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IMDbPro

I Am

  • 20102010
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 1h 18m
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
3.8K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
39,779
237
I Am (2010)
Director Tom Shadyac speaks with intellectual and spiritual leaders about what's wrong with our world and how we can improve both it and the way we live in it.
Play trailer2:30
2 Videos
1 Photo
Documentary
Director Tom Shadyac speaks with intellectual and spiritual leaders about what's wrong with our world and how we can improve both it and the way we live in it.Director Tom Shadyac speaks with intellectual and spiritual leaders about what's wrong with our world and how we can improve both it and the way we live in it.Director Tom Shadyac speaks with intellectual and spiritual leaders about what's wrong with our world and how we can improve both it and the way we live in it.
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
3.8K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
39,779
237
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • Tom Shadyac
    • Stars
      • Tom Shadyac(uncredited)
      • Desmond Tutu
      • Noam Chomsky
    Top credits
    • Director
      • Tom Shadyac
    • Stars
      • Tom Shadyac(uncredited)
      • Desmond Tutu
      • Noam Chomsky
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 43User reviews
    • 30Critic reviews
    • 38Metascore
    • Awards
      • 2 wins

    Videos2

    I Am
    Trailer 2:30
    I Am
    Clip from "I Am"
    Clip 1:17
    Clip from "I Am"

    Photos

    Add photo

    Top cast

    Edit
    Tom Shadyac
    Tom Shadyac
    • Self
    • (uncredited)
    Desmond Tutu
    Desmond Tutu
    • Self
    Noam Chomsky
    Noam Chomsky
    • Self
    Ray Anderson
    • Self
    Marc Ian Barasch
    Marc Ian Barasch
    • Self
    Coleman Barks
    • Self
    John Francis
    • Self
    Thom Hartmann
    Thom Hartmann
    • Self
    Chris Jordan
    Chris Jordan
    • Self
    Dacher Keltner
    Dacher Keltner
    • Self
    Rollin McCraty
    • Self
    Lynne McTaggart
    • Self
    Daniel Quinn
    • Self
    Dean Radin
    Dean Radin
    • Self
    Elisabet Sahtouris
    • Self
    Marilyn Schlitz
    • Self
    Richard Shadyac
    • Self
    David Suzuki
    David Suzuki
    • Self
    • Director
      • Tom Shadyac
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Tom Shadyac described making the documentary as "freeing", giving himself complete creative control along with his small crew.
    • Quotes

      Tom Shadyac: An ocean, a rainforest, the human body, are all co-operatives. The redwood tree doesn't take all the soil and nutrients, just what it needs to grow. A lion doesn't kill every gazelle, just one. We have a term for something in the body when it takes more than its share, we call it: cancer.

    • Connections
      Features Wall Street (1987)

    User reviews43

    Review
    Top review
    Liberal it is.
    "Love is all we need." John Lennon

    Director of goofy comedies like Ace Ventura, Tom Shaydac had an epiphany after a life-threatening bicycle accident and did this sweet documentary, I Am, to answer two simple questions: What's wrong with our world? What can we do about it? Enlisting the brain power of intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, among others (some more celebrity than brainy), he gets a surprising unanimity.

    With its liberal leaning threatening to capsize the project, scholars and Shaydac agree that community rather than individualism (watch out Ayn Rand) is the answer, love rather that selfishness. It has been popular of late to attack the American dream of individual achievement in order to glamorize the Christian philosophy of loving your brother and helping your neighbor.

    Disagreeing with this notion is akin to being a grumpy capitalist, so no one in this soft documentary disagrees by arguing, as anyone might, that American individualism is what built the USA into a superpower, starting as it might with the exhortation to "go West, young man (woman)" or believe in "self reliance." I contend that both charity and individualism can work together for a better world, but Shaydac seems in no mood to compromise, or more appropriately, collaborate.

    Pretty images, Rumi recitations, and new-age music are the background the curly-coiffed Shaydac employs to keep a glow on the message, which is consistent and suspiciously pat. For instance, shots of loving animal and human families don't necessarily make his case because most will naturally love and nurture their own regardless of charitable pieties.

    I have to give Shaydac credit for shucking his material gain like his Hollywood mansion and moving into a Malibu trailer park with his utility bicycle. Unlike Michael Moore, he walks the walk (or rides the ride in the case of that bike).

    I Am is a comfortable tome on the effectiveness of love, a concept difficult to denigrate.

    "In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art."

    Rumi, Art as Flirtation and Surrender
    helpful•9
    11
    • jdesando
    • May 27, 2011

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 2011 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official site
      • Shady Acres Entertainment (United States)
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Ben
    • Production companies
      • Flying Eye Productions
      • Homemade Canvas Productions
      • Shady Acres Entertainment
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $1,591,034
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $10,092
      • Feb 20, 2011
    • Gross worldwide
      • $1,591,034
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 18 minutes
    • Color
      • Color

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