Irish rockers U2 stood astride the music world as the 1980s gave way to a new decade. What casual fans couldn’t know was how close the band was from becoming, in the words of lead singer Bono, one of music’s biggest clichés.

They were talking about breaking up over “artistic differences.”

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The new Showtime documentary ‘From the Sky Down,’ debuting at 8 p.m. EST Oct. 29, recalls how the band’s 1991 album ‘Achtung Baby’ restored their faith in each other while cementing their rock god status.

The film may not convert those immune to the band’s arena rock anthems or those who find their socially conscious pose hypocritical given their affinity for tax shelters.

Frankly, director Davis Guggenheim (‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ ‘Waiting for ‘Superman”) isn’t interested in expanding the band’s fan base nor exploring universal themes. It’s a portrait of a band in crisis, one which focuses like a laser on how the U2 sound came to be.

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Liberal Oscar-winner (“An Inconvenient Truth”) Davis Guggenheim’s latest, “Waiting For Superman,” didn’t score an Oscar nomination. The cover story being floated is that it may contain inaccuracies. However, a look at several of the documentaries that were nominated demonstrates what a farce that charge is.

Guggenheim’s real crime was breaking with liberal dogma. The documentary takes on unions and is supportive of Charter schools. Significant issues with documentaries that were nominated makes it glaringly obvious that propaganda trumps facts and reality, even when it comes to documentaries in Hollywood:

What he found in his two years of researching “Waiting for Superman” (with co-producer Lesley Chilcott) was that a lot of schools aren’t right for any kids — neither the dull ones who need gentle prods to move competently from K to 12, nor the underprivileged bright ones who could be the Geoffrey Canadas of the future, if only a good charter school had enough slots to accept them all.

“Exit Through the Gift Shop” received a nomination despite many published concerns as to whether the film is even based upon reality, or simply a work of art. To invoke Al Gore, there seems to be no real consensus as to whether it even qualifies as a documentary. Clearly the academy was more captivated by the subject matter, street art, than concerns over a film’s reputation for integrity:

Much of the controversy surrounding the street art documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop surrounds whether the movie is real, or a prank. At ZUG, pranks and hoaxes are our business; after careful analysis, here’s our best guess.

IS THE MOVIE A PRANK? Yes and no. We think it starts out as a legitimate documentary, with Guetta intending to create a film about street artists. But it eventually becomes clear that he is a very bad filmmaker, and that is where the story begins to diverge from reality.

SO IF GUETTA IS SINCERE IN THE FIRST PART, AND ACTING IN THE SECOND PART, IS HE JUST A REALLY GOOD ACTOR? That part, admittedly, is a bit of a mystery.

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I sat down with Davis Guggenheim recently when he came to Washington, D.C. to promote his new documentary, “Waiting for ‘Superman,” a compelling, revealing look at what’s wrong with education in America (see John Nolte’s review of the film). 

For those who’ve seen it, one of the most striking things about the film is that it comes from the man behind “An Inconvenient Truth.” So how did the guy who is known for making a film championed by liberals just make a film that trashes one of the biggest supporters of liberal candidates? That’s what I wanted to find out. 

“I grew up in northwest,” Guggenheim began, speaking of his home in North West D.C. “When I was just a kindergartner, I remember asking my mom, ‘Why do I take a bus across the Potomac into Virginia’” to go to school. His mother’s response: “Because the schools in D.C. are broken.” 

And they still are, 40 years later, he pointed out. And not just in D.C., but across the nation. “40 years later I’m driving my kids past two public schools to a private school,” he said. As a supporter of public education, he won’t send his own kids to a public school because he fears they won’t receive a good education. It’s these facts that drove him to make this film. 

I asked him about the political differences in the two films, “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Waiting for ‘Superman.’” Both stories focus on an issue bogged down by legislation and talking points. But both focus on something else: people.  (more…)

The internet is abuzz with praise for the new documentary that points out the many faults of public education, Waiting for Superman. With positive reviews from both the Huffington Post on the Left as well as the New York Post on the Right, it makes one wonder, how could this be? It appears that this film has single-handedly done what President Obama could not do to save his own life: bring the Left and Right together on a single issue.

Davis Guggenheim

It is refreshing that the film’s director, Davis Guggenheim (who directed An Inconvenient Truth), is able to put politics aside to see the destructive nature of teachers unions. Guggenheim put his own kids through private school but realizes that not everyone can afford such a luxury. Here, he sets out to tackle the real problems that have long plagued public school systems: teachers unions. Though, he is careful to say that he isn’t bashing unions in general.

Guggenheim sees that not everything has to be a political football, which is why we should applaud him for taking a bipartisan approach. However, some feel that the response to the film shows the true, negative colors of conservatives. Liberal Patrick Goldstein comments in the Los Angeles Times:

If you’re a documentary filmmaker, you’re happy to get rave reviews from any source, since you need all the good PR you can get. But I find it revealing, when it comes to the liberal vs. conservative partisan divide, that whenever Michael Moore releases a new documentary promoting a liberal cause, conservatives are quick to bash him for being a left-wing propagandist. But when Guggenheim makes a film offering wholehearted support for a conservative cause, liberal critics have written just as many glowing reviews as conservative ones. (The film has a sky-high 93 fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.) What does that tell you about who’s got the most open mind here?

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“Waiting for ‘Superman’” is not only the most important documentary made in many a year but it might also help to restore a little of your faith in humanity, and I’m not even talking about the movie itself, which I’ll get to in a bit. I’m talking about its creator Davis Guggenheim, best known for directing and winning the Oscar for Al Gore’s alarmist global warming screed “An Inconvenient Truth.” In an era when, in order to hold on to power and take control of our lives, the Left tells Big Lies just as quickly as they can make them up, along comes Guggenheim, an acknowledged pro-union liberal, to take on the most powerful, and in my opinion destructive, special interest group in America: the national teachers union.

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Whatever his personal beliefs were as he began the process of documenting the fate of five children whose very futures rest on the less-than 10% chance of being accepted into a charter school, in the end Guggenheim risks the grave sin of apostasy as he courageously bucks the left-wing narrative to present a heartbreaking and damning exposé of the American public school system.

Had the exact same film been brought forth by a right-winger it would have had zero chance of creating any kind of national debate, much less change. But coming with Guggenheim’s clout and left-wing bona fides, there’s a chance his noble effort could spread a Road to Damascus virus among those who have for too long turned a blind eye towards an indefensibly immoral system propped up at the expense of children. Armed with facts and actual inconvenient truths, “Superman” deconstructs every lie told by politicians, union officials and bad teachers in defense of a status quo that destroys as many, if not more lives than drugs or gangs. (more…)

At a gut level most left-wing environmentalists know that they’re liars. Intellectually they might have somehow convinced themselves that Mother Earth is in some sort of man-made peril, but deep down inside where the truth won’t be denied, these liars know they’re lying — know that the “green movement” is all about a sinister political agenda to put them in the position of insect overlords in charge of we rubes who stubbornly refuse to let go of the idea that Marxism is a bad thing.

This isn’t true for all of them. Ed Begley Jr. walks the walk, and there are everyday tree-huggers scattered throughout America quietly attempting to make work a sustainable lifestyle. You can smell them from here. But most environmentalists are lying liars who know they’re lying. Because if you honestly believe man is destroying the planet, that the apocalypse is nigh, you prepare for it. Most coastal elites are Global Warming believers and yet Global Warming, we’re told, will make the oceans rise to the point that will someday put much of the coast, especially Manhattan underwater. So why aren’t coastal elites moving inland? Why aren’t they pulling a Lex Luthor and buying up all that cheap property that will someday be the new coast? And why do they continue to burn fossil fuels, enjoy air conditioning, and otherwise consume? Because deep down inside they know what we know: it’s all bull shit Socialism disguised as nonsense.

People who believe, truly believe that an environmental apocalypse – be it through increased temperatures, a rise in sea levels, or super-hurricanes — is imminent, act as though it’s imminent. They don’t live in big, fancy, air-conditioned homes propped precariously on the side of the Hollywood Hills and purchased through the dividends of an unnecessary energy-burning, landfill-filling industry. They don’t run up incredible electric bills. They don’t purchase second homes large enough to house Michelle Obama’s entourage.

However, after an “awakening,” courtesy of former Vice President Al Gore’s wildly inaccurate propaganda-horror film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” James J. Lee believed. (more…)

Our documentary Not Evil Just Wrong is on tour in Alaska. The film asks if Global Warming science is really settled but perhaps more importantly focuses on the damage that proposed “solutions” will have on the poorest people on the planet.

Not Evil Just Wrong examines the true cost of expensive energy for those who already live in poverty or fixed incomes.

One of the highlights of the Alaska tour was a visit to Colony High School in Wasilla where we screened an excerpt of the documentary and took questions from students.

Sarah Palin, Wasilla’s most famous resident, did not attend but a large number of children were there and seemed interested and asked interesting questions.

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth has been shown many times, in many classes at the school and the students seemed to appreciate an alternative. (more…)

What happens to an artist whose creative peak has long past? That is the question which looms like a sustained E chord over the new documentary It Might Get Loud, a strange and wonderful cinematic ode to the electric guitar by director Davis Guggenheim. whose previous credits include An Inconvenient Truth (don’t hold that against him).

It Might Get Loud’s central conceit is simple and elegant in principle, but surprisingly messy and complex on screen: Take three eminent guitarists of differing styles and generations, interview them individually, get them to open up about their relationship with their instrument and then, for the film’s climax, throw them together on a sound-stage surrounded by guitars and see what happens.

Guggenheim’s choice of guitarists is a surprising one that somehow makes sense; Jack White of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs (in his 30’s), The Edge of U2 (in his 40’s), and Jimmy Page of The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin (in his 60’s). (more…)

The Society of Environmental Journalists spent much of their conference in Madison, Wisconsin questioning why mainstream journalism was dying.

Then they answered their own question when they decided it was their role to protect Al Gore from An Inconvenient Question.

Phelim McAleer, the director of Not Evil Just Wrong, asked Al Gore about the British Court Case which found his documentary An Inconvenient Truth had nine significant errors.

McAleer said that given his documentary is being shown in schools – does he accept the errors and has he done anything to correct them?

However, Mr. Gore declined to address the issue and when asked for a straight answer from McAleer – the response of the Society of Enironmental Journalists was not to applaud one of their own for bringing truth to power but instead they cut the mic of a journalist.

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The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course. The city fathers, they’re trying to endorse, the reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse. But the town has no need to be nervous. The ghost of Belle Starr, she hands down her wits, to Jezebel the nun, she violently knits. A bald wig for Jack the Ripper who sits, at the head of the Chamber of Commerce.

Mama’s in the factory, she ain’t got no shoes. Daddy’s in the alley, he’s lookin’ for food; I’m in the kitchen with the tombstone blues. “Tombstone Blues” – Bob Dylan

Perhaps the sudden death of pop icon Michael Jackson had many Hollywood stars contemplating their own future obituaries. But the industry, which has been strongly committed to promoting the dangers of man-made global warming, was strangely silent on the Waxman-Markey bill which squeaked though the House last week. The United States economy, i.e., actual real human beings who live in America, continues to suffer from the enormous Obama-lead government’s allocation of resources by massive deficit spending and taxes. The axis of deception changes with each specific fiscal proposal. (more…)

News broke last week that Laurie David, former wife of Larry David (of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm fame), was fined for wetlands violations at her Martha’s Vineyard home – and it wasn’t the first time, either:

The property owned by Ms. David off North Road was the subject of a series of wetlands violations in 2005, when construction of a stone fire pit, barbecue grill area and wooden stage for a children’s theatre with seating was begun in a wetland without a permit.

Ms. David, as you may recall, produced the Goracle’s epic documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.  She also wrote The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming for children (doing her part to convince one in three frightened children that the earth will implode before they grow up), and went on a much ballyhooed bus tour with fellow greenie Sheryl “One Sheet” Crow in order to help Save The Earth™ a couple of years back. How riding around the country in an exhaust-spewing bus and using up oodles of electricity for Sheryl’s musical stylings was supposed to “help” is beyond me. But wait, the bus was powered by vegetable oil instead of that dastardly fossil fuel, and pal Sheryl is committed to being green by driving a hybrid and using cold water to wash her clothes. Forgive my cynicism; I’m convinced. (more…)