Don't Let the Cynics 'Put Down' this Movie

silly man. the movie threw the first stone.

if i'm a fool, you should think about what it says about the movie.

are you dense? surely before you try to devote massive tax monies of your fellow man towards funding massive world welfare projects you'd rid yourself of your own personal excess wealth first? or is the act of giving away others money just so much easier?

you have children? you adopt? no foster children? no adoptions from 3rd world countries? instead of paying for new shoes or private school for your children you could instead save the lives of 3rd world children? why aren't you? you are heartless that is why:P

and idealism is not without danger. it is the activist that goes into a poor country and demands a factory stop child labor. the activist leaves and goes back to their decadent life style and thinks they've done good while a poor family starts to starve when its children are fired and they fall further into poverty.

I agree that the important thing the movie does is to put the information out there, in a palatable form - if you like Curtis et al.

Getting rid of my computer is not going to help third world debt or crippling trade tariffs which prevent the third world from helping itself. Having individuals informed about how their standard of living is helped or hurt by those tariffs is important but the tariffs can only be changed by governments. Getting those governments to make those changes is the responsibility of the individual.

"In the case of the steel tariffs President Bush introduced in March of 2002, the cost was $732,000 in higher prices for each steel job saved, according to Dan Griswold of the Cato Institute."

surely you know thats a cop out. oh my effort won't make a big enough dent, why try at all?

ever see those late night commercials asking for donations for charities? i'm sure your computer and car could fund atleast a few childrens well being and education. a few dollars goes a long way in the 3rd world.

the simple fact is many people are more confortable giving away someone elses money rather then their own.

While I'm sure that anonymous name-calling on the internet is comforting and cathartic for everyone, it's less than productive. On this thread, a couple of people have tried to make the point (that the movie also makes) that extreme poverty in Africa is due to a number of factors and, therefore, alleviating poverty is complicated. Throwing money at the problem will not work so long as governmental and corporate corruption are the rule of the day. While debt relief and aid packages are important steps in fighting the effects of poverty, clamping down on the West's exploitation of African resources (abetted by local governmental officials) is more likely to get to the sources of African poverty.

Thank you thulars, I was getting very disappointed with these posts, they were all missing the point. But you hit it right on the head. There are many different problems, personally i see two main camps: humanitarian and economic. I believe the humanitarian problems are more at the individual (or micro) level and could benefit from more dollars: for vaccinations for malaria, TB and polio etc; for increased education in health and sanitation issues; and for greater access to water/sanitation. But the much harder issue is achieving sustainable economic development which is at a much broader (or macro) level (can you tell i'm an economist?!). This is something that donors have learnt cannot be achieved by throwing money at countries (and imposing conditionality really got us nowhere...). In other words, rather than aiming for 0.7% ODA/GNI, let's aim to work with governments/NGOs/CSOs etc within countries to identify each country's critical constraints to growth and thereby making aid more effective, rather than just more.

I guess we're talking about totally different things here. The ''character development'' of a romantic lead is - you fall in love, you try to convince the other person that you're the right one. You don't get necessarily another or even better person. That's what I see as development. Not the hormones. And - as Henry Miller said (nearly I would've written Arthur Miller. Ouch...) ''Love is nothing but a boogie woogie of hormones.'' (Don't know if these are the exact words. I only know the German translation of this quote)

''What's wrong in the world'' was about poverty, war, etc.. I think even we can agree that no loving couple on earth could change that alone with being in love. That's what it meant. At least I think so.

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I don't know if Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have seen this movie yet but at least it looks if important people with serious money are, at last, trying to do something about world poverty.

I hope some of the people who work for them, and have the ability to allocate the money, see this movie and can direct some resources to the appropriate areas, to make a difference.

Good on you Bill and Warren - let others (billionaires and politicians) take note. You CAN make a difference!

I agree, this movie has many facets and layers. Thank you for mentioning the Rolling Stones dreams. Personal dreams were also mentioned in the meeting in which Lawrence was asked not to attend the final day of the meeting. "Risk it" is my favorite line in this movie. To me, it is also the most prominent message, from the romance between Gina and Lawrence, to Lawrence's personal struggle from his mundane life, to nations' resolution to make the world a better place, to taking upon ourselves to become a part of a potential great generation.