Freakonomics (2010)

Captivating movie !

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

now I've seen something by morgan spurlock finally, which at least didn't involve watching him doing schtick or shooting off at the mouth, and yet... it couldn't have been more annoying! the piece on sumo wrestlers begins with this "artistic" minute or so of wrestling shots with Japanese characters and numbers ticking off on either side of the screen. what's the point? Art? What a joke. This movie had far too much ground to cover to waste time with dubious post production wizardry that served only to slow the thing down.Also, the music is INCREDIBLY annoying and far too loud a lot of the time. The opening credits were also far too long and "fancified" as if bells and whistles would make them any less of a waste of time to sit through.I could not get through the Sumo section. I also found, I have to say, the authors, as I guess they were, the two guys "playing off each other" cause they imagine themselves to be "funny"... to be incredibly annoying. As in, guy 1: I'm about to sell my house. Guy 2: and a very nice house it is! I say so! I'm the real estate agent1" LOLs galore try just shutting your butt face and letting the damn information proceed. Or is it clever or funny in some way for filmmakers to ask 2 experts, "so is there a name I could name my child that would guarantee his success in the world?" HAHAHA it's that famous "Wit" again! Obviously this isn't possible! Anybody would know, especially at the end of this overlong segment that established this over and over first from the mouth of one expert then from another mouth of another expert. Why it must be HUMOR and COMEDY that motivated the question! HAHAHAH! LOL! HORRIBLE attempt at infotainment that had me feeling like kicking in my television...Life is far too short for a film like this to pollute my brain. I'll take the advice of another reviewer here to check out the wiki entries on the book, since it's clear to me I wouldn't enjoy the style of these two entertaining economics professors or whatever they are, borderline criminals offers the "funny guy" LOL HAHAHA!

A few of the issues addressed in the book are examined: cheating, paying students, crime.The crime segment was interesting as statistics were actually used. I didn't quite understand how the percentages were developed for why crime decreased. I do find it interesting that Roe v. Wade is used to explain the reduction of crime in the late 1980s.I guess I didn't quite follow the sumo controversy too carefully. That a match that doesn't much matter is "thrown" doesn't bother me. When an NFL team has secured a spot in the playoffs, it often doesn't play its stars in a meaningless end of season regular game. I liken the sumo situation to that.Freakonomics is thought provoking. For that, it is recommended. Treat yourself to an interesting flick.

First I want to say that I have not read the book and can not compare the film to it, although I am familiar with these types of studies and find them all interesting. I found the film interesting and nicely made, with great animations that get the point across. Everything is explained very well. They had an interesting order of the bits or chapters, since they kept the first few short and sweet, and then put the longer (for me a bit drawn out) chapters after. I think this is to keep the audiences attention, since I was thinking "well the first ones were short, it can't take much longer till the next one comes", and then some more short ones interspersed with another longer one in between. This is of course subjective, since I did not take my stopwatch out to time them. All in all, I found the film well done. I hope they make more in the future, since I really enjoyed the little animations and the way it was done in general..

I don't understand all of the negative reviews. I loved the book and loved the movie.I think the negative reviews had to have come from people who are skeptical about the validity of statistical data (which makes no sense).Or just believe that economics and looking at the way data sets can predict outcomes is totally false.Ney to the Neysayers! I thought the movie was well executed with fun animation to keep attention but most of all the content was king. Cheers to the authors for their fantastic work!