A New Blog to Check Out

Some friends of mine, who some of you might know from school, moved to Santa Cruz a couple months ago. One of them, Tosh, was offered a position at UCSC, so it was kind of a no-brainer decision. He's now the assistant producer/director of photography in the Social Sciences division, teaching Documentary Photography.

He's also undertaken an ambitious documentary project on the Japanese-American Internment Camps. As part of this project, Tosh's partner, Crystal, started a blog called Memories My Parents Never Had. While ambitious in scope and logistics, this project is also super-cool, educational, and super-cool. Yes, I meant to do that. It's like an educational sandwich made with two slices of super-coolness. It's still in development, so I'm not going to spill anymore beans about it, but if you're interested, go check out the blog and leave a comment or two. And as you're looking, think about what it is you know/were taught about the J-A Internment.

FOXNews.com - Michael Moore's 'Sicko'

FOXNews.com - 'Sicko' Shows Michael Moore's Maturity as a Filmmaker
Boy, when the ship starts going down, all the rats make for higher ground. This doesn't keep FauxNews from taking a backhanded swipe along the way, though.

Filmmaker Michael Moore's brilliant and uplifting new documentary, "Sicko," deals with the failings of the U.S. healthcare system, both real and perceived. But this time around, the controversial documentarian seems to be letting the subject matter do the talking, and in the process shows a new maturity.

Unlike many of his previous films ("Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9-11"), "Sicko" works because in this one there are no confrontations. Moore smartly lets very articulate average Americans tell their personal horror stories at the hands of insurance companies. The film never talks down or baits the audience. [emphasis mine]

I guess when it's a movie they like, Moore "shows a new maturity" and "smartly lets very articulate...Americans tell their personal...stories". I haven't seen any trailers yet, but I'll bet that those "very articulate average Americans" are, as Wolf Blitzer so foot-in-mouthingly put it, "so poor and so black," as the word articulate is often used to describe someone who isn't expected to be.

Personally, I enjoyed "Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," and "Farenheit 9-11," and if they're to be judged immature, I suppose it would be for the absolutely immature behaviour of his targets. But "Sicko" takes aim at Big Pharma, a non-partisan enemy we can all enjoy. I wonder, though, how the movie will, and Fox's glowing review of it, will square with the likes of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Lielly...