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 Year: 2008
Director: Susan Koch, Jeff Werner
Cast: Documentary
Plot Outline: (from IMDB) The lives of homeless people are changed forever through an international soccer competition. This film follows six players as they set off for Cape Town, South Africa to play in the Homeless World Cup.
Standouts: I watched this while the 2010 World Cup was going on and had a bit of soccer fever – I do thoroughly enjoy the sport, but I don’t get exposed to it much on TV on a regular basis. This documentary was very moving, and I grew to love all the different players from different countries — it was hard to know whom to root for as they sent into the finals. The Homeless World Cup is a wonderful idea, and you can learn more about them here.
 Year: 2009
Director: Doug Pray
Cast: Documentary
Plot Outline:Documentary detailing history and pop culture behind the advertising game, from the Madison Avenue heyday in the ’60s to modern-day manipulators like “Got Milk?” and Apple’s “Think Different” campaign.
Standouts: Interesting subject matter, the interviews are engaging. I am perplexed by the juxtaposition of the interviews of the advertisers and the blue-collar billboard worker. And all the stats about how much is spent on advertising and how much corporations reap from it. The stats are never mentioned in any other context. It’s kind of lazy, like it’s just filler. Make something of it!
 Year: 2009
Director: Sarah Townsend
Cast: Documentary (Eddie Izzard).
Plot Outline: Follows comedian Eddie Izzard around on tour as he works on his material for his “Sexie” performance at Wembley Stadium. Details small scandal that caused Izzard to walk away briefly from stand-up.
Standouts: I wasn’t aware that this small scandal even existed — apparently during his “Circle” tour, several people accused Izzard of recycling material from his previous tour. That’s some really weak sauce. The charges are so easily refuted (Izzard himself says this is the way he’s worked for years — takes a small piece from the last show and then builds on it and improves upon it while on the road). It’s an interesting look backstage with Izzard, nice to see how he workshops his comedy and what it was that drove him originally to doing TV in the U.S.
 Year: 2007
Director: Peter Askin
Cast: Documentary. Donald Sutherland, David Strathairn, Liam Neeson, Joan Allen, Christopher & Mitzi Trumbo.
Plot Outline: The life and career of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, told through interviews with friends, family and co-workers, and through readings from his works and letters.
Standouts: Dalton Trumbo is one of my heroes, plain and simple. I am attracted to stories of little people taking on large battles. Trumbo was never really a great screenwriter — he was very successful, especially in his early years, because he was fast and he was consistent. He told great stories, but he was not a great hand at dialogue. His best works were his novels, particularly Johnny Got His Gun, and his letters, which are used to great advantage here, with dramatic readings from some of Hollywood’s finest. If I have any complaints, it’s that some of the dramatic readings are too actorly. Paul Giamatti was overboard, I thought, as was Michael Douglas in spots. His letters are so well-written, though, I can hardly blame them for wanting to really sink their teeth into the material.
Based on a play by his son Christopher Trumbo, this is an affectionate and warm tribute to a man, a flawed man, who had the courage to say “Hell no.” And good for him. I hope that I am never in the position that Trumbo found himself. But if I ever am, I hope I have his courage.
 Year: 2001
Director: J.T.S. Moore
Cast: Documentary. Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens
Plot Outline: Documentary follows the early history of the Linux Operating System, and the Free Software and Open Source movements.
Standouts: Well, there sure are a boatload of hardcore nerds in this movie — and as always, I mean that in the most affectionate way. In the last couple of years I have become a faithful Linux user (my netbook, which I use almost exclusively at home, runs Ubuntu 10.04) and a dedicated advocate of Open Source. This is a nice history lesson on the background of the birth of GNU and Linux — some of it, I confess, is beyond my meager means of understanding. I still don’t really get what a “kernel” is. It’s an interesting subject matter to me, but it’s not what I would call great movie-making, necessarily.
 Year: 2003
Director: Andrew Jarecki
Cast: Documentary
Plot outline: Engrossing documentary follows the story of the Friedman family, a seemingly nice, normal, middle class American family that becomes involved in a horrifying scandal.
Standouts: Andrew Jarecki had been working on a documentary about clowns working in Manhattan for children’s parties, when he met David Friedman — a very successful clown who was clearly a very screwed-up individual who couldn’t stop himself from making really shitty remarks about his mom. As Jarecki spent more time with David and looked deeper into his background, it was revealed that the Friedman family was involved in a huge child molestation scandal in the 1980s, and that David had tons of video footage of his family falling apart. The focus of the documentary, needless to say, was changed considerably, and thus “Capturing the Friedmans” was born. A fascinating, thought-provoking must-see.
Year: 2007
Directors: Stephen Walker/Sally George
Cast: Documentary
Plot outline: Documentary about a group of elderly citizens and their unique chorus group—they perform rock songs, by groups and artists as diverse as James Brown, Manfred Mann, Sonic Youth, Coldplay and Jimi Hendrix.
Standouts: There is nothing original about the filmmaking here, but the stories of each of these seniors and their music makes the film worthwhile and enjoyable. There’s some sadness too. This movie introduced me to the Coldplay song “Fix You,” the second Coldplay song I have ever liked.
2008, dir. Patrick Creadon, documentary featuring David Walker and Robert Bixby.
Final title card, after credits have completed: “While you watched this film, $85 million was added to the federal debt.” FUCK. This movie is terrifying. Man, forget Saw or The Ring, treat yourself and the family to I.O.U.S.A. if you really want a bona fide horror flick. As unnerving as this unbiased and nonpartisan look at our National Debt is, it should be required viewing for all Americans. We’re in a seriously deep hole, and while the film doesn’t have any good answers for how to get out of it, one thing it makes very clear is that we’ll never get out of it if we do nothing at all and just trust that our government will shepherd us out of it.
It’s short—maybe too short, I found myself wanting more explained—and it’s very accessible. Economics has never been my strong suit (I’m getting better at it, by necessity), but the filmmakers manage the difficult balancing act of taking a lot of material that is typically boring and difficult to understand, and presents it in a manner that is easy to understand, without making the viewer feel like she’s being talked down to. The film was mostly shot in 2007 and very early 2008, and it’s jaw-dropping how serious the situation was then. Now, of course, it’s exponentially worse.
The first two thirds of the film set up our deficit problem in four parts: budget deficit, savings deficit, trade deficit and leadership deficit. Once the audience is comfortable with all of these terms and what they mean and how we’re stacking up, it combines them all together, and it doesn’t mince words—the outlook is bleak. There is no easy solution, and even some of the more obvious but difficult fixes (getting out of Iraq, rolling back the Bush tax cuts) will only make a fraction of a difference. I’m not gonna lie, this is a bleak, bleak picture. But it’s really important. See it.
As of this writing, our National Debt is $11,607,284,673,892.97
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