DOCSLIB.ORG

Eugene Jarecki's

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Eugene Jarecki's 26 CHICAGO READER | FEBRUARY 17, 2006 | SECTION ONE Letters continued from page 3 No More Find it! Where That Came From Dear sirs: Z Michael Miner’s excellent overview of the issues involving Great Lakes water resources [“They Need It. We Waste It,” January 13] left out one pertinent fact: The New Reader Classifieds 90 percent of all the water chicagoreader.com | section 4 in the five lakes is the result of runoff from receding glaciers during the time when the Ice Age ended. Thus in the intervening 10,000 years only 10 percent of the water volume of the Great Lakes is due to rainfall and inflow from rivers and streams. The inadvisability of any large-scale diversion of Great Lakes water to both future freshwater supplies and to commercial navigation is obvious. All of us who are residents of the Great Lakes basin, whether Canadian or American, should take an active role in advocating for the passage of the Great Lakes- Saint Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact by contacting our respective elected representatives. Chet Alexander Alsip PS: This is not a new issue. While vacationing in a number of western states in 1982 and 1984 (both election years) I read and heard of a number of candidates for public office who advocated diverting Great Lakes water to the west. One proposal envisioned the construction of a pipeline from the western tip of Lake Superior at Duluth, Minnesota, that would supply water to the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming. Weekly Wackadoo Hola, I must tell you of my intense pleasure, which is your weekly columnist gone wackadoo ... a certain Lizzy A [Chicago Antisocial]. Is it just moi? Or is she amazing and exquisite? The latter suffices, methinks. Either way, please be assured of something: I pick up the Reader every Thursday for one reason—Liz Armstrong and her stimulating and colorful take on pop/art culture. I love that Bitch and her attitude! Peace, Thom Printers Row CHICAGO READER | FEBRUARY 17, 2006 | SECTION ONE 27 Reviews Movies Art Theater Eugene Jarecki’s Yutaka Sone TimeLine Theatre Company’s at the Guantanamo: Why Renaissance Honor Bound to We Fight Society Defend Freedom REVIEW BY J . R . JONES REVIEW BY BERTSTABLER REVIEW BY JUSTIN HAYFORD a 27 a 29 a 30 Movies WHY WE FIGHT sss WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY EUGENE JARECKI RATINGS ssss MASTERPIECE sss A MUST SEE ss WORTH SEEING s HAS REDEEMING FACET • WORTHLESS Bringing the War Home Eugene Jarecki, the director who stuck it to Henry Kissinger, puts it to the people in Why We Fight. By J.R. Jones ugene Jarecki made a name replacing the villain at the movie’s for himself on the art-house core are a half-dozen private indi- E circuit a few years back with viduals Jarecki picked up along The Trials of Henry Kissinger, a the way, and their very human stinging indictment of the former relationships with America’s mili- secretary of state as an architect tary machine demonstrate the and instrument of President depth of the problem. Nixon’s rapacious foreign policy. Jarecki borrowed his title from But in talking with audiences at the series of short indoctrination screenings, Jarecki began to feel films Frank Capra directed for the his 2002 film had missed the U.S. military during World War II. mark. “I was surprised how much For Capra the title was a state- people wanted to talk about ment, and a decidedly uncritical Henry Kissinger the man rather one. (“This isn’t just a war,” a nar- than the system he represents,” he rator announces in one short. says in press notes for his new “This is a common man’s struggle film, Why We Fight. “This time, I against those who would put him wanted to make a film that would back into slavery.”) Jarecki turns not offer a simple villain, but the title into a question, posing it instead invite viewers to look to nearly everyone he interviews Why We Fight more broadly at the system itself.” and providing a much-needed Why We Fight makes good on through line for his bulging narra- screech of the wheels the moment support himself and go to col- though the second was later dis- this ambition, opening with tive. “We fight for the principle of when the train turned a corner lege—there’s a poignant sequence proved, were the basis for the President Eisenhower’s prophetic self-determination,” President and Sekzer first glimpsed the in which he packs up his cheap escalation of U.S. involvement in 1961 farewell speech, in which he Johnson declares in a speech about World Trade Center belching black knickknacks, with their child- Vietnam—introduces Sekzer’s identified the military-industrial Vietnam. “We fight because it’s smoke. “I’m just thinking to hood memories, and takes them memories of serving as a helicop- complex as a threat to democratic necessary, and because it’s right,” myself, How did my son get out of to a storage center before ship- ter door gunner in that war. governance, and following this says smiley Bill Kristol. But those there?Well, I don’t know how, but ping out. On-screen the recruiter “From the perspective of a heli- premise through 9/11 and the are the short answers. The long he got out of there. There’s no two who signed Solomon up confides copter,” he says, “you’re up x-num- Iraq war. Jarecki looks at the one, articulated mostly by author ways about that. He can’t be in that it’s hard to win the recruits’ ber hundreds of feet, and you’re arms industry’s cozy relationship and CIA vet Chalmers Johnson there. Because anybody who’s in trust. But as Jarecki revealed dur- shooting at little dots that are with Congress and visits one of ( Blowback: The Costs and Con- there is gonna die.” After a clip of ing a recent local appearance, running around. You’re not shoot- the neocon think tanks where the sequences of American Empire ), is President Bush’s bullhorn moment cadets at a West Point screening ing at somebody face-to-face. It’s Bush Doctrine was hatched. He that we fight because our domestic at Ground Zero, Sekzer tells of Why We Fight laughed aloud almost like they’re not real human revisits Dick Cheney’s career with economy has been structured Jarecki, “Somebody had to pay for at some of Solomon’s mistaken beings. They’re objects.” From Halliburton and the administra- around war since World War II. this. Somebody had to pay for 9/11. impressions about what he’d be here Jarecki introduces Ahn tion’s massaging of the facts in the But for some of the people draft- I want the enemy dead. I want to doing in the army. Duong, who came to the U.S. at case against Saddam Hussein. He ed into the film, the answer to see their bodies stacked up for Fluidly edited by Nancy age 15 after her family was evacu- listens respectfully to political Jarecki’s question lies closer to what they did, for taking my son.” Kennedy, Why We Fight inter- ated from Saigon in April 1975. commentators both right home. Wilton Sekzer, a retired If Sekzer’s motivated by mis- weaves these personal stories not Her story might seem like a facile (Richard Perle, William Kristol, New York City cop, recalls riding placed vengeance, 23-year-old only with history but with one rebuke to Sekzer if not for the fact John McCain) and left (Gore the elevated train into the city from William Solomon is simply mis- another, yielding some choice that she’s now a navy explosives Vidal, Charles Lewis, Dan Rather) Queens the morning of 9/11. placed. His mother’s recent death ironies. A clip of President expert, part of the team that as they review 60 years of Jarecki combines his voice-over has left him without any family, Johnson announcing attacks developed the “bunker-buster” American realpolitik and weigh in with footage of Sekzer on the train and he’s enlisted in the army against two American ships in the bombs heralded at the beginning on the current conflict. But itself, re-creating down to the because it’s the only way he can Gulf of Tonkin—attacks that, continued on page 28 28 CHICAGO READER | FEBRUARY 17, 2006 | SECTION ONE Movies continued from page 27 Iraq indicating that scores of civil- of patriotism, of a deep desire for perspective. But the war in Iraq ment and remind us that in a of Operation Iraqi Freedom. ians were killed by U.S. precision revenge for what happened to my had nothing to do with the war on democracy no one can shrug off Not every character pays off weapons in the early days of the son,”he says. “But I was so insane terrorism.” Of the private individu- responsibility for the war. When emotionally: war. The point may be valid, but it with wanting to get even, I was als Jarecki brought into the film, Jarecki heads into flyover country Why We Fight Jarecki’s treat- feels rhetorical. willing to believe anything.” Asked Kwiatkowski has been the most for some quick man-on-the-street WHERE ment of two More effective are those charac- if he regrets his request, Sekzer is public; since stepping down as an interviews, the answers he gets Landmark’s U.S. fighter ters with an actual story arc—like forced into the excruciating posi- officer on the Iraq Desk in April are obscenely disengaged.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Don't Try This at Home: Lessons from America's War on Drugs
    Transcript Don’t Try This at Home: Lessons from America’s War on Drugs Eugene Jarecki Filmmaker; Director, The House I Live In Chair: Professor Alex Stevens Professor in Criminal Justice and Deputy Head of School, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent 21 May 2013 The views expressed in this document are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of Chatham House, its staff, associates or Council. Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to any government or to any political body. It does not take institutional positions on policy issues. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the author(s)/ speaker(s) and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the publication or details of the event. Where this document refers to or reports statements made by speakers at an event every effort has been made to provide a fair representation of their views and opinions, but the ultimate responsibility for accuracy lies with this document’s author(s). The published text of speeches and presentations may differ from delivery. Transcript: Lessons from America’s War on Drugs Alex Stevens: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to this fascinating event at Chatham House. My name is Alex Stevens; I’ll be chairing the event. I’m professor in criminal justice at the University of Kent and I’ve been working with Chatham House for the last year or so on their project on drugs and organized crime. I’m also a board member of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy, and I’m just back from Bogota, Colombia, where we had our annual conference and discussed many of the issues that Eugene’s fascinating film touches upon.
    [Show full text]
  • The King Premieres on Independent Lens Monday, January 28 on PBS
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Tanya Leverault, ITVS 415-356-8383 [email protected] Mary Lugo 770-623-8190 [email protected] Cara White 843-881-1480 [email protected] For downloadable images, visit pbs.org/pressroom The King Premieres on Independent Lens Monday, January 28 on PBS Climb into Elvis’s 1963 Rolls-Royce for a Musical Road Trip and Timely Meditation on Modern America Online Streaming Begins January 29 (San Francisco, CA) — Forty years after the death of Elvis Presley, two-time Sundance Grand Jury winner Eugene Jarecki takes the King’s 1963 Rolls-Royce on a musical road trip across America. From Tupelo to Memphis to New York, Las Vegas, and countless points between, the journey explores the rise and fall of Elvis as a metaphor for the country he left behind. What emerges is a visionary portrait of the state of the American dream and a penetrating look at how the hell we got here. The King premieres on Independent Lens Monday, January 28, 2019, 9:00-10:30PM ET (check local listings) on PBS. Far more than a musical biopic, The King is a snapshot of Credit: David Kuhn America at a critical time in the nation’s history. Tracing Elvis’ life and career from his birth and meteoric rise in the deep south to his tragic and untimely end in Hollywood and Las Vegas, The King covers a vast distance across contemporary America, painting a parallel portrait of the nation’s own heights and depths, from its inspired origins to its perennial struggles with race, class, power, and money.
    [Show full text]
  • 1997 Sundance Film Festival Awards Jurors
    1997 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL The 1997 Sundance Film Festival continued to attract crowds, international attention and an appreciative group of alumni fi lmmakers. Many of the Premiere fi lmmakers were returning directors (Errol Morris, Tom DiCillo, Victor Nunez, Gregg Araki, Kevin Smith), whose earlier, sometimes unknown, work had received a warm reception at Sundance. The Piper-Heidsieck tribute to independent vision went to actor/director Tim Robbins, and a major retrospective of the works of German New-Wave giant Rainer Werner Fassbinder was staged, with many of his original actors fl own in for forums. It was a fi tting tribute to both Fassbinder and the Festival and the ways that American independent cinema was indeed becoming international. AWARDS GRAND JURY PRIZE JURY PRIZE IN LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA Documentary—GIRLS LIKE US, directed by Jane C. Wagner and LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY (O SERTÃO DAS MEMÓRIAS), directed by José Araújo Tina DiFeliciantonio SPECIAL JURY AWARD IN LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA Dramatic—SUNDAY, directed by Jonathan Nossiter DEEP CRIMSON, directed by Arturo Ripstein AUDIENCE AWARD JURY PRIZE IN SHORT FILMMAKING Documentary—Paul Monette: THE BRINK OF SUMMER’S END, directed by MAN ABOUT TOWN, directed by Kris Isacsson Monte Bramer Dramatic—HURRICANE, directed by Morgan J. Freeman; and LOVE JONES, HONORABLE MENTIONS IN SHORT FILMMAKING directed by Theodore Witcher (shared) BIRDHOUSE, directed by Richard C. Zimmerman; and SYPHON-GUN, directed by KC Amos FILMMAKERS TROPHY Documentary—LICENSED TO KILL, directed by Arthur Dong Dramatic—IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, directed by Neil LaBute DIRECTING AWARD Documentary—ARTHUR DONG, director of Licensed To Kill Dramatic—MORGAN J.
    [Show full text]
  • FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Voleine Amilcar 415
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Voleine Amilcar 415-356-8383 x 244 [email protected] Mary Lugo 770-623-8190 [email protected] Cara White 843-881-1480 [email protected] For downloadable images, visit pbs.org/pressroom/ THE HOUSE I LIVE IN PREMIERES ON INDEPENDENT LENS ON MONDAY, APRIL 8, 2013 “I’d hate to imply that it’s your civic duty to see The House I Live In, but guess what — it is.” — Ty Burr, The Boston Globe (San Francisco, CA) — Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In builds a compelling case for the complete failure of America’s war on drugs. For the past forty years, the war on drugs has resulted in more than 45 million arrests, one trillion dollars in government spending, and America’s role as the world’s largest jailer. Yet for all that, drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available than ever. Filmed in more than twenty states, The House I Live In captures heart-wrenching stories from those on the front lines — from the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge — and offers a penetrating look at the profound human rights implications of America’s longest war. The House I Live In premieres on Independent Lens, hosted by Stanley Tucci, on Monday, April 8, 2013 at 10 PM on PBS (check local listings). The film recognizes drug abuse as a matter of public health, and investigates the tragic errors and shortcomings that have resulted from framing it as an issue for law enforcement.
    [Show full text]
  • Iraq War Documentaries in the Online Public Sphere
    Embedded Online: Iraq War Documentaries in the Online Public Sphere Eileen Culloty, MA This thesis is submitted to Dublin City University for the award of PhD in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Dublin City University School of Communications Supervisor: Dr. Pat Brereton September 2014 I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on the programme of study leading to the award of Doctor of Philosophy is entirely my own work, that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge breach any law of copyright, and has not been taken from the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Signed: ___________ ID No.: ___________ Date: _________ ii DEDICATION This work is dedicated to the memory of Martin Culloty. … I go back beyond the old man Mind and body broken To find the unbroken man. It is the moment before the dance begins. Your lips are enjoying themselves Whistling an air. Whatever happens or cannot happen In the time I have to spare I see you dancing father Brendan Kennelly (1990) ‘I See You Dancing Father’ iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ viii ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • 'Freakonomics' Documentary May Be a Rarity: Profitable
    April 4, 2010 ‘Freakonomics’ Documentary May Be a Rarity: Profitable By MICHAEL CIEPLY If Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the authors of “Freakonomics,” were to examine the movie business, they might ask: Why do documentary filmmakers keep doing it? It can’t be the money, because the world is awash in documentaries that make little at the box office or are not distributed at all. Occasionally, though, a documentary makes a buck for those involved — and the new documentary based on “Freakonomics” could do just that. Magnolia Pictures is expected to announce on Monday that it has acquired domestic distribution rights to the film, which was produced by the Green Film Company and directed, in parts, by a series of well-known documentarians. Those include Alex Gibney ( “Taxi to the Dark Side” ), Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing ( “Jesus Camp” ), Morgan Spurlock ( “Super Size Me” ), Eugene Jarecki ( “Why We Fight” ) and Seth Gordon ( “The King of Kong” ). “Freakonomics,” the film, got started when Chad Troutwine, a producer who worked on an earlier multidirector movie, “Paris, Je T’aime,” became interested in the best-selling book, which looks into matters like the socioeconomic implications of baby naming. Dan O’Meara, who with Chris Romano and Mr. Troutwine is a producer of “Freakonomics,” said the movie cost just under $3 million, which is not small potatoes in the documentary world. One financial hurdle, Mr. O’Meara said, was that the big-name filmmakers, unlike many on the festival circuit, actually had to be paid. Mr. O’Meara declined to say exactly how much each received, but all were paid the same, he said, and the amounts were “a pretty reasonable fee, above guild minimums.” Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Rafea: Solar Mama
    RAFEA: SOLAR MAMA Noujaim Films Presents: RAFEA: SOLAR MAMA A film by Mona Eldaief & Jehane Noujaim Toronto International Film Festival 2012 DOC NYC 2012 : Special Jury Prize + Audience Award International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam 2012: Oxfam Global Justice Award Doha Tribeca International Film Festival 2012 Rafea is a Bedouin living on the Jordan-Iraq border. She and 30 illiterate grandmothers from around the world will travel to The Barefoot College in India to become Solar Engineers. If she succeeds, she will power her entire village, but can she re- wire the traditional minds of her Bedouin community? www.rafeasolarmama.com Mona Eldaief :[email protected] Jehane Noujaim : [email protected] RAFEA: SOLAR MAMA Synopsis “If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is women” -- Desmond Tutu Rafea is a Bedouin woman who lives with her four daughters in one of Jordan’s poorest desert villages on the Iraqi border. She is given a chance to travel to India to attend the Barefoot College, where illiterate mothers and grandmothers from around the world are trained in 6 months to be solar engineers. If Rafea succeeds, she will be able to electrify her village, train more engineers, and provide for her daughters. Even when she returns as the first female solar engineer in the country, her real challenge will have just begun. Will she find support for her new venture? Will she be able to inspire the other women in the village to join her and change their lives? And most importantly, will she be able to re-wire the traditional minds of some of the members of her Bedouin community that stand in her way? RAFEA: SOLAR MAMA Director’s Statement Wherever we come from, at one point in our lives, we have all been given a challenge that we doubted we were capable of.
    [Show full text]
  • HOUSE-Fac-Guide.Pdf
    A Message from the Film’s Producer, Eugene Jarecki With Vision ... e senselessness and scope of the tragedy of drug abuse while inicting immeasurable By Faith ... in Newtown, CT demand that we as damage both on those targeted by drug rough Action Americans take a moral inventory of who laws and on the hopes and beliefs of those we are as a nation and what we want to be who enforce them. A Message from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference going forward. I’ve spent the last several years making a documentary about the But there was hope, too, because in so - e Social Justice Network - severity of America’s drug laws and their many people I met, I found great majesty– e United States represents 5% of the world’s population, yet holds 25% of the world’s incarcerated. For the past devastating impact on poor and minority the capacity to forgive, to search within several years, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference has been engaged in implementing a national educational communities and the national soul- oneself, to seek a higher purpose and to awareness campaign on the impact of mass incarceration on our families, communities and this nation searching that Newtown demands is not look for a better way. I can report that the (www.tobefreeatlast.net). We have done so, along with many others in an interfaith and ecumenical manner. Two unrelated to a long overdue reexamination approach America has taken to our drug seminal works on this issue are: e New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle of the drug war and the brutality it has problem is increasingly seen as morally Alexander and Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon.
    [Show full text]
  • Following Is a Listing of Public Relations Firms Who Have Represented Films at Previous Sundance Film Festivals
    Following is a listing of public relations firms who have represented films at previous Sundance Film Festivals. This is just a sample of the firms that can help promote your film and is a good guide to start your search for representation. 11th Street Lot 11th Street Lot Marketing & PR offers strategic marketing and publicity services to independent films at every stage of release, from festival premiere to digital distribution, including traditional publicity (film reviews, regional and trade coverage, interviews and features); digital marketing (social media, email marketing, etc); and creative, custom audience-building initiatives. Contact: Lisa Trifone P: 646.926-4012 E: [email protected] ​ www.11thstreetlot.com 42West 42West is a US entertainment public relations and consulting firm. A full service bi-coastal agency, ​ 42West handles film release campaigns, awards campaigns, online marketing and publicity, strategic communications, personal publicity, and integrated promotions and marketing. With a presence at Sundance, Cannes, Toronto, Venice, Tribeca, SXSW, New York and Los Angeles film festivals, 42West plays a key role in supporting the sales of acquisition titles as well as launching a film through a festival publicity campaign. Past Sundance Films the company has represented include Joanna Hogg’s THE SOUVENIR (winner of World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic), Lee Cronin’s THE HOLE IN THE GROUND, Paul Dano’s WILDLIFE, Sara Colangelo’s THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER (winner of Director in U.S. competition), Maggie Bett’s NOVITIATE
    [Show full text]
  • Freakonomics
    Freakonomics KINOSTART: 24.10.2013 Pressematerial unter www.kinostar.com 1 Inhaltsverzeichnis Cast und Crew Seite 3 Technische Daten Seite 3 Inhalt Seite 4 Die Buchvorlage Seite 5 Über den Film Seite 6 Das „Freakonomics“-Phänomen Seite 7 Die fünf Elemente von „Freakonomics“ Seite 8 - 9 Die vier Segmente des Films Seite 10 - 16 Über die Filmemacher Seite 17 - 20 Kontakt Seite 21 2 Crew Regie Heidi Ewing, Alex Gibney, Seth Gordon, Rachel Grady, Eugene Jarecki, Morgan Spurlock Drehbuch Peter Bull, Alex Gibney, Jeremy Chilnick, Morgan Spurlock, Eugene Jarecki, Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady, Seth Dordon Produktion Chad Troutwine, Chris Romano, Dan O'Meara Cast Carl Alleyne Freund Zoe Sloane Blake Adesuwa Addy Iyare Mutter von Temptress Jade Viggiano High School Schülerin Sammuel Soifer Jake Jalani McNair Loser Andrew Greiche Jake Alyssa Wheeldon High School Schülerin Amancaya Aguilar Mercedes Kellie Gerardi Lexus Technische Daten Länge 93 Minuten Produktionsland USA Produktionsjahr 2010 Sound Mix Dolby Digital 3 Inhalt Kann Bestechung eine gute Sache sein? Bestimmt dein Name dein Schicksal? Was haben Sumoringer und Lehrer gemeinsam? Was wäre wenn alles, was wir über die Natur des Menschen wissen, falsch ist? FREAKONOMICS gibt Aufschluss über diese und andere Fragen. Was steckt wirklich hin­ ter vielen Themen des Alltags? Oft ist die naheliegende nicht die richtige Erkenntnis. Sechs renommierte Dokumentarfilmregisseure befassen sich mit den eigenwilligen The­ sen des bekannten Ökonomen Steven Levitt und des erfolgreichen Schriftstellers Stephen Dubner aus dem gleichnamigen Sachbuch-Bestseller. 4 Die Buchvorlage Das Buch „Freakonomics“ ist eine Sammlung von Wirtschaftsartikeln, die Themen und Theorien behandeln, die in den traditionellen Wirtschaftswissenschaften so nicht vorkom­ men.
    [Show full text]
  • Freakonomics
    Name _____________________________________________ Date ___________________ Period __________ Freakonomics Summary: In 2005, economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner teamed-up to write the ​ book Freakonomics. Covering a wide-range of topics, the two set out to demonstrate that statistics and figures can be used to belie things we previously believed to know as fact. Now, documentarians Seth Gordon, Alex Gibney, Morgan Spurlock, Eugene Jarecki, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady have created a documentary based on Levitt and Dubner’s findings that is not only endlessly fascinating, but also immensely entertaining. Separated into four chapters with interludes, each documentarian (or pair of documentarians in Ewing and Grady) takes on a different section of the book and analyzes it in their own style. First up is Spurlock (Super Size Me), who attempts to discover if a person’s first name can dictate their success in life. Next, Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) investigates corruption in the thought-to-be sacred world of Japanese sumo wrestling. Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) then looks at the incredible drop in crime rates during the 1990s and finally, Ewing and Grady (Jesus Camp) aim to learn if cash incentives can motivate underachieving students in Chicago public schools. Fundamental ideas offered in the video: *Incentives are the corner stone of modern life. *The conventional wisdom is often wrong. *Dramatic effects often have distant, even subtle, causes. *“Experts”—from criminologists to real-estate agents—use their informational advantage to serve their own agenda. *Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes a complicated world much less so.
    [Show full text]
  • Premieres Program Showcases Some of the Most Highly Anticipated Films of the Coming Year
    The Premieres program showcases some of the most highly anticipated films of the coming year. Catch world premieres and the latest work from established directors at the Sundance Film Festival before they create a splash at local theatres. Cedar Rapids DIRECTOR: Miguel Arteta SCREENWRITER: Phil Johnston U.S.A., 2010, 86 min., color Miguel Arteta returns to the Sundance Film Festival with a comedy about a group of Premieres insurance salesmen who use the opportunity PRESENTED BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY to attend an annual convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as a way to escape their doleful existence . like Vegas but with corn. Tim Lippe has been living in a small town his whole life and gets a rude awakening when he arrives in the “giant” metropolis of Cedar Rapids. However, his boyish charm and innocence eventually win over his fellow conventioneers, but he becomes disheartened when he uncovers corporate corruption. When it seems his life—and chances to succeed—are completely topsy-turvy, he finds his own unjaded way to turn things around. Cedar Rapids deftly straddles that line between laughing at and with its subjects thanks to Arteta’s skilled direction and Ed Helms’s hilarious, yet thoughtful, performance. John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. play off Helms perfectly to fashion characters that are eccentric, yet honest. Filled with quotable dialogue and unforgettable scenes, Cedar Rapids achieves the impossible: it makes insurance fun.—T.G. Pr: Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor Principal Cast: Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Alia Shawkat, Sigourney Weaver Sunday, January 23, 9:30 p.m.
    [Show full text]