I saw Street Fight today. That's the Oscar nominated documentary about the 2002 Mayoral race in Newark, NJ. I've seen 4 of the 5 nominees for best documentary this year - March of the Penguins, Enron Smartest Guys in the Room, and Murderball. IMO, Street Fight was the best documentary.
Street Fight, on one level, is about the outsider vs. the machine. The challenger, Cory Booker, is trying to unseat 4 term mayor Sharpe James. James is a throw back politician. He uses all the power at his command to intimidate Booker, his supporters, & the filmmaker whom he associates as being in the Booker camp. Originally, the director (Marshall Curry) was going to make a film about both of them but James didn't allow him to film his campaign events so the film gravitated towards Booker. Both candidates are black men but that's about where the similarities end. Booker was a Stanford football player and a Yale Law School graduate. He was a one term city councilman and lived in a housing project to meet residency requirements and get closer to his constituents. James, 30 years Booker's senior, grew up in the hard scrabble streets of Newark and served most of his adult life in city government. He's enriched himself by doling out political favors and is cut from the Tammany Hall mold.
As the race tightens up, James goes negative and accuses Booker of being a carpetbagger, not black enough, a Republican (both candidates are Democrats but the election in non-partisan), and gay. James sics the cops on businesses that display Booker signs, James dispatches city maintenance workers to take down Booker signs, Booker receives an anonymous phone call that voting machines have been tampered with & federal authorities are called in monitor the election, and Booker's campaign headquarters are broken into.
Anyway, the director is very good about letting the action speak for itself instead of inserting himself into the story like Michael Moore. And the action is straight out of a political thriller.
www.marshallcurry.com
This message has been edited by scalias on Mar 5, 2006 2:26 AM
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