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Kenneth Turan’s film pick of the week: ‘The Big Uneasy’

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If you know Harry Shearer only as a key voice on “The Simpsons,” you’re missing a lot, especially his work as a fearless and incisive social commentator on his KCRW program “Le Show” and in his excellent muckraking documentary, “The Big Uneasy,” playing in theaters nationwide one night only Aug. 30.

A part-time resident of New Orleans, Shearer has put together a gripping, persuasive film that posits that the catastrophic flooding that overwhelmed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was not a natural disaster but the result of years of ruinous decisions and horrific misjudgments by the Army Corps of Engineers, the same people who are in charge of the city’s latest flood-control plan.

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With the help of lively computer imagery and smart interviews, “The Big Uneasy” shows what went wrong and how both academic investigators and a Corps of Engineers whistle-blower were unceremoniously quashed. Essential viewing. Showing at the Grove, the Americana in Glendale and theaters listed at thebiguneasy.com.

-- Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times film critic


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