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whirlgigs
Reviews
Pregnant in America (2008)
Falls into some clichés and has bad timing
Pregnant in America is a documentary that strives in the right heart but falls into documentary clichés and misses its mark.
Steve Buonagurio wants to document the sometimes overbearing conditions women have to deal with to give birth in America. A noble cause but unfortunately poor timing sets this documentary back. It comes right on the heels of Ricki Lake's "Business of Being Born" which had both a better budget and was first to make a documentary on the topic. The experts in this one such as Ina May Gaskin, Dr. Marsden Wagner and Michael Odent were all in "Business of Being Born" and have only downgraded their speeches for this version. A lot look slightly bewildered and slightly tired, like they just finished talking to Ricki and now have 'some other dude' who wants them to say something different than they just said.
He falls into what I call Michael Moore-isms, where a filmmaker will abruptly and without much need to, turn the camera on themselves. In this case it was Steve working with the mother of a woman who died in labor from the improper of Cytotec. It's pointless and awkward and ends up being little more than the two of them in a parking lot trying to harass Doctors and others as they arrive for work and, to no shock or awe, they fail to change the entire established medical community in five-minutes-or-less.
The last bit of the film deal with the birth of Steve's own daughter, who ends up having very minor respiratory problems after birth with the necessary dramatic-license thrown in of the ambulance race to the hospital and lots of shots of her on a warmer getting an IV. Of course in the end there's no diagnosis and it ended up really being nothing at all. Perhaps it was put in as an attempt to endear him to women who've had real tragedies in labor as it mainstreams him as someone who's experienced 'both sides' (one expert even says so) instead of a man who had a perfect birth and thus cannot comment on the medical side he never experienced.
Overall I feel that this film, and even the superior "Business of Being Born" fail to hit marks that women (or couples) care about. They try to educate on the greed of OB/GYNs and the wonder of birth in third worlds but there's little real converse. American women don't care that a midwife is called a 'Light Mother' in Norway or that a woman in Kenya went back to work in the fields after birthing but this film mostly centers on the mystical wonder of midwives which makes them seem like the stereotypes that are the exact thing they're supposedly fighting against.
Wonder Woman (2011)
Murder, Torture, Denial of Rights = Wonder Woman pilot
This pilot was hyped to be the quintessential Wonder Woman for the 21st Century. It was supposed to bring her into a new generation of fans and expose her to a wider audience.
*snort* Good luck with this pilot. I can sum it up with one line that occurs about ten minutes in, in which Diana proclaims "I know you want vengeance, but lets leave that up to me. I'm kind of good at it." This loses out on the entire heart of Wonder Woman. If they were trying to shill it to non-fans, those people can get far better 'corporate drama' from any of the Law & Order or legal shows and better action from things like CSI and The Shield.
Fans are equally likely to tune-out.
Gone is Diana eloquence and grace when speaking. Here the largest word she uses is probably 'supplements' and instead of a graceful discussion of her dislike for one of the action figures that financially supports her company, she waves the doll around, talks over people and snarls about 'perfect tits' like a diva having a temper tantrum.
Gone is her respect for cultures. Only seconds in and she nearly refuses to allow police to take the suspect she's apprehended. She shows blatant disrespect for the laws of the country she now lives in by being fine with denying said suspect his right to a fair trial or legal counsel.
Also absent is her calm heart that often provided rational feedback to Superman's mercy and Batman's obsessiveness in comics. Here she tries desperately to pull of the Angelina Jolie sultry/angry pout during every battle that looks more like it should be in a D-movie about vampires than on the Worlds Greatest superheroine. She uses brutal violence as a first resort and murders a guard by throwing a pipe through him because he fired at her instead of using her gauntlets to simply block the shots like she's done in every single other incarnation in comics, cartoons and other live-actions. It's not only wrong, but incredibly hypocritical as she goes on to lecture a grieving mother and Veronica Cale about the wrongness of killing. I guess it's only wrong when people other than Wonder Woman do it? She ends up feeling like a bad rip on other superheroes, unable to stand on her own talent..which the REAL Wonder Woman has in spades. There are things that are unique to her that no other hero has. It's been enough to see her as one of comics leading ladies for over 70 years, but apparently not good enough for a moment of this pilot's time.
But hey, she and her almost entirely-white billion dollar company with billion-dollar interiors are out to save inner-city black boys who want to go to college from an evil white pharma CEO!
Fifteen and Pregnant (1998)
An adult's idea of what pregnant teens are like...
This movie is clearly the stereotypical adult's idea of what it must be like for a pregnant teenager. I have a hard time believing it was a "true story" from a real young mother at all.
I am a young mother and I have met and talked to dozens of other young mothers and none of them would have ever dreamed of acting like Tina did. Tina was concerned only with her selfish and was shallow and vain, as was everyone else in the movie.
For once I'd like to see a movie about teen pregnancy where the girl wasn't only concerned with gaining weight and actually succeeded in doing something with her life and didn't treat her child like a huge annoyance and burden.
O/10 for this movie.