I Heart Documentaries

We shot another wedding on Saturday, which was pretty fun. GORGEOUS weather ( 75 and sunny with no humidity in AUGUST? Who gets that lucky?!), cute couple and an AMAZING AMAZING band. And then we had Sunday off. Slept in, had some breakfast, rode our bikes over to Astoria Park, which was cool. It was too humid to sit and enjoy it though, so we rode back home, ran some errands and settled on the couch with a glass of wine to chat. Lovely. Then we watched two documentaries.

The first was Geoff's pick: Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.


Interesting. It explores the suppression of scientific debate with regard to evolution and intelligent design (which is actually different than creationism, though not a lot of people know that). Very interesting. What I found interesting is that the leading scientist on Darwinism couldn't say how the very first cell came to be (the cell that all life came from). And said that no one knew for sure how it happened but that it absolutely COULD NOT have been created through intelligent design. Absolutely not. No idea how it happened. Just definitely not that way. And I'm thinking….if you're a scientist, and you don't know how something happened, don't you have to at least consider all options? And not let your personal religious beliefs or lack thereof, get in the way? Just a thought.


The second documentary was my pick: The Business of Being Born.

FASCINATING. Completely Fascinating. Now, I'm not pregnant and not planning on it for another couple of years. But this was really interesting to me. It is produced by Ricki Lake, who became interested in the maternity care system in America after the birth of her first child. It combines historical facts with current statistics and personal stories. Their goal, I think is to properly educate women about options outside of what has become the "traditional" way women have babies, a process in which, they argue, hospitals don't actually always have the best interest of the mother and child in mind. I certainly learned a TON. And I'm sure there is bias there, as there can be with most things, but it definitely was illuminating on the subject. And blew apart certain pre-conceived notions I had about midwives and home births. And raised a lot of questions. I would recommend this film. I'd be interested in what my friends who are moms would say, having been through the process. The film does get graphic, so squeamish husbands beware, as they do show several home births and you see it ALL. But I found it fascinating. Fascinating/Terrifying. But fascinating nonetheless.

You can watch both of these through Netflix, and they are both available to watch online under their "Play Now/Instant Queue". Which means free extra movies besides the ones that come in the mail. Which I love. We are now obsessed with the Instant Queue, as we purchased a Blu-Ray that allows us to stream those "Play now" movies to our TV instead of on the computer. Which is amazing and available through the magic of technology that I don't understand. But am grateful that someone else does.