Sundance. I.O.U.S.A.

"Federal fiscal policy, trade imbalances and politicians mortgaging the lives of future generations may not sound like a Saturday night at the movies with a tub of popcorn, but Wordplay director Patrick Creadon's Sundance documentary competition film I.O.U.S.A. is crucial viewing for anyone who claims to care about America," writes indieWIRE's Brian Brooks. "Presented from a non-partisan viewpoint, the film deftly describes the country's looming fiscal brink. Mounting federal debt, combined with a huge trade imbalance and a decade of cheap credit that gave gluttonous consumers a material high. But, the bill to pay for the party is coming due."

Updated through 1/28.

"A poignant, terrifying and engrossing look at a topic normally relegated to powerpoint presentations by polyester suit clad professors, I.O.U.S.A. is a powerful documentary that makes no qualms about espousing its point of view," writes Mike Raffensperger at Zoom In Online. "Centered around the 'Fiscal Wake Up Tour' of former US Comptroller General David Walker and The Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert Bixby, the film provides historical context for the ever increasing national debt and commentary on its economic, political and social ramifications.... [F]ar and away the best trick Creadon pulls are the montage sequences that express profound or complicated topics in succinct, entertaining ways. Of particular note were the opening montage showcasing decades of presidencies all spitting out identical rhetoric and an early sequence which elegantly sums up 300 years of American economic history."

And Zoom In's got a video interview with Creadon.

Update, 1/28: "IOUSA is most successful when it finds ways to entertainingly and concisely convey decades of economic history through animated charts, archival photos, and, even, a Saturday Night Live skit," writes Scott Macaulay at Filmmaker. But it "punts when it comes to the public policy specifics needed to resolve the problem as the film formulates it."

Posted by dwhudson at January 21, 2008 2:40 PM