So I have been told from two different prominent sources that filmmakers are supposed to watch films, like all the time. In order to improve your craft, you have to see the work from others and learn from them. As an up and coming director, I realized that this was a truism that I had to heed. I know this seems rather obvious but putting it into practice can be troublesome at times. I must admit I have not been doing a great job of this lately. A lot of it has to do with the Yankees winning the world series (which will be its own post soon) and actually working on a film. But I realized that I just used those things as an excuse. So I'm taking up what Spike has told me a couple times and that is to watch a film a day. With a little bit more free time coming my way I decided to spend part of it just watching movies. I started my challenge yesterday and I plan on writing about each film that I see here on the blog. Keep in mind that there is no preconceived criteria for what I am going to watch. It can be a blockbuster, a horror film, a short, a documentary, a neo-realist, a revenge flick, whatever. I just have to see one a day. I am not sure if I can keep it up but I am going to do my best to accomplish this. So like I said I started this up yesterday with "By The People." on HBO. If you don't know, this is the President Obama documentary. The one cool thing about this film is that I work with one of the editors, the amazing Geeta Ghandbhir. Actually, I had the pleasure of working with all the editors of By The People, Sam Pollard and Arielle Ansalem, on When The Levees Broke. So this was a nice way to start off the film a day thing. I knew going into the film that it wasn't about Obama per se. The larger focus of the film was on the actual campaign and the people behind it. This piqued my interest because I heard so much about the people who comprised the campaign that it was nice to actually see some faces. Long story short, I was disappointed. The film feels rushed to me. In an attempt to satisfy the timeline of events, I think the film falls short of getting into any depth about major moments that occurred. One topic that I wanted way more coverage of was the Sarah Palin choice. Ever since she was announced as the vice presidential candidate I was severely intrigued by how everyone in the Obama camp felt about it. The film skims over the reaction leaving us with sound bites from the campaign trail and not from inside the walls. Now I understand part of this may have been at the behest of the Obama people, but this is just one example in which we fly by landmark moments in the campaign without really gaining insight that the filmmakers access could have provided the audience. What was nice to see was the intense dedication that the workers and volunteers gave the campaign. It was inspiring to see such young, smart and innovative people not only commit to a historic process, but also be more than capable of accomplishing success. Despite its shortcomings, the opportunity to shed some light on these trailblazers makes the film worth your time to see. I'm sorry for such a quick write up of the film, but I'm pretty sleepy. It's been a long day.
I saw COLLAPSE tonight which has had a big initial impact on me so I will talk about this film in depth tomorrow.