MovieChat Forums > Freakonomics (2010) Discussion > Best Segment

Best Segment

posted 12 years ago by blaircam
1 reply | jump to latest

I wanted to know which segment people liked best or at least thought worked the best. Disclaimer - only watched movie, haven't read the book(s).
These are my thoughts:
Sumo - potentially a really interesting area but the clincher for the proof of corruption wasn't shown. It is surely no surprise to anyone that a professional sportsperson with a strong reason to win is more likely to win in a match with another professional sportsperson who has little reason to win. This demonstrates nothing but basic motivation. The clincher is in the follow-up. They simply STATE that the next match-up shows that the 'favour' is then repaid. But they spend plenty of time with the set-up, then just spend two seconds just stating the clincher. Then they digress into a bunch of allegations of corruption that are not really connected to the statistics.
Names - thought this was interesting and well done but really treated quite lightly. At least is was mostly based on the statistics, with enough case studies to make it interesting.
Incentives for Students - I really enjoyed this one, but mainly because I wanted Urail to succeed and took some schadenfreude from Kevin's inevitable failure.
The other thing that irked me - the authors referred to systematic cheating in Chicago test scores - then did nothing to show any evidence...

"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[–] tjosephjr 11 years ago

With the exception of the incentive segment and the abortion/crime reduction segment, I found the movie mostly forgettable. The incentive and abortion segments will linger. I, too, had not read the book and knew nothing about the book or movie except for name recognition.

The sumo-wrestler segment was definitely a missed opportunity. And I was shocked to hear that my name, Cindy, had fallen so far out of vogue to be relegated to stripper-name association ;-)

But...it did lead me to watch "Why We Fight" now that I'm in "documentary" mode.

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career..."