claudio rivera

thanks to michael warren for showing me this:

stoked! hehe.

MAXED OUT

this should be required vieweing. i know i say that a lot, especially about documentaries. but, seriously, if you have a black and white view of how credit and bankruptcy and the middle class work, you need to see this.

touches on a variety of topics, including predatory lending, scare tactics used by collection agencies, and the obscene amount of money that banks make, by keeping people in debt forever.

at one point, they show a woman who is 57 years old who is waiting for her house to be foreclosed. it’s absolutely heart-breaking. and then they contrast it with greedy realtors/land developers in the outskirts of las vegas, who brag about using the same accounting principles as enron to buy and build giant mcmansions with no upfront capital.

THE EDUCATION OF SHELBY KNOX

this was an interesting movie, but it lacked some focus. obviously, when your main subject is just a high schooler, you can expect the subject matter to change, just like teens’ tastes do.

however, a different story starts to come out of it. shelby knox turns out to be a very smart girl. raised in a conservative/republican household, she understands equality. even though she chooses to be abstinant, she knows that sex education is important. even though she is straight, she supports the glbt community.

i think, perhaps, the documentary would’ve been better if they had taken more footage, and went into the bigger picture, of shelby’s “coming out” as a liberal in a republican town, rather than trying to focus on the sex education issue, which just fizzled away.

at any rate, definitely worth watching, as you also get to see the bizzare world of a big, small town.

FALL FROM GRACE

this movie probably doesn’t need much introduction. it’s about fred phelps, the “god hates fags” guy, and it’s very scary, much like “jesus camp” was.

the things that they believe are so absurd, that i’ll just leave you with this link to the excellent godhatesshrimp.com.