LydiaOLydia Reviews

Midway (2019)

A just ok comic book.

[3/10 · 21 January 2020]

If you know anything about airplanes, WW2, ships, midway, history, the US navy, the 1940s, Japanese culture, CGI, etc etc this movie will be a letdown.

If you have the mentality of an 8-year old looking at a 1950s war comic then this movie will be just great.

I'd be willing to bet almost anything that "subcmdr", the first review that you are likely to see when you looked up midway is a paid shill. He comes up with bogus and who cares faults like "a few collar devices that weren't pinned on" and ignores the major ones. Moreover, he should know that if he supposedly studied the battle at annapolis "26 years ago", then this was before the release of the parshall and tully book, and therefore wrong. for one, if he claims that midway was "the pivotal moment changing the course of the pacific war", then he has at best an amateur's view of the battle.

all the pilots in the movie behave like college bros born after the turn of the millenium. the japanese are childish caricature.s the CGI is godawful. god awful. videogames have a better akagi than this "big budget" movie. so much is so very very very, very, very very very wrong with this movie if you care about history or authenticity.

but, as a comic book, it's a hoot.

Britain's Ultra Nationalists (2019 Video)

An important topic, but a deeply flawed documentary.

[3/10 · 9 October 2019]

I'm sorry Mr. Tori if this review will hurt. I know you did your best.

I consider myself to be, broadly speaking, politically progressive. I am a foreigner who moved to britain specifically because of its internationalism, intellect, and openness. The recent renaissance of a paleoconservative ultranationalist regressive right in Britain is deeply troubling.

One way to expose interview subject with repulsive and poorly thought through views, is to give them just enough rope to hang themselves with. And, indeed, this documentary is at its best when Tori interviews the dim bulbs of the foul mouthed working class anti-islam campaigner and that delusional american-accented fool living in liverpool. To most viewers with an open mind,it becomes quite clear that those two have nothing to offer.

However, when dealing with other subjects, many of whom (like the woman leader and the student with the mussolini t-shirts), the documentary falls utterly flat. The woman and the student present narratives and worldviews that are internally consistent and carefully phrased. Mr. Tori, utterly unprepared and perhaps even a bit overmatched without realizing it, too often resorts to irrelevancies and labels instead of providing an actual response. For example, by way of "rebuttal" to the student's ultimately deluded but broadly internally consistent worldview, Mr. Tori speculates if the student is being used by dark forces. That's not a rebuttal, Mr. Tori - it just advertises that you had no real response. At other times, Mr. Tori seems to think that simply attaching the "r-word" label to somebody's views will be a sufficient counterargument. It's not.

And that's really the danger of today's new ultrarightists - the more sophisticated of them (including richard spencer) present a tale that has a real internal logic to it. Some of what they bring up are real issues that some of the worst "rebutters" on the left ignore or misconstrue. Responding to today's ultrarightists means understanding their arguments and picking them apart with the same careful language that they have used in constructing them. When the rebuttals fail because of unpreparedness or failure to really address the rightists issues, it attracts more people to the nationalists' cause.

Mr Tori is a very, very brave man for doing this documentary. It is important work. I am sure it was done on a shoestring budget. It is a pity that he let the more clever of his subjects effectively get the best of him.

Let the Girls Play (2018)

Cliched characterisations spoil and otherwise interesting story

[5/10 · 7 December 2018]

I am a fan of women's football, So, i was excited to learn about and to be able to see this movie on a recent Air France flight.

And, while it's an interesting way to pass the time, ultimately it has many very serious deficiencies.

For one, the movie never quite can decide if it's supposed to be a comedy or not. So, the tone of the film careens between melodramatic and comedic randomly. Which maybe would be ok if it were pulled off with more skill, but alas this movie just wasn't. It just comes off as disjointed.

It further compounds this by not being able to decide how much it needs to stick to historical accuracy and how much dramatic license it has. At one pivotal moment, there is an opportunity for a neat dramatic resolution - the founding coach is embroiled in sex scandal and doesn't know much about football. The father of the main female character is an ex footballer has just basically come to agree that his daughter can play on the team - if the movie were interested in dramatic resolution, the experienced father would take over as coach. But, in this case, i guess, history was stuck to and the founding coach muddles through.

The entire character arc of the main coach is unbelievable. He starts out as a cad and transforms almost instantly into a progressive. The idea of a women's football team is mocked as preposterous but then once the team is founded they somehow find other womens' teams to play. The women's team goes from hopeless amateurs to being able to beat a seasoned and serious team of boys in their first game - as in, during their first game. the team is so desperate for players that they bring on a housewife who can barely run and yet this team becomes world-beaters with her onboard (no matter how nascent women's pro football was at the time, this is insulting in its cartoonishness).

The characters largely come accross as unbelievable. Its just kind of disjointed. But, as I said, for all its flaws, it kind of flows.

A more interesting story would have focused on the "unofficial" 1971 women's world cup. The actors are probably not to blame for the failures of this movie so much as the script and the direction which was never quite sure what it was after.

The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2010)

Quite Possibly, the Stupidest Film Ever Made.

[1/10 · 15 November 2015]

"The Light Bulb Conspiracy" is, as my title states, quite possibly, the stupidest film ever made.

I don't write this to be insulting. I mean this very literally.

Specifically, it baffles me how anybody would create or finance a film that is so ignorant of history, ignorant of economics, and ignorant of basic engineering that anybody with a college freshman understanding of any of these can trivially and conclusively debunk its core thesis.

Basically, this film has it in for "planned obsolescence", the idea that modern products have been designed to fail.

Virtually every example they use to illustrate this "grand conspiracy" of planned obsolescence is nonsense. However, the one that they use as the tying-together core thread for all of this is the humble light bulb.

Basically, they argue that a long time ago, a light bulb with a much longer lifespan was invented and then suppressed in favor of shorter life bulbs in order to sell more light bulbs over time. To prove this, they show off an old light bulb that has been in service for over 100 years.

now here's the thing: if you want to light a room, there's almost no limit to the material that you can use in order to do so. Heck, you can put a strong enough current through two ends of an iron girder and it will glow and give off light. Nobody does this because the energy involved would be tremendously expensive and wasteful and for all sorts of technical reasons the light given off would be poor (too dim).

As it turns out, relative to the every other technology available at the time, the tungsten filament that for a long time was in use produced a superior quality light for a relative minimum of energy use and could be mass manufactured at a price people were willing to pay even though such light bulbs needed replacing from time to time. The movie suggests that this was caused not by market forces, but by some grand conspiracy of light bulb manufacturers.

Hogwash.

I've been to north Korea. Guess what - their light bulb factories make the same type of light bulbs. Were they, and the rest of the communist world, which did likewise, in on the conspiracy too? Oh sorry, not all of the communist world - the movie harps on an example of a supposed East German light long life bulb that was rejected, apparently by everybody in the western world, because of some 'grand conspiracy.' Or, maybe, just maybe, because it used a hell of a lot of power and didn't give off worthwhile light for all that power use (remember: in east Germany, power markets were skewed to make domestic energy artificially cheap through subsidy, leading to wasteful usage).

Engineers have a concept of "mean time between failure." It's the average length of time that you can expect some item to stay in service before it fails. If a product consists of several pieces, the MTBF of the product can be calculated based on the MTBF (and distribution) of the components. Let's say you're making a product with two parts. If for technical reasons the MTBF of one part is 5 years, if you have a choice for the other part of a MTBF of 20 years or 100 years, it makes little to no sense to pass on to the consumer the costs associated with the more expensive 100 year version since the weak link in the chain is almost certainly going to be the 5 year component anyway. Calculating and understanding MTBF therefore is what good engineers do. Totally misunderstand it and spin it into some conspiracy is what the guys who made this movie do.

Now, in the capitalist system, you CAN argue that at times companies have hobbled products to make other ones more attractive. Such forces price discrimination is a legitimate criticism of capitalism. However, it only exists by definition where the producer has what's called 'market power.' For the makers of this film to suggest a parallel between that and everyday goods, where there is huge market competition (including in light bulbs) is just daft. I don't see people clamoring for the irons of the 1920s for their "better quality." Instead, I see a range of irons from under $10 to over $300 on amazon corresponding to the budget and expectations of various users from students and mobile people to upscale snobs and dry cleaning professionals. What's more, I see capitalist economics having brought irons (and even light bulbs) the hands of peoples throughout the world who even a few decades ago had to do with primitive, inefficient, time consuming tools and darkness.

Quite literally, every example presented in the movie is trivially debunk-able by anybody with half a brain for basic engineering or economics. The movie implies conspiracy where none exists, and of course the implications are vague since they have no actual evidence. But, you know, the entire movie does have a near continuous x-files type conspiracy soundtrack going. So there's that.

As I said - quite possibly the stupidest movie (by which I mean "dumb" as in "uneducated") movie ever made. The movie doesn't contain any actual data or numbers or anything that could be construed as quantitative analysis. Just conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory that only a fool would believe.

If this movie at least addressed obvious objections that people with engineering, design, economics, and other backgrounds might have to this, this movie might be worth two stars instead of one. It doesn't do that, because to do so would cast this movie's deep deep logical and empirical failings into inescapably sharp relief.

Not worth watching. The writers should be ashamed of themselves.

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Endearing and memorable, if imperfectly written and acted.

[6/10 · 29 March 2015]

This is a compact movie with a simple conceit that initially looks to be hokey but ends up driving home its payoff quite memorably. Were the writing and acting better, it could have been a classic, but alas it falls well short of that mark. Owen Wilson was an acting high point, but even then his performance was just OK - nobody else was in the least bit identifiable as an actual human rather than an actor playing to a script. True, some of the the 'historical' figures were supposed to be caricatures, but even beyond this, the 'deeper' characters had no depth or chemistry. Worst of all, for a movie supposedly set around Paris, all I saw was a really poor American take on Paris; very little reminded me of that city which I know quite well. Heck, the "French" characters' "Frenglish" accents were barely identifiable as such.

A real pity, since, as I said, the payoff and the idea were very decent for a compact movie like this. I did not dislike it, but thought the acting and writing let the whole thing down quite a bit. A 90 minute good date movie for an undergraduate trying to impress a girl who fancies herself an intellectual but has never been to Paris.

The Inbetweeners 2 (2014)

oh how the mighty have cashed in.

[2/10 · 17 September 2014]

The inbetweeners series used to be about tightly scripted "off the cuff" clever banter and a pretty good sense of chemistry between the boys. the first movie was a bit looser but fit the bill as a 'vacation' away from the school environment and the plot was at least passable as light fare. even well before the time a piece of Neil's poo slides down a water-slide and hits will in the face, it's clear that the inbetweeners are utterly finished and this is the cast members trying to stretch one more pay day out of a low budget, presumably after the failure of their follow-up series 'chickens.' If you're a fan of the inbetweeners and want to keep cherished memories of them going forward, for the love of god stay away from this film. it's if Monty python made 'the love guru.' avoid at all costs. 2 stars not one simply because 1 is truly bottom of the barrel, but this may be the worst movie of 2014.

Lincoln (2012)

One of the 50 greatest films of the last 100 years.

[10/10 · 9 October 2013]

Subtle. Thoughtful. Articulate. Historically Accurate. Brilliantly Acted.

Ultimately, this movie is a greater tribute to one of the greatest US presidents than any 'straight' biography would have been. We don't need to see a young Abe splitting rails -- we can see his strength and independence clearly enough through day lewis's brilliant portrayal. we don't need to see the bullet entering his body at fords theater (as some juvenile commenters here have insisted); we understand the event better by watching the effects it had on the others, such as molly Todd Lincoln.

we get great insight into politics -- both of the era and in general - especially through the eyes of Tommy lee Jones' perfect portrayal of Thad Stevens.

but most of all, we see that truly great things like the emancipation proclamation and the 13th amendment were ultimately real things made by real people and not those by some to-be-over-idealized demi-gods.

ignore the juveniles (who demand more "action" or a more "paint by numbers" biography) and the ideologues (who are offended by one aspect or another of the essentially accurately portrayed history) and see this film, start to finish, with no distractions. You just might find yourself watching it three times in a row, as I did.

I give this film what I very very seldom give on IMDb: an unhesitating 10/10.

Phantom (I) (2013)

Das Low Budget

[2/10 · 9 October 2013]

"Phantom's" opening scene is of Harris, the veteran submarine commander, taking in the sights of the harbor of the Soviet submarine base at Rybachiy supposedly in the 1960s or so while standing on the bow of a tugboat. This scene required one actor - Harris. There are still plenty of former-Soviet harbors that look now much like they would have looked then - a few new ships but a lot of rusty stuff and old soviet or soviet-like equipment. But no, the budget apparently didn't have what was necessary to fly one actor and one film crew to such a location for a day to get a plausible shot, so instead he's clearly in an ultra-modern container port. The difference is enough to be noticed by anybody.

Thus Phantom starts out on a bad note... and gets progressively worse. There is a lot to criticize in this movie--screenplay, plot, acting, and dialogue (the latter resorting to "I am the bad guy and now will give the grand exposition of my plot" moments). Much has been covered elsewhere, including the fact that whoever wrote this crap obviously knows near zero about how soviet people behaved, talked, looked, etc. However, for my personally, the absolute biggest scorn I leave for the set designers / prop people / costume people for absolutely mailing it in. Old soviet artifacts are easy to find, but instead it seems that somebody simply raided a souvenir store full of kitsch. FOr example, when ed Harris takes a drink from a flak of alcohol, the flask has one of those big red stars on it like you might find only in a post-1991 souvenir shop selling fake or newly-manufactured soviet kitsch. When somebody decided that soviet submariners wear blue and white striped turtlenecks, somebody went out and got one at the GAP. Correspondingly (and especially coupled with the American accents and, much much worse, American MANNERISMS that predominate), nothing about this movie feels even vaguely 'soviet' (or even 'period' for that matter, as there are well too many anachronisms).

it's a low budget movie all around sunk further by mail-it-in effort by all involved. in fairness, i'd find it hard to get excited to work on a movie based on a script apparently written by a 12 year old as well. The only 'good' part of this movie is reasonable technical submarine jargon cribbed from better, albeit American-submarine-based movies.

Harris and Duchovniy collected their paycheck and in fairness did what they could, but nothing can save this forgettable mess of a movie. If you feel that you'd like to see a decent (imperfect, but much much better than this) cold war movie that may be new to you, try 'the Bedford incident' (1965).

G.I. Jane (1997)

An excellent movie except for the last 25 minutes.

[7/10 · 6 September 2013]

I finally got around to seeing GI Jane. Quite a good movie - the brutality of the training bits really puts into context what women might face in combat and the "real", not theoretical brutality they face.

Unfortunately, an otherwise excellent movie loses out due to a tacked-on and militarily nonsensical battle scene which occupies the last 25 minutes. The movie should have ended after Demi gave the Senator an ultimatum and she is seen, in the distance, rejoining her unit in training. By that point, all of the major hurdles and challenges will have been overcome, and we would know that the future would be there as she was to make it. It would have been a fitting ending. The dumb battle scene in the end was just awful on many levels.

Fate Is the Hunter (1964)

Not quite as tightly written as other reviews suggest.

[5/10 · 24 June 2013]

I've long heard the phrase 'fate is the hunter.' It's a neat phrase. If only I had left it at that and left this movie half shrouded in a mystique associated with the title.

Here's the basic story: a jet airliner (reasonably novel in 1964) crashes. We are given some inkling of what went on in those final few moments, but then the film hinges upon the earnest airline representative's desire to get through to the truth. i'd like to say that the middle of the movie involves him chasing down various leads, but it really doesn't. It's more of a meandering bit of nothing.

So, was his friend, the pilot in the fatal crash at fault? Or was it something else, and if so, what? I had it figured out the second the identity of the survivors was made clear (I won't spoil it with any more than that), though I'm a pilot, so perhaps that helped me out a bit.

The special effects and especially the cockpit scenes in the jet were poor. The various flashbacks and background expositions ultimately did't do very much but drag out the movie and almost nobody (pilot, investigator, etc) acted in a way that their real world equivalents would act. Finally, the movie does precious little in terms of giving a good feel for 1960s aviation.

It's a solid 5/10 of a movie. There are certainly worse films and worse ways to kill a surprisingly long running time, but there are also far better films. You'll probably find it hard to sit through the midlde of this movie without getting distracted, but then you can come back from the end and see whether your guess at the tidy denouement is correct.

ToyKhtoProyshovKrizVohon (2011)

Brave film, but embarrassingly bad at places.

[4/10 · 9 November 2012]

I saw this film as part of a Ukrainian film festival that was attended both by Ukrainians living abroad and non-Ukrainians. While watching the highly touted film I was concerned about how to convey my misgivings to the Ukrainian contingent. I needn't had worried. They were more harsh on it than I would have been.

Folks, I don't know who you think you are fooling by giving this movie "10" ratings or even a 7.2 cumulative score. It wont help Ukraine s a country or the Ukrainian industry in any meaningful way to give artificially high scores to bad movies.

The plot is nominally interesting -- Soviet-Ukrainian ww2 hero pilot gets shot down and then sent to the lager (gulags) after the war. his attempts to reunite with his true love are thwarted by a superior. the pilot eventually ends up with an American Indian tribe (what?).

In practice, the plot is a bit of a jumbled mess and if we're supposed to take it in any way seriously and not just as some allegorical dream sequence or whatever it strains all credulity.

a coherent or credible plot however isn't, strictly speaking, essential to a good film. sympathetic or at least well developed characters are. the characters here simply are not. the pilot and his, ahem, "tartar" wife are bland archetypes of goodness and decency. the 'bad guy' superior probably gets the most screen time and while the actors portrayal of him is on one hand good, on the other it's hard to make sense of his motives or what.

and then there's the portrayal of native North Americans (Indians). It's a stereotypically crude, geographically and historically ignorant hack job, to put it mildly. The "half Indian" on the cover/poster wears a headdress that wouldn't be seen within 2000 miles of wherever it was (Pacific Northwest-ish--though again, the geography here is very suspect) he supposedly was. The "Chief", while doing a competent job given who he is and the hackneyed dialogue, is still obviously some white guy with a Minnesota or Chicago accent.

The "native" music is good and well exploits the similarities between some Ukrainian "wild" music and similar American Indian wails and music. Some of the editing is bold. And I wish I could give more points for boldness, but boldness doesn't make a movie - results do. And, ultimately, this is an embarrassing mess that fails to tell a plausible, coherent, or entertaining story either historically, geographically, or inter-personally.

Failure Is Not an Option (2003 TV Movie)

Excellent.. but for one critical mistake.

[1/10 · 6 November 2012]

This is an excellent movie insofar as telling the history of Mission Control goes. I have no issue with this.

However, by giving this movie a 1 star (awful) rating, I hope that the producers will take notice of what can only be called a gross oversight - an error that they made over and over and over and over and over (30+ times in 15 minutes, until I stopped counting).

The country that launched Sputnik was not "Russia." It was THE SOVIET UNION (CCCP).

While Russia was the largest constituent state of the Soviet Union, it is no more correct to say that the two are the same than it would be to say that Texas is the USA or England is the United Kingdom. They're simply not. While casually people may make the error, for a history documentary to make it is just shockingly bad.

Many of the key people involved in the Soviet space program were non-Russian and/or came from places not in Russia. This includes tens of thousands of Ukrainians, Balts, and Central Asians. Koryolov, the Soviet chief designer and pretty much the man responsible for the whole program was half Ukrainian. NONE of the rockets, patches, etc had "Russia" written on them. It was all CCCP.

By perpetuating the myth that "the soviet union=Russia", this documentary gives undue support to dictators like Putin while keeping deserved praise from non-Russians who earned it. Let's be clear--the Soviet Union was a place of many great evils. But, "credit where credit was due"--there were also some great successes.

I can't for the life of me imagine how this script passed through even the most basic fact checking. Shockingly ignorant on this point.

Though, as others have pointed out, the rest of the movie is excellent. 8.8 excellent? Probably not, but still worth a view.

Taking Chance (2009 TV Movie)

I've had a long think about this film.

[3/10 · 25 July 2012]

"Taking Chance" is the story of Lt. Colonel Kevin Bacon accompanying the body of a fallen Marine from the body's arrival in the USA from Iraq to its final resting place in Wyoming. In one sense, it is a well crafted film--somber and respectful and encouraging us all to contemplate the lives and deaths of heroic soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen.

A deeper look, however, reveals it to be a shamelessly manipulative bit of propaganda that would not hesitate to stoop to any stereotype, cliché, or contrivance to beat you over the head with its militarist message.

Ultimately, the message here is not of tragic, senseless loss, but of deification. "If you die wearing the uniform of a US Marine, in death you will become a demi-God." It is little different than the Japanese militarists telling their charges that they become kami (spirit-gods) at Yasukuni Shrine or of the elaborate militarist veneration of the dead of the Roman Legions (see: Titus Andronicus).

And the worst part about it? It frames it in such a way, as all well-crafted propaganda does, that if you are somehow against the militarist message of this movie, that you are somehow against the best interests of the USA and of individual Americans--a blatant lie if there ever was one.

Ships with Wings (1941)

Featuring some of the worst military aircraft of all time.

[4/10 · 26 May 2012]

"Ships With Wings" starts out admirably - with an excellent title and introductory sequence featuring sharp studies of aircraft and ships of the Fleet Air Arm. The movie proper also begins well, with snappy, witty English banter and the glimmer of what appear to be some complex characters. And then, before you know it, it all falls apart into what others have appropriately referred to as a 'comic book.' That's really the only way to describe it.

I kind of like this film nevertheless, so my 4/10 rating may be a bit harsh, but I said to myself "if 5 is average, surely this film must rate below average." And, it does.

Noteworthy are the aircraft used in this film as, on balance, they are some of the worst military aircraft to have flown. Specifically, the Blackburn Skua and (especially) the Breda 88 Lince routinely feature on lists of the "world's worst aircraft". However, the Lince at least looked the part of a decent aircraft, so it is understandable that it would have been cast as a fearsome enemy. It is worthwhile to read the wikipedia article on the Lince to see just how useless it was.

Home of the Brave (2006)

Ahead of its time. The best war movie of the 2000s, hands down.

[10/10 · 7 March 2012]

No movie yet made better reflects American wars of the early 2000s. It is realistic and touching; there are no easy answers but only long journeys to recovery. Back when this movie came out, many people were under a number of delusions - about the nature of the American Economy and of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is reflected in the IMDb reviews, where many people's political biases (from 2006, when the movie was released) made them unable to see what this film was about. It's six years later - Iraq and Afghanistan are, well, are certainly not in the win column and all but the most obstinate of holdouts now realize the tragic foolishness of the US's reckless escapades.

This movie is not easy to watch; it is not fun. But it is honest and well acted, and approaches the subject matter intelligently and compassionately. This is an absolute "under the radar" movie, and I hope this goes down in history along with "the Deer Hunter" as movies ahead of their time. This is far far far better than any Iraq/Afghanistan movie that has yet been made, and I've seen them all. 10/10 unhesitatingly.

Act of Valor (2012)

Brilliantly Marketed; average movie

[3/10 · 3 March 2012]

Another reviewer from another site summed it up perfectly: this is, in a world, "Call of Duty, the Movie." (Call of Duty, for those unaware, is a popular video game series).

I fully expect my review here to be voted down by the sort of people who don't like hearing the following truth: this movie is a triumph of marketing over movie-making. Specifically, it is aimed at the people who write reviews like: "I am a military mom / retired military member and think it's great that Hollywood finally has honored our heroes by making a realistic movie where actual SEALs were used to show how it really is. SEALs keep America free and we HONOR THEM by watching this movie." Actually, this movie is NOTHING like what SEALs do. This is real-world seals poorly acting in showcasing tiny tidbits of their training in a plot that bears as much semblance to reality as the Flintstones did to caveman life.

If you're the sort of person whose knee-jerk lionization of the US military virtually guarantees that within 10 years from now 3 or 4 "red states" will have SEALs or other special forces members of congress despite more qualified candidates being available, then this movie is for you. If you're the sort of person who can be suckered into watching a very standard Hollywood-type action movie and convince yourself that it's realistic because it's badly acted by real SEAL team members, then this movie is for you. If you are the sort of person who will make the logically dubious jump from "this movie has real SEALs as actors" to "therefore, this movie must truly represent what SEALs do" in a self-regenerating cycle of fawning, then this movie is for you. Congratulations! You have been successfully marketed to.

I have served our country in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. I have some sense of what our military, including our special forces, actually do. Much of it is brave; but at the same time a lot of it is dirty and confused and does not really further US interests in a positive way.

So, see the movie? If you like cheezy unrealistic action movies with cardboard characters, then, sure. But please don't fool yourself that you are either "honoring the troops" or seeing something realistic with this movie. You very much are not.

If you want to see an excellent, much-underrated movie about recent US wars, see "Home of the Brave" instead.

The Way Back (I) (2010)

This movie should be about Ukrainians, not Poles.

[5/10 · 12 October 2011]

Finally - finally a major motion picture that paints a sobering picture of the brutality of Stalin's gulags. Even though roughly equal numbers of innocents died under Stalin as did under Hitler, this brings the current score in terms of major motion picture to something like: Holocaust/Hitler: 84,245, Stalin: 1 or maybe 2. Anyway, it's a start.

The movie follows a small group of a prisoners on their long walk / escape out of Siberia to freedom. Amazingly, a significant percentage of the group are Poles. One other is a Latvian, and another an American. To say that this mix would be unusual in a Gulag in 1939-1940 might be the understatement of the year. Why, by comparison, are Ukrainians, who would make up a noticeable segment (if not an outright majority or close to it) of political prisoners in an actual Gulags strangely absent? The story would be historically plausible were the actors Ukrainian nationalists taken from western Ukraine. The Soviets would not have bothered to send a polish military man (as the lead character was) all the way to Siberia--certainly one accused of sabotage and spying, as ours here was, would have likely been shot outright. However, I guess it's hard enough to get audiences, even "enlightened" ones as might go watch this film to warm up to the story at all, so the director had to anchor the main characters as Poles, something that western audiences might be able to latch onto easily. It's a pity nevertheless.

While the gulag scenes were obviously not filmed in Siberia (and nor, I'm guessing, was any of the film) they were more or less well done. However, the film as a whole lacked authenticity and believability. Even if you believe the story to be a metaphor for the whole soviet experience or something, it still should be told well, and I can't say that it was. The characters are remarkably well fed. It is difficult to get a sense of space. And, crucially, it doesn't feel like a walk.

I've done some long walks in tough conditions. The most obvious thing is that when you are tired, you walk in a file, not abreast, as walking in a single line saves brain energy as you just look at the feet in front of you. the characters here must have found that to be not photogenic.

so, 10/10 for the idea and concept, but, alas, 3/10 for execution. it just didn't resonate. i don't think it was a good parable of the struggles under communism, and, by its focus on poles, i don't think it's particularly good history, either. finally, despite what some critics say, i don't really think the characters flesh out that well.

5/10 stars.

Redacted (2007)

Bad Acting, Cardboard Characters

[4/10 · 11 October 2011]

I'm sorry, but I'm left of Lenin liberal. I am against the war and how it is propagated, and am aghast at the heavy handed, insensitive tactics and attitude of the US soldiers that I've witnessed in Iraq.

however, this movie doesn't depict that. Rather, it represents the US soldier as a one dimensional cartoon, stupid beyond stupid. The caricature can only appeal to ardent anti-Americans (as we have seen in these comments) and utterly repel people who might otherwise have an open mind (as we've also seen in these comments). One soldier actually says "Waxing hajis is like stepping on cockroaches." I'm sorry - that simply does not happen and has not happened. The Americans are a lot of things, but cold blooded psychopaths is not one of them. However, the movie doesn't stop there - it turns them into criminal pedophile rapists too.

If the acting and script were much much much better than they are, the film might just pass for insightful satire - much like Apocalypse now "overdid" the Vietnam war to draw attention to its absurdities and its effects on the psyche of all involved. However, this movie fails miserably in these aims. The actors are awful - just awful. They don't resemble US soldiers in physical appearance or mannerisms. Each one screams "low budget, effeminate Hollywood extra." It doesn't help that the script turns them into the most cardboard of caricatures. Honestly, at some point I expected them to start eating kittens.

The political message it tries to make is needed and all in all decent. However, the acting stinks and the script is poorly written so that it just comes across as so very staged and fake.

This movie has been deservedly forgotten. "Three Kings", which is about the first Persian gulf war, ironically is still the best movie as of this writing about the second Persian gulf war even though the second of course started years after "three kings" was made. Such is the paucity on quality film on the Iraq War (and, before you think anything, I thought "Hurt Locker" was pretty awful too).

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

Good Fight Scnes can't save inept script, miscast voices, and wrong messages.

[3/10 · 16 April 2010]

There's just so much money involved in the creation of the current breed of animated/cg movies that they rarely strike out. Indeed, I found even mediocrely-reviewed fare such as "monsters vs aliens" to actually be quite good and appreciable on an adult level with lots of intelligent jokes and the occasional innuendo.

But not "Kung Fu Panda." Kung Fu Panda is awful.

Here's the plot: fat, lazy, wisecracking panda boy is surprisingly chosen to be "the one" to defend against big bad guy, much to the chagrin of five sidekick kung-fu master animals who have spent their lifetimes in training and work. initially, they reject him since he's a fat lazy panda. will he find the solution, a combination of 'believing in himself' and taking advantage of his 'alternate but just as good talents' (he's fat, so he can be motivated by food) to defeat the bad guy and save the day? alas, yes. the plot is just that stupid, sending all the wrong messages. in kung fu panda's America, you don't have to do the math or practice for more than a few token montage scenes. you just 'believe in yourself.' this line of nonsense used to what they used to console kids on the slow bus with, but is now what passes for 'inclusive education' or some-such. and mind you, I'm an extreme political liberal (though a well educated one) writing this.

but, even such inanity could be salvageable if the jokes and acting along the way were any good. they're not. the A-list quality supporting voice talent in addition to B-list quality lead Jack Black are utterly miscast. Angelina Jolie is wasted and unnecessary, though I'm sure she was glad for the check for her afternoon of work. did anybody here go see the movie because Angelina Jolie or Dustin Hoffman were cast? then why did they bother? one suspects a massive kickback scheme is in place - how else to explain why major stars land well paying voice animated rolls that probably do nothing to drawing audiences? the only good to be gotten out of this absolutely miserable movie are the fight scenes. i'm not usually one for fight scenes (and this movie didn't change this), but at times they were clever enough. there was no groundbreaking animation in this movie; I just mean to say that if you happen to like kung fu fight scenes, then you'll probably enjoy the ones here. i personally found those in 'crouching tiger hidden dragon' far more satisfying, but I can't say that those here were in any way bad for what they were. the 'dumpling scene' was particularly well done.

the only thing that this movie had that in any way broke the usual stereotypes was the depiction of the prison that held the 'long caged' bad guy in the beginning. his jailers, for once, were not total dupes.

i, however, felt like a total dupe after watching this very poor movie - doubly so since it was recommended to me as being particularly well written.

conclusion: worst animated/cgi film i've seen in at least the last decade.

A Christmas Carol (2009)

Who is the film for, exactly?

[2/10 · 24 January 2010]

Look - I appreciate that this film is "faithful" to Dickens' novel. I have no complaint there. However, there are plenty of novels that don't deserve in this day and age to be put to screen "faithfully", and this is, evidently, one of them.

To summarize the plot: in the first five minutes we learn that a frail old man is not very pleasant and doesn't like Christmas. You might even call him a Scrooge. Then, for the next hour and a half or so, he is tortured mercilessly by forces apparently representing the interests of all that is good and kind in the world. Finally, in the last three minutes, we show that the effects of the torture have worked and so he becomes a nice guy. Had the spirits instead have told him to act like a chicken, after that much torture, he'd be out in some field clucking and pecking. If this sort of torture were done at Guantanamo... well, you get the idea.

Given all the torture, as various reviews, both pro and con have pointed out, this is not a film for children. Or so they say. Perhaps this is a film then for those adults who enjoy watching 3D Christmas movies in cinemas on their own? I don't know many such adults. But assuming they do exist, we can assume only that they fall into two classes - narrow minded religious nitwits who sit there approving of seeing the old man getting tortured as through this they see vindication of their 'piety' and S&M enthusiasts ("that's it ghost - now spit in his hair").

So who is this film, for, exactly? One struggles for a satisfying answer.

Furthermore, while I find no particular fault with Jim Carrey's acting, I nevertheless find the choice to make this movie in 3D exceptionally odd. Yes, this is doubtlessly the height of the 3d animators craft right now, but the characters continue to look dead and inhuman and the limits of the 3d technology become apparent at times when it becomes clear that the graphic 'world' is little more than a slightly better done PC computer game.

But more to the point - "A Christmas Carol" is a quintessential human tale. It requires humans. Various English cities and towns can be mocked up to provide a passable Victorian London. This movie is a cruel exercise in hubris, and an absolute stinker.

I'm not sure if this is a 2010 or 2009 film ( I saw in Jan, 2010), but this gets my early vote for worst film of 2010.

On the Town (1949)

Great Dancing! Horrble songs.

[6/10 · 7 December 2009]

I've seen 1945's "Anchors Aweigh" referred to as a "warm up" for "On the Town." This is strange, since the former is better in almost every way. The former had a warmth that "On the Town" simply didn't.

"On the Town" features three sailors on a 24-hour liberty in New York City... Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and.. Jose Carerras. No, seriously, the third one was Jules Munshin, but it might as well have been Jules Verne given that his name probably lives on only in the hearts of aficionados at this point. Anyway, the film starts out smashingly with the legendary song "New York, New York" and then the boys seek to find a few hours of true love.

The basic love story between Kelly and "Ivy" is believable and of course both are incredibly telegenic. The other two haven't stood the test of time so well with Sinatra - who believe it or not was around 34 at the time of the movie but looks about 12 - appears to be on the wrong end of the "statutory" stick at some point in what appears to be a highly inappropriate relationship. The "neanderthal" song where munshin's ozzie meets his girl is quite racist by today's standards in that it basically equates modern traditional cultures with cave men. nice.

Anyway, hi-jinks ensue including near the end a tacked on chase scene but of course they are really just filler for the musical numbers. sinatra's voice is a thing of beauty, as are kelly's moves. but, the chosen songs themselves were horrible. other than new york new york, i can't remember one song from the thing, which is unfortunate given that I just watched it less than 3 hours ago. but, the dancing was something else and the choreography was excellent. again, not as good as "anchors aweigh" (well, this one had more 'ensemble' dance numbers, thus meaning kelly was often limited to moves that his costars could also do), but still excellent.

if you're in the mood, it's a nice little film. but, if you have only time for one such vanity, see "anchors aweigh."

The Last U-Boat (1993 TV Movie)

Das Low Budget

[3/10 · 11 October 2009]

"The Last U-Boat" is a highly fictionalized tale of the last mission of U-234, a German U-boat, which, in an almost delicious coincidence, was actually carrying U-235 isotopes (and other war matériel) on a secret mission to Japan, as it were, just as the Third Reich was in its death throes. For a war movie buff, the basic premise is interesting and unique enough, with there being Nazis or various sorts, Japanese, British, and Americans all interacting in various potentially sort of plausible ways.

Before I go any further, let me also say that this movie has basically nothing to do with the original, classic "Das Boot" in any way other than that they both involve submarines and that it appears that somewhere down the line some opportunistic or cynical marketers got the "das boot 2" tag line somehow associated with this thing. Don't believe it! Unfortunately, the execution is poor, and this film deserves nowhere near it's current 6.5 IMDb rating. Basically, the "high level" plot is interesting, but the overall dialog appears to be somebody's first attempt at a screenplay, which begs the question of how this thing ever got made. This is partially answered by the obvious cost savings of not having much in the way of plausible sets, effects, or actors. The actors manage to take already incredibly poor dialog - you know, the type that just screams "I am reading exposition!" and make it seem even worse. Look - this review is operating that this film was shot as a low budget but ultimately "professional" and/or commercial endeavor - it is clear that few of the actors had ever been before a camera before.

Sets and effects: fine, i get it. You can't afford to film some (most) sub scenes inside of an actual sub. But, if you're going to want me to believe, for example, that what is obviously the interior of an old railway sleeping car (Japanese officers' stateroom) is inside of a submarine, would it hurt you to have some engine sounds? As I said - the plot at a high level was decent enough and something could have been made of it. And, I can sort of understand that this low budget movie has low budget "actors" and effects. What I don't understand at all, however, is just how the technical dialog of the movie was so badly massacred. After all, the script seems to have started as the pet project of somebody who, you know, takes an interest in Submarines and WW2. Tell me again how a submerged submarine is using it's "RADAR?" Tell me again how a *SURFACED* submarine manages to possibly sink an *ANTI SUBMARINE DESTROYER*? I'm fortunate enough to speak a little Japanese, so I recognize that some of the Japanese actors were OK, even though they were reading Japanese-language lines clearly not written by a Japanese speaking person (but rather, translated into Japanese). Similarly, the "good" Nazi general had moments of not total acting awfulness, as did the captain. the rest of the movie (including certain scenes by the aforementioned general) features some of the worst acting ever put to film, with special compliments to the "Captain of HMS Liverpool" for being perhaps the worst actor of the 20th century.

Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)

Take the rose-colored glasses off!

[5/10 · 25 April 2008]

Captain Horatio Hornblower RN is a 1951 tale of, well, the exploits of an impossibly perfect captain and his ship during the Napoleonic War era of big sail and cannons.

By the standards of 1951, it was an exciting, technologically advanced, swashbuckler. Today, we as audiences are more mature and more demanding, and as such significant portions of the movie have aged very, very badly. Nevertheless, it remains a decent picture - far better than many of its era and is worth seeing by those such as myself who enjoy high seas adventure. However, modern films such as Master and Commander and the updated Hornblower mini-series are infinitely better.

Here are some random observations: - the accents are laughably bad. The Duke of Wellington's daughter in the move has a pure American accent - and that's probably the best accent of them all since this meant that the actress didn't even try to fake a British accent - something many other roles in the film did--and did very very very badly. Perhaps the worst accents I have ever heard on film. I'm amazed - I'm guessing this was a Hollywood picture. Were there no Mexicans around somewhere nearby to at least show them a Spanish (or Mexican, which for the purposes of this movie would have been infinitely better) accent. Were we really so backwards of a people in 1951 that our actors simply felt that they could affect whatever accent they wanted by rolling their Rs in some random way?

• Related to the above, there is a lot of ridiculous ethnic stereotyping and several characters that don't act as real humans do. This movie pretends to be serious, but, it was from 1951. The British are human and basically everybody else is a cartoon. This seems inappropriate, even for 1951. I can excuse the blackface as a technical necessity (of sorts), but the actual characterizations were insulting to anybody with half a brain.

• The basic plot is sound, and could be updated. However, if this movie were done today, the character of Hornblower would need to be completely revamped. He's unrealistically flawless in this movie, and the characters spend a heck of a lot of time standing around saying things like "Hornblower is flawless!". High comedy.

• Special effects are good.

This movie today is a solid 5/10. Anybody who gives it more than that is adding extra stars out of nostalgia.

Ice Station Zebra (1968)

A Cold War story that just gets worse and worse.

[3/10 · 24 December 2007]

Ice Station Zebra is an adaptation of an Alistair MacLean book. Spies! Submarines! Suspense! Well, not really suspense. The very first scene shows a satellite dropping a payload into the arctic that is obviously of some importance. Then, the next two thirds of the movie involves our fearless captain tasked with taking a British agent to the scene of the drop. Could it be that the agent has something to do with this capsule? Gee, I wonder? Our brave captain doesn't know, but of course we do, since the director bizarrely lets us in on this little secret, ruining about an hour and a half of suspense.

The actual bits of the movie inside the submarine are well done. The crew is professional and the technical jargon they use impressive. While some may find this boring, I found it nice to watch a believable captain command a believable ship.

And then, they make their way to the ice, and it all falls apart. Plot holes big enough to drive a submarine through. MiG 21s that magically turn into F4s through lazy use of stock film, greatly confusing the viewer. Spies that do things so illogical you'll just be shaking your head in disbelief. Acting so wooden and arbitrary you'll have trouble differentiating the corpses.

And of course, the fakeness. There is something so artificial in this movie that it just hurts. No, I'm not talking about the fact that the last third was obviously filmed in a sound studio with Styrofoam ice. Rather, it's Ernest Borgnine (you know, the captain from McHale's navy TV shows) trying to fake a Russian accent. Really and truly painful.

Ultimately, the bad accents, wooden acting, and Styrofoam ice would be forgivable if the plot made sense. Alas, it does not. It's as if the good scriptwriter was fired or took to drink halfway through. Unfortunately, the unsatisfactory feeling that results is enough for me to confidently give you a recommendation of "don't bother."

The War (2007)

Not Burns' best, but still a great series.

[8/10 · 20 December 2007]

The six letter title ("The War") of this Ken Burns' series is remarkably illustrative of the piece. The title is not "America's War", as would be more apt in some objective sense, but simply "The War" as if you the viewer were an 19-year old American about to be shipped off to some far-off land. To you , there was only one, The War.

This seven-part series chronicles World War II through a distinctly American lens. The subjects are mostly common Americans impelled by circumstance of birth but mostly also compelled by a genuine American idealism to make war and suffer loss. What few WW2 veterans remain with us this day may be with us still perhaps a decade or two at most. "The War" gives them one last opportunity to reflect on comrades lost and horrors seen. It gives us as viewers one last opportunity to hear their stories as you might hear your grandparent tell you rather than as the cardboard cut-outs of history books. Typically for Burns', the piece is filled with well chosen period photos, moving images, and music.

And yet, as much as we want and need to remember the sacrifices of those who served, I can't help but think that this was the wrong film for Burns' to make. Sure, he will get accolades from veterans groups and politicians the country wide. But Burns should have left the story of American heroics and sacrifice to the sentimentalists - lord knows there are enough of them. A man with Burns' skill should have broadened his ken (no pun intended) to teach his largely American audience some new ways to think about the conflict and its implications for modern society.

If an American and, say, a Croat were to start discussing the war today, the American would speak about pride and sacrifice. Even if moderately knowledgeable about history, he'd have perhaps some vague sense that the Yugoslavs were somehow involved. Never in his wildest dreams would he have guessed that the Yugoslav armed forces suffered more dead than the Americans in World War II. And such are the points that need to be made in this age where 9/11, however inherently important it is, should be put into context. 3000 or so people died in 9/11. This is a blip on the radar - a bad few weeks in Iraq or a particularly bad day in any given African conflict. The message that Americans need to learn is not more paeans about the uniqueness and greatness of their sacrifice - but rather more about the universality of it. To be a world leader, America in 2007 needs less navel gazing and more outward understanding.

"The War" - "America's War" - provided none of this. It also barely touched issues of class and race in any substantive way, other than to give a somewhat embarrassingly lopsided and timid view of the internment of Japanese Americans. We need the Ken Burns' of the world. What am I saying - we need Ken Burns' to do more than pay homage to our great, brave veterans. We need him to tell the stories about ourselves and our world that Americans just don't know.