Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

ShootingShark A documentary which chronicles the life and work of acclaimed cinematographer Haskell Wexler, made by his son Mark, focussing on Wexler Senior's films and political ideals but also on their opposing viewpoints and often strained relationship.This is a documentary about a very interesting guy. Haskell Wexler shot some of the most important movies of the last forty years (In The Heat Of The Night, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Bound For Glory, Matewan) and has a reputation as a difficult perfectionist for whom artistic integrity is an absolute must. He is also a documentary filmmaker who specialises in thought-provoking anti-establishment reportage (such as 1965's The Bus, about the Civil Rights movement). In this film he comes across as someone whose intelligence and strength of character are admirable (despite being eighty and having led a fairly heady lifestyle, he's in great physical shape), but whose priorities and self-importance are highly questionable. He's constantly belittling Wexler Junior, sometimes justifiably (who needs an artistic sunset shot in a documentary) but often for no reason at all, and you can't help feeling that a man who puts his career and his politics before his family isn't half as smart as he thinks he is. The most interesting aspect is the contrast between Wexler and his friend and fellow cameraman Conrad Hall (to whom the film is dedicated); Hall was just as gifted and acclaimed as Wexler, but without the eogcentrism, and Wexler Junior can't help but admit he'd have preferred Hall as a dad. This is a curio - part Hollywood bio, part family reconciliation film - but it's well-made, touching and funny, with a sensational cadre of commentators. Well worth a look. 5/10

mikeindover I grew up in Chicago and was 18 years old when the riots broke out there during the 1968 Democratic Convention. I didn't go down there because my Chicago Democrat father would have thrown me out of the house if I had gotten involved. So I saw the riots going on 8 miles from house on TV, while Haskell Wexler was down in the streets making a film about how the media was shaping my beliefs about the situation. I think that about sums up my "personal" relationship to Haskell Wexler. When I saw the film Medium Cool, my mind was altered forever. I eventually got a doctorate in communications research and I teach young people about the influence of media in their world and about how they can use the media to change the world.I sense that the mediocre rating of this film may be due to the fact that people could miss the absolute perfect symmetry of this film. They fail to see how the father forces the son into cinema verite mode (far away from the controlled format of the Smithsonian type of documentary that Mark was used to) and how the son accepts this and creates a film that the father can sign off on. There is a lot of truth in this film. Even if Mark's values do not mirror Haskell's, he is unafraid to expose his own feelings. And I get a sense that Haskell's influence on his son is more profound than he realizes through much of the film. Also, coming from my own lefty perspective, I found the exploration of a life well lived to be inspirational. This film has just surfaced on Sundance Channel in 2006 and if you are interested in finding some of the connecting threads in Haskell's life or are the sort of man who cried watching "Field of Dreams," it's well worth the watch.

maestro-45 Given the subject matter this could have been a great documentary. Instead it looks like a hap hazard home movie. Mark Wexler totally lost control of the subject -- his father. You get a real sense of who Haskell Wexler is, pretty much of a jerk. He gets thrown off of a film, One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest, and he thinks it is because the FBI interfered or threatened the producers. This is ridiculous. He sounds like a total pain in the ass to work with, which is why he was fired from the film. No less than Elia Kazan concedes he is brilliant, but he would never work with him again. Mark's documentary of his father is all over the place, very incoherent, seems to go nowhere. Compare it to My Father the Architect that came out about two years ago and it comes up lacking.

internezzo This documentary will engage you on several levels -- it is a brilliant brief on one of film's greatest cinematographers (Haskell Wexler), a great behind the scenes look at movie-making, anda moving study of a son trying to come to terms with his famous -- and famously difficult -- father. Many interesting insights from marquee actors and directors (but with James Lipton nowhere in sight!). While industry insiders will surely love it, it is equally appealing to "civilian" filmgoers. Director Mark Wexler bravely shows his own foibles as well as those of his father. Many great telling moments.