#16. Freakonomics
Director: Morgan Spurlock, Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, Alex Gibney, Laura Poitras, Eugene Jarecki, and Jehane Noujaim
Producers: Seth Gordon and Chad Troutwine
Distributor: Currently Seeking Distribution
The Gist: Written by Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner,
“Freakonomics” has sold more than 3 million copies by using economic
theories to analyze issues ranging from whether Adam Vinatieri could
realistically be called football’s most clutch field goal kicker to
more serious claims that teachers and sumo wrestlers cheat, that
swimming pools are more dangerous to children than guns and that the
drop in crime can be attributed to Roe v. Wade.
Fact: Producer Chad Troutwine was an ex-producer on another collective: Paris, je t’aime.
See It: Quirky content matched by a slew of favorite contemporary docu filmmakers means this is a very digestible must-see. In the mean time read the NYTimes blog by Levitt.
Release Date/Status?: This is a collective so the logistics of piecing everything together means this might only see theaters in 09, but a year-end festival might not be impossible.