Blog Entry# 2

Here are the Docs and reviews I did for this blog entry :

1 Watched W-Five this past Saturday and found the stories that were covered to be quite interesting. Show was entitled “Silent Treatment” and tells the story of a family’s fight for medical information after a critical mistake is made in the ER and results in death. The tragic event occurred in Newfoundland in 2002.Trudy Menaey’s sister Paula Browne was rushed to the E.R with pain leg. After being in the E.R her situation went from bad to worse. In a little bit over an hr she was dead. I found this incredible shocking as the story went on and it was revealed she had a heart problem and was given medication in the E.R which made it worse. I really feel for the family because the main issue here is that they are fighting to get medical records of a FAMILY member, not a complete stranger. There was clear negligence and it is going un punished. This woman could have been saved. The documentary style of W-Five has always been very interesting and informative and this story proved no different. The message is clear , don’t give up when fighting for answers.
Source : http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/WFive/20101008/w5-silent-treatment-101009/

2 a) A Married Couple –Allan King 1969
This documentary is about the difficulties that can arise during marriage . It follows the Edwards ,Antoinette and Billy . Allan King spent nearly 70 hrs filming the couple and it portrays a very rocky relationship . During the documentary we see lots of fighting and un -ease between the couple. It is essentially showing the breakdown of a marriage. There was a lot of fighting between the couple and they seemed at times to almost be competing .In fact during an interview fairly recently Antoinette admitted to the difficulties that arose between her and her husband. One of the main issues mentioned was that there was a 10 year difference. I think also having a camera crew watching their every move didn’t help the already stressful situation.

Over all I really enjoyed this documentary , Allan King did a very good job of making the viewer feel they were right there witnessing the situation. You as a viewer could also literally feel the tension while watching.
Source : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x8IsGjGZ0o and rented it at home.

b)Roger and Me 1989 : Michael Moore
Roger and Me is a film about the aftermath in Flint ,Michigan after GM makes a decision to close several auto plants costing 30,000 people their jobs. It is a documentary about getting the truth and confronting the head , Roger Smith about how he could lay of so many people. I enjoy Moore’s style of documentary , its very investigative and “in your face”. One of the scenes I will not forget is the scene where Moore and his crew are at the GM Christmas party having just come from Flint to witness a family being evicted on Christmas Eve. He asks one of the heads at GM what his thoughts are on that and the man replies he had no knowledge of the incident nor could he accompany Moore back to flint to see for himself. To me the main message from Moore about big companies like GM and how they operate is “out of side ,out of mind” or not my problem. They really seem to not care about their employees are portrayed rather heartless. My views on GM have shifted a little now after watching this and seeing what all these poor workers and their families went through. Moore did an excellent job of telling this unfortunate event in his home town.
Source:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3622789144304528932&q=roger+and+me#


c) When We Were Kings (1997) – Leon Gast
This is a documentary about the famous battle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in the famous “Rumble in the Jungle “ heavyweight championship match. The entrire documentary is about a building up to the fight ( what happens before) .It shows Ali’s relationship with the people of Zaire. This relationship is a devoted one and you can see there is love on both sides. I really enjoyed the opening with Muhammad talking about how he hates America etc etc and how proud he is to be an African American it really gives you insight into what kind of a person he is. In the documentary during one of the interviews its mentioned that Muhammad was scared of the upcoming fight.

The documentary was done really well and all the clips of Muhammad throughout his career as well as interviews with him really added to the documentary . The footage of the actual fight itself was done really well and made the viewer feel as if they were right there experiencing the fight.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUSxWilW9is

d) An Inconvenient Truth
This documentary is about climate change , and follows Al Gore ‘s campaign to educate the public about just how severe the climate crisis actually is. In the film we see Al Gore and his slide show presentation. I enjoyed some of the humor Gore uses in this documentary about a very controversial and serious topic. I really enjoyed the pictures shown in the slide show presentation itself and Gore wasn’t hard to listen to either. This documentary gave the viewers in my opinion a lot more information on this subject because not to many people know what I tis exactly that is going on. It shed a lot of light on the issue of Climate Change and made people pay attention.
Source :
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8847562857479496579#

3) Inside Story : Polygamy : (BBC) Is a documentary about Polygamist groups . The documentary opens with a man, Randy Maudsley who has 4 wives. The story taks place in Utah. Interviews were conducted with the wives . Randy has one son and all of them live under the same roof. One wife admitted that its hard to do what she believes God wants her to when she hears her husband having sex with another partner in the other room. One wife left her 11 children in order to become his 3rd wife.
These people believe that they are living the way God wants them to live, taking more then one wife. It was revealed that most polygamist marriages are performed in secret. The whole issue of polygamy was brought out in the open after a 16 year old girl made a call to police reporting abuse by her uncle who made her his 15th wife. This was the famous Kingston incident. She had broken the first rule of polygamy which was “ Thou shalt obey your husband. Her father took a strap and whipped her 28 times (10 lashings for every attempt made to leave). It was described by police to be one the worst cases of child abuse they had ever seen. Her friend Jane spoke out and said “she had betrayed her father completely and her father will never forgive her”
The pictures shown of the abuse she received were horrific and makes you feel sorry for the woman and young girls who are caught up in this world. The documentary was very well done with lots of voice over’s, b-roll and interviews . Overall it was a pretty interesting documentary and I enjoyed watching it. It really made me realize how serious the issue of polygamy really is.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITzchbdSvzA&feature=related

Thats all for this entry. I really enjoyed watching and reviewing all these documentaries. More next time! - Tarah