Todd’s Movie Blog

What happened to making real documentaries?  You know, films that actually documented an event or someone’s life.  Oh sure there are occasional films that use interviews and archival footage to tell a person’s story, like the upcoming Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, but more and more since Michael Moore came on the scene, documentaries have morphed into personal diatribes to make points on their stance without any attempt to show both sides of the argument.

Two diverse films that have come out this year are perfect examples of the Michael Moore technique.  Ben Stein’s Expelled examines the persecution of teachers who want teach intelligent design in school, while making the point that if you don’t believe in God you are stupid.  Bill Maher’s Religulous is a film that examines religion and concludes that if you believe in God you are stupid.  Both use clever editing to make fun of their targets and show how superior Stein and Maher are to them, and to a certain extent us as well.

Thanks Mike!  I don’t know how I would ever get through my life without all of the people you’ve inspired informing me of how ignorant I am.  Considering that these films are about as much a real documentary as Borat, I think I’ll break out my Star Wars Original Trilogy box set and watch Empire of Dreams instead.  Not much useful information  in the film, unless you’re playing Trivial Pursuit:Star Wars Edition, but a least it’s entertainment that doesn’t come at someone else’s expense.

This is going to be one of the most intense elections in years.  Political slants are popping up everywhere, and I’m not just talking about the Palin skits featuring Tina Fey on SNL or Glenn Beck’s CNN article defending Sarah Palin.  Everybody, and I mean everybody, is putting out their opinions on the upcoming election.  Roger Ebert has three, count’em, three articles on his website.  One is an article expressing his displeasure at the way McCain refused to look directly at Obama during their debate.  The second is a satirical piece making fun of Palin’s apparent inability to answer simple questions during interviews.  Lastly there is a reprint of an earlier article commenting on our current president’s redundant and at times incoherent analogies he uses to make points during speeches and press conferences.  But that’s nothing compared to LA Times’s Pat Goldstein writing in his article “From Film Critic to Political Pundit” making the claim that film critics are better equipped to be political commentators than the people who actually do political commentary.  His article is quoted along with several other’s in Jim Emerson’s take on the subject in his blog article “Why Movie Critics Make Such Good Political Pundits”.

Enough already!  I have no problem with people,  famous or not, expressing their opinions on important political matters in this country,  Freedom of Speech and all that.  But do you have to squeeze it in between articles on Paul Newman’s passing and a re-evaluation of The Godfather II on the home page?  I don’t go to a movie site to read about John McCain, Barack Obama or George W. Bush.  Can’t this be something put off on a separate page with a link where you talk about things other than film?

Of course I’m one to talk, here I am bitching about people bitching about politics on film sites.