This is How Movies Should Be Made

Sorry, this movie sucks

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

If you are looking for a documentary about a waste of air (former drug dealer, aspiring rap artist - enough said) that you can barely understand due to slurry ghetto speak, then this documentary is for you. This woman had a rough life, blah de blah de blah. She has done nothing to improve on it, which is what this documentary proves. Yet she is all "trust in God," while following none of the basic rules of how to be a good person. It's sickening, and incredibly sad. The pivotal moment, at least for me, is her and her crew returning to their home after Katrina, camera rolling and good teeth flashing, to find their dog has survived the flood. They abandoned their dog, people. And want you to believe there's a respect for life here as she one millionth of a percent worries about her neighbors and where their bodies might be. They then bitch about the National Guard not being there as soldiers walk through their backyard, and point out that only the ASPCA has been there. Maybe because of people like you, sweetheart. Perhaps I think too rationally, but the two things people grab when fleeing from disaster are their pets and their family photographs. She leaves both behind, more focused on that camera rolling on her and her own sweet bum. She barely acknowledges the dog, who is sadly so happy to see his betrayers, and kisses the photographs she left behind that managed to survive, but weren't good enough to take with her. There is no redemption here. There is no love, there is only a want for money and personal gain. Just a bad person who demands that FEMA takes care of her while she can't look out for her own. Skip this waste of film unless you are in the mood to get really, really mad at how disgusting human beings can be, especially in the wake of a tragedy.

That this could happen in America is a crime of such a magnitude that no words coming from the Bush administration could ever erase the shame. An amateur rented a camera and her video is supplemented by profession work in this Oscar nominated and Sundance award winning film.The fact that we had rapid response to the storms that hit Texas afterwards does not negate what happened in Louisiana. This short film brings home the crime that was committed upon this city and it's residents.Navy personnel aiming M-16s at a crowd of survivors just looking for a warm and dry place to sleep is indicative of the lack of care the government displayed in the aftermath of Katrina. "Get off our property or we're gonna start shooting." Excellent film about some people got their lives together on their own.

It begins as a lark. A video camera is switched on to record an approaching storm. We get to meet the smiling faces of videographers as they laugh and cajole. We on the other hand know what's about to confront them. Or at least we think we do.This is a magnificent use of home video built in to a rage against poverty and illiteracy and racism. You can blame the victims here all you want, but image after image, scene after scene the plight of being an African American in this country is shoved in their faces...and in ours.The lives of this family in the Lower 9th Ward are vividly drawn by themselves. When they confront what is outside, i.e., the post-segregation South, we are startled at the condescension, scorn and devaluation of human lives...if your skin is the wrong color.The people here have no apologies for their lives. They lay it out and I suspect many will resist what struggles they face. But scene after scene, you can't walk away from this film without a better understanding of racism in America.The stubborn will ask "Why didn't they leave when they were supposed to?" And this film records "How were they supposed to?" and "Where were they going to go?" In the face of it all, those who survive manage here to triumph. While the footage of the disaster is why most people will buy the ticket to see this, it's the struggle to survive, not only Katrina, that will last in the viewer's mind.

I think the main problem with this film is that it is a bit too long. IMO, it's an important film as a document of the times, but it could have been a 60 minute documentary.The most intriguing thing about it is also its weak point. The video footage shot by Ms Roberts and her husband is utilized well at the onset, sliced with news clips whose irony is tragic. Naturally "Heck-uv-a-job" Brownie has his moment and even the Smirking Chimp has a little cameo. Their words contrast sharply with the reality of what is shown in the home video, the bodies, the drowned homes, a military installation rewarded for turning survivors away. All of it revealing and compelling.But I think the film makers try to sell the characters and tragedy when they don't have to. It's obvious and genuinely moving. And there's a whole of lot follow up that, while necessary, IMO is a bit overplayed.I gave it an 9 because I think it is important. I think everyone should see it.