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I'm heading out of town for the rest of the week, so I wanted to be sure to post about the last couple things I've watched...

The Education of Charlie Banks: This was an indie starring Jason Ritter ("Mick") and Jesse Eisenberg ("Charlie"). The movie was ok, the plot was basically that Charlie reported Mick to the cops after witnessing him assault someone, but then got scared and retracted his statement, which meant Mick was released. Years later, Mick shows up at Charlie's college, audits his classes, starts hanging out with his friends, and steals his girl. Of course Charlie is wondering why Mick is there and whether he knows Charlie is the one who ratted him out. It was fairly well done, although I think having Jason Ritter play a badass is questionable casting. Not that I'm complaining, since I'm completely in love with him. Jesse Eisenberg on the other hand was fantastically cast (and adorable as usual), and both of their acting was great (also as usual). Unfortunately the story itself that was a little blah for me. But there were some moral questions about the cycle of violence, issues of hope and forgiveness, and some Gatsby references, which, on top of the acting and cute boys, made me glad I watched it.

Planet B-Boy: I love watching b-boy/breaker dance crews (I am a diligent viewer of So You Think You Can Dance and America's Best Dance Crew), and I also am kind of obsessed with documentaries that feature a competition of some sort, so this one was great for me. It was really well made and did a great job putting their style of dance into the context of culture. It tracked 5 teams (Japan, Germany, South Korea, France and the U.S.) through their prep for the worldwide "Battle of the Year" and then ultimately to the competition itself. The intrigue of this style of documentary for me is that they draw out the stories of the people in the competition, and then some win and some lose. Oh the human drama. Anyway this one was excellent, if you are a fan of b-boy/break dancing and the hip hop world, check it out for sure.

Air Guitar Nation: This was... bizarre to say the least. Basically these guys went to the worldwide air guitar championship in Finland (yeah... it exists) and realized the U.S. was not represented, so they started a U.S. competition. The documentary traces the first annual East Coast and West Coast regionals, the U.S. finals, and then the world championship. It was a bit annoying to watch after the b-boy one, because it was all so insincere and ridiculous compared to the b-boy stuff. But once they got to the worldwide competition it was much cooler and the people took it more seriously. That being said, this is probably one to skip.

Inside Deep Throat: I like stuff about the sexual revolution, and also stuff about censorship, so this was really interesting to me. I didn't know much about the release of Deep Throat except that it caused a bit of a stir (in more ways than one?). The production quality of this was surprisingly high for a documentary about porn. It was kind of funny to see interviews with all these people who were involved in the industry back then now that they're older and kind of washed up. I wish they had gone a bit more in to some of the topics, for example, what happened to Linda Lovelace and how she made the transformation from porn star to anti-porn activist, but I guess they only had so much time. Anyway, it was an interesting watch for sure.

Frontline: Flying Cheap: I don't know why I watched this before getting on a plane tomorrow morning. I am clearly a masochist. This was about how regional air carriers work and whether safety is being sacrificed for cheap fares. My only hope is that things have changed since this was filmed... in 2010...