Since September 2002, a grid of 167 solar panels on the roof of a maintenance shed has been delivering electricity to the White House grounds. Another solar installation has been helping to provide hot water. Yet another has been heating the water in the presidential pool.

I bring it up because of my buddy Brian Gulatta’s blog post about Earth Days, yet another absolutely killer Sundance Film Festival movie we saw about the history of the environmental movement, and how it was basically shut down at the end of the 70′s with Reagan in office.  He ran on a platform that is alot like what is argued in the famous article Death of Environmentalism, that states that many modern day environmental tactics go against the grain of “what’s American” (which, as an environmentalist, I actually agree with). 

As we know, Reagan really kicked Carter’s ass, largely related to this in my opinion (besides the fact Carter sort of ran the country into the ground):

 
 
Through the early-mid 70′s Congress, under leadership of Nixon (of all people), the country passed some of the most sweeping environmental reform we’ve seen.  Endangered species, establishment of the EPA, etc. etc.   Environmentalism didn’t have it’s enemies like it has now — back then it was a common collective to think who doesn’t want clean air?  It is a long, complicated story why this fell apart (just as much the enviro’s fault as anyone else’s in my opinion).  It turns out the first earth day (April 22, 1970) had over 22 million people come out, for the largest single gathering nationwide in U.S. history.    They even closed down 5th Ave in New York for it:

So it’s funny that solar panels became a White House preference.  Carter invisioned they’d last forever, as a symbol.   Reagan tore them right down…

It is always funny to hear about the little things of the operations of the White House and how different Presidents have different approaches to running it.  This is why there are so many awesome books about life inside the White House, it’s curiously interesting.  This awesome article came out today in the NY Times about President Obama’s method of running things in comparison with Bush.  Bush actually sounds like a real stick-in-the-mud, versus this at least: 

From the article, comparing life at the Whitehouse between Bush II and Obama:

WASHINGTON — The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket.

Thus did an ironclad rule of the George W. Bush administration — coat and tie in the Oval Office at all times — fall by the wayside, only the first of many signs that a more informal culture is growing up in the White House under new management.

And a little more…

Although his presidency is barely a week old, some of Mr. Obama’s work habits are already becoming clear. He shows up at the Oval Office shortly before 9 in the morning, roughly two hours later than his early-to-bed, early-to-rise predecessor. Mr. Obama likes to have his workout — weights and cardio — first thing in the morning, at 6:45. (Mr. Bush slipped away to exercise midday.)

He reads several papers, eats breakfast with his family and helps pack his daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, off to school before making the 30-second commute downstairs — a definite perk for a man trying to balance work and family life. He eats dinner with his family, then often returns to work; aides have seen him in the Oval Office as late as 10 p.m., reading briefing papers for the next day.

“Even as he is sober about these challenges, I have never seen him happier,” Mr. Axelrod said. “The chance to be under the same roof with his kids, essentially to live over the store, to be able to see them whenever he wants, to wake up with them, have breakfast and dinner with them — that has made him a very happy man.”

In the West Wing, Mr. Obama is a bit of a wanderer. When Mr. Bush wanted to see a member of his staff, the aide was summoned to the Oval Office. But Mr. Obama tends to roam the halls; one day last week, he turned up in the office of his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who was in the unfortunate position of having his feet up on the desk when the boss walked in.

“Wow, Gibbs,” the press secretary recalls the president saying. “Just got here and you already have your feet up.” Mr. Gibbs scrambled to stand up, surprising Mr. Obama, who is not yet accustomed to having people rise when he enters a room.

Under Mr. Bush, punctuality was a virtue. Meetings started early — the former president once locked Secretary of State Colin L. Powell out of the Cabinet Room when Mr. Powell showed up a few minutes late — and ended on time. In the Obama White House, meetings start on time and often finish late.

Too funny…

And finally, George W. Bush’s plates:

If there is one thing Mr. Obama has not gotten around to changing, it is the Oval Office décor.

When Mr. Bush moved in, he exercised his presidential decorating prerogatives and asked his wife, Laura, to supervise the design of a new rug. Mr. Bush loved to regale visitors with the story of the rug, whose sunburst design, he liked to say, was intended to evoke a feeling of optimism.

The rug is still there, as are the presidential portraits Mr. Bush selected — one of Washington, one of Lincoln — and a collection of decorative green and white plates. During a meeting last week with retired military officials, before he signed an executive order shutting down the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Obama surveyed his new environs with a critical eye.

“He looked around,” said one of his guests, retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, “and said, ‘I’ve got to do something about these plates. I’m not really a plates kind of guy.’ ”

I don’t think I’m much of a “plate guy” either…

From The Festival Awards Page about it:

“For the Documentary Competition top honor, the jury selected Ondi Timoner’s We Live in Public from the 16 films in the U.S. Documentary category. Timoner’s second Grand Jury Prize (she won in 2004 for Dig!) is the story of the Internet’s revolutionary impact on human interaction portrayed through the perspective of Josh Harris, the web maverick notorious for his experimental public art projects.”

I posted this on another site about it: 

“This week at the Sundance Film Festival, a film called “We Live in Public” won the Grand Prize Jury Award from the festival, the festival’s highest documentary prize. The film is about the future of the Internet and how it will develop, via use of social media.

It’s told through the story of the Internet pioneer Josh Harris, founder Jupiter Research/Media Metrix [now Forrester Research]; Pseudo.com , etc. There is no doubt that Harris (for those of you who are aware of his story) is questionable, as are his techniques. The film does not shy away from this, it actually tells the story of a very compromised man.

Variety writes this about him, in this excellent review about it:

An intensely immersive, even draining film, “We Live in Public,” which doubles as a short history of the Internet, is technically tops on every level — including its volume. Much of the film is set to an ear-splitting cacophony of moody pop-rock, as befits a character as loud and abrasive as Harris.

This said, he has actually has been able to forecast the Internet (and specifically, how users of the Internet will use it) with tremendous effectiveness, and at least 10 years ahead of the curve.

The story and conclusions and specific conclusions are about exactly the Internet we are starting to see via the increasing onset of social media: youtube, blogging, microblogging, facebook/myspace, etc.

The film just premiered so it will be some time before you can see it if you haven’t. I would say this movie is a mandatory see for anyone mildly interested in social media, particularly any developer. If you are a netflix subscriber, you can add the movie to your que and it will mail it to you when it’s released. Otherwise pay attention and when it comes out make sure you check it out.

Also, as crazy as it sounds it’s also very applicable to Burning Man. I’m currently making efforts to possibly screen it at Burning Man a few times if I can get a copy and they’ll allow me to.”

Relevant Links:
Cinematical Review of main character and director
Cinematical Podcast Recorded Interview

Rudo y Cursi  – 6 or 7 out of 10.
This is a pretty good movie about two brothers in rural Mexican who make it big for about a year in the Mexican Futbol (soccer) leagues.  It’s produced by Guillermo del Toro (most famous for directing Pan’s Labyrinth) and a couple others from an increasingly heavyweight Mexican movie scene.  This movie was pretty good, a comical feelgood movie that doesn’t push you too hard, about what you’d see in the theater other than it’s in subtitles (so you’d never see it).  Probably one of the better movies about soccer made though…
Relevant link:  Sundance Blog about it.

Sin Nombre  – 10 out  of 10
Carrie & I were reading on the blogs about this movie and there was a ton of hype about it.  We always wonder about the hype and the movie in reality.  In this case it was accurate…

The setup of this movie was really interesting and big gamble on the part of the studio behind it, Focus Features.  The director was a first time feature maker that somehow drew full studio support to make a movie in subtitles with actors that had never acted before – a pretty remarkable feat!  He did have direct support from the Sundance Film Institute though.   The guy to the right in the photo above (the lead) is a kid from Honduras who was literally never  in a movie before.    But the gamble paid off..  He was *amazing.*    This movie is gut wrenching, out there and violent, it told an awesome story, and really frankly scared the shit out of me about some of the Mexican gangs in way southern Mexico in the border towns.  I have friends and acquaintances who drive down there through Chiapas (where much of the movie takes place) and really looking at this really accurate portrayal, if frankly scares the shit out of me to ever take such a trip.  These guys care about nothing…

We still have a lot of movies and award winners to see.  I have a good feeling this movie will be an award winner.  It is that good.   That said the question is if it ever makes it.    It is just as good as Slumdog Millionaire, if it helps, and it’s always a shame to see movies like this go unnoticed…

Relevant link: Review that talks about the hype too.

Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience – 9 out of 10.
I looked all over for a photo of the film or even a press photo and it doesn’t exist.   I found this one on the ‘net and it’s a picture of Sasha Grey, the porn star who stars as the lead in the movie all about being a high priced call girl.  It’s a porn pic though, not anything to do with the film.  We caught the world premier/sneak peak on Wednesday night in an edit that was supposedly “rough” but actually flowed and told the whole story really really well.  This movie was *awesome,* really natural and real-feeling and may possibly be the next Sex Lies and Videotape, one more time, from the same guy who made that movie too.   It has the look and feel, but way trendier, hipper.  The movie is actually not lewd at all, hardly shows nekidness, just gets to the grit and has a real New York feel…

Soderbergh is a real pro.  It turns out in this movie, not a single actor was an actor as well.  He just sort of turned on the camera, told them what the plot or synopsis was, and let the actors go.  As a result they were really natural.  I mean, really really natural.  This is also why he cast a pornstar to protray the character, someone who would handle the subject naturally.  It was almost amazing, some of the best performances I’ve seen.  Sized up with Soderberg himself (Ocean’s 11, Che, a slew of other big movies) it comes to life well.   This one will be out, it might be obscure but if you can handle hip and trendy, sexy, New York, you should dig it.  It also actually covers the slumping economy pretty well too.  Relevant Link: Another blog posting from someone else in the crowd.

Honorable mentions:
Yes Men Fix the World.  About a 5 or maybe 6 out of 10.  You can google this for more info.  The tale of two extremely balzy Greenpeace style activists who do a bad job of preaching to anyone else but the choir.  But it is nice to see actually and they are funny guys in funny situations.  Polarizing though, unfortunately.    Bummer they don’t have more money to do the subject some good and build the film into something better or more honorable for themselves.

Movies that weren’t so hot,or were decent but “Sundancy” and won’t make the screen, and/or maybe rightfully shouldn’t (sorry if anyone reads this and is offended):

• Rough Aunties.  Documentary that felt like Dog the Bounty Hunter meets women in South Africa doing good work on behalf of women and children.  But they never develop the story, location, etc.  The film maker is completely captivated or sold so as a result she does a piss poor job developing the characters, location, story, etc.  I was almost even polarized against the main characters.
• Toe to Toe.  About two lacrosse players.  Good story but we already saw it with Kiersten Dunst in Crazy/Beautiful and this version doesn’t do much better.  The bummer is the actors were really good actually, especially the white lead actress.

Enjoy!   We have audience & jury winners coming up so I’m sure there will be a couple more.  I really like documenting this stuff as it’s sad when these killer movies never make it anywhere…

We’re lucky in that Carrie and I live right here in Park City, home of the Sundance Film Festival.  The truth is we’ve seen maybe even dozens of movies over the years that are so good, emotionally riveting like Slumdog, and excellently made.  It’s just that there isn’t a whole lot of demand for them.  Slumdog, through it’s atypical release and reasonably well know director and producer, happened to catch the waive and hit the mainstream.  This is great, and in my opinion a long time coming.  But I’ve been emailing links of movies that are just as good to my friends for years…

My favorite movie of 2008 Sundance was Mancora, a film that sort of like Kids meets Dazed and Confused meets a surf movie.  And it’s in Spanish.  This move is *awesome* but no one’s ever heard of it.  I think it’s because it has subtitles because it’s from Peru but it also has some of their most famous young actors in it.  These actors are awesome, good looking, and everything that could fit into Hollywood.  It seems no one wants to bother with subtitles I guess…

Carrie (my wife) is the ultimate ticket master, she has spreadsheets and whole system for getting good movies via our local’s ticket lottery system regardless of the time slot.  This year we had a so-so slot (6PM on the first day).  Last year we were at 9AM on the first day, so 10 out of our 13 movies were premiers, including the Crosby Stills Nash and Young premier CSNY Dejavu, and a DeNiro movie premier (that was so-so, but had a lot of great actors who were also right there).  It’s pretty cool to be feet from Neil Young or Robert DeNiro or Bruce Willis or Robert Redford himself, even just for curiosity.

This said, one of great pieces of advice we’ve gotten for Sundance is generally the less well-known actors, the better the film.  And that’s the truth, something like 3000+ films compete for about 60 spots.  So if it’s obscure, chances are it’s pretty good.  But of course we’ve seen a couple weird movies that have squeaked through.  But that’s a rarity, not the norm.  Some of the amazing ones have been a gay themed one that made the whole audience cry, completely appropriate and right up there with Brokeback or even better.  A couple of Danish movies including one that was possibly the funniest movie I’ve ever seen.  Also, some of the best movies we’ve seen have been from Mexico.

Carrie’s technique this year, as we’ve been learning over the years, is go for movies with subtitles.  No one buys the tickets and usually they’re not just great but are awesome (again, to be able to make it to Sundance).  A lot of the documentaries are amazing as well.  One I saw last year documented the thorough incompetence of the Bush administration (by interviewing Bush administration members, speaking in their own words), if you want to see just how deep the rabbit hole of Bush era corruption goes.   Some of the world wide documentaries are real gut-wrenchers too.   Finally, an excellent technique is to buy or acquire tickets to the award winners (locals get to see award winners for free at the end).  You don’t get to see the actors as it’s towards the end of the fest, but you know it will be a good movie.  The audience awards are a little less predictable (popular choice wins) but these are usually good.

Our movie break down this year is:

Sneak Preview 2 (Steven Soderbergh premier)
Carmo, Hit the Road
Sin Nombre
The Yes Men Fix the World
Heart of Time
Rough Aunties
Toe To Toe
Rudo and Cursi

Award winner tickets:

Best of Fest 1
Best of Fest 2
Audience Award Dramatic
Dramatic Grand Prize Award
Grand Jury Prize Documentary

Look for a writup on the winners during & after the festival!

Little did I know that I’d made it on some New York Times blogs, be it years ago.  In both cases the original bloggers directly responded to my question/inquiry and in one case even included my original post in the blog itself.

Once in a blue moon I Google myself to see what the world according to Google says about me.  Hey, I admit it.  And everyone does it (or if you don’t, you should — you may not know what the Internet says about you, your habits, & what sites you frequent, etc.).  But it is funny because it truthfully it doesn’t offer much more insight as it pulls extremely diverse data.  In my case I made a post, back in college in 2001 or maybe earlier, about the effectiveness of some sort of device called “beer goggles” meant as a marketing tool to prevent drinking to underage youth.  I said they were counter-productive of course: what college kid wouldn’t strap then on and say “cool!” 

Anyway, several pages in I found two entries I’d made on the New York Times site; one in 2006 and another early this year.  These were comments I made on their blogs. 

The first was a question and response from Andrew Revkin, the Times’ increasingly famous environmental reporter on topics about global warming, the environment.  I was curious about his opinion on a free market approach to solving global warming as at the time, I actually possibly believed Bush about the issue and thought a legislative-down approach might not be the best idea.  This idea had actually been beaten into me from arguing about global warming skeptics on the Expedition Portal vehicle enthusiasts social media site.  Something about car enthusiasts sites yields about 60% fierce conservatives on average, who are usually “non-believers” of global warming policy. However, Revkin shot this I idea down pretty quickly.

The second post intrigued me as the blogger went back and actually added my comments to the blog itself:  Here is The Blog (The Lede on NY Times – big blog!), and the comment. I called out some fully-erroneous reporting by the Los Angeles Times about the premier of Morgan Spurlock’s new film Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden.  Really, was the guy even there?  Did he fall asleep?

Speaking of which, I was lucky enough to quickly meet Spurlock at a party for another film at Sundance Film Festival.  He is an incredibly nice guy and is also very down to earth.  

If you get a chance, also check out Spurlock’s show 30 Days, on the F/X channel.  F/X is putting a lot of really interesting stuff on the air that violates “everything we hate about TV,” aka, it’s “not crap.”   One that comes to mind is Dennis Leary’s awesome, gritty NY comedy/drama, Rescue Me. On Spurlock’s show, he is crazy enough to lock himself up for 30 days for example, just to show what it’s like.  And the last is the critically acclaimed It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with Danny deVito.  I haven’t seen it, but I hear it’s also raw and gritty, full of curses and sexual content and all sorts of other stuff, a lot Rescue Me though it’s solely a comedy.

An awful pic; I know…

]]> http://www.andre2000.com/2008/12/morgan-spurlock-ny-times-blog-posts/feed/ 0 http://www.andre2000.com/2008/12/slumdog-millionaire-the-endorsement/ http://www.andre2000.com/2008/12/slumdog-millionaire-the-endorsement/#comments Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:07:01 +0000 Andre Shoumatoff http://www.andre2000.com/?p=275 I hate to join on the bandwagon of one more guy talking about this movie.

Carrie and I actually see a lot of movies like this, particularly at the Sundance Film Festival where we usually see 10-20 movies a year and about 5 or so are usually awesome…

Slumdog Millionaire fits this category. So this movie gets the official seal of approval.

It’s also a great taste of some of the killer movies that come out of Sundance (in this case, it did not, but has a similar past). For every one of these movies, there are dozens more of it’s caliber that never see the popular screen. Instead, unfortunately, we get Transformers or some other POS movie. It really is sad.

Look for more updates in the Sundance & Film categories here that are seriously awesome flicks…