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Police accuse bank robbery suspect of gobbling up note (with dashcam video)
Dad accused of forcing son into field, killing him
Man found dead in North Akron home is identified
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Blogs:
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Cat-loving chihuahua suckles seven abandoned kittens
The Heldenfiles:
Friday Night Notebook
Patrick McManamon:
For your Saturday entertainment …
Akron Zips:
Hitchens leads Zips in second-half comeback
Tribe Matters:
Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster
Cleveland Browns:
Holmgren expresses interest in Browns position
Kent State Sports:
Kent State blown out in second half, loses to Temple 47-13
Cleveland Cavaliers:
Gameblog: Cavs vs. Philadelphia 76ers
Buckeye Blogging:
OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad
Varsity Letters:
Four area football teams play tonight
All Da King's Men:
Headed For Disaster
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Will Health Care Reform Pass?
Akron Law Café:
Health Care Financing Reform: (69) The Brookings Institute Study on "Bending the Curve" – Four General Strategies
See Jane Style:
Vintage Chic
Car Chase:
TIME TO GET YOUR COLLECTOR CARS WINTERIZED
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Silverdome Potentially SOLD!
Ohio Travels with Betty:
George is looking for a Thanksgiving buffet in Akron.
Sound Check:
Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall
HRLite House:
Colloquium at University of Akron
Akron Gamer:
Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
By Ruthe Stein
San Francisco Chronicle
Published on Thursday, Dec 04, 2008
By now almost everyone knows that the U.S. government monumentally failed the citizens of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. Is there more to be said about this national catastrophe?
Yes, definitely, as the engrossing documentary Trouble the Water shows in just about every frame.
Trouble, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, takes a very personal look at the chaos in New Orleans in the fall of 2005. Kimberly Roberts, a 24-year-old wannabe rapper living in the badly hit Ninth Ward, had just bought a secondhand video camera when news broke of the impending hurricane. With the instincts of a reporter, she roamed her neighborhood in the eerie stillness right before the streets flooded and people were forced out of their homes, shooting video along the way.
Carl Deal, a producer on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, and his filmmaking partner, Tia Lessin, met Roberts when the two came to Louisiana to work on a different documentary. They wisely switched gears when Roberts, who isn't shy, showed them some of her raw footage. Deal and Lessin are credited as directors, but the movie is really Roberts' show.
Lacking transportation out of the city, she and her husband, Scott Roberts, hunker down in their house as long as they can. Scenes of them trapped in their attic are juxtaposed with those of President Bush saying he was ''very impressed'' with what
Michael Brown, the beleaguered FEMA director, was doing.
News clips of the president and Brown sounding clueless are awfully familiar. Spike Lee definitively roasted them in his documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.
But every time you feel as if Trouble the Water is going over too-familiar ground, there comes Kimberly Roberts to jar you with her candidness. Ultimately made to leave her home, she is allowed back in to grab a few personal items. She takes a faded photograph of a young woman off the wall and begins kissing it. Her husband holds the camera as she explains that the picture is of her mother, who died of AIDS when Kimberly was 13.
The couple is surrounded by death. They smell a body decomposing in a nearby house, but are unable to get the authorities to remove it. On the sidewalk is a drowned dog that appears to be petrified in the water.
Trouble the Water takes on a Wizard of Oz feel as the Roberts secure a van and pick up a friend from the neighborhood, and they all head for Memphis, where Kimberly's cousin has opened his house to them. They all are hoping for a new beginning — for Kimberly that means landing a recording contract — and by this time you want that for them, too.
One caveat: Almost the entire movie was shot with a jumpy hand-held camera, and the result may induce nausea.
By now almost everyone knows that the U.S. government monumentally failed the citizens of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. Is there more to be said about this national catastrophe?
Get the full article here.
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