Posts tagged Special Interest
“Babies” Baby’s Home Movies
May 12th
Baby’s Home Movies
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
BABIES is an interesting, sometimes amusing, sometimes fascinating documentary that follows four babies from around the world during the first year of their lives.
The four babies are Ponijao in Namibia, Africa; Bayarjargal in Mongolia; Mari in Tokyo, Japan; and Hattie in San Francisco.
There is no narration, very little dialogue, none of which is translated, and only a few titles to tell us the names of the babies and where they were born.
In other words, this movie is like four sets of home movies called “Baby’s First Year.” On the other hand, who can resist seeing pictures of a sleeping, yawning baby?
We first meet Ponijao in Namibia. She and a sibling are pounding rocks together, and then they get into a fight over an old bottle, which results in some biting and crying. A title says “A few months earlier,” and we see Ponijao’s mother giving birth to her.
We cut to Mongolia and see a pregnant woman exercising in front of a television set while an exercise program is playing, and then later she gives birth to Bayarjargal. A nurse wraps him up tightly, and he is driven home on the back of a motorcycle in his mother’s arms behind his father and young brother.
Tokyo is next, and we see baby Mari while she is feeding, and a cat comes in and joins her.
Finally, we are in San Francisco, where we meet Hattie, and from here on the movie doesn’t show the four babies in order anymore, but instead shows different scenes in the lives of the babies and their activities in their first year.
Consequently, we see the similarities of raising a baby around the world, but we also see the differences, as well as the interesting differences in the four cultures that are represented.
All babies are given baths, but there are differences in the techniques.
All babies have animals in their lives, but there is a vast difference in what those animals are.
And all babies explore their body parts, but there are differences in what they wear, what toys they are given to play with, and how their parents try to amuse them to keep them from becoming bored.
BABIES is “Baby’s Home Movies,” yes, but who can resist babies, who are adorable no matter where they live?
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Babies – Movie Trailer
May 11th
Filmmaker Thomas Balmes offers an adorable glimpse at the first phase of life in this film following four newborn babies through their first year of life. Ponijao, Bayar, Mari, and Hattie were born in Namibia, Mongolia, Japan, and California, respectively. By capturing their earliest stage of development on camera, Balmes reveals just how much we all have in common, despite being born to different parents and raised in different cultures.
“Capitalism: A Love Story” How We Got Here
Oct 15th
How We Got Here
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY is the latest film by Michael Moore, the Academy Award–winning documentary filmmaker, and if you know anything about Moore, you can guess that this very good film will be entertaining and informative and that the title is ironic.
By that I don’t mean just the part about “Love Story,” but also the part about “Capitalism,” which in the United States has turned our economic system into something more resembling feudalism in the Middle Ages, but with modern corporations taking the place of lords and the nobility.
In fact, at one point Moore talks about insurance policies that some corporations take out on their employees, naming the corporation as beneficiary if an employee should die, and in the business these are known as “dead peasants”
policies.
Let me emphasize that: Corporations refer to their employees as “peasants.”
At another point, Moore says, “This is democracy, a system of taking and giving–mostly taking.”
The movie opens with an unusual request that certain people should leave the auditorium before the movie even starts, because what they are about to see might be too much for them.
Then we see a nice comparison between the Roman Empire and what caused its downfall with present-day United States, followed by disturbing videos shot during the forced evictions of homeowners from their homes.
We then get a history lesson of the career of Ronald Reagan, the star of B movies before he became a television spokesman for corporate greed and then continued as a spokesman for corporate greed after becoming president.
Moore says that the country was run by corporations and it was done for sort-term profits and destroying the unions, and we see and hear how corporations and banks wanted to remake America to serve them instead of the people.
The messages and examples are so upsetting that you would cry if you weren’t laughing at Moore’s commentary and his filmmaking tactics for making his points.
In the end, however, the film is very patriotic, and you will cry for joy at the hope that still remains.
However, be sure to stay for the closing credits to learn more interesting details about information in the film.
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY is an eye-opening and entertaining lesson in where we are and how we got here.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”