For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - The Last Mountain
The Impression:
I’m skeptical about The Last Mountain. From
everything I can tell, from trailer and general impression,
it seems like another entry in to the over-saturated market
of documentaries about the degradation of our country by the
corporate monster. An honorable past time to be sure, but
one that I’d had my feel of in the last five years.
The Reality:
There is not an ounce of subtlety to The Last Mountain.
It is a film about the horrors of mountain top removal coal
mining and the salt-of-the-earth protesters who battle
against the faceless monster of corporate energy. Bobby
Kennedy Jr. is tossed in to the mix to be the celebrity face
of the cause, and everyone is suitably portrayed as good and
bad. Bill Haney hasn’t made a bad picture here, he’s just
tossed another rock on to the pile of films just like these.
More and more I find these types of documentaries (the
absolute majority of what our screens our filled with these
days) as high-budget, ultra-bias, educational films in
league with what my poofy-haired biology guru Mrs. Nage
would show us on slow days in high school. The Last
Mountain steamrolls its viewers with information about
the evil of the coal industry, while painting auras of
saintliness around its beleaguered protagonists. The film
jets along but its occasional tangents in to the background
of Bobby Kennedy Jr. (a Kennedy I didn’t even know existed)
and the strange right turn it takes near the end of the
film, short out a little of its momentum. As a film of this
type, The Last Mountain was certainly watchable, if
not enjoyable, but I’ve had enough of films like this. I
blame Michael Moore and his advocating and creation of the
modern docu-prop genre. Even though I can’t imagine that he
saw a future so bright.
The Lesson:
Can we please, please, please, please make documentaries
about the six hundred thousand other subjects on the planet
Earth that are not how shitty corporations are? I’d like to
be entertained, not depressed, as the planet dissolves
around me.
- Noah Sanders
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