ChrisWiggles
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2002
- Messages
- 4,791
Didn't see anything come up about this movie here.
I'll avoid the politics, but say that it was a very engaging film. It was better than F 9/11 which I remember being weak and kind of scattered. Sicko has a very simple message, which is basically advocacy for a national healtcare system. As just a film, it's brisk if at times slightly scattered (you lose track of some of the early character stories for instance, because there are a large number of anecdote/stories). The anecdotes make for an emotional film, also quite funny, but makes it also less substantive in a way. It's more of a conversation-starter than anything like an analysis piece. Slim on statistics except a handful that support Moore's advocacy, the film is hardly boring. If you really step back and think "gee, I'm watching a documentary about healthcare" you realize that it's an extremely engaging movie especially given the topic.
Audio was straightforward as you can imagine with what is mostly a talking-heads movie. Some music for obvious or ironic emotional effect, etc.
Video was crappy. Obviously sourced newsfootage isn't going to look good, but the digital camera work was pretty poor, bad focusing in a number of shots, and it also looks like it was digitally edited and poorly at that as the film print I saw had some pretty obvious banding. But again, not a visually driven film and the cinematography is straightforward and gets the job done. I don't want to excuse crappy cinematography just because it's a documentary (having seen some absolutely incredibly shot documentaries including Iraq in Fragments which captured some of the most incredibly striking film images in recent memory under extraordinary and rudimentary conditions which Moore with a film crew and no pressure should be able to do something at least decent), but it also isn't particularly necessary at a basic level to get his point across.
In any case, for a feature-length film about, of all godawfully boring subjects, healthcare, it was very entertaining and provocative. Not a thorough analysis by any means, and heavy on anecdotes and some classic Moore dramatizations, but altogether a film with a very simple thesis that our healthcare system is broken and poor, and others do it better, and that that way is the solution. The latter two points are debate beyond relevance to this review, but as far as broaching the subject, this documentary is effective and very entertaining(and surprisingly very funny) to boot. Moore has a way of making extremely mundane topics that are mostly only going to make it to officially boring outlets like the News Hour or C-SPAN quite entertaining, and if ever there is a documentary about patent law, or the tax code, or pet rocks, I think Moore would be the only guy who could really pull it off in an entertaining way. He is very successful here, and I don't think this film is nearly as politically divisive as say F 9/11 was or is and I think is more likely to engage a much wider audience, not merely people who already are prone to agree with Moore's leftist politics. It can be recommended simply on entertainment value.
I'll avoid the politics, but say that it was a very engaging film. It was better than F 9/11 which I remember being weak and kind of scattered. Sicko has a very simple message, which is basically advocacy for a national healtcare system. As just a film, it's brisk if at times slightly scattered (you lose track of some of the early character stories for instance, because there are a large number of anecdote/stories). The anecdotes make for an emotional film, also quite funny, but makes it also less substantive in a way. It's more of a conversation-starter than anything like an analysis piece. Slim on statistics except a handful that support Moore's advocacy, the film is hardly boring. If you really step back and think "gee, I'm watching a documentary about healthcare" you realize that it's an extremely engaging movie especially given the topic.
Audio was straightforward as you can imagine with what is mostly a talking-heads movie. Some music for obvious or ironic emotional effect, etc.
Video was crappy. Obviously sourced newsfootage isn't going to look good, but the digital camera work was pretty poor, bad focusing in a number of shots, and it also looks like it was digitally edited and poorly at that as the film print I saw had some pretty obvious banding. But again, not a visually driven film and the cinematography is straightforward and gets the job done. I don't want to excuse crappy cinematography just because it's a documentary (having seen some absolutely incredibly shot documentaries including Iraq in Fragments which captured some of the most incredibly striking film images in recent memory under extraordinary and rudimentary conditions which Moore with a film crew and no pressure should be able to do something at least decent), but it also isn't particularly necessary at a basic level to get his point across.
In any case, for a feature-length film about, of all godawfully boring subjects, healthcare, it was very entertaining and provocative. Not a thorough analysis by any means, and heavy on anecdotes and some classic Moore dramatizations, but altogether a film with a very simple thesis that our healthcare system is broken and poor, and others do it better, and that that way is the solution. The latter two points are debate beyond relevance to this review, but as far as broaching the subject, this documentary is effective and very entertaining(and surprisingly very funny) to boot. Moore has a way of making extremely mundane topics that are mostly only going to make it to officially boring outlets like the News Hour or C-SPAN quite entertaining, and if ever there is a documentary about patent law, or the tax code, or pet rocks, I think Moore would be the only guy who could really pull it off in an entertaining way. He is very successful here, and I don't think this film is nearly as politically divisive as say F 9/11 was or is and I think is more likely to engage a much wider audience, not merely people who already are prone to agree with Moore's leftist politics. It can be recommended simply on entertainment value.
