Voting Documentary

I watched the voting Documentary my college roommate produced. It screened on MTV and was called Choose or Lose and it followed Drew Barrymore around while she tried to figure out why no young people vote.

I'll start with what I liked: They got an all-star cast of people to speak: Hillary Clinton, James Carville, Jon Stewart, Michael Moore, Bill Mahar, Harry Waxman, Wesley Clark, Chris Rock, and there were certainly others...very impressive.

I thought Michael Moore was actually the most interesting speaker, talking about how he ran for the school board and that's what got him politically involved. I guess he knows what is good for documentary.

I thought Drew had some fairly honest moments and was clearly interested in the subject matter. They hit a lot of places, got quite a bit of access. It was overall watchable and at times entertaining.

What I didn't like: A lot of things, actually. First, for all the interesting people she got to interview, I don't think she got a single one of them to say a single thing interesting. No one offered anything but cliches on why kids don't vote. Drew herself, in one of the better moments, calls them out on it....but then she stops and doesn't go anywhere with it. She just rattles off her own cliched voice over at the end. Second, there was zero discussions of the issues around the election. Huh? People don't vote just to vote. Ostensibly, they vote because they are interested in how the candidates will handle different issues that will affect their lives. Frankly, 18-21 year olds don't vote because they still live off their parents and who is President does not affect them all that much. Third, the production value of the film was awfully low. I know they had some problems with a DP and needed to get a new one, but there were some booms in shots, and the look and content made it feel like a home video - which perhaps was part of the intention. And lastly, the narrative itself didn't flow that well. We started at the primaries, then moved towards a frustrated Drew, who gets re-energized after speaking to Russell Simmons (not sure why), then she goes to a school election, and then we go into a discussion of the civil rights movement. It all has to do with voting - but I'm not sure what she was trying to say. I think in the end it amounted to what many people in the movie voiced: Young people should vote. Gee.

In the end, Drew doesn't know much about politics or voting and it showed. I'm not sure she was the right person to make a film about voting...

And also, who said documentaries need to be all interviews, anyway? Enough talking heads already.

But maybe I'm just bitter because they never paid me for some of the reseach I did.

Ha, just kidding. All I have to say, is my friend and roommate is DOING it - he just produced a documentary that showed on MTV, and for whatever flaws and whatever didn't work for me (it's unfair, because I'm a political nut and not the average MTV viewer), he made it happen and it got screened. And I know how hard that is.