I just saw an amazing documentary and I want to go tell it on the mountain.

Wow! It's very seldom that I see a movie that makes me want to tell everyone I know, "Hey, you gotta check this out." Especially a documentary, because Kate and I see so many social and cultural documentaries. But I just finished watching a documentary called "Street Fight" (a film by writer/director/producer/etc. Marshall Curry) and, "Hey, you gotta check this out."

I know I'm a bit behind the times, since this movie is several years old and maybe everyone reading this has already seen it, but this amazing film really snuck up on me. "Street Fight" tells the story of candidate Cory Booker during his 2002 bid to become the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. The film pits Booker, a 32 year old wunderkind (Rhodes Scholar, Yale Law graduate, former Stanford University football standout) versus the established 32-year! incumbent, Sharpe James. I love that name, it's almost as telegraphic about his M.O. as Boss Tweed's name was. And Sharpe James's political machine is probably just as entertaining to watch in action. Watch as James's flunkies continuously grab the lens of the documentarian's camera as he films a public! event on a public! street in the City of Newark. Watch as James brings three busloads of pollworkers in from PHILADELPHIA on the day of the election while simultaneously claiming that all of his pollworkers are volunteers while Booker's are all paid outsiders ("He's a carpetbagger. He can't buy this election," Sharpe quips.) Watch as James racebaits Booker by saying that he is backed by "Jews and the Ku Klux Klan." Both Booker and James are African American, by the way.

One of the reasons I'm compelled to blog about this now is that it seems very well timed. I can't help but compare Booker to Obama, and if you watch I think you'll see the same intense spirit of optimism in the two. If you have Netflix, this is available on their "Watch Instantly" feature, which is how I watched it. Also, I'll just point out that this film was actually nominated for an Academy Award in 2005 for Best Documentary Feature. Here's the trailer, should you need more enticement.

Mount Everest

Biff and I are huge fans of PBS's series Frontline, which airs documentary programming about all different topics and then will post them for computer viewing as well. I've been really interested in Mount Everest since reading Into Thin Air in 2001, and seeing the Everest IMAX. David Breashears is a mountain climber/filmmaker who was on Everest in 1996 filming that IMAX when a storm came up that ultimately killed 15 climbers I think, including his friend and fellow guide who got stranded on the summit. Breashers returned to Everest a couple of years ago to rethink the tragedy and interview survivors in the program Storm Over Everest. We haven't really seen the tragedy narrative until this point, although Into Thin Air describes it well, you don't really realize how sublime the mountain is and how epic the journey until you see it. I personally feel like submitting Everest is the ultimate in human hubris and selfishness, especially since for every 6 who summits successfully, 1 person dies. I really feel for the family members of the climbers. However, I definitely see the fascination and understand the power of the superlative-how tempting to have scaled the highest mountain on Earth. What's especially incredible are the non-climber thrill seekers that train specifically for Everest and pay tens of thousands of dollars to risk their lives just to have that distinction.

We've since seen Breasher's other documentary called Everest: the Death Zoneabout what happens to the human body at really high altitudes (accelerated decay and cognitive loss). It's okay. There are other books about the 1996 storm, but I don't know if I have the heart to read them.