Tag: review

Books From Vacation

Having some time to relax also meant lots of time to catch up on reading I've been meaning to do for a while now (though there's plenty more). Here's a quick run-through with my comments:

Now reading:

I'll post reviews of these as I can. Your own reviews, recommendations and comments welcome!

No End In Sight to the Assault on Reason

IMG_2518.JPGThe tail end of the trip I just returned from took place in Nashville, TN and was charged with readings and viewings about the occupation of Iraq and the current political trends in Washington: I finished reading Nashville resident Al Gore's book The Assault on Reason and then later the same day, saw the new documentary film No End In Sight. The two tie together nicely, and so I have a review of them both here.

Continue reading "No End In Sight to the Assault on Reason" →

The Pursuit of Happyness, a movie review

In a near coma from a holiday meal today, we ventured out to see The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. My resulting notes below contain some mentions of specific plot details, so if you haven't seen it yet and don't want anything spoiled for you, come back to this post later.

As a cinematic experience overall, the movie was quite well done. Smith and Jaden Smith (his son both in the film and offscreen) filled their roles as Chris Gardner and Christopher Gardner with a glow and depth that is uncommon. The story moved at a constant and engaging pace, always with just enough information to make the plot real, and never too much to make it feel like it was being told to a movie audience. The camera angles were mostly plain and obvious in a way that complements the content of the film just fine, but there were a number of really excellent shots that brought out the layers of emotion and determination so well - Chris and Christopher sitting a ways apart on a bench in the subway, exasperated, desperate, staring off and wondering what's next; the shots of Chris running through the streets of San Francisco with action-movie style camera-work but very believable results; the walks through the floor of a brokerage in chaos, and so on.
Continue reading "The Pursuit of Happyness, a movie review" →

The Persuaders: a nice look at advertising

This is an ad for a really great Frontline episode called "The Persauders" - a thoughtful and thorough journalistic look at the world of advertising and how it affects us at all levels. It covered a wide variety of perspectives, from advertising executives to media experts to sociologists to counter-cultural ad-busters. Quote from interviewee Mark Crispin Miller: "Once a culture becomes entirely advertising friendly, it ceases to be a culture at all." There's an interesting segment about how one firm interviewed cult-like groups of people (including Linux users and WWF Wresting fans) to craft the campaigns for brands like Nike and Apple. I guess if you can figure out what makes people loyal to a cult, you can get them engaged in your products and services.

The downside of the piece is that the reporter seems to let himself be convinced in conclusion (with snappy upbeat music in the background to reinforce) it's a good thing that "once the market becomes the lens through which we see the world, there's no us and them any more. We're all persuaders." I would probably disagree that this is a good trend.

You can watch it online on the PBS website, and the site includes a teacher's guide and related discussion area. Enjoy.

Why I won't be seeing the new Borat movie

Just one reason of many, I'm sure: Borat film tricked poor village actors. Excerpt:

"Mr Tudorache, a deeply religious grandfather who lost his arm in an accident, was one of those who feels most humiliated. For one scene, a rubber sex toy in the shape of a fist was attached to the stump of his missing arm - but he had no idea what it was.

Only when The Mail on Sunday visited him did he find out. He said he was ashamed, confessing that he only agreed to be filmed because he hoped to top up his £70-a-month salary - although in the end he was paid just £3.

He invited us into his humble home and brought out the best food and drink his family had. Visibly disturbed, he said shakily: 'Someone from the council said these Americans need a man with no arm for some scenes. I said yes but I never imagined the whole country, or even the whole world, will see me in the cinemas ridiculed in this way. This is disgusting.'"

The media seem to be getting a kick out of pretending to debate the question "is this groundbreaking cinema or just over-the-top offensive profiteering?" To me, at least, it's clearly the latter, and I have no reason to spend money on it.

A review of Blue Vinyl

It would be nice if some day we could say, "great, now we know about ALL of the human-made products and processes that can give us cancer and harm the planet, now let's start doing something about them." But alas, it seems that everywhere you look, there's a new story about a chemical or drug or food or way of raising your children that can endanger our lives. Some of it is fear-mongering, but some of it is an honest and long-overdue look at the products and practices that we take for granted, examining them for harm they might cause and seeking healthier alternatives. And in her award winning film Blue Vinyl, that's just what Judith Hefland has done with...get ready for it...vinyl siding.
Continue reading "A review of Blue Vinyl" →

The Ambassador

Wednesday night I attended a screening of The Ambassador, a documentary about John Dimitri Negroponte, currently the U.S. Director of National Intelligence and formerly U.S. ambassador to Honduras, the United Nations and Iraq. Negroponte has been a controversial figure due to his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair and human rights violations in Honduras, and the film took on those controversies by documenting Negroponte's career as a diplomat, his public and private statements about the accusations made against him, and the forces that influenced his path all along.
Continue reading "The Ambassador" →

David Gray's Life in Slow Motion

When I first discovered David Gray, it was by encountering his song Please Forgive Me, which was quite impressive, stunning maybe, to me as a song in its own right. But when I got the full album it was on, White Ladder, I realized that it was part of a package deal that achieved so much more as a nuanced whole than any of its parts did alone. This was striking to me, as so few albums these days carry a lot of obvious interconnection of their songs, at least in a way that isn't only obvious if you read every lyric and the "behind the music" bio of the artist. Gray's songs seemed to talk to one another, answering questions that the others had asked, flowing back and forth around recurring themes that the words and the melodies created together. It was as much of a "listening experience" as I'd had with any music in a while, and he was consistent in that sense when I saw him perform at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia (right before he was "big" in the US...friends tell me he had a great following elsewhere well before that). Fortunately for me, Gray's newest album, Life in Slow Motion, is another experience filled with great inter-song integrity and a striking sound that seems to reveal a new layer each time I listen.
Continue reading "David Gray's Life in Slow Motion" →

The Constant Gardener

The Constant Gardener is surely one of the best films I've seen in a while. It's easy to forget that such a thoroughly high standard of moviemaking is being observed out there somewhere, so it's always refreshing when beautiful and touching exceptions like this one come along. It's even better when you're not expecting it - I went into the theater with only a vague notion of what it was about and a recommendation from a friend who had been to Africa, and was just swept away.

The story is epic but one you can easily bite into - it takes us through the politics and personal pain of the AIDS crisis in Africa, and the people, companies, and governments that play a part in hurting or helping that issue. It's absolutely relevant up to the present day situation, but it doesn't come at you with Michael-Moore-like swings to your head with blunt declarations of shocking facts (though the end result may be the same). Instead, it wraps you up in the personal journeys of two people who are there to do what's right, and encounter all manner of vice and confusion along the way. "Doing the right thing" is nothing near a black-and-white consideration here - by the end of the movie we see the perspectives of the people of Africa, local police and civic leaders, the aid workers, the diplomats, the drug companies, the Western governments, all of the people caught up in every part of the process - and though we may have gut feelings about who are the good guys and bad guys for those two hours, no clear solutions even begin to emerge for the larger problems at hand.

Through all of this, the main characters - brought to life so stunningly and with such heart by Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz - are determined to find the truth, seek answers, and remain true to their passions and their values and their love, no matter the risk. Watching them do so is a moving experience in itself, and seeing it set against the very real and visceral backdrop of the modern struggles of today's Africa is just amazing.

Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward

I generally avoid national bestselling political books that are just consolidated accounts of the political soap operas that go on in our nation's capital, designed to make more buzz and more money for the journalists or whistle-blowers or former aides that happened to keep really good notes during the experience. But once in a while there are some pretty compelling publications that appear in that genre, and I can't help but dive in. Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack certainly emerges as an example of a page-turner for anyone interested in national politics, the executive branch's decision making process, and especially how the U.S. ended up invading Iraq.
Continue reading "Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward" →