Waiting For Superman |How Does This Happen?

These kids who are dropping out, aren’t dropping out to be screen writers

This is a powerful movie. I don’t even have kids but it still makes you sad, angry, frustrated and a little optimistic at the same time. Waiting for Superman gives shocking stats about school districts around the country. It follows five different parents/kids vying for an opportunity to leave the public school system and win the lottery for a private charter school. Which at first might sounds like some spoiled families who just want their kids to go to some fancy private school but then you hear about the ‘drop out factories’ that some of these kids are about to enter and you learn about how much better these charter schools are and it’s literally shocking. These kids aren’t winning a lottery to go to a better school. They’re winning a lottery to save their lives…its like a real world version of The Hunger Games.

How can people, specifically the President of one of the teachers unions who was featured in the movie, live with themselves KNOWING (and they can actually prove this with statistics) that the teachers and system that they support is deteriorating our society (not all but a lot). It’s also incredibly frustrating and disheartening to hear that these same groups are some of the largest contributors to political campaigns. Politics aside, how does an teachers organization have enough money to be one of the largest donors to political parties? Does that make any sense?

At the end of the film you see the parents and kids as they wait for the lottery to end. You wait for their number to get called, and for most of the kids it didn’t get called, you can’t help but feel like winning this lottery is almost like winning the game of life. It sounds cheesy but with the data that supports the potential that these kids could have in these private schools compared with what they will more than likely have if they enter the school they are supposed to enter. You feel like that persons future suddenly looks so dim in comparison.

It all sounds very drastic and maybe it is but there is probably another side to this story and a compelling reason in favor of public schools (obviously not all public schools are bad and some of the absolute worst schools were featured in this movie). There are also dozens of outside factors that determine if any of those kids would end up being successful or even make it out of their rough neighborhoods. Regardless it makes me glad that I don’t have kids yet and I don’t have to think about this.

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Rating:
Dave: 4 out of 5 Edward’s
Eddie: 4.5 out of 5 Edward’s

Exit Through the Gift Shop | Artfully Done Mr. Brainwash

Fantastic documentary for two main reasons.
1. The art is great
2. The focus of the film changes two or three times keeping your attention and the story interesting..

Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary about ‘Street Art’ also known as graffiti. Except it’s really about a guy who fell in love with street art and started to film as many street artists as he could find. After a failed attempt at his own documentary, he starts making his own street art basically copying everything that he’s seen over the past several year. Then he figures out how to bypass the years and years of ‘honing your craft’ and skip right to selling the image of art to people willing to buy it.

Street art is usually either awesome or horrible graffiti. Part of what makes this movie so fun is that they skip all the crap and focus on the really good pieces that you’ve probably seen or heard of before. It’s a fascinating look at a guy who is either brilliant or crazy. Either way, this movie was great.

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Rating:
Dave: 4 out of 5 Edward’s
Eddie: 4 out of 5 Edward’s

Freakonomics | Quality but not as good as the blog

This was a solid documentary and I did see it without reading the book. From what I understand is this is basically a visual representation of a few chapters in the book. The only real downfall is that more so with the topic rather than the actual movie, it feels more like an episode of 20/20 rather than something you’d go to a theater to enjoy.

With that said, I’d definitely recommend watching this. You will probably enjoy it but not be blown away. You might even be tempted to read the book to learn more or better yet, check out there blog and radio show. Both are very interesting just like the movie but they pack the info into a much smaller package, which might be a better fit for the Freakonomics group.

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Rating:
Dave: 3 out of 5 Edward’s
Eddie: 3 out of 5 Edward’s

Food Matters | Where is the nearest Whole Foods!?

An occasional documentary is a good thing. It’s like listening to NPR, you might actually learn something and its more fun than going to school or reading the paper. In this case Food Matters was very informative and it accomplished it’s goal…it inspired an impromptu trip to Whole Foods.

Food Matters, much like the more popular Food Inc. is a soap box for changing the way people eat, becoming healthy and eating more organic foods. Unlike Food Inc however, this takes a much more direct approach at the Pharmaceutical companies and medical professionals. Of course this movie should be watched with a grain of salt but at the same time it raises some interesting points on how poorly the medical profession is doing in regards to disease and general health (ie. the common cold)

The ‘experts’ in this film do give credit to the medical professionals when it comes to pain management, child birth and trauma. however many of the points that they make against that same community are fascinating and they really do inspire you to eat a little healthier. In fact we (Eddie’s mom and I) really have been making an conscience effort to make ourselves ‘healthier’ based on some of the information from the movie (and our own personal research).

As far as documentaries go, Food Matters is effective and entertaining. Assuming that you have the slightest interest in the ever popular trend in organic foods and getting healthy, this should inspire you to get off the couch, quit typing stupid blog posts on your laptop and…well, we really did go to Whole Foods…seriously!

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Rating:
Dave: 4.5 out of 5 Edward’s
Eddie: 4 out of 5 Edward’s