Happy Panic Productions

Roger, Ebert, I read you: The Take (2004)

There were several things to like about this documentary, but for now I'd like to dwell on the negative. It did a very poor job of telling the story of how exactly the International Monetary Fund's policies ruined Argentina's economy, and how the worker-controlled factories are actually managed (and managed better than the same factory when it was boss-controlled). How are they procuring raw materials? (We see one factory is getting raw materials from another worker-controlled factory, but where did the other factory get them?) How are they lining up consumers for their product? How do they distribute and deliver their product to the consumer? All this stuff has to be happening for these factories to work like they do, and it sounds like a challenge, so why not give it a little screen time? This movie about factory is so little concerned with actual manufacturing that it was half way through the movie before I figured out what they were actually trying to make in that factory. As a viewer, I might be more inclined to get behind the motto "Occupy, Resist, Produce" if I know they are producing something that actually contributes to society, not just widgets (or chemical weapons).

And then there's the thin argument that worker-occupied factories represent a "new model" for how to run the economy and the country. Voices in the film even try to calm the viewer's red-scare instincts by insisting this model is capitalism as it was meant to operate. One huge problem: where's the capital? This model requires abandoned factories with equipment in relatively good condition, just sitting around waiting to be occupied, as if they were a natural resource. The model only works if you've just had a prosperous economy collapse on you! Where's the venture capital to build a new factory in this model? You may have answers to these questions, but the film does not.

Enough complaining about the movie, time to complain about the review of the movie.

The Take (2005) The film was released on September 22, 2004. (This appears in the search results on www.rogerebert.com and is probably the fault of his editors.)

All I know is that the ladies at the garment factory are turning out good-looking clothes, demand is up for Zanon ceramics, and the auto parts factory is working with a worker-controlled tractor factory to make some good-looking machines. But how does Ebert know this? From watching The Take? You'd never know it from reading his review. In his seven-paragraph piece, his only reference to the film he's allegedly reviewing is in the third paragraph, and here it is in its entirety: "Now here is 'The Take,' a Canadian documentary by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, shot in Argentina...." The balance of the article covers the following topics: the class of documentaries whose subject is the Internation Monetary Fund in general; another movie (Life and Debt, 2001); and what has transpired in Argentina's politics and economy. Ebert has a habit when reviewing movies about real-life events, which I first noticed in his review of The Aviator. He stops writing about the movie and instead just writes about what really happened. He has nothing to say about the way the film presents these events. To read Ebert, you would think that these movies as a rule must be as well made as their subject matter is interesting. Perhaps he would prefer a career as a writer of encyclopedia articles. In an encyclopedia whose only source of information is the movies.

Roger, Ebert, I read you: The Aviator (2004)

I walked into the 4:45 show at 4:57. I thought all multiplexes showed at least 10 minutes of previews and commercials these days. But not only was the movie already playing when I walked in, it distinctly did not feel at all like the beginning of a movie. The pacing, the minimal exposition, the lack of any apparent introduction to any single character, made it feel like I could have walked into the movie at any point but the beginning. I kept worrying that I had walked into the wrong auditorium. But after 10 or 20 minutes Cate Blanchett's character was introduced, and I knew she played a major character (although I hadn't known she played Kate Hepburn, and awesomely to boot), so I felt safe. And the movie played for over 2 more hours, so I'm pretty confident I missed no more than 12 minutes, and very likely less than that. But I have no idea what I missed. This could because the script, so brilliant it was, utterly avoided the structure tropes you'd expect in the first act.

Anyway, on to Ebert.

Hughes brings his tame meteorology professor (Ian Holm) to the censorship hearing, introduces him as a systems analyst, and has him prove with calipers.... Actually, Hughes introduces Holm as a professor of mathematics. (Maybe the title "systems analyst" existed in the 1940s, but I doubt it.)

In his last two paragraphs, Ebert goes on to describe the events that make up the final scenes in the movie; and then describes Hughs' life as it transpired after the film ends, but describes it in such a way that makes it sound like it's depicted in the movie. (Even though the events of Hughs' life are well known, I won't quote Ebert here, because one of the most interesting creative choices in the film is deciding at what point in Hughs' life to stop telling the story; which aspect of the man to present as his final act. Maybe Ebert was trying to avoid playing spoiler by not making it clear when the movie ends, but then he isn't really describing the movie anymore.)

Last night I caught a double-feature of Best Picture Oscar nominees. So today, I give you a double feature of:

Roger, Ebert, I read you: Sideways (2004)

"There was a tasting last night," Miles Raymond explains, on one of those alcoholic mornings that begin in the afternoon and strain eagerly toward the first drink. Miles wakes up before noon; around 11 AM if I recall.

He's not an alcoholic, you understand;... Yet Ebert goes on for the rest of the review referring to him as an alcoholic.

We realize he doesn't set the bar too high when he praises one vintage as "quaffable." This line of dialogue shows precisely that he does set the bar high. "Quaffable" is damning faint praise!

Miles is so manifestly not layable that for him [getting him laid] would be less like a gift than an exercise program. I don't know what this means!


Ebert has one good line in this review: No wonder his unpublished novel is titled The Day After Yesterday; for anyone who drinks a lot, that's what today always feels like.

Roger, Ebert, I read you: Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Morgan Freeman is Scrap, who was managed by Frankie into a title bout. No! Scrap explains in the movie that Frankie was his cut man, and that his manager was out getting drunk during his final fight.

That's it. Ebert apparently really loves this movie, and it comes out in the quality of his writing in this review. Probably the most eloquent one of his that I've read.

I would like to point out that Million Dollar Baby is now the second film in which Morgan Freeman speaks to Clint Eastwood about holding his dick in his hand.

Stories of the street

This morning I walked past a parked car. A guy sitting inside with the window rolled down called out, "How about coming over here and sucking on my tailpipe." I didn't look to see whether he was talking to me or into a phone.