from Eric Hoffer: “We can never have enough of that which we really do not want.”

Parents should know that some of the images and themes of this movie may be disturbing to audience members. Scenes of environmental degradation and damage, including brief footage of an animal being killed, and descriptions of potential consequences that could include extinction are intended to be provocative. Even though they are presented as a call to action and there is reassuring material about choices that can make a difference, it may be very upsetting.


Families who see this movie should visit the movie’s website to learn more about the scientific data on climate change and the technologies that can make a difference.

Families who appreciate this movie will also appreciate An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car?, Koyaanisqatsi – Life Out of Balance, and The Future of Food.

Related Tags:

 

Documentary Environment/Green

Sicko

Posted on June 24, 2007 at 3:04 pm

A-
Lowest Recommended Age: 4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.
Profanity: Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: None
Violence/ Scariness: Disturbing subject matter, references to inuries, illness, and death, brief graphic wound
Diversity Issues: Racial and economic diversity themes
Date Released to Theaters: 2007

Presenting symptoms: queasiness, fever, hyperventilation, and mood swings.


Diagnosis: You’ve just seen Michael Moore’s latest film, “Sicko.” As the tagline says, “This might hurt a little.”


Moore’s record-breaking documentaries have taken on guns (Bowling for Columbine), the war in Iraq (Fahrenheit 9/11), and General Motors (Roger & Me). This time, he takes on the American health care system, comparing it to nationalized medicine in Canada, England, France, and Cuba.


Moore begins with three devastating cases. A middle-class couple were wiped out by health care costs and have to move into their daughter’s basement storage room, their lives reduced to what can fit into three dresser drawers, their pride and dignity reduced to nothing. A man who sliced off two fingers in an accident is forced to choose reattaching the ring finger for $12,000 vs. the middle finger for $60,000. Another man has to sew up his own wound. This takes just a few minutes. And then Moore tells us that this movie is not about these people, who are uninsured and thus fit into a “them” category for most people who buy tickets to movies. This movie is about “us” — the 250 million Americans who are insured, and the way the health care and insurance industries undermine our physical, financial, and political health.


Moore invited people to share their horror stories and we hear from a woman who was not able to get access to care for a brain tumor, a 79-year-old man who can never retire because he has to work at Pathmark to be able to afford his medications, an emergency ambulance ride that was not covered because it was not pre-approved, a woman who was kicked out of her coverage for not disclosing a pre-existing condition — a minor (and cured) yeast infection, a deaf child who could only get approval for a cochlear implant in one ear, and two people, one a baby, who died because they did not receive treatment.


But the real horror stories come from people within the industry, the insurance executives who explain that the payment of a claim was called “a loss,” that they were told that when they declined a claim they were not denying treatment, just denying funding, the claims adjuster who is first told that the minimum is a ten percent denial rate, then told it has to be higher, and paid a bonus based on how many claims are denied.


If our health care system is diagnosed as pathological, what is the cure? Moore visits facilities in Canada, England, and France. He speaks to Americans who have experienced medical treatment under both systems, including a young single mother who pretends to be Canadian so she can have her child treated across the border.

He traces back the origins of the problem to a moment recorded on Richard Nixon’s White House tapes, as he approves support for legislation creating a private system of Health Maintenance Organizations because “the incentives run the right way” — the less care they give, the more money they make. He shows us politicians lining up for a photo op for the signing of the prescription drug legislation, and gives each of them a dangling box showing the campaign contributions made by the industry. He sympathetically recounts Hillary Clinton’s disastrous attempt to try to create a universal health care system in the US only to see it demolished by a $100 million attack from the industry. He is less sympathetic when he ties her more recent “moderation” of her views to her own lavish campaign contributions. The health care industry employs four lobbyists for every representative on Capitol Hill. Senator Clinton receives its second-largest contributions. After the prescription drug legislation was passed, benefiting — according to Moore — the prescription drug companies more than the patients, 44 congressional aides and one Congressman went to work for the industry.


Moore shows us the shameful way we have denied treatment to the people we called heroes, the rescue workers at Ground Zero after 9/11. Yes, it is a stunt when Moore takes them to Guantanamo Bay to see if they can get the same top-notch medical care the US provides for the prisoners there, the people suspected or proven to have supported the terrorist attacks. And it is a stunt when he sets off in three little boats, like the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, to take them to Cuba, where they receive kindness and medication from the local health professionals. Like the stunt he pulled when he took a bunch of tobacco-related cancer survivors to sing Christmas carols at cigarette companies, it is horrifying and mesmerizing — and guaranteed to raise your temperature, which is the point.


The movie makes three significant contributions. First, though it does not emphasize this point, the film makes it clear that the primary benefit of the other systems is that the incentives promote prevention. A British doctor explains that he gets a bonus based on how many patients he gets to quit smoking, for example. The perverse incentives of our system promote neglect until the problem becomes dire or catastrophic.


The second theme, as in Moore’s previous movies, is the corrupting role that money plays in politics and policy. Moore does not say this, but the cost of campaigns in the United States is vastly in excess of the other countries he visits. Thus, politicians need to raise millions of dollars and thus they are vulnerable to pressure from the people who write checks.


Third and most important is the way this film shifts the burden of proof. Americans take it for granted that everything is better here than anywhere else in the world. But the movie’s statisitics about infant mortality and life span place us far down the list. Moore does not pretend to give both sides of the story. Our infant mortality rate is in part a reflection of our bringing more high-risk pregnancies to term. But Moore lays down the intellectual and moral gauntlet and dares the insurance companies and politicians to respond. The audiences who see this film will be waiting to hear what they have to say.

Parents should know that this movie has themes that may be disturbing, including injuries, illness, and death, including a baby. There is a brief graphic shot of a wound and brief strong language. The focus of the film is on unjust and unkind treatment of people who are sick and poor or middle-class, and one (white) character says she believes her husband would have received better treatment if he had been white. As with all of his movies, Michael Moore makes very provocative statements, often in a humorous way, but some audiences may find them offensive.


Families who see this movie should talk about their good and bad experiences with the health care system. They may want to talk with their health care professionals about their own experiences and what they think we can do better. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the US system? The nationalized health system? Who is in the best position to advocate for improvements? Who is in the best position to obstruct them? Moore is the first to admit that he is not a journalist but an advocate. As with any advocacy, viewers should challenge its assertions and omissions by examining the responses from other perspectives. The most important contribution of movies like this is that they inspire people to find out more and research the facts and the issues to justify their beliefs and positions.


Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy Moore’s other films, including Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, and Fahrenheit 9/11. The John Grisham film The Rainmaker is the story of a lawsuit over the kind of insurance company policies portrayed in this film. Families should look at Michael Moore’s website and at the anti-Moore site Moorewatch, especially its response to Moore’s $12,000 check and the rebuttal film Fahrenhype 9/11. And they should view the films from The Moving Picture Institute, which uses Moore-style tactics and techniques for a conservative take on issues like environmentalism vs. economic development and freedom of speech on college campuses.

Related Tags:

 

Documentary Movies -- format

Jackass: Number Two

Posted on September 22, 2006 at 2:34 pm

F-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for extremely crude and dangerous stunts throughout, sexual content, nudity and language.
Profanity: Extremely strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Beer
Violence/ Scariness: Explicit and disgusting real-life self-inflicted violence and injuries including snake bites
Diversity Issues: None
Date Released to Theaters: 2006
Date Released to DVD: 2007
Amazon.com ASIN: B000JLTRJK

Anyone unfamiliar with the Jackass collection (a prior feature-length “movie” -– really a collection of skits –- and a series on MTV) will definitely not want to go into the boys’ second film, “Jackass: Number Two” (get it?), without first consulting these past works to ensure they’re mentally prepared. Being physically prepared wouldn’t be a bad idea either; if you absolutely must go, bring that little plastic trashcan from your office, maybe grab a blindfold, and please, for your own sake and that of everyone in the theatre, go on an empty stomach.


Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O and others from the Jackass crew return, this time as repeat offenders, offering the same brand of “humor” that has been grossing out anyone who cares to watch since the TV series started in 2000. They abuse their bodies in ways so cruel they would be imprisoned if they committed the same acts against anyone but themselves, and even the scenes of nakedness (of which there are many) are painful, if only because one can’t help but wince at all the red, purple, yellow and black bruises their bodies have sustained as side-effects (or are they the primary goal?) of the stunts.


This second film is arguably more elaborate, more shocking, more repulsive, sensationalist and gag-inducing than the first. The boys haven’t grown up at all in the time from their first film to this one, and their personalities seem perpetually fixated on trivializing danger and shunning responsibility. Indeed, when Knoxville dresses as an old man and guest Spike Jonze dons an old woman bodysuit (both delighting in surprising unexpected viewers with vulgarities), it simply drives home the point that the Jackass crew uses their stunts to test their immunity -– to skull fractures, to deadly infections, to permanent damage, and, most importantly, to growing up.


Parents should know that this is a documentary-style movie about a real-life series of disgusting and extremely dangerous behavior, including obtaining and drinking animal ejaculate (weirdly, the one item in the film x-ed out to ensure an R rating), being bitten on the genitals and the arm by snakes, putting a fishhook through a lip and being used as human shark bait, and being gored by a bull. There is explicit nudity, explicit excretory humor (human and animal), and graphic violence. Characters use strong language.

Related Tags:

 

Comedy Documentary Movies -- format
THE MOVIE MOM® is a registered trademark of Nell Minow. Use of the mark without express consent from Nell Minow constitutes trademark infringement and unfair competition in violation of federal and state laws. All material © Nell Minow 1995-2024, all rights reserved, and no use or republication is permitted without explicit permission. This site hosts Nell Minow’s Movie Mom® archive, with material that originally appeared on Yahoo! Movies, Beliefnet, and other sources. Much of her new material can be found at Rogerebert.com, Huffington Post, and WheretoWatch. Her books include The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies and 101 Must-See Movie Moments, and she can be heard each week on radio stations across the country.

Website Designed by Max LaZebnik