film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
The conversation on my review of Sicko got a bit of a jumpstart this week, so it’s a good moment to mention that the PBS documentary Critical Condition, about what happens when you don’t have health care in America and dare to get sick, is streaming in its entirety online through November 11, 2008. Watch … more…
Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer… Be afraid. Be very afraid. The End of America is screening at the Hamptons Film Festival later this month, and coming to DVD soon.
Take a break from work: watch a movie trailer… I can’t believe we’re still arguing over this in 2008… Saving Marriage opens in San Francisco October 10, in NYC, LA, Boston, and Denver October 17.
Michael Moore — that wacko filmmaker behind such incendiary rants as Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko — is up to his crazy-ass lunacy again. He’s got a new documentary just out called Slacker Uprising. Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, which is helping to distribute the film, explains that: Moore has set his … more…
Still reeling from the shock of the Wall Street “crisis”? Here’s why:
Something in the zeitgeist is making us suddenly fascinated by people who dress up in pseudo medieval garb, pick up fake swords and maces, and beat the hitpoints out of one another. You know, for fun.
Who’da thunk? There’s a job for everyone: It’s a joke, of course, but so well done, with all the right little details, that you almost suspect it’s gotta be real. It becomes a beautiful and subtle parody of the documentary genre.
I keep thinking of Pete, the diner owner in *The Muppets Take Manhattan,* and his little speech to Kermit about how ‘peoples is peoples.’ Is true, no?
Here’s the thing: If the mainstream media isn’t gonna do its job in speaking truth to power, someone else is gonna do it. And yeah, it might be that guy who ate nothing but McDonald’s for a month.
A cheery and friendly look at a little-known subculture…
