CIFF 35 – Day 2
Mar 29, 2011 in Uncategorized
Since I won’t have time to write up full reviews quickly, here are a few comments on the movies I saw on my 2nd Day of CIFF (Monday 3/28/2011)
Facing Forward (2010) – A great documentary that let’s its subject speak for themselves. Shows a somewhat narrow look on the effect and progress of a new type of charter school in Cleveland for an inner-city / at-risk kids area. This focus helps show the effects of the system on individuals, rather than try to make a political statement of whether or not the system is “right”. Very interesting, and worth the watch. Easy to watch at around an hour lenght, as well. 4 / 5
Win/Win (2010) – This movie left me disappointed. It had everything that should appeal to me – a numbers wiz, who makes millions on intra-day stock trading, a love interest, some interesting characters (though maybe a bit too bold at times). Ultimately, the movie didn’t really go anywhere. Some events happened in-between, but it felt more like a Seinfeld episode, where everything is the same at the end as the start of the show. 2 / 5
Holy Wars (2010) – Another interesting documentary (and the second of the day to show parts of Obama’s inauguration in the film), this one about two fundamentalist religious people, one Christian (evangelical) and one Islamic (fundamental). Neither of them were “powerful” in their respective organizations, but felt they each had both a right and obligation to spread their own words. The director, whose intro to the film is a bit pretentious – though maybe necessarily so to explain the context, brings them together to “debate” their views. The interesting thing of this movie is seeing each character react to their experience in the debate and to those on the streets, who don’t approve of their closed-minded views. Surprisingly, the people who support and mentor these two fundamentalists have even a different take-away from this encounter, and give advice ranging from tolerance to ignorance. Holy Wars is an anecdotal, but realistic, look into religious views and fundamentalism in today’s world, especially pertaining to the Christian vs Muslim sentiment prevalent in the West vs Middle East relationship. 3 / 5
