The Movie
Can the public school system in America be fixed? Even the most staunchly optimistic viewer will have his doubts after two hours of Waiting for "Superman," the most recent documentary from Oscar-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth). With a blend of eye-level tours of underfunded communities, stylish visual storytelling, and plenty of sobering, disturbing statistics, "Superman" tells us where we're at as a nation, educationally, and how we arrived here.
The problem is that the standards for public education have been on the decline for many years, and as a result our children have fallen far behind those from other developed countries, leaving them ill-equipped to compete in both the domestic and global marketplace. Certain powerful individuals thump their chests and claim to care about the kids (just like a lot of politicians like to the throw around the words "Our troops!") but that just isn't true, and we see that the fundamental system has grown deeply flawed, and the obstacles to change appear insurmountable.
And when facing impossible odds, the young at heart might secretly be hoping for a miracle, a superhero to swoop in and save us.
There's hope, with a growing number of revolutionary "charter schools" that operate outside the entrenched bureaucracy that has put a stranglehold on our classrooms. But there are simply too many interested kids to be accommodated by the really good institutions, and so we are introduced to the practice of lotteries, with as many as 20 or more students competing for a single spot. Literally, their fate is left to the random drawing of a bingo ball or their name on a piece of paper.
Along the way we meet some amazing youngsters blessed with dedicated parents, which only makes the state of things more heartbreaking. If you have kids, or pay taxes, or have ever been fired--rightly or wrongly--Waiting for "Superman" will leave you hopping mad, and hopefully ready to do some good.
The Picture
Presented at its theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and at a generous bitrate, Waiting for "Superman" boasts a squeaky clean, stable image, sometimes razor-sharp with only the slightest harshness and a tad of video streaking in motion. Even the different levels of focus in different areas of the frame are preserved. There's some compression in the backgrounds and some mild ringing, and of course the shift to old news footage (at different aspect ratios) represents a shift in video quality, but in general this one exceeded my expectations.
The Sound
The movie is largely dialogue, including ample narration, and the participants are mostly an articulate bunch and so it's almost all fairly legible. The musical score is engagingly well-mixed and delivered in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, which helps certainly. But no attempt has been made to spread any environmental audio around the multichannel soundfield, resulting in often-dead rears. It's fine for a documentary though.
The Extras
Director Davis Guggenheim and producer Lesley Chilcott have been recorded in tandem for their audio commentary, during which they reflect on their long journey together. And in the two-minute animated "Conversation with Davis Guggenheim" he makes some new points and repeats some of the old.
Four more teacher/student stories are now revealed as deleted scenes, 31 minutes total, including one set in post-Katrina New Orleans. "Changing the Odds" introduces audiences to some innovative programs that are having a positive effect on public education (five-and-a-half minutes), while "The Future Is in Our Classrooms" (two minutes) is a fast-paced promotional video with additional statistics.
The creation of the film's theme song by John Legend is explored in "The Making of 'Shine'" (seven minutes), while the section "Public Education Updates," which reports changes since the making of the film, is comprised of just two text frames: I was hoping for more good news than that! But all of the video extras are in HD.
Final Thoughts
What the film doesn't do is hit us with a lot of exaggerated doom and gloom about the future. Instead, we're left to figure that out for ourselves, but we are repeatedly called upon to get involved. Waiting for "Superman" is a profound, constructive and informative documentary--well-packaged on Blu-ray--so why no Oscar nomination? My theory is that its negative comments on the teachers' unions led to its demise in Hollywood, a town dominated by organized labor. Watch it and decide for yourself if it's among the best of the year.
Product Details
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