  urlLink urlLink Capturing the Friedmans is a compulsively watchable commentary on the american family, the politics of sex in our culture / suburbia, the nature of hysteria...and more subtly on the voyeurism & documentary-culture which define: the blogosphere. reality television. parasocial relationships / industry exploitation of celebrity culture. i'm not a naysayer of any of these cultural realities.
obviously i'm in the blogosphere with two feet...but the mcluhanesque idea that we only understand the ways our technology impacts us -- "in the rear view mirror and fading fast" -- seems particularly apt in this particular story. the filmmakers have a tenderness for all of their characters -- and it would be easy for them to demonize several of the characters -- so the remarkable ability to maintain the full roundess of David (the amateur documentarian) and the Mom... is amazing. The final shot of Howard Friedman -- is a coup in the whole voyeurism subplot which involves YOU the viewer in a complicated ambivalent relationship with your own watching (a story line arguably initiated with David's dictum, "If you're not me, STOP watching this!
This is PRIVATE! ) and on a MUCH lighter note -- but a great documentation of the *beauty* of how a cultural performance can give some otherwise marginal members of a group both a grammar and a voice for participation in (ultimately) the larger cultural millieu is -- urlLink urlLink Spellbound and while we're on the subject -- the other must-see-andrew-list-of-documentaries-for-everybody?
urlLink Hoop Dreams urlLink American Movie and urlLink hands on a hard body for a less universal recommendation, but a must-watch if you live in my geographical world -- urlLink Go Tigers is a great depiction of the complexities of how football culture interplays with everything else here in mideastern Ohio. 
