Death Wish

Free Solo
Directors: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Released: September 28, 2018

Oscar nominations:
Best Documentary (Won)

I don't mean to start out this review with such a morose statement, but I predict that the guy who this documentary revolves around will be dead by the time he's 40. Alex Honnold is 33 at the moment and he's known for free soloing which is where you rock climb without any ropes or basically any kind of safety gear. Sounds pretty stupid if you ask me. Two years ago he became the first person ever to free solo El Capitan, a massive rock formation in Yosemite National Park and it was captured on camera and thus this documentary was born. I vaguely remember hearing about this on the news when it happened.

Before I started watching this, I checked to see if he was still alive (I didn't know for sure!) He is, but even knowing that it still made me nervous while watching him climb so high without any safety gear! I can't imagine that they would still release the film if he had died. I mean, they wouldn't do that, would they?

In the mid-2000s, Honnold free soloed cliff walls  around 1,500-2,000 feet tall and this is where he started becoming known to people who follow this kind of thing (unlike me!) He has his eyes set on El Capitan because nobody has ever free soloed it and it seems like the reason that has never happened is because it seems impossible (and very dangerous!) They talk to a mountain climber (one of many they talk to and I don't remember any of their names) who has climbed El Capitan many times and he said he would never free solo it, although he has free soloed many other mountains in Yosemite.

Of course it would be stupid for Honnold to climb this mountain sans safety gear on his first try and the film documents him climbing it many times with ropes and harnesses and taking copious notes. We see pages and pages of a notebook filled with pretty much every little detail you can find on the mountain. It kind of reminds me of a playbook coaches uses in football games because he's using it to plot every move he'll make when he'll eventually free solo it. He has to assess every crack and crevice on the rock wall (some just barely big enough to hold only your big toe!) and determine which maneuver will be the safest. We see him fall on many of his trial attempts, but luckily he is attached to ropes so these trial runs are quite important! I don't remember if they said how many times he climbed El Capitan in the film, but I watched a TED talk he did and he said he climbed it 50 times within the last decade.

The mountain is divided into "pitches" and each one is given a name. One of his dilemmas while free soloing El Capitan will have to be choosing between "The Boulder Problem" route or "The Glass Wall" route. Both are very scary and seem impossible for someone free soloing. Also, both are high enough that if he falls, he's dead. In "The Boulder Problem", he will have very narrow crevices to work with and will have to know exactly how he plans to maneuver his arms and legs on each crevice. I think he even mentions that there's a small crevice just barely big enough to put his toe on. Towards the end of this pitch, he'll have to do a karate kick to reach a bigger rock he needs to get to and really stretch his leg to get to it. "The Glass Wall" is exactly what it sounds like: it will literally be like trying to climb a glass wall. In the end, he will choose "The Boulder Problem" route. I guess it was the lesser of two evils. There's another pitch called the "Monster Offwidth" where he says in order to get through it you have to do these crazy yoga poses and if you can't hold them, then you will die. It almost looks like he's climbing straight up a chimney because he's between these two narrow vertical rocks. It looks very claustrophobic to me! Needless to say this guy is in pretty good shape. While that is important, it still won't stop you from making a fatal mistake!

His camera crew consists of other mountain climbers and people who know him pretty well and this will be the first time one of his climbs will be documented. Even they have to assess the mountain to know where they're going to set the cameras and where they will film him. They are nervous because they don't want to accidentally kick a rock out of place or anything that could drastically change Honnold's outcome. They are also nervous about filming him because knowing he has a camera on him could add more pressure to Honnold and he could lose his concentration which is something he needs 100% of when doing something like this. While his family and close friends are supportive of him, none of them are thrilled that he wants to free solo this massive rock (or any formation of rock, really). His mom says she doesn't even want to know when he'll be free soloing or else she'll just be worrying while it's going on. His rock climbing friends tell him he does not have to do this; that he doesn't owe anybody anything. His camera crew friends are super nervous about filming this crazy expedition. You can't really blame anybody for being scared about his determination to accomplish this crazy feat because it's mentioned that every free solo climber (at least the well known ones) are now all dead. We get a little montage of how this one died and how that one died (yeah, basically they all fell off a mountain to their deaths). Some were in their 50s when they perished, others only in their 20s or 30s.

The person I feel the most bad for is his girlfriend, Sanni, who he met at a book signing in Seattle. Now I don't know how long they had been dating when we see them discussing his upcoming free solo climb and he says having her in the equation will not change his mind about free soloing El Capitan. It seems like they had been dating long enough that they bought a house together in Las Vegas so it seems like it's somewhat of a serious relationship. At the beginning of the movie Honnold is asked if he has a girlfriend and he says he's headed in the direction of having one, so I can only assume that part was filmed when he first met Sanni (if this is the same woman he's talking about) and he says he will always choose rock climbing over any woman. Ouch. Now, again, this was presumably filmed before they started having a serious relationship, but if I were that girl, I would be a little ticked off if I saw that. If I were her I would dump his sorry ass because he does not seem to care at all that she doesn't want him to do this because she's scared for his life. He's determined to do this whether or not anyone else wants him to or not. She is relieved (of course!) when she gets the phone call from him once he has successfully scaled the mountain and repeatedly tells him she is proud of him. Now I have no idea if they're still together or if he retired from the dangerous sport once he completed his White Whale of free solo climbing. He does mention that there's always a mountain bigger than the previous one that someone will try to attempt. He seems to make a good amount of money from sponsors so he could comfortably settle down, but the question is, does he want to? I think she would be stupid not to dump him if he does continue to free solo because why put yourself through that constant worry and trepidation?

I wouldn't say that Honnold doesn't seem to care about the possibility that he could die, but it almost seems like he doesn't care about the possibility that he could die. He seems more concerned that his friends would have to witness it if it did happen. He is not a reckless climber by any means as he thoroughly did his homework on El Capitan and knows how to turn his full attention to what he's doing while climbing, but that still won't stop you from the possibility of falling because any small wrong move you make could mean the end of your life. We see him get a scan of his brain and apparently his amydala doesn't get stimulated very much which could explain why he free solos, but it seems like he doesn't do other thrill seeking activities like bungee jumping or sky diving (though maybe he finds those too safe!)

He first attempts to free solo El Capitan in the fall of 2016 and wakes up super early when it's still dark outside. The thinking is they want to start at a certain time so the sun won't be in his eyes during critical moments of the climb. It's still dark when he decides to bail. I don't know exactly how high he was, but I think if he had fallen at that point, he would have only broken some bones. I guess he didn't feel comfortable going on with the climb, plus all the cameras were making him nervous. On the day of the accomplished climb, they reconfigure the cameras so they're not as obvious, though at certain points you see him saying something to the camera so they're not that hidden. I have to wonder if the complete darkness was the reason why he bailed the first time because this time it's daylight when he starts out. Yes, he had a flashlight on his helmet, but it was pitch dark!

He completed the task two years ago on June 3, 2017. It only took him just under four hours to climb up almost 3,000 feet which seems pretty fast to me...but what do I know. I literally know nothing about rock climbing. We see about maybe twenty minutes of the actual climb and the film speeds up at times (through the "boring" parts, I guess). We see him successfully complete "The Boulder Problem" and all the other scary parts of the mountain. One of the cameramen at the bottom who had his camera on a tripod turns around for the majority of Honnold's climb (pretty much when he's high enough to kill himself if he falls). I can't blame the poor guy; I knew Honnold survived this climb while watching it and even I was getting super nervous! I can only imagine how nerve-wrecking it was to be there while it was happening live. He (the stressed-out cameraman) said he would never do anything like this ever again.

To everyone's great relief, Honnold makes it to the summit and that is when he calls his relieved girlfriend. We never see how he gets down, though. Did a helicopter take him back down? Did he take the steps in the back? Did the two cameramen who were up there have an extra set of ropes? I hope he didn't have to free solo down the mountain!

I hope he doesn't feel any pressure to have to climb a mountain that's taller and more terrifying than El Capitan; I think he should just retire. He already accomplished his dream and lived through it and he might not be so lucky the next time or the time after that. It's just not worth it to gamble with your life like that!

Looking Back at Tragedy

We Are Columbine

Director: Laura Farber

Released: various dates in 2018 at different film festivals

The twentieth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings was not that long ago (how is that possible? It seems like the ten year anniversary was only last year!) and I found this documentary on Hulu. The director is a former student of Columbine and she graduated in 2002, so, if you do the math, she was a freshman when the murders occurred. She interviews four of her former class of '02 classmates (two boys and two girls), a teacher who started his first year at Columbine as a freshman English teacher during the '98/'99 school year (yikes!), but is still teaching there, and Frank DeAngelis, who was the principal from 1996 to a few years ago when he retired.

So before you're wondering if any of the former students interviewed were in the library where ten of the thirteen murders and the two suicides occurred, no, they were not. Three of them were in their classes and one of them was in the cafeteria. The girl who was in the cafeteria tells the director it's very hard telling her memories of this horrific event, but she's only doing it because the director is her friend (she was also eating lunch with her that day) and she knows what she went through that day. As far as I know, she (or anyone else interviewed) didn't see anyone get killed in front of them, but if she has a difficult time talking about this, then there's no way someone who was in the library would want to relive their memories. I'm not saying that they had it "easier" because they're weren't at Ground Zero, because if I put myself in their shoes, where, if I was a freshman at my high school and two seniors brought guns to school and killed twelve students and one teacher before offing themselves, yeah, I would be pretty shook up and freaked out too. I'm surprised they returned to their school to finish their next three years of high school, because, honestly, I don't know if I would be able to do that. One girl said she knows where all the exits are anywhere she goes in case of something like that happening again and that any loud noises like fireworks or a balloon popping makes her anxious. I would also imagine a fire alarm going off also puts them all on edge since one was going off that day. I've never been in a situation like that and fire alarms make me anxious; I can only imagine what it does to them! 

The four former students go through their memories of that day. The girl who was in the cafeteria says she heard loud shots and thought it was a senior prank and then a teacher told everyone to get under the table, which she did with the other students she was sitting with. They later ran to a nearby house where the man who lived there called the police. She would later find out that one of the two duffel bags with a bomb inside was placed under the table she hid under...yikes! But luckily it didn't detonate. If you didn't know, this wasn't supposed to be just a school shooting: it was supposed to be a bombing that would rival Oklahoma City. Their plan was to "top" McVeigh and kill as many students and faculty members and then each one would be in a different parking lot with their guns and shoot any survivors streaming out of the doors, then they planned to kill any media and police that would make their way to the school. Yeah, their plan went a bit differently... In fact, DeAngelis points that out, saying they could have lost hundreds of people that day and that's how he knows there's a God. 

One of the former students who was in a locked classroom talks about how they were in there for hours (three or four, maybe by that time) before the police came in and told them to put their arms locked behind their heads and run out of the school. Unfortunately the police came right at the time he said he and a few of the other boys in the class had to use the bathroom so they got a trashcan to urinate in and right when he was about to go (in as much privacy the corner of the room could offer him), that's when they barged in. Understandably, that's the only humorous part of the film. He also says when they were locked in the classroom, he heard keys rattling in the door and a teacher came in without his shirt on, covered in blood, and rummaged through the cabinets before running out again. I have to wonder if he was helping the teacher who was shot and would eventually die? Or a student who was wounded when they got shot? We don't really find out what that was about.

The title of the movie comes from their rally cry which was created in 1989 by a coach. One of the interviewees said he thought that had transpired after the shootings, which, I can't blame him, as it has more of a poignancy. Before the shootings it jut sounds like an obvious statement. Also, he probably doesn't remember anything from his only normal year of high school, plus, as he adds, he was probably getting stoned somewhere!

Another former students says when he was running outside and a policeman told them to get away from the school, he had asked him if they had to return to class later that afternoon. He says now he realizes how ridiculous that was, but in that moment it was just a confusing and surreal moment. 

I never really though about it before, but the Columbine class of '02 had it pretty rough. They had one normal year of school before everything turned to hell and during their next three years, security was heightened to the max. That school probably became the safest school in America, ironically. They had all these security measures that was super frustrating for them. Think of the airports after 9/11. Remember how people used to be so lax about airport security? DeAngelis says that he knew the students hated the ridiculous security measurements, but the parents insisted on them. They also talk about how the media would always be harassing them for interviews and how tour buses would pull up to their school with tourists. Look, it's one thing if a couple of young idiots drive there in their own cars if they're into ghoulish things, but a tour bus? Someone is making money off of this? Ick. One of the girls was on the track team and volleyball team and when she would wear her uniform people at the other schools she was competing at would ask her if she was there THAT day. I won't lie; if I ever met someone that attended Columbine, I would probably think, Oh, they go to THAT school. (Why I would ever be conversing with a teenager from Littleton is beyond me, though!) 

As one of the girls says, "It's not a normal experience". Despite this, all four former students (who are in their mid-30s) have normal and stable lives. A couple of them are in steady relationships and they all went on to have some sort of career. One became a teacher at Columbine and he says he's one of five teachers there now who were students on the day of the shootings. Another became a social worker, another one is in the medical field, and one became a recording artist. One of these things is not like the other! Would it surprise you if I told you the stoner kid became the recording artist?

In this hour and a half documentary, there's probably really only about twenty minutes of interesting information. I find that even if you had never heard of this massacre, you really wouldn't be surprised by what the former students were saying. It's really more about their experience that day (though they don't really go that much into depth about it) and then how the rest of their high school career was like living after tragedy. If you are interested in the Columbine school shootings in much more detail, I would recommend two books. The first is called Columbine by the Denver-based journalist Dave Cullen. It's probably the most well known account of the shootings and goes into a lot of detail before, during, and after the tragedy. It's vey disturbing, insightful, fascinating, and while I was reading it, I would go, "What?...What?....WHAT??" Because there were a lot of things that shocked me; either things I didn't know or had forgotten or vaguely remembered. If you're into true crime stories, it's worth checking out. The other book is A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy and it's by Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the two shooters. Her story about what happened that day is much more interesting and devastating than any of the class of '02 graduates who were interviewed. The parents of the shooters went through absolute hell and she talks about what it was like. She's only started sharing her story within the last few years and the book is really quite interesting. Not surprisingly, she is an advocate for parents checking their kids' bedrooms. I think it's a terrible idea for parents to snoop through their teenagers' stuff, but of all people, I can understand why she would insist parents to do that. It's probably never a bad idea to check under your kids' beds or in their closest just to make sure they're not hiding any guns or bombs. Both of those books made me cry while reading them; this documentary really didn't evoke any emotion from me. 

Fallen Star

O.J.: Made in America
Director: Ezra Edelman
Released: May 20, 2016

Oscar nominations:

Best Documentary (won)

At a running length of seven hours and forty-seven minutes, this is the longest film to ever win an Oscar. I was surprised it was even up for an Oscar since it watches more as a miniseries than as a film. It was first shown as a five part miniseries on ESPN, but it also got a theatrical release which made it eligible for the Oscar. When it was shown at Sundance, there was only one intermission! What kind of bs is that? A nearly eight hour movie and only one intermission? At least there were two intermissions at other places it was shown theatrically. I watched it on Hulu and it took me about a week to get through it.

This movie chronicles the life of O.J. Simpson. Now when I think of O.J. Simpson, the first thing that comes to my mind is the Trial of the Century and that part of his life was a huge chunk of the film, but they also discuss his early life as a football player who became a beloved national symbol and then a superstar athlete and celebrity. I was in middle school when the murders occurred and a high school freshman when the not guilty verdict was read. I'm trying to remember if I even knew who O.J. Simpson was before all this occurred or if this was my first introduction to him because I honestly don't remember. It's possible I had heard of the name because I believe at that point he was a commentator for one of the big networks during football games so I probably heard it when my dad was watching football games and I was doing something else. By this time he would have played Nordberg in the three Naked Gun movies, but I honestly don't remember when I saw those and I'm sure I wouldn't have remembered him from them even if I had seen them before the trial. I'm pretty sure I was familiar with the name, but didn't know much about his life until the trial.

I would rank the O.J. Simpson Murder Trial as one of the most significant cultural events that ever happened during my lifetime. If you are old enough to remember this, then you remember what a big deal it was. And if you were too young/weren't born yet, this documentary is a great way to find out about it. In fact, there were many things I had forgotten or didn't even realize while watching it. (And some things I was reminded about earlier when I had watched the FX series The People vs. OJ Simpson).

They interview everybody and anybody who was involved in Simpson's life, whether it was his football career, personal life, or his trial. The only person they didn't get to interview was Simpson himself.

The first part of the documentary began with his college and professional football career, the part of his life I was the least familiar with. He played for the Buffalo Bills in the '70s and the documentary reiterates what an icon he became and how everybody loved him. Apparently he did some pretty impressive things during his football career, but I don't know anything about football. Being so well loved by everybody made it easy for him to transition into Hollywood. He was in a handful of films, but I've only seen/heard of The Towering Inferno and the Naked Gun movies. (And I'm pretty sure he was the one who started the fire in The Towering Inferno! (And yes, I made that joke when I reviewed that film.)) He was the spokesman for Hertz and I feel like I remember the networks showing these commercials over and over again because I know I've seen them, but they were first aired before my time. They interviewed the director or someone who was involved in the commercials and he said that since a black man was the star of the commercials, they had to make sure everyone else in it was white. This was in the late '70s - a different time for all!

There were lots of things I didn't know about Simpson that I learned in this documentary. I knew he was married before he met Nicole Brown, but I didn't know he had a daughter who drowned right before she turned two. I also didn't know his father was gay. And while I knew Nicole was younger than him, I guess I hadn't realized how large the age gap was, especially when they met. He is twelve years older than her and they met when she was 18, so he was 30 when he was going after an eighteen year old. Ewww. They interview a few of his friends from childhood and high school and they tell stories about how charming he was and how he could talk his way out of any situation.

Race plays an important part in this documentary as it did with the trial. They take the time to rehash the Rodney King beating and how that played a vital role in the trial. At the time, I was way too young to understand how it was connected, but in this documentary it makes perfect sense. If you don't know, Rodney King was a young black man who was beaten by police and it was caught on video. This happened in 1991 Los Angeles. The police were not held responsible and this incited outrage among the black community. I can't blame them; that was pretty infuriating. One juror member on the O.J. trial was interviewed and admitted her not guilty vote for Simpson was payback for that. His lawyers (especially Johnny Cochran) did a great job of making race the number one priority in a murder trial that I remember thinking at one point during the whole ordeal, Wait, weren't two people brutally murdered? It was really unfortunate for the prosecution that Mark Fuhram was the first cop to be on the scene and he had a history of saying some terrible, racist things. The defense team aka The Dream Team used that to their full advantage and ran with it. And it certainly paid off as we all know. The prosecution also made some very dumb mistakes, most notably the gloves. (Sidenote: I've recently just finished the first season of This is Us and every time I see Sterling K. Brown in a scene, I just shake my head and think, Oh, Charles Darden, why did you have O.J. try on the gloves?) Having him try on the gloves was so stupid! Of course they're not going to fit! Do you know how easy it is to try on a glove and make sure it doesn't fit? All you have to do is stiffen your hand. I've also heard he stopped taking his arthritis medication and that made his hand swell up. At least that moment gave us the great line, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit!"

Even with that bone head move, I still puzzle over how Simpson was acquitted. Everyone and their grandmothers knows that he did it. I'm sorry, but you have to be stupid or in complete denial if you think he is innocent. Because if he didn't kill his ex-wife and Ron Goldman who was at the wrong place at the wrong time, then who did? The details of their gruesome murders are explained while very, very graphic photos are shown. Nicole was nearly decapitated because her throat was slashed so viciously. And let's not forget that Simpson had a record for domestic abuse and even spied on his ex once when she was with another man. Everyone interviewed in the documentary say they believe he did it or if they don't flat out say that he did it, they insinuate that they believe he did. EVERYONE. His (former) friends. His former manager. People from the defense team. The jurors.

The last part of the documentary goes into detail about how Simpson ended up in jail. Ironically, he got away with murder but he didn't get away with a robbery! This is schadenfreude at its finest. In 2008, he was sentenced to 33 years in jail for breaking and entering into a Las Vegas hotel room of a man who had a bunch of Simpson memorabilia from his football days. Simpson claims that all this stuff was stolen and wanted it back. (Is it considered a robbery if you're taking back stuff that was yours in the first place? Hmmm. Although he did take other stuff that wasn't previously his). They interview the guy who had the memorabilia and he said he went to the front desk and asked for security because he was "robbed by O.J. Simpson" and that everyone started laughing at him. To be honest, I would probably have had the same reaction. I would also probably have said an off-color joke like, "Well, at least he didn't kill you!"

Let's just pretend we're living in an alternate universe where Brown and Goldman were never murdered and O.J. Simpson was best known as being one of football's greats and the Trial of the Century never existed. If the Las Vegas robbery still happened in this timeline, no way in hell he is sentenced to 33 years in jail. He would have only had a slap on a wrist and probably would have to pay a fine. Even though a gun was involved, nobody was hurt and the whole thing was told as a dumb heist with a bunch of idiots.

But we don't live in an alternative universe and he wasn't sentenced to 33 years in prison for breaking and entering or robbing a man or having a gun, no he was sentenced to 33 years for murdering two people. How stupid do you have to be? He literally got away with murder (TWO murders!) and goes and does something stupid. Here's a lesson for you: if you get away with murder, don't do stupid stuff!

This was a very compelling documentary and I highly recommend it. You can find it on Hulu. Take a week and watch an hour every day. I learned a lot of things about Simpson's past and football days that I never knew. I also learned a lot about the Trial that I wasn't aware of or just forgot. There's so much in the documentary (obviously, it's nearly eight hours long!) that I only just scratched the surface with this review.

Killer Whale

Blackfish

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Released: Various dates in 2013 in select U.S. cities

I have never been to SeaWorld, even though I remember wanting to go when I was a kid, but after watching this documentary about killer whales in captivity, I'm so glad I never did! I hate SeaWorld so much now! I have never seen an orca in real life, although I did once go on a three hour boat tour when I was in Whidbey Island, Washington a decade ago. It was a whale watching tour and we had crossed over into Canadian waters by the time we even saw any sign of killer whales, but I don't know if this really counts because they were so far away and we only saw their tails.

They show footage from the early '70s when the first few killer whales were captured for captivity. While I assume now most whales who live in captivity are now born in captivity, they obviously had to get the whales from the ocean. They interviewed a guy who was part of the capture and you could tell he was still pretty distraught by the experience as he even admits it's the worst thing he's ever done. What they did was separate the males from the females and babies, then trapped the females and babies and caught the babies to be taken for aquatic parks. The guy interviewed said three whales ended up dead and they had to cut them open and put rocks in them so they would sink to the bottom. And that's not even the saddest part of this whole ordeal! No, the saddest part is when they showed a baby orca being hoisted by a crane and it was making these crying noises (a wailing whale?) It was so sad! The guy involved in that capture being interviewed started crying and with his beard and tattoos, he didn't look like the type of guy who cries much! I started crying too.

The documentary focuses on one particular killer whale, Tilikum, who has been involved in the deaths of three people. He was caught off the coast in Iceland in 1983 at the age of 2 and brought to Vancouver where he was put in a marine attraction park called Sealand of the Pacific, a place that actually makes SeaWorld look humane! Tilikum shared the pool with two female orcas who were older and let him know who was boss by biting him. To "train" Tilikum, they wouldn't feed him or the other two whales if he didn't do a trick properly so that was one reason he would get so abused by the other whales. Also, the pool was more like a bathtub....at least the whales look like they have some room to swim at SeaWorld (even though it's not much, you know, for a freaking whale! - (well, technically, killer whales are part of the dolphin family.)) At night they were kept in a small pen that was just barely longer than the whales and they couldn't even turn around if they wanted! It was pretty horrible and inhumane. This sea park did eventually close down, but not because of the awful way they treated the orcas. They closed because Tilikum claimed his first victim in 1991 when a 20 year old who worked with the whales, slipped into the tank and was snatched and thrashed around by Tilikum. Humans never got into the water so I'm sure the whales became very agitated when she entered their territory. Two women who were at the park and witnessed the whole ordeal were interviewed and they were still very much haunted by it to this day. They said for sure that it was Tilikum who instigated the whole thing, but the female whales were blocking any path for the young woman to escape.

The whales were sold to SeaWorld and Tilikum made his new home in Orlando where he still lives today. His main purpose was to get female whales pregnant. He wasn't really involved in the shows other than to do a big final leap. There were interviews with former SeaWorld employees who said they had no idea how dangerous working with these orcas could be and many of them realized that they really didn't know anything about the animals they were working with.

The second death caused by Tilikum was the most bizarre. One morning in 1999 they found Tilikum swimming around with a deceased nude guy on his back. They made it sound like Tilikum had stripped the guy's clothes off, but how could a whale do that? Methinks the guy (who was homeless and had snuck in after hours) decided to go skinny dipping in the orca tank because he thought it would be fun to swim with the whales. (Maybe he was a fan of Free Willy? But did that kid go swimming with the whale in the tank? I haven't seen that movie in ages, so I really don't remember...)The official reports said that he died from drowning and hyperthermia...which is technically probably true...but seeing as that his body was mutilated, it doesn't take a genius to realize that a huge killer whale aided him in his death. I want to point out that I do not fault Tilikum in any of these deaths. He is a wild animal! And a 12,000 pound wild animal at that! This is what happens when you treat wild animals like pets! Your tiger trained to do tricks may attack you or your pet chimp may bite off your face or those bears who you thought were your friends may maul you in your sleep or a killer whale might get irritated when you enter his space and may thrash you around and drown you! While the other two deaths were just really bad, horrible accidents, I think this guy is to fault for deliberately going into an orca tank.

The third death  happened in 2010 when 40 year old trainer Dawn Brancheau was attacked and drowned by Tilikum. There were some people who blamed Brancheau for it, saying her long ponytail was the trigger for the attack, but to me, it sounds like Tilikum was already agitated because he didn't get a treat when he performed a trick wrong and could tell that the fish bucket was almost empty. I don't think anyone knows the real reason why he attacked...other than that he is, once again, an unpredictable and wild animal! I do remember this being in the news, but the story I remember the most about an orca incident was when a trainer was pulled down by a killer whale in 2006 and submerged for a long period of time before the whale would bring him back up, then submerge him again. The guy survived and he happened to be a scuba diver so they think since he knew how to control his breathing underwater, that's what helped him.

One interviewee mentioned that there has never been a record of orcas harming a human in the wild, but if you put them in captivity where they're around humans all the time (and depend on them), it's bound to happen. I did happen upon a list on Wikipedia where they list orca incidents on humans in the wild, but it was a very short list and no one was killed or even harmed that much. The list, however, for orca incidents in captivity was quite long and mostly involved a bunch of injuries. I'm sure it's much easier to record the injuries that happen by captive whales, as I am sure it's easier for a human to get hurt by a captive whale for the obvious reasons!

This documentary make me tear up quite a bit. It was upsetting to hear that people were unnecessarily killed by one orca, but I think it's horrible that they keep the orcas in these tanks and feed them dead fish just so they can perform some cute tricks. It's really quite sad! They showed footage of orcas in the wild that were attacking a poor seal on an ice flow and that was more awe-inducing than any orca in a theme park jumping through a hoop. 

Warning: Mr. Chocolate Will Try to Eat You!

Grizzly Man
Director: Werner Herzog
Released in theaters: October 27, 2005

This is a documentary about the late Timothy Treadwell who was very passionate about nature and animals and was a very (perhaps a little TOO much) enthusiastic bear lover. He and his girlfriend were mauled to death by one because of his own stupidity and carelessness. The end. Thanks for reading!

No, I have lots more to say. First of all, if you have never seen this documentary which is directed and narrated by Werner Hergoz (who played the bad guy in last winter's Tom Cruise movie, Jack Reacher, just a bit of random trivia for you there), I highly recommend it. After watching it, you will have the same reaction to Timothy Treadwell as I did: that guy is nucking futs! He was an environmentalist who spent thirteen years living with the bears and other wild animals in Alaska during the summer. I guess he became mildly known for what he did, being interviewed a few times, although I had never heard of him until I saw the movie back when it was released on DVD after a friend/co-worker told me about it and after she explained it to me, I knew I had to check it out.

The most interesting thing about Timothy Treadwell, aside from his whole ordeal with the bears, was that he was an actor (or attempted acting) before he got into the whole activism scene. Herzog interviews one of his acting friends (an unknown person) and he said that Treadwell claimed that he came this close to playing Woody on Cheers, but lost out to Woody Harrelson. According to Treadwell, he was their second choice. Gimme a freaking break. I really doubt that is true. I can believe he auditioned for the part, but I doubt he was anywhere close to getting the role. We already know he has a record of lying because he used to tell people he was an orphan from Australia. After he didn't get the role on Cheers that he was supposedly so close to, he became an alcoholic and nearly overdosed on heroin. He had always loved animals since he was little and when he traveled to Alaska for the first time to see bears, they became his passion and he vowed to protect and advocate for them.

While I admire his passion, I do think he went about it the wrong way (obviously). I really don't understand how one person can protect a bunch of bears in a so-many mile radius. What are you going to do? Go up to a poacher and tell him to put down his gun? I think killing bears for fun and for the prize is disgusting, but I think killing a bear for self-defense is absolutely justified. Treadwell said he would never kill a bear for that reason even and never carried a gun with him...which turned out to be his own detriment.

It wasn't just that it was impossible for him to protect all the bears, but he went about it doing it the wrong way and would disregard the national park's rules. He would get very close to the bears and would even swim with them and pet them, treating them like they were dogs. You are suppose to move your camp every seven days, but he never did that.

Like I said, he spent thirteen years spending the summer camping in Alaska living among the bears. He would even give them names. Mr. Chocolate was one of his favorites. (And Mr. Chocolate is an innocent bear - he has never eaten any humans as far as I know.) During the last few summers, Treadwell brought a videocamera and documented his travels to Alaska. By the time of his death he had hours of footage which Herzog used much of for the documentary as well as interviews with family members and close friends of Treadwell.

He brought his girlfriend the last few summers and I don't know which was more surprising: that he had a girlfriend in the first place (not saying he was a homosexual, but he gave out more asexual vibes. He seemed to have to convince himself that he liked women quite a bit too, telling himself over and over "I love women!") or that he was dating this particular woman who was afraid of bears. Um, then why would you date somebody whose whole life revolves around bears? I'm sure she was only afraid of bears when she was camping out in the open in their own turf and nothing to protect her from them if they decided to attack, which is understandable. But even then, why did she ever agree to go camping with Treadwell in the first place? I'm sorry, but if my boyfriend was into bears and wanted me to go camping with him where bears roam freely, I would be like "F*ck no!"

It is believed that an older bear who was having trouble finding food killed them. This happened in October 2003, the 13th (and final) year (lucky #13!) Treadwell had been camping every summer in Alaska with the bears. It happened towards the end of their stay and when the guy who was suppose to pick them up, flew his helicopter to where Treadwell and his girlfriend were camping, he noticed something was wrong immediately because he kept calling for them but never heard an answer, then he saw a bear gnawing on human remains (eww) and got the hell out of there.

Being mauled, killed, and eaten by a bear is probably one of the worst ways one can die, if not THE worst way, but the way Herzog approaches his death, he's so overdramatic about the whole thing, that it's almost comical in a way. We see footage of Treadwell talking about setting up camp and he says he's in a forbidden place for humans to camp (well, duh, obviously there's a reason it's forbidden...it's not safe!) and he brags about how he's hidden in the brush from anyone. And on the bottom of the screen it says, "HOURS BEFORE HIS DEATH". The coroner who examined the two mauled bodies is this weird, creepy guy who never blinks (that's what makes him weird and creepy) and reminded me of Fred Armisen and I kept thinking I was watching him an an SNL skit because he was being so melo-dramatic, talking about examining the mangled body pieces. I think because the whole thing is gruesome, he had to be super somber and grave about it - to the point that it was bordering on parody. But the one that took the cake for me was when Herzog was interviewing an ex-girlfriend of Treadwell (again, I was surprised) and she somehow wound up with the audio recording of Treadwell and his girlfriend's death. Oh, did I mention the camera was running when they were killed? The lens was on so there is no footage. Why anyone would want a recording of their ex-boyfriend (or anyone for that matter) being killed by a bear is beyond me, but somehow she ended up with it. Herzog, while sitting with her, listens to the tape with headphones and is very somber (understandingly) throughout the whole thing and after he takes off his headphones he asks her, "Have you listened to this?" and she says "No," and he says, very, very seriously, "You must never, ever listen to this" and she says, "I won't, Werner, I promise!" He tells her to destroy it and she says she will. I still don't know why she would have that in the first place.

This is a fascinating documentary (as well as a great PSA for what NOT to do when camping around bears) and I highly recommend it.

Not Ready To Make Nice

Shut Up and Sing
Directors: Barbara Kopple and Cecelia Peck
Released: November 10, 2006

This is a documentary about the Dixie Chicks and the aftermath of lead singer Natalie Maine's "anti-American" comment and how that pretty much ruined their career. From about 1998-2003 they were one of the most popular groups, country or not, and of course they had that huge hit, "Goodbye Earl". I love the Dixie Chicks. I have all of their albums. My favorite is their second album, Fly. That has "Goodbye Earl" on it along with some of my other favorites, "Cowboy Take Me Away" and "Cold Day in July." Unfortunately since some people are idiots and take everything way too personal, their career hasn't been the same since the "controversial" statement Maines made.

Okay, so I'm sure everyone knows what happened, but allow me to recap it. In 2003, during a concert in London, Maines said she was against the war (like a lot of celebrities were) and said she was ashamed to be from the same state as the President. Now if she had just said the first comment, there might have been a few grumbles (from their hugely conservative fanbase), but I don't think they would have suffered from the massive boycott and plummeting ratings that they did just for saying that they were ashamed Bush was from Texas. That's the reason everyone got into such a hissy fit. And when I say everyone, I'm talking about the extreme right wingers as I'm sure there were conservative Dixie Chicks fan who didn't get into such an uproar over what they said. I cannot stand the extreme right wingers. And to be fair and unbiased, I also cannot stand extreme left wingers...they both need to calm down! But it was the only extreme right wingers that were angry and upset over what Natalie Maines said. First of all, while she was serious about being against the war, when she made the quip about Bush being from the same state as her, you could tell it was said as a joke. (They showed footage of that moment at the concert). One of the London papers wrote about it, then it became this huge global news item. And second of all, WHO CARES? She didn't say she wasn't proud to be an American or wished the President dead or anything. What she said really wasn't that bad, but unfortunately since their fan base is mostly made up of Republicans (with a few exceptions of course!), it got out of hand.

Sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robinson are the other "Chicks" and while they supported Natalie and her comments and stood beside her (as she got most of the vitriolic attacks), you could tell they wished Natalie had kept her mouth shut or had spun it a different way. One of them suggested they apologize and said it was meant as a joke (which it was), but Natalie refused. When her manager suggested they try to put up a video of one of their new songs on CMTV, she refused, saying it was a lost cause since that audience didn't want to listen to their music. Not that I blame her, why bother trying to win over an audience that you can't win back, but you can tell she was making all the decisions.

The people they offended would burn their CDs which is fine, it's your property, do what you want with it, but they would also call in radio stations that played their music and told them they would boycott the station if they didn't stop playing Dixie Chick music. If I had been a DJ, I would have told that person to go suck an egg and would play nonstop Dixie Chick music. But alas, there's a lot of crazy right wing people out there and a lot of them called in with threats of boycotting country radio stations across the country and they had to listen to the people because they would lose a lot of ratings. I remember after Chris Brown assulated Rihanna, the top 40 stations didn't play his music for, like, maybe a month, but now you'll hear his songs every once in awhile. You don't hear his songs as often as Rihanna's or Katy Perry's or Lady Gaga's songs, but they still do play them. With the Dixie Chicks, who never assaulted anybody, I don't think I've ever heard their songs on the radio again, especially a country station. They might have played their single about the whole ordeal from their 2006 (and most recent) album, "Not Ready To Make Nice" on a non-country station a few times. I don't listen to country stations that much, but I've never come across a Dixie Chick song. If anyone has heard any, I'd love to know.

That 2006 album was also their most recent so it's been awhile since they've made an album. They are still together (I had to check the Wiki!)  and I hope they do make more music because they always have great songs. They did win the Grammy for Best Album of the Year in 2007 and "Not Ready to Make Nice" won Record of the Year. Natalie Maines made a comment about how if this debacle had never happened, they never would have gotten to be on the cover of Entertainment Weekly or interviewed by Diane Sawyer. I guess it's true what they say about there being no such thing as bad press!

Gun Control

Bowling for Columbine
Director: Michael Moore
Released: October 11, 2002

Oscar nominations:
Best Documentary (won)

Here's a little fun (not really) fact about me: Bowling for Columbine is the first documentary I ever saw. I'm not just talking in the theater (because I've never seen a doc in the theater), but the first documentary I ever saw anywhere. Kinda sad considering it only came out nine years ago.

Michael Moore is a blowhard. I know it, you know it, we all know it. However, the guy knows how to make an entertaining movie (although I do question his "facts" at times). Obviously gun control is a very serious issue, but the movie is pretty funny at times. I especially love the scene at the beginning where he tries to score a free gun by signing up for a bank account and asks the teller, "Should you really be giving out free guns at a bank?" Hahaha...I have a feeling that most banks aren't giving away free guns and that particular bank is a very rare minority. At least, I hope so!

Before I saw the movie, I thought the title referred to people raising money for the victims of the Columbine school shooting by having a bowl-a-thon or something. Which seemed both stupid and kinda insensitive. But Moore explains that the killers had bowling class in the morning and attended it before they went on their rampage. However, if you've read the Dave Cullen book, you would know that's not true. Duh. So the title is stupid, confusing and untrue. But it's got panache.

The movie is about gun control (specifically in the U.S.) and that is a very B-R-O-A-D topic and Moore goes all over the place in his film. There's so much about the topic that it's very easy to get lost in the shuffle and I feel like he's trying to cover so much in a two hour movie. It would have been more interesting if he had focused his documentary on a specific subject, like school shootings. Columbine may be mentioned in the (stupid, confusing, and untrue) title, but it's a very small fraction of the film. It seemed like the late '90s had a surge of middle and high school shootings (I would know because I was in high school at the time and remember all of them) and I feel like Moore missed a huge opportunity by not interviewing (or at least attempting to) any of the students who shot up their school.

There are plenty of interviews, most of them with well-known people. He interviews Terry Nichol's brother (who is clearly not stable) who tells him he knew Timothy McVeigh and how he had an obsession with guns. He interviews Matt Stone of South Park fame who grew up in Littleton and they make it sound like he attended Columbine, but he didn't because I looked it up. He interviews Marilyn Manson because he was always (and sometimes falsely) listed as one of the artists school shooters from the late '90s listened to. The holy grail of his interviewees is Mr. NRA himself, Charleton Heston, who famously (infamously?) held a convention in Denver, like two days after Columbine happened, which was pretty insensitive. However, I thought Moore was a little unfair on him and never seemed to give him a chance to answer his question. I don't think everyone who owns guns are evil. I'm sure for every dumb____ who decides to go on a shooting rampage, there's probably hundreds of people who own guns and are responsible.

One of the dumbest moments in the film is when he tries to get an interview with Dick Clark and let's see if I can remember how this goes: Back in 2000, a first grader brought a gun to school and shot and killed a little girl (whether intentional or not, I'm not sure). He got the gun from his uncle's house because he and his single mom were living with him and his mom was working overtime at a restaurant chain owned by Dick Clark (or something to that effect) so he was trying to reach Clark to ask him about the murder. Now, c'mon, Dick Clark had nothing to do with why the boy brought a gun to school. Maybe his stupid uncle shouldn't have left a gun lying around in the house or maybe his mother should have told him that it's not a toy. DUH!!!!!!!!!!

One of my favorite moments in the film is when Moore takes a few of the students who were injured in the Columbine massacre to the K-Mart headquarters and tells them that they wanted them to stop selling bullets because the kids he's with were injured/paralyzed by their bullets. I hate K-Mart so much so that scene made me cackle with glee because I'm evil. Of course they had to discontinue selling bullets because they're on camera and would look like the greedy and cold-hearted corporation they are if they didn't.

Entertaining movie, but only take it at face-value.

It's On Like Donkey Kong

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Director: Seth Gordon
Released: August 17, 2007

If you ever fear you have no life, just pop this movie in your DVD player and you will see a whole bunch of people who truly have no life. Now even though I just insulted pretty much everybody in this movie, I will say I did find it hellava entertaining and fascinating. This documentary follows two people: Billy Mitchell who is the Donkey Kong champion (of the world!) and got the first highest score for it back in 1982. He's since scored over a million points. There's also Steve Wiebe, a middle school science teacher who, during a time when he was unemployed, decided he was going to try to beat Mitchell's score and did achieve this in 1999.

Wiebe videotaped his gameplay and sent it to some place in Iowa (of all places!) that apparently records scores for video game play. There, one of the workers had to watch the hours of Donkey Kong gameplay to make sure Wiebe didn't use any cheat codes and can verify his score is legit. The same guy also mentioned he had over two hundred video tapes to watch of other games. Wow, if I had a job like that, I would kill myself. No, I really would. I can't think of anything more boring and monotonous. Just imagine having to watch hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours...(okay, you get the idea) of footage of video games and having to pay attention to every little detail. Ugh... And I mean, does anyone really give a crap about who holds the highest score for a certain game? I certainly have never heard of Billy Mitchell before I saw this, but I digress...

When it's verified that Wiebe did beat Mitchell's score, he gets lots of press for it in Seattle. (And if there was any national press about it, I certainly don't remember it.) However, his score is revoked when people (you could say they're Team Billy) cried foul and said there was something amiss about Steve's arcade machine. This was a part of the movie I really didn't understand and it seemed a little fishy that fanboys of Billy were trying to get Steve's score disqualified... Seriously, get a life...

So Steve's score doesn't count and Billy returns as the Donkey Kong champ, but Steve goes to some video game convention and beats Billy's score live, but Billy sends in a videotape of him reaching over a million points and it goes on and on. In fact, I believe the movie ended with Steve having the highest Donkey Kong score at the time the movie was wrapped, but one of the special features on the DVD continues with Billy and Steve alternating the highest score. I think Billy has the highest score now and I could look it up, but I honestly don't really care.

As for Donkey Kong, I don't think I've ever played it. It's possible I played it when I was really young and don't remember. The only games I remember playing in the arcade were Super Mario Bros. (the old school one!) and Pac-Man. I do remember playing Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat a couple times, but I would get my ass kicked in five seconds.

If you're a Donkey Kong/ arcade game aficionado, you will really enjoy this movie and even if you aren't, you'll still get a kick out of it.

The other Facebook movie

Catfish
Director: Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost
Released: September 17, 2010

It's difficult to discuss this documentary without giving away major plot points, so I will warn you when I'm about to start talking about spoilers just in case you haven't seen this movie/ don't know the big twists and want to keep it that way.

Ariel Shulman and Henry Joost are young directors in their mid-20s who live in Manhattan and document everything. It doesn't matter how mundane it is - they find everything fascinating to film. Ariel's brother, Nev, is a photographer and he discovers that an eight-year-old girl from Michigan named Abby has been transforming his photographs into pictures she's drawn. He thinks they're really good and she's quite talented for someone so young, so he e-mails her to compliment her and say how he really likes the drawings and sends her more of his photos for her to draw. He soon develops an online correspondence with Abby (and it's not as creepy as you might think) and becomes Facebook friends with her mom, her half-sister Megan, and a bunch of Megan's friends.

Megan is a few years younger than Nev and she's very pretty. Of course he develops a crush on her and Nev isn't bad-looking so there's an instant attraction. They start flirting with each other over Facebook and texts and he even talks to her on the phone a few times. He also talks to the mother who tells him that Abby's art has been in shows and the most one has ever sold for was $7,000.

He and the filmmakers start to get suspicious because there are a few things that just don't add up. For instance, he googles Abby's name and the town she lives in, but there's nothing about her even though she should be somewhat of a local celebrity for being so young and having art exhibitions. When they're in Vail, Colorado to do some work, they decide since they're "so close" to Michigan to drive to the family's house and see what's going on. Well, they fly to Chicago first, then drive up to the northern peninsula.

Okay, so for the rest of this review I will be giving away major key plots, so here is your  **** SPOILER WARNING *****
Do not read any further if you don't want to know the big reveal...

...which isn't really that big of a reveal because it's kind of obvious when we learn it: Megan does not exist - it was the married forty-something year old mother who was posing as this young, attractive girl and basically having an affair with Nev online. While she does have an older daughter named Megan (who sounded like they were estranged probably because this woman is bat**** crazy!), the girl she had posted photos of on Facebook was just some random model she found online. And it was pretty obvious she was a model because while there were a few candid shots, a lot of the photos of her were obviously shot by a professional.

While I could see that reveal coming a mile away, it didn't occur to me that the mother was the real artist of all those drawings. Abby does exist, but she is not the artist in the family. The mother was pretending that her young daughter was painting all those because they were better received by a young girl than by a grown woman. The paintings would have been pretty impressive by an eight-year-old, but looked juvenile by anyone over the age of 12.

While she still does try to deceive them by saying that Megan isn't home, then later texting Nev as Megan saying she's in rehab because she all of a sudden out of the blue became an alcoholic, she eventually comes clean and admits what she did. And not only did she create "Megan", but she created the fifteen friends Megan had on Facebook and was managing all of them. Clearly this woman has some mental problems and needs help!

Walking on thin air

Man On Wire
Director: James Marsh

Oscar nominations:
Best Documentary (2008) - won

I begin this review by posing you this question: Who do you think is crazier - Phillipe Petit or Timothy "Grizzly Man" Treadwell? Walking across a wire between the World Trade Center sounds (and is!) a lot more insane than observing bears in the wild, but then again, Petit is still alive while Treadwell was eaten by a bear. You could say that Petit is luckier, but he also had more respect for his passion and took the necessary precautions, although walking between the Twin Towers doesn't sound very safe no matter how many precautions you take!

If you've never heard of Phillipe Petit he is a French wire-walker who has walked between the towers of Notrre Dame and across the Sydney Harbor Bridge. His most famous act of wire-walking was when he walked between the World Trade Center buildings eight times in August 1974. That's got to take a lot of guts because those buildings were ridiculously tall - 110 stories.

This film documents how he and his crew of team members snuck the equipment into the towers and set everything up. It took a lot of planning - they had models and drawings of the buildings to help them decide the best course of plan. Petit had his own wire he practiced on that was the same length that was the distance between the buildings (of course on his practice wire he was nowhere near the height of the towers!)

Not only does Petit cross the wire eight times, but he also lies down right in the middle at one point! With good reason, his crew was really nervous about this little expedition, but once Petit reached the middle, they said a big smile broke across his face and they knew that he felt "comfortable" and was able to finish his act with ease. There is not actual video footage of the walking between the buildings, only photos. The photos taken from the ground, you can barely even see him - he just looks like a speck in the sky. In fact, his girlfriend was on the ground and at one point they could see something falling and at first they thought it was him, but it turned out to be an article of clothing.

There is no mention of the Towers being no more which I thought was a little weird that they didn't ask how he felt when he found out that they were destroyed. He had such a personal relationship with these buildings, after all no one else in the world has done what he has done - and even if the Towers were still standing, I doubt anyone would even attempt to do that - that I was surprised he didn't talk about how it feels to him that they no longer exist.

Piece of Work

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Directors: Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg

This 2010 documentary spends one year with Joan Rivers, the 75 year old brass comedienne who can make you laugh one moment, and shake your head in disgust the next. (I think she's pretty funny as a comedian, though it is pretty shocking some of the things that come out of her mouth, but I can't stand her as a correspondent for E! on the red carpet because she really has no idea what she's doing and it doesn't help that her daughter, the much more irritating Melissa Rivers, is always commentating with her.) 

Due to the fact that she lives in a ridiculously lavish apartment suite (think Donald Trump's) and likes to maintain her high style of living, she will take any job whether it's a gig at some club off in the boondocks or a commercial (she doesn't care what product) or Celebrity Apprentice which she was on in the year the documentary followed her. Regarding the show, she even says that they won't kick her off until at least the fourth episode because she's the biggest name on it. While it may sound conceited, you have to admit she was right! (Of course we all know she ended up winning that season.)

She talks about getting her start and how she was good friends with Johnny Carson (often filling in for him on his show when he was absent) until Fox offered her her own talk show. The first person she told was Carson and he felt so betrayed that he never talked to her again. Her new show ended up tanking big time. 

While I knew her husband killed himself, what I didn't know is that Joan and Melissa played themselves in a made-for-TV movie dealing with their husband's/father's suicide. Joan admits that it was a bit hokey, but cathartic. O-kay. They showed clips from it and the acting was pretty terrible. 

Something that surprised me was that Rivers say she is first and foremost an actress. I was aware that she wrote and acted in plays, but I always think of her as a comedian first and foremost. (And a fashion correspondent for E! second.) The film documents her putting on a play in England and because it only got mixed reviews, she decides not to put it on in New York or anywhere in the U.S. because one of the first plays she wrote was shredded by the critics. (You would think someone like Joan Rivers would have a tough skin about those things.) 

At one point she's doing stand-up at some hole-in-the-wall club in some who-knows-where town and offends a man with a deaf son after she makes a joke about Helen Keller. At first I thought it was just a plant, but it became obvious he was a real audience member by how pissed Rivers became and kept berating him that it was just a joke and it didn't mean she was attacking all deaf people. If the guy is that easy to get offended, why the hell was he seeing Joan Rivers at a comedy club?! 

If you hate Joan Rivers, skip this, but if you like her or are more interested to learn more about her, I'd say give it a watch.

Drawing Lines

Waking Sleeping Beauty
Director: Don Hahn
Released: March 26, 2010

This is a fascinating documentary about being an animator at Disney that spans from 1984 to 1994. It starts right around the time Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg joined the team as CEO and studio head of Disney. With the dismal box office of The Black Cauldron (which is a movie I think is VERY underrated) and their competition blowing them out of the water, they knew it was time to turn things around.

They hired more animators and Roy Disney promised an animated feature to be released every year. This started in 1988 with the release of Oliver and Company, which made more than its competition at the time, The Land Before Time. (I loved that movie! Remember the little triceratops named Cera? Haha!)

To help with The Little Mermaid, a film that had been denied to make before because Disney had recently released Splash (in 1984 - quick sidenote: there was a clip of a news anchor saying that Splash had made six million dollars at the box office its first weekend and that implied it was a hit. Wow. If a movie only made six million dollars in a weekend today, it would be a huge bomb!) Maybe it was lucky they waited a few years to make The Little Mermaid because they got the music team of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman to write and compose the memorable songs from that movie. I learned that Katzenberg wanted to take out "Part of Your World" because it didn't get a good reaction at a screening. That may not be the most popular song in the movie, but it's certainly an important one - it tells the audience what Ariel's hopes and dreams are, and plus I love that song!

So of course The Little Mermaid is a huge success and wins the Oscar for Best Song ("Under the Sea"). The next year, is not so with the release of their next animated film: The Rescuers Down Under. It barely gets any advertising and they move on with their next film, which is their most critically acclaimed and the first animated movie to be nominated for an Oscar: Beauty and the Beast. They showed an unfinished version (just pencil drawings, nothing had been colored in yet) at the New York film festival and received a standing ovation. They're on a roll and their next movie is Aladdin which was also a big hit.

The funniest part of the movie for me was when they were next working on The Lion King and Pocahontas (to be released in '94 and '95, respectively) and Katzenberg wanted them to concentrate more on Pocahontas because he thought it would be the bigger hit because people would love the "Romeo and Juliet" type love story and didn't think African animals would translate to the screen as easily. Hmm, I'm beginning to think this guy should never bet on anything! Because we certainly know how that turned out! Let's see: Pocahontas: made 141 million domestically. Certainly not bad at all. But compare that to The Lion King which made about 300 million domestically.

I highly recommend this documentary.