Directed by Leslie D. Farrell, Bennett Singer and David Deschamps in the style of a human-interest TV news story, with Mo Rocca as quipping host and interviewer, and buttressed with amusing Schoolhouse-Rock-style animation, the film is lively and funny and informative. Much of it follows Rocca as he follows the 2008 election from the perspective of poll workers and canvassers in Indiana’s Jennings and Ripley counties, and the unembarrassed, energetic, civic-minded spirit of the people he shows us is heartening, and, I must admit, more than a little surprising.
Because of its droll approach, I enjoyed Electoral Dysfunction. No small achievement this, as the subject is one of nerve-jangling irritation to me, in light both of the ongoing annoyance of the baroque, archaic Electoral College and the distortions it creates in Presidential politics, and also of the vile attempts, in recent years, to block voting in a baldly partisan way in parts of the U.S.
I know it speaks poorly of me, but most news stories on voting rights and voting access abuses send me channel-surfing or fleeing the room, because there’s something about that kind of bad-faith politics that makes me feel helpless. The (mostly) honorable people Rocca chronicles—on both sides—made me ashamed of feeling this way.
A couple of odds and ends: Adults ONLY check out this knavish comic written by Barry Graham and illustrated by Vince LaRue.
The website JabCat on Movies, to which I’m proud to be a contributor, has recently launched a state-by-state guide to art house theatres in the U.S. Check it out here.
Finally, a consumer note: Today I drank a Lime-Cucumber Gatorade. I love lime. I love cucumbers. I love Gatorade. But the three do not, in my ever-humble opinion, go together well. Caveat emptor.
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