To me, ‘Tabloid’ was the surprise of this year’s Sydney Film Festival. It’s the new documentary from oscar winner Errol Morris, who made the seminal ‘Thin Blue Line’ and the ‘Fog Of War’ films. Before you read this review – I beg you to watch the trailer at the bottom of the review. It sets it up so well, and sells the film brilliantly. Great trailer that helps encapsulate the film for you! Read more…
All posts tagged documentary
58th SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL: Double Movie Review: ‘A LETTER TO ELIA’ & ‘LENNON NYC.’
Here’s a double review for you guys. One film from Martin Scorsese ‘A LETTER TO ELIA’ and another on the 19 years John Lennon lived in New York City: ‘LENNON NYC.’ Enjoy! Read more…
58th SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL Movie Review: ‘CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS.’
The very last person I ever expected to dabble in 3D was Werner Herzog; and now here we are. The crazy, infamous German director known for a million projects – notably his work with Klaus Kinski (and their infamous clashes) on films including ‘Aguirre,’ ‘Nosferatu’ and ‘Fitzcarraldo.’ Read more…
58th SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL Movie Review: ‘POM WONDERFUL PRESENTS: THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD’
The greatest movie ever sold is an exciting experience of hilarious ingenuity and insightful exploratory documentary. This is a film that has a certain degree of rewatchability not only because of it’s comedic moments and awkward gags, it also provides an interesting insight into the marketing, advertising and product placement strategies, employed by some of the biggest brands and how they affect movies and blockbuster today. Read more…
‘BABIES’ Movie Review: Enjoyable Yet Inconsequential.
An inconsequential documentary, ‘Babies’ accounts the lives of four newborns from four varying cultures. Their names are Ponijao, Bayarjargal, Mari and Hatie, and they live in Namibia, Mongolia, Japan and the United States respectively. The film is directed by Thomas Balmes (‘Damages’), and he co-wrote with Alain Chabat (director of ‘Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra) whom also originated the idea.
‘INSIDE JOB’ Movie Review: Needlessly mean spirited; but largely insightful and entertaining.
Article by David.
‘Inside Job’ is a feature length and somewhat controversial documentary film about the 2008 economic crisis. It attempts to expose the “shocking truth” behind it.
Through extensive research and interviews; academy award nominated director Charles Ferguson (‘No End In Sight’) explores the rise of Wall Street and the banking industry and reveals the dirty deals between corrupted politicians; regulatory organizations and academics - and showcases how these deals led to what is said to be “The worst financial crisis since the Great depression” - oh, and its narrated by Matt Damon! Because if anyone knows about money its him! (I’m just kidding - Matt Damon is awesome).
Here is a reading from the directors statement:
“I hope that the film, in less than two hours, will enable everyone to understand the fundamental nature and causes of this problem. It is also my hope that, whatever political opinions individual viewers may have, that after seeing this film we can all agree on the importance of restoring honesty and stability to our financial system, and of holding accountable those who destroyed it”.
The film itself is a little bit more difficult to digest than Ferguson would lead you to believe; certain moments are definitely overwhelming in terms of how much sheer information is being dumped onto you; but that is not say it is impossible to understand whats going on in ‘Inside Job’; unless you yourself are in the financial industry.
The film begins with using Iceland’s current situation as a microcosm to basically summarize the effects the financial collapse has had on the world economy. From there it goes into a very entertaining title sequences that presents us “The Cast” of the film: taking all these bullshit artists we are about to hear from and displaying them for the actors they are. Very funny; if not slightly mean spirited and biased. These bullsh*tters… and I should clarify I say: “bullsh*tters” in the sense that they are talking to us; not that they are specifically liars: but whatever: the point is that we don’t know the truth so it may as well be B/S…well: these guys are so varied in breadth and a lot of the people interviewed are very high profile as well as unexpected/exciting choices.
Amongst many financial advisors/university professors/ company ceo’s/ Ministers/ etc; we have some of particular interest: And by that I mean: “damn thats an usual person to interview!”:
Jonathon Alpert: One of the biggest psychiatrists in New York; whose clients include some of the huge wall street players - he tells stories about their drug habits and strip club and prostitute habits. His clients are very well known and married with children. Insane.
Kristin Davis: Known as “madam” to countless investment bankers. A pimp of the classiest order:
Then you have the usual slew of ‘significant authorities’ on a subject matter: the ones I found of particular interest are:
Christine Lagarde: The french minister of Finance/economic affairs/ industry and employment. First woman to become the economic minister of a G8 nation.
Lee Hsien Loong: The current prime minister of Singapore.
Andrew Lo: the director of MIT’s laboratory for financial engineering.
Andri Magnason: An Icelandic film-maker.
Martin Wolf: the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times.
Glenn Hubbard: A scoundrel. Chief economic advisor of the Bush administration. Also the current dean of Columbia university business school.
Harvey MIller: The most prominent Bankruptcy lawyer in the United States.
Frederic Mishkin: American economist and professor at Columbia University. This guy is crazy corrupt.
Paul Vocker: American Economist who served as chairman of the Federal Reserve under Carter and Reagan.
And so on and so on…
The film features many, many interviewees from all sides of the financial disaster; from famous economists; to Professors; to government people - The majority of the film is just people sitting in chairs talking whilst animated graphics fill the screen. It is decidedly uncinematic - the entire film just feels like a big long lecture - sometimes it is hard to follow - other times the actions of the people onscreen enrage you - and in my case (someone who knows next to nothing about financial engineering) it was incredibly interesting and engaging.
But it is not a film that exists just to show off how smart and important it is: It attempts to tell the full story of the crisis; and to not allow the many criminals to get away with what they have done - you see the industry is filled with corruption and greed; the progressive deregulations of the financial sector since the 1980’s led to an increase in “innovations” - which are thinly disguised power-plays for money/control. Ultimately all of these bankers are not the ones affected by such moves and innovations; it is the family with a mortgage - the family with debt: basically the poorer sections of society.
In many cases the bankers came out RICHER after the crisis than before. And because of corruption-filled relationships with academics (who then go and teach these bad practices to the next generation) - who have relationships with the government (many academics advise not only the banks but also the government - earning 100’s of thousands more dollars than teaching would ever earn them. Everybody is in bed with each other - and through the excessive amounts of bullsh*t; whether it be through a team of lawyers or face to face with a judge; everyone just comes out unscathed. No-one gets sent to prison despite the trillions of dollars they are responsible for losing.
The financial system is such a complicated topic and the film tracks it from right after the great depression - through to the Reagan Presidency - through to the Clinton reign - through to the Bush reign - and into Obama and the present. Dealing with topics such as: traditional American finance options; The start of deregulation; The Wall Street culture; financial scandals; economic inequality issues; tax cuts; philosophy, the idealogical belief in Wall Street, Wall streeters running the government; the banks and insurance companies; housing markets, Lehman Brothers, crash, CRASH, What the The Dark Tower actually is; SHUFFLE; Prostitution; gambling, corruption and drugs, overseas situations, perspectives and graphs, graphs, figures, formulas, employment, unemployment….the film is just vast and extremely complicated in what it covers.
Now before I blabber on about how complicated the movie is - I would like to note another issue I had with the film: and it is just a problem that affects any documentary film: BIAS:
The film ‘Inside Job’ is not afraid of what it is: which is an extremely leftist piece of propaganda. Odd’s are your opinion of the people portrayed in the movie will be negative if you are actively seeking the picture out - and it is edited together to capitalize on this. It is all so subjectively handled. Ferguson and the rest of the film-makers don’t just lay out the facts; they interject their own voice, or Matt Damon’s narration; we are constantly getting a skewed look at events: Interviewees are rudely cut off and there are multiple sequences where suspicious editing is used. The whole situation ends up feeling very “Michael Moore” particularly in certain sections -especially those done for comedy; like a sequence where a bunch of bankers have to state their case in-front of a series of judges. The data in this movie feels skewed.
But like Michael Moore’s film-making it is undeniably effective and entertaining. It is just important to remember that if you are going start fighting for the cause of the movie; then do some research of your own before you start calling for tighter Gun laws…er…I mean Banking…wait… What do they want me to do about Wall Street again? Uh never mind…
But yeah I can’t help but think a lot of the “moviemaking” was done on purpose to make the film somewhat entertaining: Matt Damon is the narrator and does an okay job; it is just everything that he says is incredibly cheesy and hyperbolic (I know he didn’t write it) it is the ‘shouting for change’ type of rhetoric. Melodramatic sort of thing.
The big thing that felt “movie-like” is that Ferguson openly treats his interviewees like absolute SH*T. He yells at them, interrupts them, flat our abuses them, tells them they are wrong, it is crazy how in-your-face he is; for example many of the interviews are shut down because he yells at his subject - this makes for some uncomfortable viewing: a large part of ‘Inside Job’ is needlessly mean spirited; and while it may turn some off - I found it largely entertaining - I just thought this was a section of the movie that some could view as a negative so it was worth discussing.
This leads to what I think the film’s actual problem is: it is just massively complicated: In 109 minutes ALOT of ground is covered: For me: someone who was not knowledgeable about American Finance - I became lost in many places. It is difficult to mentally juggle hundreds of cast members, hundreds of facts and figures and graphs and topics -especially when you are there watching it in a cinema.It is hard enough to remember 3 peoples names - let alone one hundred..But hey; It wasn’t like I could just pause and rewind the film; if you miss or don’t understand something you can’t just go back. this is perhaps an unfair criticism as maybe I am just too stupid for the movie; and that someone with a major background in economics might find it base - I guess its a question of audience?
Is ‘Inside Job’ a movie only for the financial crowd? I believe that the answer is a firm “no” - its a movie that is meant to educate and enlighten. And it does a fairly good job of that - I just can’t help but feel that this movie would have worked much better as a television mini-series or something like that - where it had the luxury of time.
I guess ‘Inside Job’ is a movie that would work much better on television; where it can be digested easier; but that is not to say it isn’t worth a watch at the cinema. It definitely is; my only note of warning is you should only go and see the movie if you are really interested in the subject matter; it is not a film that will be enjoyed by everyone - so don’t drag along people just for the sake of it. For the non-caring this movie will be torture.
But if you are interested; then go check it out; it’ll probably be worth your time and money. There are only so few times you wish that a documentary film was longer and more in-depth; and I guess that’s the greatest compliment I can give ‘Inside Job’.
7 out of 10.
Movie trailer:
PussADD
Patricks review of FOOD, INC.
One ought to be thankful this documentary didn’t fall under the banner ‘Ecology – the new opium for the masses’; nor into a promotion of vegetarianism. It is a fine film, though I felt that Kenner’s move to give a few title cards at the end before the credits just to hammer in his motivational point, to be slightly patronizing. His point was made beautifully without it.
But what ‘point’ did he make? What often set documentaries apart from narrative film is there very obvious moral agenda. Stories often try to prohibit moral sensibility, more or less. I don’t like it that way, but it tends to be true; art that is moral is labeled preachy (but of course a work can be moral and not preachy; I am merely generalizing). The message of documentaries is to motivate mobilize and (especially in this case) inform. Food Inc. succeeds in doing these things very well and does so with clarity, smooth editing and engaging visual accompaniments to the verbal information. There are two basic statements that describe what Food Inc. does: it turns the walls of the food industry into glass; and withdraws not merely to ask the how but the why of the food industry. These are not my statements but those of a farmer (shown below), shown in the film, who pushes for clean food and enlightened consumers.
If anything brings this film down, it is director Kenner’s misfortune from having complete, uncensored access to this industry. The walls of the big American food distributors were too thick and stubborn to turn to glass. The heads of these companies refused to be interviewed, and refused a camera to penetrate inside their chicken coops. But the film is not exhaustive. It intends to plant the awareness in the viewer and hope they will grow into flowers of knowledge.
It may be that I watch so few documentaries in comparison to narratives that Food Inc. reminds one of a rather cynical idea. Without digressing too far, a majority of film, more of less, has the aim of emotionally moving a viewer rather than mentally engaging them. Now, don’t raise your voice too high just yet. There are plenty which do inspire contemplation. Yet as a (another) generalization most directors have taken emotion as their sword and left ideas, sometimes to rust, in their sheath. Let me say, this is not a limitation of the medium, nor a poke in the guts of emotion. I merely wish to make the point, even on a larger level, that too few people properly use their heads. In any case, this film is evidence for the opposite.
As cold and passionless as this sounds, a way of sobering emotional engagement is to withdraw, step back and observe. Food Inc. does this and makes no sneaky or cheap steps forward to suck sentiment out of you like Al Gore in his An Inconvenient Truth in those brief personal intermissions about his child inserted into his lecture. Cultural Critic Slavoj Zizek urges one to step back; the solution (or at least an approach) to world poverty or other such issues, is not: “there is no time to think, you must act now!” instead it is: “step back, think and try to understand.” This is a difference of thought and emotion, mostly anyway, at the core of Food Inc. But the film does not deal with poverty. And I am almost glad it avoided this area or the film might definitely have brought on a handful of tears, which, for a film intended to inform, is cheap and manipulative.
Another slight issue is the time restraint. There are many advantages in releasing this film in cinemas rather then television (it is likely to be treated more seriously; and funded with more substantial amounts of money; be recognized by the Academy), yet with this particular case, I sensed the information given us fell short. It seemed to run along the surface. It may perhaps be more useful as an informative tool if it were several hours longer. Narratives can get away with vague suggestion by hiding things. It can sometimes work very dramatically. But the advantage in unfolding two hours into nine or ten would enable the topic to be properly searched out and known in all its shapes and shades, and tastes. With this said, Food Inc. is a perfectly informative film, even within two hours. Only I hoped it may have gone into prospective food shortages in the future with a rapidly growing population. But I guess this wasn’t part of the film’s spine. Its aim wasn’t to press the moral issues hovering around food production (such as unbalanced global distribution), but merely to urge awareness of where our food comes from, and the right of every consumer to know the many ingredients, the factory process, the economics, etc, that comprises the food industry.
Nevertheless, the film may also be a two hour long advertisement for Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser’s book from which the film came. The final chapter of this book is titled ‘Global Realization’, and that is what Food Inc. intends to do. If this review has any purpose of its own it is to inform and hopefully motivate you to come to such realizations which only ideas can give. They are sometimes more needed than emotion. Where too many documentaries forget that their own bread and water are in ideas not emotional manipulation, this film remembers, and does not condescend.
Written by Patrick Cronin. ©Damngoodcup 2010
American release, 22 October 2009. Now Available on DVD.
Australian release, 20th May 2010.