Murderball (2005, Henry Alex Rubin & Dana Adam Shapiro): B Subject matter pretty hard to mess up: Quadriplegics -- people who have lost some movement in all four limbs -- who play a sport, wheelchair rugby, where the only way to stop someone with the ball is to knock over their wheelchair with yours. The players' athletic raison d'être is pretty clear: Most of them are former jocks who are [over-]compensating for their physical loss by playing the most violent, energetic sport available to them. Somewhat strangely focused -- lengthy digression about the sex lives of quadriplegics (which came apropos of nothing) ought to have been ditched, and more actual play of the sport should have been added. (I doubt we see more than three minutes of any given game, including the big U.S./Canada Olympic showdown that two-thirds of the movie was foreshadowing. Bring back Miracle.) Success of the film comes from making a good first decision -- what subject to profile -- and not from any particular skill thereafter on the part of Rubin or Shapiro; dozens of filmmakers with the same budget these filmmakers must have had would have done just as well in profiling wheelchair rugby. Still, though.
Following Sean (2005, Ralph Arlyck): C+ There is a reason Errol Morris is the greatest documentary filmmaker of his generation, and that reason is because he simply lets his subjects speak without adding 45 minutes of narration about how he found this subject, or his past relationship with the subject, or what he thinks about what the subject is saying, or how things are going with Errol and his wife, or what Errol's kids think about his filmmaking, or "hey I'm Errol Morris and I'm going to splice in some old film I shot of his wife which has nothing to do with the subject of the film but hey she's cute." Good job Errol Morris. (The footage from the original film is all that gives my grade its plus.)
--- Mommy, where do baby names come from? Interesting explanation here.
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
