FLOW: For Love of Water

Posted on September 11, 2008 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Disturbing material about water contamination and shortages, brief footage of riots
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	September 19, 2008

Americans take for granted our most precious and vital resource. We assume that when we turn on the tap, the water that comes out will be perfectly safe and more than plentiful, endless. And then there are those rows and rows of pristine water in bottles on our grocery store shelves.

But it isn’t safe and it isn’t endless. If global warming creates floods, many of us can move to higher ground. If we run out of oil, many of us can walk. But if we run out of water, it is all over for everyone just about immediately.

This documentary finds a good balance between terrifying statistics, depressing images, talking heads, and hopeful suggestions. The bad guys, according to the film, are the corporations who sell bottled water, removing it from communities by diminishing their sources for water so they can sell it back to them. And in a telling segment, we learn that the World Bank is better at giving away a billion dollars to build an ineffective water treatment facility that disrupts the local economy and ecology than they are at working toward lower-tech, lower-impact, lower-cost solutions. No one who sees this movie will think the same way again about reaching for that line of clear bottles at the grocery store or letting the shower run while you take a phone call. Ideally, no one who sees this movie will ever vote for a candidate again without finding out what he or she will do to keep our water safe and plentiful.

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Documentary Movies -- format

More on Language from the Las Vegas Review-Journal

Posted on September 8, 2008 at 2:25 pm

“Language packs a punch in culture,” says a column by Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter John Przybys about the debate over Tropic Thunder.
Przybys and I had a long talk about this subject and he quoted me in the column:

Nell Minow, who writes “Movie Mom,” a column on Beliefnet.com in which she evaluates movies from a parent’s perspective, argues that protesters’ ire is misdirected.
“Tropic Thunder” doesn’t lampoon the disabled, Minow said during a recent phone interview, but, rather, the self-absorption of Hollywood and actors who offer one-dimensional portrayals of the disabled and then congratulate themselves for it.
“As a person with disabled family members and whose first job was working with what we then called the ‘retarded,’ I’ve been appalled at movies that get all kinds of critical praise, like ‘I Am Sam’ and ‘Forrest Gump,’ because I think they’re terrible portrayals of disabled characters,” Minow said.
“Too often in movies, the disabled aspect is the character’s defining trait,” Minow continued, and disabled characters exist only to “inspire people and/or give (other characters) an important lesson about compassion. That’s about it, and this is wrong. Disabled people are interesting human beings who’ve got really interesting stories to tell.”
In “Tropic Thunder,” the word “retard” is used to “show something about the person who said it,” Minow said, and the film makes “a very trenchant and powerful argument in favor of the disabled being treated well by showing that the person who didn’t understand was a nincompoop.”
Similarly, even as Downey plays a white actor who darkens his skin to play a black character, the film is “very intelligent in giving the actual black character the power and moral weight in the movie,” Minow said.

Are Some Words Forbidden No Matter What?

Posted on September 6, 2008 at 8:00 am

Should some words be banned entirely? In a debate reminiscent of the battles over The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a coalition of disability rights groups called for a boycott of Tropic Thunder over the use of the term “retard.” The Washington Post published an opinion piece criticizing “Tropic Thunder,” written by the mother of a developmentally disabled child that began with an anecdote about a cruel passer-by who used that term to insult her child.
She failed to understand that the movie used the term exactly the way she did — to demonstrate that the speaker is a misguided and ignorant person.
In discussing this issue on BDK’s radio show, I mentioned that when I reviewed First Sunday, the newspaper that printed the review used N**** instead of spelling out the first word in the name of Ice Cube’s rap group. But that story did not make it on the air. The radio station did not broadcast the word, even though the word was not being used as an epithet but a word chosen by a group of men about themselves as a way of removing the pejorative and diminishing aspects of the term and giving it power instead. I might not agree with that use of the word but I respect the right of people to determine for themselves what they want to be called and to determine whether they want anyone who is not a part of the group to use it.
And I oppose any effort to ban any word. It makes it impossible to have a conversation about the meaning of the word and it gives the word too much power.
Oh, and the very first protests of “Huckleberry Finn,” which began as soon as the book was published, also focused on language that was considered inappropriate and shocking. The objections were not to the n-word but to the use of terms like “sweat” instead of “perspiration.” And yet, like the music of NWA, it is the language Huck and Twain use that is central to the appeal and authenticity of the works.
Now there is a protest over the title of a new film called, as was the book it was based on, “Towelhead.” This is one of several cruel and insulting terms that the main character, the daughter of an American mother and a Lebanese father, is called by racists. The author of the book, Alicia Erian, and the director of the movie, Alan Ball (of “Six Feet Under” and “American Beauty”) have issued very thoughtful and compelling statements about the title and the term that are well worth reading, supported by the studio and by a group of scholars. Here are the statements in full:

(more…)

Coming Attractions (September 2008)

Posted on September 5, 2008 at 10:00 am

There’s only one movie opening up this week, “Bankok Dangerous” with Nicolas Cage. That’s everything I know about it. It isn’t screening for critics, and that means the studio is pretty sure it won’t even get one good review.

But next week, things really pick up! I am very excited about “Righteous Kill,” starring Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino.

And I am even more excited about “Burn Before Reading,” from the Coen Brothers (“Fargo,” “No Country for Old Men”), starring George Clooney, Frances McDormand, and Brad Pitt.

Stay tuned!

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The TIVO and Netflix Picks We Get and Don’t Watch

Posted on September 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm

By coincidence, two publications ran similar articles this week about the difference between what we think we want to see and what we actually sit down to watch.
Entertainment Weekly’s Mark Harris asks readers to fess up about the television shows they record and never get around to seeing. We all do it. Some critically acclaimed show comes on television and at some level we feel that we should get at least partial credit for having it on our DVR. But then, somehow, even when we’re at home with time to spare, we end up watching some dumb reality show instead of “eat your spinach” fare like “Generation Kill”
The snob theory is that the Internet, reality television, minisodes, and the general dumbing down of everything have so completely turned our brains into mush that we’re now incapable of sitting down and concentrating on anything that actually requires our sustained, undivided attention. The slob theory is that we the people have a sixth sense that allows us to stay away instinctively whenever a piece of pop culture is boring or overpraised or ”pretentious” (the all-purpose label of abuse that too many people now apply to anything that seems smart and difficult).
I think Harris is closer to the truth when he says we have
a kind of sullen resistance to movies that either tediously tell us what we already know or dangerously tell us what we don’t want to know about a topic we desperately want to be rid of. All that is reinforced by a sort of smug, why-bother tone to much of contemporary pop culture commentary that is more comfortable applying the word genius to I Want to Work for Diddy than to something that involves, say, a level of actual creative brilliance. And yes, a TV show like Generation Kill that requires your sustained, undivided attention is, on some level, work. And work is the opposite of what entertainment is supposed to be all about, right?
That is probably what’s behind Netflix syndrome — either you watch it within 24 hours after it arrives or it sits around for a couple of months. On Slate, John Swansberg invited readers to share their shame over the red envelopes gathering dust.
It happens to all Netflix subscribers eventually. Your buddy the film buff drags you to a revival of Antonioni’s L’Avventura. To your surprise, you find yourself rapt. Upon returning home, you log in to your Netflix account and move La Notte, the second film in Antonioni’s ennui trilogy, to the top of your queue. It arrives a few days later, just as L’Avventura’s spell is starting to wear off. You watch Anchorman instead. You totally still want to see La Notte … but now you’ve mailed Anchorman back and here is Ghost Rider–starring Nic Cage! La Notte can wait. And it does. For weeks. You’re never quite in the mood to watch it, but you can’t quite bring yourself to return it, either.
Ready to confess? Send in your tales of long-held, never-watched Netflix rentals to dvdextras@gmail.com.
And for some thoughts on what those never-watched DVDs at the bottom of your Neflix queue say about you, see this great piece from Slate by Sam Anderson.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture