Babies

BABIES!!!  who doesn’t love babies?  Obviously everyone loves babies.  So pretty smart move focusing on just babies and nothing else.   Thomas Balmes takes us to four different countries to follow the first year of four incredibly cute babies Bayar, Hattie, Mari, and Ponijao.  Bayar is the only boy of the bunch.  There are a few interesting things to note about babies through this study, 1) that although the babies are really small, can’t talk to really gesture, you can see how different their personalities are, and you can actually like (or like not as much) one baby over another.  and yes, I compared, and yes, I came out with favorites; 2) how much the babies adopted what they saw around them as things they would do themselves; and 3) how similar and how different each one of them was based on their environment.  Nothing ground-breakingly new, but still is interesting to view these development of the brand new humans first hand, in an accelerated journey through their first year of life.

I also found myself worried over the safety of some of the babies, but they all turned out fine!  When Bayar looked like he was about to get crushed by a horse‘s hoof, the horse evaded him and he crawled through the horses legs, happy as a plum.

This is a movie focuses on the adorable-ness of the protagonists, but in the context of  the lush scenary and beautiful backgrounds of Bayanchandmani, Mongolia (Bayar), Opuwa, Namibia (Ponijao), San Francisco, US (Hattie), and Japan, Tokyo (Mari).  Best of all, this is currently available on streaming at netflix, if you have a subscription.  An enjoyable film with minimal dialog but plenty of ooh-ing and ahhh-ing…$8

If you heart Babies:

Recommendations from …:

Mad Hot Ballroom
Hero (visually beautiful)
March of the Penguins

Waiting for “Superman”

Just go and see this goddamn movie, aight?  Right now.

This documentary, about the broken (but fixable) education system in America, had a perfect mix of all the right shit: adorable little kids, sensational speakers, educational substance, a strategy for change, and… tears – lots of from.  Uncontrollable – but that’s just me because education reform is close to my heart.  There were moments where I wanted to avert my eyes because I wanted the tears to stop and watching those beautiful little faces were making me cry more.  But the personal stories of each family weren’t the only heartbreaking pieces of the film, just learning more about the state of the American education system was enough make me sob.

It’s not like we haven’t heard this before, but listening to it again evokes a sense of urgency and importance.  Especially when you hear it from the mouth of Geoffrey Canada.  He really must’ve been an amazing teacher because he makes me want to just drop everything and follow his lead because I know he’ll take me to a world of moral fortitude and goodness.  This film has the incredible ability to show you the lives of five children – a peek into their neighborhood, families, and schools – and feel really connected to them, and then turn around a say – you think this is bad?  There are millions more out there.  And it’s so true… $11

If you heart Waiting for “Superman”:

Yolkie’s Recommendations:

Mad Hot Ballroom
Pressure Cooker
The First Year

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Putting an exclamation mark inside the title of a movie may seem a bit presumptuous, like, oh! this movie is so good! we have an exclamation mark! Nothwithstanding, this movie deserves that exclamation mark.  What a heartwarming, uplifting movie about never letting go of one’s dreams.

This documentary/rockumentary revolves around the lives of two 50+ year old rockers, who were semi-huge back in the 80s and never gave up, a great movie to watch if you’re down and out.  There is a movie every so often that leaves you inspired.  This is such a movie.  The producers did a great job of getting famous rock artists, slash from gnr, lars ulrich from metallica, scott from anthrax to talk about how anvil was a huge influence on their music and legitmatize their right to fame.

Mr. Anvil squared, I want to meet you and invite you to my dinner table.   Will you come?  I’d like to sit and be inspired by you because you just seem like really good, goofy, nice guys.  I’ll cook good food I promise!

Even if you weren’t a fan of metal back in the day, I  still recommend this to anyone who has had a dream and wished they had the guts to follow it until the end…$9

If you heart Anvil! The Story of Anvil:

Recommendations from …
This is Spinal Tap
Murderball
Billy Elliot