Guest Review(s): The Latest from ElfFlix

By the Boiler Room Elves

Along with the majority of people on the planet, the Boiler Room Elves have been on the verge of cancelling their ElfFlix subscription. Before doing so, however, we decided to nestle in for three nights and get our money’s worth.

The first evening, naturally, we watched Gnomeo & Juliet. There’s nothing quite like watching the great gnome actors at work. Truly, they are masters of the craft. But we digress. We are happy to report that Gnomeo & Juliet was light-hearted entertaining fare. (We’d warn you about spoilers, but we’re guessing that you, too, can assume that no modern children’s cartoon is going to end the with 6 corpses littering the celluloid. There is one death, in a duel, but, it’s really kind of funny.) Gnomeo generally follows the classic tale of star-crossed lovers from different gardens. And although it takes some liberties with the plot line, the elements of Shakespeare are all there. In fact, if you know your Bard, keep your eyes peeled for plenty of enjoyable hidden references.

One of the major plusses for Gnomeo, particularly in light of it being a modern children’s tale, is that it did not fall into the trap of including heavy-handed liberal messages. It’s refreshing to see a movie aimed at elflings that not only sets out just to entertain, but to introduce them to the wider world of literature and does so without any sort of indoctrination. With great music by Elfton John and Lady Elf Elf, we Elves can heartily endorse this one.

The next evening we watched a little documentary called Being Elfo, err, excuse us -- Being Elmo. This was an uplifting story about following your dreams and finding success in doing what you love. It tells the life story of Kevin Clash, the man behind the Elmo muppet from Sesame Street. (We know, we know, Sesame Street does the exact opposite of Gnomeo in terms of liberal dogma, but just put that aside for a few minutes.)

Clash grew up poor in Baltimore and was fascinated by what he saw on Sesame Street. As a child, he was already building his own puppets and making up stories with them. As a teen, he endured the ridicule of his peers. But he stuck to it, because he had a talent and a passion for it. Eventually he finds his way to Captain Kangaroo and then to NYC and Jim Henson.

Clash ended up with the Elmo muppet when another puppeteer was tired of it and couldn’t make a workable personality for Elmo. Clash realized that Elmo needed to embody love. Hence, as a forever-3-year-old, Elmo loves nothing better than hugs and kisses. And the world responded in droves.

Ok, fair warning, there is a clip in which the grand Lady O appears. (Ugh.) But there are also wonderfully touching scenes such as when a Make-A-Wish child comes to the set because her wish was to meet Elmo. This had even the hardest, boilerroom-iest of us Elves in tears. The politics of Sesame Street really do not come out in this documentary, and if you can leave it aside, you’ll find a great story about believing in yourself and love.

On the third night, we finished watching Lilyhammer, which is ElfFlix’s first foray into making its own programming. It’s a show about a mobster who goes into the witness protection program and manages to get sent to Norway. (Ahhh, the sweet winters of the north!) We’ve seen people raving about what a “conservative” show it is. We wouldn’t go that far - it does paint a horrifying picture of life in a state-controlled, socialist country, and our hero does exemplify the American free-wheeling, can-do attitude. But ultimately, are our conservative ideals flagrant disrespect of society and law, blackmail, coercion, womanizing, and theft? We thought not. Still, that didn’t stop us Elves from wishing Tony Soprano would just show up and take care the problems in his own special way.

So now, back to the real question - to keep ElfFlix or not? Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous price hikes, or take arms and by cancelling end them. . . to die, to watch no more. . .

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TV Review: Is It Real (2005-2007)

If you’re looking for a great show that debunks a variety of supernatural, paranormal and just plain crazy theories, then Is It Real is for you. Produced by the National Geographic Channel, Is It Real is a 28 episode documentary series that examines everything from ghosts to alien abductions to Atlantis to exorcisms to human superpowers. It’s honest, it’s fair, it’s snarky and it’s well worth your time.

For some time now, claims of the paranormal have been gaining credibility because books like Erich von Däniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” and “Ancient Aliens” on the History Channel are ramming these ideas into the public consciousness. And since humans love to believe the inexplicable and are easily fooled by false logic, these ideas are catching fire within our culture. Unfortunately, the evidence presented to support these claims ranges from the paranoid or conspiratorial to the just plain stupid. But often it’s not clear just how fraudulent these claims are until someone does a critical analysis of the claim.

That’s where Is It Real comes in. Is It Real gives both proponents of these theories and skeptics a fair chance to present their arguments -- though, when I say “fair,” I mean precisely that: “fair” not “unchallenged.” Indeed, unlike so many of these shows (both pro/con) which typically just accept one side's presentation at face value, the Is It Real crew will interview witnesses, will stage experiments, and will consult actual scientists to examine claims. This makes the show a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to understand the issues being addresses. For example, they interview the man who claims to have worn the Big Foot costume in the famous Big Foot Photo. They show how insects will cause the precise conditions that cattle mutilation enthusiasts claim can only be made by alien surgeons. They explain the psychological reasons people would want to believe they are possessed. They show how the description of aliens varies by culture and explain the reason for this, and how alien abduction stories are the result of sleep paralysis. Etc.

Many believers object that the show favors the skeptics, but it’s hard to agree with their point. Certainly the show lands on the side of skepticism, but that is because the skeptics are making arguments that are logically sound, backed by evidence, and consistent with human experience; the believers have nothing similar to offer. Moreover, Is It Real always acknowledges the limits of the skeptic's case, and has at times found some credibility in the claims of paranormal activity, such as when they examine sleep-walking murders, where they note both that sleep walkers are capable of performing highly complex tests and that people awoken from such states are often intensely violent.

I highly recommend this series. Not only does it give you the basics upon which these beliefs arise, i.e. the history of their development and a discussion of the most famous cases, but it carefully dispels what can be dispelled and it exposes the charlatans who seek to profit from pushing these beliefs. And it does so with both a snarky sense of humor and a fair examination of the evidence. All of which makes for an enjoyable and educational experience.

It also just so happens that Is It Real can be watched instantly on Netflix at the moment. Check it out. . . do it for Nessie!

So, what’s your favorite paranormal phenomena/supernatural creature?

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Film Friday: Waiting for Superman (2010)

Directed by Davis Guggenheim (Inconvenient Truth), Waiting for Superman is a documentary about the failure of education in America. I’m a fan of documentaries, but this is not a good documentary. It's neither entertaining, nor does it provide useful information, and the only emotion it elicited was a strong desire to strangle the director. If you’re a conservative, forget this turkey.

Documentaries are best judged on two separate standards: (1) is it entertaining, and (2) does it provide valuable information. By “value,” I mean is it time well spent, not is the information consequential. Thus, for example, I’ve seen documentaries on fishing in New York City, suicides on Golden Gate Bridge, and humor in East Germany, each of which was well worth the time, despite the obscure subject matter. Waiting fails both tests.

1. Waiting Is Not An Entertaining Film

Waiting suffers from major defects that make it painful to watch. For one thing, it’s deathly dull. Guggenheim’s pacing is awful. His scenes are too long, and he wastes too much time on scenes which offer nothing, like watching a child brush his teeth. Better documentaries fill these moments with narrative, Guggenheim doesn’t. But that’s not to say Guggenheim doesn’t include narrative, to the contrary, he includes too much. Indeed, he only lets his subjects speak in soundbites, and he fills in the blanks himself. This shows a lack of trust in his subjects. What’s worse, when he narrates, he tries to sound concerned by injecting two second pauses at every. . . single. . . comma. . . or. . . period. This is beyond annoying.

Moreover, he waits almost twenty minutes before introducing the first substantive interview, and he spreads his interview soundbites throughout the film. Because of this, you wait forever to get anything interesting out the film, and it never comes together except in the broadest of strokes. Combined with Guggenheim’s heavy-handed false sentimentalism, Waiting leaves you feeling manipulated. It feels dishonest.

2. Waiting Does Not Provide Valuable Information

A good documentary also must provide valuable information. Waiting fails this test miserably. Waiting presents only small amounts of information, yet it reaches broad conclusions based on these snippets. There are 2,000 failing schools. But what percentage is that? We don’t know, yet Waiting presents this as sufficient to condemn the whole system. Why are these schools failing? We don’t know, yet Waiting blames bad teachers. What percentage of teachers are incompetent? Why are they bad? How do other countries or private schools fix this? We don’t know. And so on. In each instance, Guggenheim tosses out an isolated number, paints a broad brush criticism, shows a school where his criticism does not apply, and then concludes with “see, it can be done.” Yet he never addresses the fundamental questions of “why?” and “how?”

Guggenheim also skips the really significant questions. For example, he tells us only one in some unidentified number of public schools does an excellent job (he never defines what this means). By comparison, 20% of charter schools fall into his mystery excellent category. Thus, he concludes, charter schools are the answer. But he never tells us why charter schools are better, nor does he explain why the 20% do better than the 80%. That’s the real question, i.e. what’s working? He also points out that even our top students do poorly against the rest of the world, but he never asks why, and he criticizes current teaching methods, but never identifies them or gives us alternatives.

Also, his liberalism blinds him. Most of the problems he finds are the direct result of liberal policies, but he never connects the dots, and thus, he suggests more of the same. For example, he observes that American kids vastly overstate their abilities, but he never connects this with the relentless liberal push for teaching “self esteem,” and then he whines that teachers don’t make kids feel good about themselves. He also tells us the connection between money and education quality has been disproven, but then he presents a group of reformers who want to spend more money on teachers. Even worse, he annoyingly acts like he’s the first person to discover common sense. Did you know when teachers demand more from kids, the kids step up to the challenge? Or that money does not equate to success? Of course you didn’t, NO ONE KNEW THIS until now. . . forget that conservatives were saying these things for decades.

Further, because he refuses to connect liberal policies and the failure of education, he seeks out villains to explain what went wrong, but his villains are strawmen. The first villain is the passive voice villain, i.e. THEY. THEY set up a system that prevents good teachers from reaching kids. THEY set up a system that makes it impossible to fire bad teachers. THEY set up a system that lowers kids’ motivation and expectations. Who are THEY? THEY are the people who set up the system in the 1950s. This is a cop-out. The problem is the people who prevent reform. Blaming the long dead creators of the system or the system itself is a red herring, and shows a lack of seriousness.

The second villain is teachers unions. This is what got Waiting a lot of attention because it’s stunning to see a liberal attack a union. But his criticisms are shallow, and again he’s only discovering common sense. Unions stand in the way of reform. Gee, really? They make it impossible to fire bad teachers. You don’t say? And. . . well, that’s it. At no point does he outline the real problems with unions, nor does he discuss the things they’ve done to stand in the way of reform. He doesn’t even use their most damning quotes against them: “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I'll start representing the interests of school children.” (Albert Shanker, President, United Federation of Teachers). Instead, the unions are presented as inadvertently hurting schools because their desire to protect teachers is something a few bad teachers exploit. But ask yourself, can a handful of bad teachers really harm 100% of the students. It’s pretty obvious there is a bigger problem here than his couple of bad apples theory.

Also, in defense of the unions and the public schools (**shudder**), he actually misleads the audience regarding the reason charter schools may do better than public schools. Public school defenders contend that charter schools get to pick their students, and thus have an advantage. Guggenheim attacks this claim repeatedly by pointing out how the selection process for some charter schools is random. But he fails to mention that it’s only random among the parents who cared enough to seek out the best schools for their kids. He then doubles down on this by selecting only black and Hispanic children (with one exception) whose parents are conscientious and deeply value education, and then presenting these as a random sample of poor families. When he shows these kids succeeding, he then savages the strawmen villain, “THOSE who said these children could not be taught.”

But this is a farce. If you want to see a truly representative example of the real problems faced by schools in poor minority neighborhoods, I highly recommend the documentary Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card. Hard Times takes a look at an historic black high school in Baltimore, and what it finds is absolutely horrific: 50% of the class not returning for the sophomore year, only 12 of 500 kids making it to their senior year, nearly 100% illiteracy, parents who don’t care and try to hide from the principal, parent-teacher conferences with no parents, etc. This is a much better documentary that shows what the real problems are, not the sanitized version in Waiting. If Waiting wants to provide any value in this discussion, it needs to get its hands dirty.

Finally, there’s an unspoken liberal boogeyman present throughout the film. Although Guggenheim never says the word “racism,” he constantly implies that racists are the problem. Take a look at his main point that kids are failing because “THOSE who said these kids couldn’t learn” have decided to abandon them. He explicitly identifies these kids as minority kids in inner city neighborhoods -- he completely ignores poor white kids; in fact, the only white kid he mentions lives in Redwood City, California in a multimillion dollar home. The implication is obvious; racists have undermined minority education. This is reinforced in several ways, e.g. all of the bad teachers Guggenheim shows are white, and in each case they are ignoring or abusing minority kids, and each of the reformers he follows is a minority. This is no accident.

Liberals have created a real mess in education, an area they have controlled exclusively for 50 years. It is much more comforting for liberals to think the reason education is such a disaster is a handful of bad teachers who misuse union rules and white racists than it is to admit their policies destroyed generations of black kids.

Conclusion

This is why Waiting fails. It’s a dull and annoying film that is ultimately designed to comfort liberals and excuse their failures; it’s not a film designed to expose or enlighten. In fact, if you pay attention early on, you get a clue to its true purpose when Guggenheim confesses his discomfort at abandoning his principles and sending his own kids to private school. This film is his attempt to justify that decision to himself, without admitting that his liberalism is wrong.

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