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Sicario (2015)
I hated this film, but probably for the wrong reasons..
OK, first off, the directing and acting was good, no award worthy performances but still good. Special effects were also very good.
But ultimately i feel cheated, the trailers for this movie hinted at a fictional action flick; Highly trained people fight for their lives during a border crossing.. Benicio Del Toro taking a lead for a change to pull an inexperienced agent through the fire alive.. A nice escape from reality into a pretend America that may have never existed except in a plethora of action flix (and we all wanted to live there anyway lol)...
What i got could have been a documentary on how some U.S. agencies are run, without oversight or limitations, basically criminal organisations funded by the taxpayer; as they grapple for control of a criminal underworld. Though there are purely fictional parts, Benicio has a mission impossible moment near the end, but these moments seem inserted into the movie to break up the tedious grind of what most people recognise as reality, sad and depressing as that may be.
Act of Valor (2012)
what a steaming pile of propaganda.
If this film wasn't completely funded by the US military or government PR, then someone needs to look very closely at the nutters who wrote it... no one feels this much patriotic hatred without having some screws loose or at least an agenda.
the film (film? lol) lacked any semblance of the things that make up a film.. no characters, no plot, no reality. The sad part is the great many people who will watch this and believe the U.S. are in fact the 'good guys'. oblivious to the duality of war and and horrific acts perpetrated by all waring factions, U.S. more than most.
but even if i agreed with the small minded, blind and hate filled philosophy that drove this work, it still would be rubbish. I want my money back.
Limitless (2011)
poorly written, but great acting and great idea
This is a story about an guy who gets supper high intelligence, written for people with supper low intelligence.
Its such a good idea, with such a great cast, i don't know why the writers felt the need to patronize their audience, other than maybe they were too stupid to realize what they were writing didn't make sense.
i could almost forgive them for writing in two police officers so incompetent as to not even search a guy at a murder scene.. just so the film wouldn't end right there.
But when he starts taking the drug he was supposed to be MORE intelligent, so why couldn't he do the simplest of maths. If you can turn $2000 into $7500 in a day, that's not quintupled btw (as he claimed) its not even quadrupled for god sake. But if you can do that then by the day after tomorrow you'd have about $105468 so why he needed to borrow $100000 is beyond me. then he FORGETS to pay it back?? then there's the stocks, and he speaks so much rubbish its really difficult keep watching..
i could go on but i think i made my point, great idea, great acting, but the writers should be working in a sweatshop making shoes somewhere.
Season of the Witch (2011)
Utter Tripe
I'm a fan of Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman, and i have to first say that their acting was the only thing that kept me watching this absolute joke of a film.
It would be enough to say that this is just comfort food for the weak minded, If it didn't use magic in its plot to excuse some of the most horrific deeds in human history.
With one sweep of the brush it rewrites our history to justify the execution and torture of innocent women. I would be no less offended if the film was about how the Nazis were right to kill Jews because they were all possessed with the evil spirit of something or other.
A feel good film for the chronically weak minded religious cretins in our society, and i recommend to everyone else to follow this film up swiftly with this one; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1181791/ a cold splash of reality.
Unthinkable (2010)
Unthinkable? Unrealistic. Unremarkable.
Actually i think that the U.S. military are probably portrayed accurately in this film, its the threat that is totally unrealistic. But because of this the movie seems to be saying that we need to be more barbaric to deal with this (unrealistic) threat.. i think you can see where the problem is with this logic.
now don't misunderstand its perfectly reasonable to think that someone with a warped mind could build 1 or many nuclear weapons.. and probably right under the nose of U.S. intelligence (judging by the level of intelligence they had correct in Iraq). what is totally unrealistic is that he could do it alone and.. well, let me quot from the film;
"surely if we find him we'll find the bombs" "not necessarily agent.."
YES necessarily.. and if not then it will always be the case that he is an innocent or ignorant decoy. a bomber would need tools, workshops, trucks, radiation equipment, hydraulic lifts, storage locations, etc. As well as contacts in transport and customs and specialist tools and equipment, there would be so many leads to look at there would be no need for torture.. lacking these things would mean lacking evidence that this guy had anything to do with it (or in this case had more to do with it than an acting roll).
The terrorist was written into this film in the same way as an arch villain is weaved into a superman film, but instead of a 'what would you do if you could fly' moral, we are left with a 'what should the government be aloud to do to us when they don't have a clue' - which is sickeningly depressing.
To call this film propaganda is too kind, i don't know why this film was created, maybe it looked good on paper, or maybe the publicists thought the world was populated by simpletons (and judging by the stars and other reviews maybe they were right). but whatever reason, it will be taken as an unsubstantiated reason for voting in evil tyrants to protect the unwashed, from themselves.
Untraceable (2008)
21st century version of curiosity killed the cat
a good start with realistic (though immoral) police prioritizing, by that i mean that some poor sod living within 100m of someone sharing Metalica's new CD gets swat breaking down his door - while a guy that steals and tortures a cat to death live on his website get a 'its just a cat' comment and the police move on to more important music sharing concerns.. despicable, but currently accurate.
then we take a dive into fantasy, actually paranoid fantasy, but no less unreal than the warp drive or a star gate, when they can't shut the site down (or reassign the domain)... anyone who knows anything at all about the internet is asked to suspend disbelief at this point, and while this prospect is easy within the realms of a sci-fi movie, its not so easy with a movie that is proclaiming to be set on earth, right now.
Like most IT based films they fall into the trap of using words like 'hacking', 'trojan', 'spoofing' and 'ghost site' as acronyms for magic as the real life effects of these terms do not fit in with the story.
Now comes the real disappointment, the main reason the U.S. have any trouble tracing real people is completely due to foreign policy, and the attempts are always through diplomatic channels, this is an interesting subject which concerns us all, but the film sidestepped it entirely, implying that hackers had some kind of unexplained ability's to hide online, in order to push the story along. I don't think they even mention proxy servers lol.
Of course the American ego is satisfied by the mention of a 'Eureka' styled super computer that they could use, but such an artifact can't be used because they don't want people to know they have it.. again this is sci-fi for so many reasons not the least of which is that it wouldn't matter how fast a computer was, as internet speed is determined by the bandwidth, which might bother me if I weren't still asking why they don't just redirect the DNS...
The last thing one has to ignore to enjoy this film is the message; a 21st century version of curiosity killed the cat.. but its obvious to most that killers will kill, no matter if anyone is watching or not, and simply watching something that was real never meant the same as condoning it, if it did we would need to ban all news stations and newspapers..
Someone's Knocking at the Door (2009)
well, they tried...
This film might get a few more points if it was honest, or if it had the balls it pretends to, a few things (spoilers i guess) to take note of; First off the couple who 'rape people to death' are actually gay (as in homosexuals).. Thought that was an important point, not sure why. I guess if i put Desperado in the DVD player and Broke Back Mountain came on I'd be slightly annoyed.
I don't think they (the writers) meant this, i get the feeling they were just switching things around trying to be original, but it ends up looking like a 12 year old wrote it trying to gross out his parents.
Second they committed the greatest betrayal a film maker can commit.. the 'it was all really a dream' thing, its a cop-out and i think they did this to trivialize all the inconsistencies in the film. Only thing is it trivializes the whole film right along with its logic issues.
I've given it 3 points for the effort, they did try with the gore, and there are some scenes that are well shot, if a little lacking in a realistic feel to it.
Boogeyman 2 (2007)
pointless waste of my time
I can not believe they called this boogeyman '2', did the director even bother to watch the first Boogeyman? This film has absolutely nothing to do with the first one, its a different reality entirely.
The first one was deep and twisted and really made you think about the world and colliding realities, it was such an inspiring film and it still gives me a cold shiver thinking about that little girl saying 'you can't save me, you can only save yourself'..
But this one is just cheap and boring, a steaming pile of wannabe 'slasher' movie with no plot that makes any sense, no surprises, just really dull. what a magnificent waste of time, can I have my money back now?
Lawn Dogs (1997)
inspiring..
This film unravels beautifully from all different directions. It shows the world in all its terrible glory from an innocent perspective.
She (the girl) is the story and the narrator constantly re-writing her 'fairy tails' to reflect her perspective and understanding about her life and the people in her life.
The lawn dog begins his appearance as BabaYaga the fabled 'bogie-man' and then the story twists and changes and dances as the girl begins to see the truth in the people that surround her; the twisted marriage of her parents, the vindictive and cruel nature of their friends and much more.
Through most of the film the girl paints herself as a victim who needs to be rescued. Her final re-write of the 'fairy tail' sees her liberated from that role to the role of the Saviour when the old 'saviors' become BabaYaga, or in her words 'everything that's evil'.
A very moving film.