About a month ago I noticed that a movie called Waiting for “Superman” was playing at the local AMC Orpheum 7, a theater I generally have no use for even though I am a film critic by avocation. I surmised that the movie might have been an animated feature with Adam Sandler providing voice-over for a superhero that has opted for early retirement or something else god-awful.
It turned out, as you might know, that this is a documentary boosting charter schools. It is directed by Davis Guggenheim, the same guy who directed Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. That might have just been the last documentary shown at this multiplex that generally shows crapola. (Right now it is featuring Saw 3D and Paranormal Activity 2. I watched about 10 minutes worth of the original Paranormal Activity on cable TV last night until becoming bored to tears. I then switched to MSNBC and saw something truly scary: Chris Matthews making the case for voting Democrat today.) I decided to go see Waiting for “Superman”, mostly out of an obligation to get up to speed on the charter school controversy. I also rented The Lottery from Netflix, another documentary promoting charter schools virtually identical to Guggenheim’s. A 27 year old Duke University graduate named Madeleine Sackler directed The Lottery, having only one co-directed movie to her credit before this, namely Mechina: a Preparation. This is a soulful movie profiling Israeli youths about to enter the IDF, a movie I suppose that is a good preparation in class terms for her latest. A fondness for killers in uniform and for the leading edge of privatization in education in the U.S. would seem to draw from the same mindset. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/waiting-for-superman-the-lottery/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
