Please Vote for Me

At Mr. Lousy’s behest, I finally watched the Weijun Chen documentary Please Vote for Me, which chronicles the campaigns of three eight-year-old children running for Class Monitor in the first democratic election at their middle-class school in Wuhan, China.

It’s one of the more compelling and revealing political films of the decade, with so much about kids, political persuasion, political personality, children’s motivations, adult ambitions, boys and girls in competition, China, Chinese children, Chinese parents, transitioning to democracy, raw democracy in action, and how much gritty effort and how little actual thought it takes to win.

The kids? Could Xiaofei’s face have possibly been any more transparently, painfully expressive? Cheng Cheng, the portly, magnetic, manipulative, verbose, bullying, underwear-lounging, brilliant bon vivant – who manages to be sympathetic even when he’s at his worst, and is heartbreaking at his defeat? And the seemingly upright Lu Lei – who shows us in the end that the more things change, the more they really can stay the same?

One might ask for better candidates, but not better characters.

My Movies – September 2012

It’s officially fall but I am officially in denial. It was a hot summer but I was determined to say it was still summer until October. This meant still spending time outside, not wearing a jacket and generally being stubborn. As always, three word reviews.

 

92 – Hit & Run – want better KBell
93 – Submarine – Moss directed/penned, charming (IT Crowd reference)
94 – Winnebago Man – no more bullshit!
95 – Spider – solid Cronenberg fare
96 – Underworld – gives good goth
97 – A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas – NPH’s best role
98 – The Campaign – still a fan
99 – Celeste and Jesse Forever – surprisingly underplayed, resonant
100 – Gilda – this is glamour (100 movies!)
101 – Lockout – super fun camp