Waiting for Superman (Sundance Review)

Hollywood loves them some ghetto school movies. Ever since Blackboard Jungle introduced white American moviegoers to rock ‘n’ roll and urban education, they haven’t been able to get enough of either. Films like Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver, and Up the Down Staircase have celebrated the struggle and triumphs of inner city teachers dealing with all that the roughest cities have to offer. Many of these movies are based on real-life teachers and while it’s great that praise has been given to these select few, there are so many other great teachers waiting for any form of extolment from the school system hierarchy. The same lack of attention that good teachers must deal with is the same force that allows subpar teachers to stay in classrooms.

Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) has known about the country’s failing public schools system for a while now. In 2001, he directed a film named The First Year which followed five teachers for one school year. Each of these teachers were new to the field and all found out, firsthand, just what kinds of hardships both educators and their students have to deal with. Almost a decade later, Guggenheim returns to subject of public education in an attempt to get at the root of whatever it was that was turning schools into “dropout factories” and leaving many students without viable options for their futures.

Instead of following five teachers, the director follows five students as they and their parents fight to get them the best public education possible. And they definitely have to fight because there’s a lot standing in their way, especially for students from lower-income neighborhoods. The film sheds a lot of light on issues such as teacher unions, tenure, and how money and geography limit educational opportunities for students. The five young subjects are vying for spots in charter schools, which receive government money but are allowed to function outside of the unions that leave bad teachers immune from being fired. These charter schools have been proven to raise test scores in mathematics, reading, science, and every other subject but what keeps students like Anthony, Bianca, Daisy, Emily, and Francisco in failing schools is a limited number of spots in each program.

While the students certainly give a face to the statistics, Guggenheim spends a great deal of time with the statistics themselves. Waiting for Superman traces the problems plaguing public education from the bottom to the top. And while it’s possible to learn a lot from Guggenheim’s film, the film misses its mark by labeling its Lex Luthor (the unions) too soon and displaying a one-sided argument without letting the alleged supervillains tell their sides of the story. Then the film plays the sympathy card by spending its last twenty minutes covering charter school lottos in which the five children, whose stories we’ve been following up to this point, are assigned random numbers and watch as bingo balls decide their fate. The film ends on a down note, an uninspiring note, in fact, which plays off of the titular metaphor (one of the film’s many unnecessary metaphors) where America’s children are still waiting for someone to save them. And if Guggenheim’s conclusion is accurate, Superman’s not coming. A solution for public schools still hasn’t been found and finding one looks just as hopeless as the schools themselves. The only hope seems to be that if enough people begin to demand change, then maybe, someday, someone will figure out how to get change.

My Top 100 Favorite Movies (in Order!)

01. The Warriors
02. High Fidelity
03. Do the Right Thing
04. Dangerous Minds
05. The Karate Kid Part II
06. Matinee
07. Back to the Future
08. Born in East L.A.
09. Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme
10. The Birdcage11. Tootsie
12. Jurassic Park
13. The Truman Show
13a. The Seven-Up Series
(I wasn't sure a series could count)
14. Style Wars
15. Halloween
16. Unfaithful
17. Scratch
18. Superbad
19. Assault on Precinct 13
20. Dogtown and Z-Boys 21. Strangers on a Train
22. Imitation of Life
23. The Hudsucker Proxy
24. Escape to Witch Mountain
25. The Palm Beach Story
26. Say Anything
27. Kill Bill Vol. 1
28. Notting Hill
29. Marathon Man
30. Home Alone II: Lost in New York31. Old Boy
32. Hackers
33. Dark Days
34. Airplane!
35. Escape from Alcatraz
36. Waiting for Guffman
37. Dog Day Afternoon
38. Rear Window
39. Best in Show
40. Reservoir Dogs41. The Freshman
42. The 400 Blows
43. Clueless
44. Duck Soup
45. Dazed and Confused
46. Life Stinks
47. The Boondock Saints
48. Coming to America
49. Take the Money and Run
50. The Godfather51. For Love or Money
52. Return to Oz
53. Dirty Harry
54. Demolition Man
55. Boyz n the Hood
56. The Bicycle Thief
57. Matilda
58. Empire Records
59. The Wood
60. 18761. The Descent
62. 3 Ninjas
63. Cinemania
64. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze
65. Fast Times at Ridgemont High
66. Night of the Living Dead
67. Battle Royale
68. Manhattan Murder Mystery
69. The Sandlot
70. The Gauntlet
71. With Honors
72. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
73. The Great Escape
74. Tortilla Soup
75. The Player
76. Hannah and Her Sisters
77. The Fugitive
78. The Orphanage
79. Rock the Bells
80. The Conversation81. Fargo
82. In America
83. Monster Camp
84. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
85. Kramer vs. Kramer
86. The Brave Little Toaster
87. Groundhog Day
88. Stand by Me
89. The People Under the Stairs
90. El Crimen Del Padre Amaro91. All About My Mother
92. That Thing You Do
93. Stroszek
94. Taxi Driver
95. Love Actually
96. Labyrinth
97. Brown Sugar
98. Streets of Fire
99. Daddy's Little Girls
100. Meet the FeeblesThere you have it. My Top 100 Favorite Films of All-Time.
It took over a week to put the list together.
Even if you don't like my choices or my rankings,
you've got to give me props for putting them in order!

What do you think?

My Top 10 Favorite Movies [2003 Pre-Film School Edition]

I just found a list of my favorite films from back in 2003. This was not too long after high school and a couple years before I started film school. Looking back on it, it could have been a lot worse. Granted, even back then, I knew the difference between "best" and "favorite." These were my favorite films, the ones you could put on anytime, over and over, and I'd watch them. If you want to learn a few things about your favorite blogger...then I'd suggest you go ask them. To learn about me, read on.

Here they are: My Top 10 Favorite Movies [2003 Pre-Film School Edition]

1. Dangerous Minds - I was pretty much obsessed with this movie for years. It came out just as I was beginning to listen to hip-hop, "Gangsta's Paradise" was all over the radio, Michele Pfeiffer was gorgeous in my mind, and the most influential reason leading to my love of all things Dangerous Minds, my parent forbid me from watching Dangerous Minds. It bore the mark of the forbidden "R" which was also forbidden in my religious household. Since I couldn't watch the movie, I bought the soundtrack, which my dad threw away on multiple occasions. Each time, I bought another cassette. Each time, he threw it out. I bought the book which somehow still remains on my bookshelf. Eventually, I bought the DVD and proudly paraded it in front of my family, the plastic disc serving as a symbol for my teenage rebellion and newfound adulthood.

Today's rating: Probably not in the top ten, but definitely in the top 20.

2. Born in East LA - Saw this on TV, searched out a VHS, eventually bought a DVD. When I moved my DVDs into binders, this one stayed in its case to sit on the DVD shelves in between and Boogie Nights and Bottle Rocket.

Today's rating: Still in the Top 10. I'll die loving this movie.

3. The Breakfast Club - What 80s baby didn't love The Breakfast Club. It summed up high school so well. It taught us to categorize others into rigid, stereotypical, and unescapable labels. How else were we supposed to get through our teens? If they ever remake this, the certain magic the original possess could never be duplicated. Say what you will about American Teen, but an homage is certainly better than a remake.

Today's rating: As high school moves further and further into my past, my love for The Breakfast Club slowly lessens. Top 50, maybe? Bottom 50, maybe?

4. Tortilla Soup - One night, shortly after a move to a new town, I walked to the one-screen movie theater to watch a movie I'd never heard of before. It was a few days after 9/11 and the entire country was talking about terrorism, death, and destruction. Not Tortilla Soup. Tortilla Soup opened with a beautiful montage of fascinating food preparation and delicious looking dishes. Over the next week, I watched Tortilla Soup five more times. On the last day, I asked for a job. For the next couple of years, that's where you could find me, working at my one-screen art house movie theatre.

Today's rating: Still very high. Top 20, probably higher. Every note of Bill Conti's score brings back waves of nostalgia that you can't buy in some Five and Dime.

5. Best in Show - Back in the day I wrote a list of the Top 20 DVDs I Wanted and decided to share it with my friends via MySpace. What showed up on my doorstep a couple weeks later? A DVD of Best in Show from my good friend Rena. Thanks again, Rena! These days, Waiting for Guffman's probably my favorite Guest film, Parker Posey's "DQ" monologue is unbeatable.

Today's rating: Not as high as Guffman. Probably somewhere in the lower half of the list.

6. Fools Rush In - I grew up in a half white/half Hispanic community. I was the white boy with crushes on the Mexican girls. Fools Rush In spoke to me. I used it as a preperation guide as how to talk to these girls and even charm my future Mexican in-laws. The irony is, the first Hispanic girl I dated loathed this movie. Everything I had learned was wrong. Thanks Hollywood. But even after the film's verisimilitude turned out to be faulty, I continued to love watching Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek living the dream.

Today's rating: Might scrape in somewhere in the 90-100 range.

7. Airplane! - Middle school brought forth my love of Saturday Night Live. I caught strep throat and had to stay home for a week straight. That entire week was spent watching reruns of SNL. I left school intelligent and semi-popular. I came back completely unfocused and determined to win the coveted "Class Clown" award (which I did). After SNL, the next logical step, as far as zany comedy went, was the work of the Jim Abraham and the Zucker brothers. This movie killed me as a kid. The opening parody of Jaws. The girl scout fight. "Don't call me Shirley." Otto Pilot. I recently watched it with a group of friends and it's still one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.

Today's rating: Top 15 overall, top five comedies.

8. Cinema Paradiso - Someone has shown this to me in my early teen years. I can't remember who but I do remember how blown away I was by this foreign film! It had subtitles! And it was good! I had seen other foreign films by then, actually, the first film I saw in theatres was The Adventures of Milo & Otis which was made in Japan (but later dubbed in English). But it was the way Paradiso glorified the movie theatre and fetishised film in the eyes of the little boy that I strongly identified with.

Today's rating: The second half of the film is far less interesting and captivating than the first and would probably drag the film right off the entire Top 100.

9. Back to the Future - This is still one of the best made films of all-time, in my opinion. It might not be popular in the scholarly world to say that about 80s teen com-dramas but damnit, I'm taking a stand. The plot still holds up, DeLoreans kick ass, Lea Thompson is one hot mom-to-be, Huey Lewis needs to be on more soundtracks, I have a need to skateboard behind a jeep, disappearing photos are scary, and while the hoverboards didn't show up until the sequel, their eventual invention will be more celebrated than the cure for AIDS.

Today's ranking: I would bet that the #9 spot would be a comfortable home for Marty McFly and Doc.

10. The Karate Kid, Part II - My favorite of the Macchio trilogy. This one's got it all. A beautiful girl (she's no Elizabeth Shue, but I'm not complaining), Okinawa, a Daniel vs. five skeletons fight scene, THE DRUM, THE MIYAGI FAMILY SECRET, and a romantic montage set to Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love." What else can a growing boy ask for?

Today's rating: Honestly, still in the Top 10, maybe even higher than it's 2003 #10 spot.

What movies did you used to love? Do you still love them?
What's your old Top 10 look like? How about today's?