Category: Movies

UFT “Trying to Deny Poor Parents Choice for Their Children”

SacklerMadeleine2011-02-05.jpg

Madeleine Sackler. Source of image: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) ‘What’s funny,” says Madeleine Sackler, “is that I’m not really a political person.” Yet the petite 27-year-old is the force behind “The Lottery”–an explosive new documentary about the battle over the future of public education opening nationwide this Tuesday.

In the spring of 2008, Ms. Sackler, then a freelance film editor, caught a segment on the local news about New York’s biggest lottery. It wasn’t the Powerball. It was a chance for 475 lucky kids to get into one of the city’s best charter schools (publicly funded schools that aren’t subject to union rules).

“I was blown away by the number of parents that were there,” Ms. Sackler tells me over coffee on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, recalling the thousands of people packed into the Harlem Armory that day for the drawing. “I wanted to know why so many parents were entering their kids into the lottery and what it would mean for them.” And so Ms. Sackler did what any aspiring filmmaker would do: She grabbed her camera.
. . .
But on the way to making the film she imagined, she “stumbled on this political mayhem–really like a turf war about the future of public education.” Or more accurately, she happened upon a raucous protest outside of a failing public school in which Harlem Success, already filled to capacity, had requested space.
“We drove by that protest,” Ms. Sackler recalls. “We were on our way to another interview and we jumped out of the van and started filming.” There she discovered that the majority of those protesting the proliferation of charter schools were not even from the neighborhood. They’d come from the Bronx and Queens.
“They all said ‘We’re not allowed to talk to you. We’re just here to support the parents.'” But there were only two parents there, says Ms. Sackler, and both were members of Acorn. And so, “after not a lot of digging,” she discovered that the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) had paid Acorn, the controversial community organizing group, “half a million dollars for the year.” (It cost less to make the film.)
Finding out that the teachers union had hired a rent-a-mob to protest on its behalf was “the turn for us in the process.” That story–of self-interested adults trying to deny poor parents choice for their children–provided an answer to Ms. Sackler’s fundamental question: “If there are these high-performing schools that are closing the achievement gap, why aren’t there more of them?”

For the full interview, see:
BARI WEISS. “THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW; Storming the School Barricades; A new documentary by a 27-year-old filmmaker could change the national debate about public education.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., JUNE 5, 2010): A13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the first paragraph quoted above has slightly different wording in the online version than the print version; the second paragraph quoted is the same in both.)

Arne Duncan on “Waiting for Superman” and Teachers’ Unions

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Arne Duncan. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 26) Have you seen the new film “Waiting for Superman,” a documentary opening this week that makes public education in this country seem totally dysfunctional?
I did. I think it’s going to help the country to understand the tremendous sense of urgency that I feel. We have parents who know their child is getting a subpar education. That is devastating to them and ultimately it’s devastating to our country.
The film blames teachers’ unions for the failure of public schools because the unions have made it almost impossible to fire lazy teachers. Are you against teachers’ unions?
Of course not. I’m a big fan of Randi’s.

Randi Weingarten, of the American Federation of Teachers? The film depicts her as a villain.
I think Randi is providing some courageous leadership and is actually taking some heat internally in the union because she said publicly that the union shouldn’t be protecting bad teachers.

For the full interview, see:
DEBORAH SOLOMON. “Questions for Arne Duncan; The School of Hard Drives.” The New York Times, Magazine Section (Sun., September 17, 2010): 26.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated September 16, 2010.)

“Intimidation, Threats and Violence Against the White Farmers” in Zimbabwe

ForcingWhiteFarmerOffLand2010-08-04.jpg“A man tries to force a white Zimbabwean farmer off of his land in “Mugabe and the White African.”” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. C9) Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson’s “Mugabe and the White African” is a documentary account of the efforts of Mike Campbell and his son-in-law, Ben Freeth, to hold onto their farm. It tracks their precedent-setting lawsuit against Robert Mugabe, the authoritarian Zimbabwean president, in a regional African court, as well as events on the ground in Zimbabwe: intimidation, threats and violence against the white farmers still holding out after a decade of land seizures by the government.

Many viewers will leave “Mugabe and the White African” thinking that they have seen few, if any, documentaries as wrenching, sad and infuriating, and those feelings will be justified. What has happened (and continues to happen) to the Campbells, the Freeths and some of their white neighbors is not only unjust but also a horrifying, slow-motion nightmare. That sensation is reinforced by the movie’s political-thriller style, partly a result of the covert filming methods necessary in a country where practicing journalism can get you thrown in jail.

For the full movie review, see:

MIKE HALE. “Fighting His Country to Keep His Farmland.” The New York Times (Fri., July 23, 2010): C9.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated July 22, 2010.)

Russell Crowe as a Libertarian Robin Hood Fighting High Taxes

RobinHoodRussellCrowe2010-05-14.jpg “Mr. Crowe as Robin Hood.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT review quoted and cited below.

Ridley Scott has directed some entertaining movies (Blade Runner and Alien to name two) and he also directed one of the most famous tech ads of all time: upstart Apple smashing the uptight corporate conformity of IBM.
And now he brings us what we could use about now: a libertarian Robin Hood who defends property rights and fights high taxes.
When all is said and done, liberal NYT reviewer A.O. Scott doesn’t much like the movie in the full review that is briefly quoted below. (But I want to see the movie anyway.)

(p. C1) You may have heard that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but that was just liberal media propaganda. This Robin is no socialist bandit practicing freelance wealth redistribution, but rather a manly libertarian rebel striking out against high taxes and a big government scheme to trample the ancient liberties of property owners and provincial nobles. Don’t tread on him!

For the full review, see:

A. O. SCOTT. “Rob the Rich? Give to the Poor? Oh, Puh-leeze.” The New York Times (Fri., May 14, 2010): C1 & C14.
(Note: the italics in the title of Scott’s NYT review, appeared in the print, but not the online, version of the review.)

Profits on Economics Documentary May Not Be Dismal

(p. B6) 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.

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL CIEPLY. “‘Freakonomics’ Documentary May Be a Rarity: Profitable.” The New York Times (Mon., April 5, 2010): B6.
(Note: the online version of the story is dated April 4, 2010.)

The source information on the revised edition of the Freakonomics book is:
Levitt, Steven D., and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Revised and Expanded ed. New York: William Morrow, 2006.

Light in “Meet Me in St. Louis”

MeetMeInSaintLouisLights2010-02-07.jpgSource of photo: http://www.thejudyroom.com/louis/pictures/mmisldvd%23674.html

As Brad DeLong has noted, we take for granted the spectacular technological advances of the last 200, and especially, the last 100 years. One of the more notable of these, the spread of electricity that allowed electric illumination, occurred around the year 1900.
We forget how electric illumination made cities safer, and increased our freedom to choose the timing of work and leisure activities.
The awe inspired by electric lights also usually has been forgotten, but is occasionally recalled. One good source is a segment of a documentary produced by UNO television in 1998, to mark the centennial of Omaha’s long-forgotten Trans-Mississippi Exposition.
I recently ran across another in viewing the closing scenes of the Judy Garland classic “Meet Me in St. Louis.” In the final scene, the family finally makes it to the St. Louis Fair, and observes the display of electric lights.

For DeLong’s comment, peruse the early pages of his marvelous draft:
DeLong, J. Bradford. “Cornucopia: The Pace of Economic Growth in the Twentieth Century.” NBER Working Paper w7602, March 2000.

The UNO documentary had the unfortunate title “Westward the Empire: Omaha’s World Fair of 1898.”

MeetMeInSaintLouisViewingLights2010-02-07.jpgSource of photo: http://www.thejudyroom.com/louis/pictures/judytomlarge.html

Walt Disney, Like Brer Rabbit, “Constantly Wriggling Out of the Snares Set for Him”

(p. 325) The real Disney may yet elude his most fervent admirers’ and detractors’ suffocating grasp. When he was young, he was a sort of human Brer Rabbit, constantly wriggling out of the snares set for him by the likes of Charles Mintz and Pat Powers (not to mention Laugh-O-gram’s creditors). He emerged finally, and unexpectedly, as the creator of a new art form, one whose potential has still scarcely been tapped, by him or anyone else. It is hard to imagine that man–the passionate young artist, the intense “coordinator,” the man who scrutinized every frame of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with a lover’s zeal–trapped forever in anyone’s briar patch.

Source:
Barrier, Michael. The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney. 1 ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007.
(Note: italics in original.)

Walt Disney: “I Don’t Care About Critics”

(p. 286) “He is shy with reporters.” Edith Efron wrote for TV Guide in 1965. “His eyes are dull and preoccupied, his affability mechanical and heavy-handed. He gabs away slowly and randomly in inarticulate, Midwestern speech that would be appropriate to a rural general store. His shirt is open, his tie crooked. One almost expects to see over-all straps on his shoulders and wisps of hay in his hair. . . . If one has the patience to persist, however, tossing questions like yellow flares into the folksy fog, the fog lifts, a remote twinkle appears in the preoccupied eves, and the man emerges.”

Here again, as in other interviews from the 1960s, Disney permitted himself to sound bitter and resentful when he said anything of substance: “These avant-garde artists are adolescents. It’s only a little noisy element that’s going that way, that’s creating this sick art. . . . There is no cynicism in me and there is none allowed in our work. . . . I don’t like snobs. You find some of intelligentsia, they become snobs. They think they’re above everybody else. They’re not. More education doesn’t mean more common sense. These ideas they have about art are crazy. . . . I don’t care about critics. Critics take themselves too seriously. They think the only way to be noticed and to be the smart guy is to pick and find fault with things. It’s the public I’m making pictures for.”

Source:
Barrier, Michael. The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney. 1 ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007.
(Note: ellipses and italics in original.)

“The Animated Man” is a Useful Account of the Life of an Important Entrepreneur

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Source of book image: http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/wp-content/e/a336.jpg

I have always believed, and recently increasingly believe, that Walt Disney was one of the most important entrepreneurs of our time.
One of the most favorably reviewed biographies of Disney is Michael Barrier’s The Animated Man. (At some point in the future, I will briefly discuss an alternative biography of Disney by Gabler.)
I have not thoroughly read The Animated Man, but have thoroughly skimmed it. It appears to be a very useful account of Walt Disney’s life.
I did not want to wait until I had fully read it, in order to highlight a few passages that I think may be of special interest. I will do so in the next few weeks.

Reference to the book discussed:
Barrier, Michael. The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney. 1 ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007.

Becker and Farmer on the Economics of Discrimination

FarmerDonnaAndChildren2009-06-09.jpg “ROYAL SUBJECTS; Donna Farmer, with her children, applauds Disney’s efforts.” Source of photo and caption: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

In Gary Becker’s initially controversial doctoral dissertation, he argued that those who discriminate in the labor market pay a price for their prejudice: they end up paying higher wages, than do those employers are not prejudiced.
The bottom line is that the free market provides incentives for the encouragement of diversity and tolerance.
Similarly, Donna Farmer argues, in the passages below, that the marketplace provides the Disney company with incentives to have “The Princess and the Frog” appeal to black audiences.

(p. 1) “THE Princess and the Frog” does not open nationwide until December, but the buzz is already breathless: For the first time in Walt Disney animation history, the fairest of them all is black.
. . .
After viewing some photographs of merchandise tied to the movie, which is still unfinished, Black Voices, a Web site on AOL dedicated to African-American culture, faulted the prince’s relatively light skin color. Prince Naveen hails from the fictional land of Maldonia and is voiced by a Brazilian actor; Disney says that he is not white.
“Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince,” Angela Bronner Helm wrote March 19 on the site. “His hair and features are decidedly non-black. This has left many in the community shaking (p. 8) their head in befuddlement and even rage.”
Others see insensitivity in the locale.
“Disney should be ashamed,” William Blackburn, a former columnist at The Charlotte Observer, told London’s Daily Telegraph. “This princess story is set in New Orleans, the setting of one of the most devastating tragedies to beset a black community.”
ALSO under scrutiny is Ray the firefly, performed by Jim Cummings (the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Yosemite Sam). Some people think Ray sounds too much like the stereotype of an uneducated Southerner in an early trailer.
Of course, armchair critics have also been complaining about the princess. Disney originally called her Maddy (short for Madeleine). Too much like Mammy and thus racist. A rumor surfaced on the Internet that an early script called for her to be a chambermaid to a white woman, a historically correct profession. Too much like slavery.
And wait: We finally get a black princess and she spends the majority of her time on screen as a frog?
. . .
Donna Farmer, a Los Angeles Web designer who is African-American and has two children, applauded Disney’s efforts to add diversity.
“I don’t know how important having a black princess is to little girls — my daughter loves Ariel and I see nothing wrong with that — but I think it’s important to moms,” she said.
“Who knows if Disney will get it right,” she added. “They haven’t always in the past, but the idea that Disney is not bending over backward to be sensitive is laughable. It wants to sell a whole lot of Tiana dolls and some Tiana paper plates and make people line up to see Tiana at Disney World.”

For the full article, see:

BROOKS BARNES. “Her Prince Has Come. Critics, Too.” The New York Times, SundayStyles Section (Sun., May 31, 2009): 1, 8-9.
(Note: ellipses added.)

The published version of Becker’s doctoral dissertation is:
Becker, Gary S. The Economics of Discrimination. 2nd Rev ed, Economic Research Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971.

DisneyPrincessAndFrog2009-06-09.jpg Movie still of Princess Tiana from Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” to be released in December 2009. Source of movie still: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

When Experts Picked California Wine Over French Wine

RickmanAlanBottleShock.jpg “Alan Rickman portrays Steven Spurrier, the British wine dealer who organized a famous blind wine tasting near Paris in 1976, in Randall Miller’s “Bottle Shock.”” Source of the caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

Cultural pretension and conspicuous consumption are among the less admirable aspects of human behavior. So the blind wine tasting where California beat France, has always had appeal.
This, plus the inimitable Alan Rickman (aka Snape), put this movie on my “to see” list.

(p. B7) “Bottle Shock,” an easygoing little movie, made with more affection than skill, takes us back to the days when men wore loud plaid suits and people who were serious about wine sneered at the very mention of California. Sticking reasonably close to the historical record, the director, Randall Miller (who wrote the screenplay with his wife, Jody Savin, and Ross Schwartz), reconstructs a watershed moment in the wine world’s acceptance of the Golden State and, eventually, of many other non-French viticultural regions.

In 1976, at a gathering near Paris, a panel of experts conducted a blind tasting at which two California wines emerged victorious over their more pedigreed French competitors. That tasting provides the climax to “Bottle Shock,” and even if the potential surprise of its outcome were not already spoiled by history, the movie’s adherence to the clichés of the triumph-of-the-underdog narrative would be enough to remove any doubt.
There are, indeed, at least two underdogs hungering for triumph. The first is Steven Spurrier, played by Alan Rickman, whose parched low voice and air of beleaguered pomposity are never unwelcome.

For the full review, see:
A. O. SCOTT. “Plaid Suits, Prize Grapes and the Rise of Napa.” The New York Times (Weds., August 6, 2008): B7.