Edge of America (2003)

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I will watch pretty much any native American film (either made by native American, or about them),  I am guessing I stumbled upon this film after watching Dreamkeeper, which also features the actor Eddie Spears.

This is the story of a women's high school basketball team on the 3 Nations Reservation.  It shows how they went from a horrible losing streak to be coached into winners.

In this film, coach Williams refers to the people of the reservation as native Americans, but  is "corrected" by the Annie assistant coach.  I take issue with this.  While the term Indian brings up images of beautiful people in native American costumes, it's use is disingenuous.  What I mean is, that it actual refers to a culture that was has has existed in Asia for thousands of years, and using the term to refer to a different unrelated group of people belittles the original and true Indians.

DVD cover that gives you an actual idea what the movie is about.

I believe this was a TV movie.  It was based on a true story and which was covered in another film "Rocks with Wings", which I haven't yet tracked down, but appears to be on YouTube.

Unfortunately, the real coach represented in this film, Jerry Richardson, was killed in a car accident in Florida in 1996.

There were a few native American (Navajo) words used in the film, but try as I might I was unable to chat exactly what they were saying, and unable to find the terms with an internet search.  The words I was looking for appear to mean together and were used by the assistant coach when she confronts coach Williams for the first time.

Sweden: Heaven and Hell (1968)

I couldn't recall why I had added this film to my list and only discovered the reason after getting most of the way through the film.  It was only for a short musical segment.  The film features the debut of the song Mahna mahna, which is in turn the basis for arguably the best Muppet sketch ever.

The film itself turns out to be the start of the mondo series of explation films presented as a pseudo documentary.  Some of the things featured in this film are clearly staged.

I certainly cannot vouch for the accuracy of this film, but it does represent Sweden in a way that appeals to me.  They make it appear that Sweden has extremely liberal views on sex and is free from the christian sexual repression that pervades in America.  They also show that Sweden regulates liquor sales quite tightly, and that known alcoholics (and identified by some sort of black list) are banned from purchasing alcohol.

Still, I wonder if people really do eat shoe polish for the .  It seems that the cost of alcohol would be