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ben_m_jones
Reviews
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (2009)
Great Role Models
I found this movie deeply moving. As a person of faith, I was impressed by the positive depiction of religion in helping Ben Carson and his mother to strive to overcome negative influences in their lives.
In response to ctomvelu-1 who commented on "evil racist whites (what other kind could there be in a story like this?", I would like to point out that the psychiatrist who helps Ben's mother overcome depression, the science teacher who shows Ben another world in a microscope, the admissions counselor who is impressed by Ben's interest in classical music are positive white role models, just to name a few. The black teenage gang member is also depicted as the kind that holds fellow blacks back by berating those who strive for excellence for trying to be white. More people of all races should see this movie.
Kudzu (1977)
Kudzu Butter
This is a hysterically funny short documentary about kudzu, a vine that grows like crazy mostly in the southern states. It was originally brought in to the US from Japan during the 30's for erosion control and having no natural predators wreaked havoc all over the South, covering native trees, houses, as well as abandoned cars and farm equipment.
Some highlights: A farmer looking out over his fields says: I cut this down a week ago and it's back already.
A reporter says (pardon my mangled paraphrase from one viewing): I don't know what all the fuss is about with kudzu. It's got pretty flowers. Why the whole South would have blown away by now if it hadn't been for kudzu. Surely we can find a use for it. If that colored fellow (George Washington Carver) could come up with a hundred and one uses for the peanut then surely we could think of something to do with kudzu. Why, it ought to be everyone's patriotic duty to eat dry-roasted kudzu and kudzu butter...
To Be Fat Like Me (2007)
Thin girl dons fat suit to find out what it is like to be fat
I married a fat woman (over 300 pounds), being only 145 pounds myself at the time, adopted her three children, and had three more by her; all of them very good looking but some struggling somewhat with weight. She was a wonderful woman, who died from complications to stomach stapling surgery, after we'd been married almost 24 years. She had many physical problems in her last years: fibromyalgia, diabetes, etc. and had the surgery only as a last resort because she'd gotten to the point where we took her places in a wheelchair and she slept in an electric recliner. I never noticed her enduring any particular slurs in public on account of her weight (I am kind of a space case anyway) but she did get anonymous notes from time to time from people who were trying to tell her how she ought to take care of herself.
Anyway, I found the movie very interesting and honest. Even the fact that the Aly character could be mean to her mother while trying to be sensitive to Ramona seemed real to me because kids and parents do lock horns at times in ways that are truly baffling.