I can't stop smiling

Last weekend, a very wise man said to me, "One of the best trends in movies lately has been the rise of the documentary." I knew it was true when he said it, but I rolled around in that truth last night when I went with Mary and Sarah to see Mad Hot Ballroom, the doc about competitive ballroom dancing in NYC schools. The subject matter itself is interesting enough, but someone setting out to specifically make a documentary on What It's Like To Be Eleven couldn't have done any better job, couldn't have nailed those awkward, frustrating, learning-life moments any better, couldn't have been as hilarious as it was painful.

I was also reminded of the variable quality of documentaries. While docs are like non-fiction books in that even the bad ones end up have at least some level of interest to them, there's still a way to make a bad one, and that's by being unclear about the timeline, filming badly, and editing in an unclear way. But Mad Hot Ballroom was done perfectly, with some shots that I couldn't believe they got without either having about 10 cameras or just being geniuses.

Recommended for those people who enjoy things like "fun" and "entertainment".