Documentary

ZOOOOOOOOOOOMG!

I have been waiting for this documentary since I saw Morgan Spurlock at SXSW last year, when he was there presenting What Would Jesus Buy?, a documentary about Reverend Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping's crusade against conspicuous consumption.

This from Apple.com's trailer park :

If Morgan Spurlock has learned anything from over 30 years of movie-watching, it’s that if the world needs saving, it’s best done by one lone man willing to face danger head on to take it down, action hero style. So, with no military experience, knowledge or expertise, he sets off to do what the CIA, FBI and countless bounty hunters have failed to do: find the world’s most wanted man. Why take on such a seemingly impossible mission? Simple-he wants to make the world safe for his soon to be born child. But before he finds Osama bin Laden, he first needs to learn where he came from, what makes him tick, and most importantly, what exactly created bin Laden to begin with.

I just started watching BLINDSIGHT. It is a documentary about how Sabriye Tenberken, founder of Braille without Borders and blind herself, contacted Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to get to the top of Mount Everest.

She asked Erik if he'd lead a team of teenagers from her school and helped themclimb Mount Everest. He accepted the challenge and went one step further. He made sure the adventure would be documented.

I will write a proper review. Just wanted to give you the heads up with the trailer.

Just, wow!

He's got it!

Al Gore WON!

Michael over at PageOneQ has a special request :

If 1,000 people hop over to the Current TV site and vote for the documentary about two teenagers being bullied for being gay, the producers have promised the entire $100,000 prize will be directed towards programs which help reduce homophobia in America's high schools.

So go vote now.

This email was sent to users with the following roles: member

Just a quick heads up.

Thanks to Mary Hunt and everybody else who let me know about the design problems in Internet Explorer and it's satanic-spawn, the AOL browser. I've switched back to the old design. If you are a Firefox user and want to switch back to the new-yet-undebugged version, rea this post. It also has information on how to contribute to our site by switching to Firefox.

The second request is a bit more involved. I urge you to watch Hacking Democracy on our site and invite others to do so as well. Use the send button at the bottom of the post, to spread the word about Diebold's voting machines.

People need to be ready to fight for their vote not after but BEFORE they go to the polls.

That's it, at least for now

What is worse than the assassination of George W. Bush? Having to talk about President Cheney. Especially since he wouldn't be term limited. Let's say that Laura Bush's loss would be one hell of a gain for The Dick. That's the scariest image to come out of this movie.

I am so glad I was given the opportunity by Newmarket Films to watch it. I actually was thisclose to leaving the theater after seeing the first 15 minutes. The way everything was set up, with "activists" being painted as freakazoid Bush haters really pissed me off. Then, the movie throws us an interesting monkey wrench : the honest FBI agent.

Given this is a fictional documentary, all the characters address the camera a-la Frontline. Meaning, the acting is low key, restrained and as "objective" as possible. This may be why the movie rubs people the wrong way. The possible actions laid out in the aftermath of this fake assassination are as credible as the material evidence of history has shown us. Can you see Dick Cheney ... I mean, President Dick Cheney rallying the hawks to go after Syria? Yup. How about stoking the chilling flames of fear and terror to get a newer and tougher Patriot Act? You betcha.

This impassive portrayal of the possible outcomes is what makes the movie so chilling. The subject may be sensationalistic but the movie, as an end result, is a cautionary tale.

WTF

I watched the film Ashes and Snow today.

I want to lighten up, and enjoy this truly enchanting and fluid film, but I cannot shake the feeling that I was supposed to be seduced into not noticing the racism and exploitation ...

People of color with their eyes and mouths closed and still as stone. Exquisite women of color dancers playing second fiddle to the white swim-dancers who had the first and last scene. Haikus written with the self-important tone of a white man. The white man who has the last word while the third world folks are his "medium." It was set up so that the human beings were objectified. He contributes, imo, to racism in the form of the exoticizing and dehumanizing of women of color. Men and children too for that matter. Then he imposes his poetry on top of their worlds.

At the time I was watching, I thought the narrator was white. I stand corrected Laurence Fishburne is a black man. That helps some, but the fact remains that a white man waltzed around the world and took what he wanted from it.

I almost never watch network TV anymore. There's only a couple of shows I watch on cable and that's it. So it came as a surprise my opportunity to watch ABC News: 'Out of Control: AIDS in Black America'

Black Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for over 50 percent of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That infection rate is eight times the rate of whites. Among women, the numbers are even more shocking%u2014- almost 70 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV-positive women in the United States are black women. Black women are 23 times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS than white women, with heterosexual contact being the overwhelming method of infection in black America.

I urge you to watch all 6 parts over at You Tube. I have included above part 5, "Failure to Lead". You will be disgusted by the Reverend Jakes. Who shocked me with his cluelessness was Jesse Jackson. He got owned by Terry Moran when he called him on his focus on AIDS in Africa but not in the United States.

It's funny how networks happen on the web. I got the "ping" about this documentary from Harvard's Berkman Center before Martin Lucas, the documentarian actually told me about the release. The internets are faster indeed.

[via Home - Berkman Center for Internet & Society]

Many to Many: Public Media and the Blogosphere is a 12-minute documentary available for download at centerforsocialmedia.org. 

The film examines how public broadcasters are using blogs and other new media tools to interact with their audiences, and how bloggers are creating new public media spaces.  The film features interviews and coverage of:

* Dina Mehta and Neha Viswanathan of Global Voices Online
* Cara Mertes, executive director of PBS documentary series P.O.V.
* Lucy Hooberman, BBC Research & Development
* Chris Lydon and Brendan Greeley of Radio Open Source at PRI
* Liza Sabater of culturekitchen.com