Sicko

I was told earlier in the day that I had watched this movie in one of my classes. I came to find out that I had not seen this one specifically. We did watch a documentary, but not Sicko. Sicko, in my opinion, was very interesting in many different ways. One thing that bothered me the most is that it only shows one side. That is one thing that documentaries tend to do. This one was worse than some. Sicko focused on the health care in America. In the article 'Sicko': Heavily Doctored, By Kurt Loder talks about the other side of Michael Moore's documentary. It was a great article because it does talk about the other side, which is more agreeable now, looking back at the movie and then looking at the article. I thought it was very interesting what Loder had mentioned about the Cubans and the foreigners and how they are treated. The foreigners are treated better than the Cubans and that is in their own country. Another thing that stuck in the back of my mind was the Canadians and how they have special transportation for them so they do not have to wait at the border. This transportation can just go straight through and get them to where they are needed to be. The comments at the end of the article are very interesting and some are very touching. There are always going to be some people that believe Moore and some that believe Loder. That is with anything and everything that comes about in this world. The article Out of Focus: How Indie Dogma Undercuts the Documentary by Michael Massing, talks about how “in too many cases, documentaries seem to not include critical information. Or fail to provide important context. Or neglect to follow up interesting leads. Or leave impressions that are never backed up. All in all, something seems to be missing. And, based on my spate of viewing, I think I know what it is: a narrator.” I would have to disagree with this because I feel the filmmaker should stay behind the scenes, and let the subject matter present the facts. The article by Guillermo Perez talks about a young director of documentary films specifically about boys in ballet. This goes to show that it isn't too difficult to make a documentary; you just have to convince your target audience to think about and believe what you want them to, and see exactly what you want them to see. This movie was interesting and gets you thinking. I would like to watch it again so then I can actually see the difference now that I have read the articles and know what is going on more. I simply just watched the movie and did not know what to expect right off the bat. There were some things that got into my head, but now I know not everything is true and that is what Michael Moore is doing is trying to get this into people's heads so they portray it as the truth to others. In the book, it talks about two different types of documentaries. The first one is a thesis documentary and the other is the antithetical type of documentary. I would have to categorize Michael Moore's Sicko into the thesis documentary. I would recommend people watching this movie, but they would have to get everything out of their mind and just watch it and not think that everything is true. I do plan on watching it again and thinking more into the movie and seeing what Michael Moore is actually stating and trying to get to us.