Running the Sahara

Documentary: Running the Sahara
Like/Don't Like: If you like watching crazy people, sure

I've never really understood runners (she types as she puts another Sour Patch Watermelon in her mouth). Even casual joggers seem slightly off balanced. Unless you're being chased by a bear, or possibly zombies, I don't really see the point in running. I also don't see the point in pushing yourself to the ultimate physical and mental limits to achieve some sort of enlightenment. Couldn't you just read The Secret?

So you can imagine my confusion when I came across this documentary of three men who decided to run across the Sahara Desert. Let me state that again - in caps, because I'm screaming it - RUN ACROSS THE SAHARA DESERT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do you have any idea how big the Sahara is? It's BIG. It's more than 4000 miles across. They ran from the Atlantic Ocean in Senegal across the desert to the Red Sea in Egypt. It took them 111 days to run the equivalent of 170 marathons. They did not take a day off. In fact, once they reached the pyramids which were about 120 miles from their final destination, they decided to not take any more breaks and just jog to the end. CRAZY TOWN! There isn't much to the story but it was pretty interesting seeing the mental toll waking up every morning and running 40-60 miles through the desert every single day takes on a man. It caused them to have some jerky moments and there were a few break-downs. But there were some really legitimate moments of camaraderie and the old team spirit. And I was really impressed by the lack of whining. I can guarantee you that were I to be on a similar expedition I would be an enormous baby even riding in the support jeep and the team would be looking for the nearest oasis to dump me at.

There was one point in the middle of the run when they were in Niger and their view was literally nothing but hundreds of miles of sand dunes and one of the guys (who had lost 40 pounds by that point) wanted to quit and the team leader said to him, "Alright, if you want to quit then quit. If you want to live your life with no excitement just go run a marathon where they hand you the water and give you a medal at the end." Pansy.

It Might Get Loud

Documentary: It Might Get Loud

Like/Don’t Like: It was pretty loud

What is there to say about this documentary except that it’s Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge getting together to talk about electric guitars and jam. Kind of awesome. Especially because all three are such different guitarists. They talk about their first guitars, how they got to their signature sounds, how their bands were formed. It’s pretty cool hearing the perspective of the guitarists in iconic bands. It’s usually the vocalist who does all the talking (Just try to ignore Bono. You can’t. He won’t let you.) but it’s the guitarist you hear first. You can always tell a U2 or Led Zepplin song from the first few notes on the guitar. Which brings me to Jack White. There’s no denying the guy is talented but I like him so much more in this film because he was talking more than he was singing. His voice doesn’t just drive me to the loony bin, it checks me in and laces up the straight jacket

Young at Heart

Documentary: Young at Heart
Like/Don't Like: Pensioners singing Sonic Youth - Love

You MUST see this documentary. Must. Here's why:

1.) There is nothing more wonderful/beautiful/hilarious then a group of old people doing something fun. This documents a singing group called Young at Heart that is made up of elderly folk singing non-standards. You would expect them to sing In the Good Old Summertime or Stardust or something, but they've moved on from those. They sing Golden Years by David Bowie, and I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones. Their version of Fix You by Coldplay will have you in tears.

2.) It makes you want to LIVE. It seems like the biggest challenge of the choir is keeping its members alive - the choir director asked who has ever had last rites said for them and more then a few hands shot up - and yet all of these people participate because they love to it. They've hit on the secret of life and if makes you want to join in.

3.) My black grandma is in it. Katie saw it first so when I was watching it she said, "There's a black woman who looks exactly like Grandma Knecht in this" and she was right. I picked her out just from the profile. And then she smiled and she had the gap in her teeth and it was uncanny. Had she been wearing a muumuu and watching the People's Court I would not have been able to tell the difference.

Helvetica

Documentary: Helvetica
Like/Don't Like: Like. But I like this sort of stuff.

Who knew there was so much to say about a font. And not just any font. The most straight forward font there is - Helvetica.

And who knew that they could make such a fascinating documentary about this font. Or, excuse me, typeface (I don't want to offend the typeface designers who - I'm not kidding - are PASSIONATE about it.) It basically draws a line from its creation in Switzerland in the 50s when Modernism was all the rage, to a backlash against it in the 70s and 80s when we were all down with the Establishment, to today with the hipsters going crazy for it. Case in point - American Apparel uses it. One typeface designer - a product of the 70s graphic design theory actually blames Helvetica for both the Vietnam war and the current war in Iraq.

You would either love it or be totally confused as to why it was even made. And I bet you know what side you're on. But I'll end with brief exchange I had with a friend a few days after seeing it.

Teresa: I love that at the end of the Harry Potter books there is a page telling you about the typeface.

Me: I have a movie I think you'll love.

The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters

Documentary: The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters
Like/Don't Like: My face almost exploded from the joy of watching it.

This pretty much was made for me. Because it combined several things that I love. 1.) Documentaries, 2.) the ridiculous, 3.) a good under-dog story and 4.) really bad hair. I mean REALLY bad hair. So bad that it's fabulous. So bad that at one point it showed this guy blow-drying his hair and I almost swooned. The picture doesn't even do it justice. You have to see it in motion. Like a wild horse's mane.

That guy is Billy Mitchell, the original world record holder of Donkey Kong. And he's a jerk. You will hate him at the end. But you will also love him because you couldn't create a character like this. He's everything you want in a geek/hot sauce mogul/egomaniacal video game lord, complete with sycophantic toadies and all wrapped up in black jeans and an American flag tie. You will be cheering for Steve Wiebe, who has been cheated out of the record by Billy Mitchell several times. He's a good guy that bad things have happened to and he just wants to do something great. And Donkey Kong is that something.

I never even dreamed that I would care about Donkey Kong or gamers but I'm telling you, by the end of the show you're going to be laughing and screaming and crying. There's drama and espionage (seriously) and real heart touching moments. And bonus, a video game tournament on Lake Winnepesaukee. I couldn't stop smiling through the whole thing.

Jesus Camp

Documentary: Jesus Camp

Like/Don't Like: I liked it, but was very unsettled by it

This one is tough to categorize because it was an excellent documentary but very hard to watch. I thought it was fair and accurate, and sadly, that only made the people in it look very real and very scary. Being Christian, and a comparatively conservative one at that, and coming from a faith that is easily misunderstood and often misrepresented, I have a lot of sympathy for the people that were portrayed here. It's tough to get a solid view of anything that has been filmed then edited out of context. But it's also tough to argue what was shown and said and done, in or out of context.

The film followed three kids to Bible camp. More specifically, a fundamentalist Evangelical camp for kids. It showed them arriving and meeting up with friends and talking like kids do, then going to hear sermons on how it's their duty as Christians to take back America for Jesus and be a driving force for future changes in the government - specifically in regards to abortion and prayer in school - in a pretty hard-core fashion. I'm talking about them speaking in tongues and laying hands on them and working them up into such a frenzy that the kids were huddled on the floor sobbing over their sins and the sins of the world. Some that looked as young as five.

It wasn't what was being taught to these kids that bothered me. It was how they were taught and what the end-goal was. This camp, essentially, is making fanatics for Christ, and that's scary, especially when two of the kids were talking about how cool it would be to be a martyr. I had a hard time seeing much of a difference between these kids and kids shown on videos of al Qaeda training camps. The only real difference was that these kids didn't have weapons in their hands. Well, unless you count the hammer they were wielding to smash a cup that had "the government" written on it. They both speak the same language of fanaticism, that it's a war they're fighting, that they're right and everyone else is wrong, and that they have to take action now, even dramatic action. It's fanatics who take the true principles that religions have and warp them into something horrifying. That was the unsettling part. The uncontrollable fervor in their eyes. The ministers and parents at the camp were hoping that they were training kids who would one day grow up to be world leaders, but it looked more like they were training kids who would one day grow up to bomb an abortion clinic.

*I feel like I should put a disclaimer here since I've already received (and deleted. I'm the only loon who can post on this site.) one comment that started out, "You sound as if you think bombing or burning abortion clinics is wrong." Um, yes. I actually do. I think abortion is wrong too. But fighting against it with acts of terrorism seems, I don't know, a little hypocritical.