The Documentary Files

[chadreeve13]

Bidding for jail time

Bidder 70 is a film that shows us the story of Tim DeChristopher. Tim DeChristopher went to an illegal auction where the government was selling land that they had no right to sell. This land was to be sold to gas and oil companies to be drilled for oil. Tim Dechristopher had always been an environmentally conscience being and could not bear to see the land being sold. In a last minute effort to save the environment DeChristopher made illegal bids and won a large amount of land and protected them from illegal government activity.

I found the film to be slow at times and the story seemed to be drawn out and highlighted mostly the court battle. i wouldn't have minded if the film was all about the court battle but if it was going to involve so much of the court battle then it would have been nice if the film also gave us more information about the battle it self and why it was illegal to do what he did. It was a nice story but it lacked information and there for did not make any appeals to my sense of logic as it did make appeals towards my sense of emotion and character.

[chadreeve13]

Farmers wanted

Eating Alabama is a documentary film directed by Andrew Grace.the film follows Grace and his adventure to eat only food Grown in Alabama. in his journey Grace and his wife travel all over the state of Alabama in search food. they are unsuccessful to find a substantial amount  of food at most farmer markets. This leads Grace to travel to a farm to get some grains. A farmer has been willing to supply him with soy but it had turned out that the soy he found was Monsanto round up ready soy he decides to take the soy and eat it anyway. at the end of the film Grace came to a moment of clarity and noticed that the old ideals of eating locally and supporting your local farmer no longer exist because there isn't as many farmers as there use to be and what he was looking for does not exist anymore.

the only problem with the film as that about halfway through the film the director Andrew grace makes a choice to start playing sentimental music and ti understand by doing that he is conveying a feeling of loss and that was effective for a while. the problem arouse after the music was used for far to long i felt as if the film was over when in reality the film had another thirty minutes to go. some of the changes i would make to this film would be i would have chosen to follow more people and not only have the personal adventure but also include other information not just about local farming and why it is important.

[chadreeve13]

Lost at Sea

the film shored up brings light on the growing problem that many barrier islands are facing. what is this problem you ask? they are quite literally being swept into the sea.as shored up explains global warming continues to be an environmental catastrophe and one of the detrimental implications. one of those being that sea level is rising and climate change is causing storms to accelerate beyond what is normal. this is causing places like long island and the north Carolina barrier islands are loosing their shores at an alarming rate. What do we do when we loose our shores is what the film asks. the two sides that where proposed. some people think that the shores need to be remade by hiring the army corp of engineers to pump up the sand that has been carried out to see up and out from the ocean and then placed back here it once was. others believe that we should not do this because it is expensive and the only thing that we are doing is protecting ocean front property that usually belongs to rich people so basically the argument is that everyone should have to pay to protect their homes and that when we rebuild the shores it is merely a matter of time before we cannot simply rebuild the shores so in the meantime it is a waste of money because we are trying to stop the inevitable.

the film makes the viewer aware of the problem in a more personal way. i can remember when sandy hit and watching it on the news and hearing stories for about two weeks. but shortly after the broadcast stopped i had forgotten all about the damage and i had forgotten about all the people who were still misplaced. this film did a great job in actually showing us the damage that was still prevalent on long beach by showing us the houses that use to be far away enough from the shore that they were considered safe but as the images showed they remain on small post suspended in air and this is an image i will not forget.

[chadreeve13]

Mine Mine Mine

Uranium Drive-In is a documentary film that shows both sides of a debate that has been going on in a rural town in Colorado. the topic of debate is uranium mining. This rural Town has been economically devastated when a previous mining corporation left the town after many years a new corporation proposes to start uranium mining. The varying opinions of what should be done are highlighted with multiple families stories of economic and health related hardships.

This Documentary is unique in the way that in captures the debate. it neither skews the viewer one way or another. the viewer is brought on a journey with two opposing views brought to life by the towns people who need these jobs and the environmental activist who have seen the damage that has been done from uranium highlight. what this film does well is it is evenly divide to show you both sides of the argument on a social level there is no scientific information in this document it is simply an archive of the debate that has gone on in the small rural town of Colorado.