8/06/2007

Film Festival Review...

Aren't you glad that creepy Dubya photo is gone? Me too.

I had a kick-ass time at the Traverse City Film Festival yesterday. I will definitely attend next year and I may look into volunteering at it. As for the movies:
  • The first one we saw was "Chicago 10". I liked it a lot. It was a neat combination of archival footage of the 1968 Democratic Convention riots and animated re-enactment of the ensuing trial of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, et al, using what I assume were court transcripts. It had great music and was fast-paced. Some of the sound was poor, but not enough to spoil it. If you're interested in this era or dirty hippie protesters in general, check it out.
  • Next we saw "In The Shadow Of The Moon" about the Apollo space program. What was neat was that it was all in the words of the Apollo astronauts. There was no other narration. It was great to see this one on the big screen. It had a lot of the archive footage you've probably seen (first moon landing), but a lot of stuff you probably haven't. I'm still convinved the whole thing was faked. Actually, while the credits rolled, a few of them addressed the conspiracy theory. One wondered "Why would we have faked it nine times?" Yeah, sounds exactly like something a faker would say. (Just kidding. I don't think it was fake.)
  • Finally, Mike's Surprise was Michael Moore showing some never-before-seen footage from "Sicko". He also took a bunch of questions from the audience. For anyone that hasn't seen "Sicko", check it out. Even if you don't like Michael Moore. It's not as jokey as his other stuff and he's in it a lot less. Anyone who sees it and still believes we have superior health care to, well, any other industrialized nation is fucking ignorant.
Thanks again to Megan for a wonderful day of movies!

3 comments:

Jenna said...

Hey, you documentary loving fool, did you ever see "Control Room," about the Al Jazeera network's coverage of the start of the war in Iraq? If not, you must. I only mention it because I loved it so much that I netflixed it and it showed up in my mail the other day for a second viewing. It's really well done.

I also recently saw "Jesus Camp" which nearly caused a brain embolism with the amount of crazy. Yikes.

Some Guy said...

Gizmo- Yes. It was incredibly well done. I hope that you watched all the DVD extras. There's like a whole other movie's worth of stuff. I need to watch it again soon.

Yes, "Jesus Camp" is pretty maddening. For more like that, check out "Hell House" about a fundie haunted house in TX. Cray-Zee!

Dale said...

I read Megan's account the other day and I'm glad you had such a great time.