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Reviews
Occupation (2018)
Not great but not horrible
I will not sit through anything I rate three stars and below. This just made it. It starts off well with some pretty good evil alien action against a small defenseless town. It soon, however, becomes a Red Dawn rip off with elements of another Aussie occupation film. It has implausible moments and the aliens are both awesome and really stupid. It suffers the PC contagion in which women must be as badass as men if not more so. Tiresome. Overall, it's fun and if you have nothing else to do ....
Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal (2012)
Excellent with just minor flaws
This is a superb accounting of the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar Gaviria, probably the most lethal criminal ever to live. The acting, especially by Parra, but also by those around him, is excellent. The pacing is very deliberate and you have to be patient as this is a very detailed exposition on Escobar and his times. Well worth the time and effort.
My gripes are several, though minor: the program could have used a bigger budget, and paid a little more attention to historical accuracy when it came to weapons, helicopters, and the money used (the dollar bills, for example, are of an issue that was not around in the 1980's and 90's). I speak fluent Spanish so the sub-titles did not bother me, but they were often wildly inaccurate. The depiction of the Americans is a bit ham-handed, and does not accurately reflect the tremendous assistance that the DEA and the CIA gave Colombia's anti-drug forces. There, of course, was no Dept. of Homeland Security back then, yet the US Embassy seems to be run by that Department.
My biggest gripe was that the producers changed the names of well-known figures. I guess this was so that certain scenes could be fictionalized, but I don't know.
All in all, a great show.
The Station Agent (2003)
Cute but racist and sexist
Other than the dwarf character played by Peter Dinklage, every white adult and boy male is shown as cruel, violent and rude.
The only time kindness and compassion and friendship are shown is by women, girls, or minority men.
No white male does anything nice, kind, noble or even neutral. They are all haters of Fin; they mistreat the various women in the film; and are all around nasties.
Not one white male is a decent person.
Wonder how it would have gone if the film had shown the opposite? We would have these boards filled with complaints.
Europa Report (2013)
Much Better than Reported
"Europa Report" is a minor SciFi classic. If you give it a chance and let yourself get pulled into the weird and beautiful world created by the director, cinematographer, and the production designer, you will be rewarded with a very intelligent and "realistic" piece of movie making. I had heard bad reviews, and was glad I did not pay attention to them.
The editing and use of cameras is particularly engrossing. You almost come to believe you are watching a documentary about a mission to Jupiter. The acting is excellent, subdued, and the conversations are realistic, and believable.
I think Stanley Kubrick would have approved.
Elysium (2013)
Not as bad as I expected
I was reluctant to see the film as I had been warned that it was brainless liberal propaganda for Obamacare. Nah.
It, yes, was brainless but in a harmless sort of way. Whatever liberal propaganda was there got overwhelmed by the horrid picture of Los Angeles overrun by criminal Hispanics. Not a pretty picture of immigration and would certainly be making the case for better immigration control.
The main piece of brainlessness was the focus on health care. Seems to me that the world of 2154 had more serious problems than access to high-tech health care. The whole society had come apart and I don't think you can, as the film does, blame it all on unequal distribution of health care. That made no sense. So once (spoiler) the rich agree, at gunpoint, to distribute free health care, everything is solved? Nah.
The action was good. The acting was adequate for this sort of film. The production values were solid with some very good special effects and a very dreary looking LA.
Don't look for a political message. If one was intended it is so murky as to be unseen. I could, however, see some Hispanic groups getting very upset over the portrayal of Hispanics in the movie.
White House Down (2013)
Abysmal garbage
Lousy CGI. For Chris-sakes, Emmerrich, the director of Independence Day, can't even get decent CGI! The action scenes are boring and you have seen them a thousand times before in other movies. In addition, parts of this turkey are straight rip-offs of Die Hard. What is a great actor like James Woods doing in this mess?
Jamie Foxx plays the president like some arrogant, obnoxious fool who thinks he is the cat's meow. The President in this turkey has the habit of having "his" chopper buzz the Lincoln Monument; in real life how do you think that would go over? The premise of this turkey is so bizarre it is hard to describe: some convoluted mess about the President discovering that Iran--of all places!!--is not really building a nuclear bomb and that it is all a plot by some US corporations to keep the US military in the Middle east, and . . . oh, never mind. Channing Tattum is no Bruce Willis and has zero chemistry as does his obnoxious daughter played by a repellent Joey King. Jason Clarke, a fine Aussie actor, is one of the main baddies, and plays some betrayed Delta force type with a grudge, but has a hard time hanging onto his American accent and basically just screams and scowls his way through this turkey. The semi-cute Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a totally clueless head of the Secret Service and . . . never mind. Turkey for Thanksgiving.
The Unit (2006)
Did The Unit Just Jump the Shark?
The Unit is one of my favorite shows because it is so politically incorrect and presents a world in which the the good guys can act with virtual impunity (ah, if only . . . )
The last episode, however, has me worried that this noble franchise might have run its course. Some confused nonsense about a secret mission in Chile, finding a hidden monastery with militant monks, chasing after a religious relic, a little kung-fu, a little Indiana Jones, some mystical psycho-babble, an evil NSC woman, some bad SOUTHCOM Admiral, and a member of The Unit committing out and out murder. Not good. Not good. This better not be the pattern for the future . . .
Street Kings (2008)
Fun Flick -- "The Shield" on Steroids
OK, some of the acting is a little stiff, most notably Hugh Laurie who seems to take a deep breath before every line as though he's struggling to keep an "American" accent, and the normally great Forest Whitaker is a little sloppy, but, so what, this is not an actor's movie. It's an action film. As such it has good overall direction, good photography that makes excellent use of Los Angeles, very good action scenes, good music, and, above all, a rapid pace.
Keanu Reeves is a solid choice for the lead as he has a driven intensity which fits the bill just fine.
It's a slam against the LAPD but basically the same story as you get on the TV show "The Shield," just more brutal and with lots of non-TV cursing.
Chill. Have fun watching it. Don't take it too seriously.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
In the running for the "Greatest Bad Movie of All Time."
As an ardent fan of truly horrible cinema, I had to give this exemplar a "ten star" rating.
In my humble opinion, this is a masterpiece, and it is right up there in the pantheon of horrid films with Wood's classic "Plan 9 From Outer Space."
Fellow aficionados of wretched celluloid, I hold out for your consideration that it is possible, it just might be possible, that this film, in fact, has dethroned the long-ruling "Plan 9" as the "Greatest Bad Movie of All Time." This will be debated by experts in great/bad movies for years to come, but, at the minimum, we have a very viable challenger to Ed Wood's venerable masterpiece of horrid cinema.
Let the debate begin!
Shooter (2007)
Save your money
This is the sort of silly anti-American ("It's all about oil!") lefty Hollywood film that confirms to foreigners and soft-headed Americans that the USA is the source of all evil in the world. We have no enemies except ourselves. And it's not even good film-making: long stretches of it are boring, confusing, illogical (the Ethiopia story makes no sense), totally unbelievable, and, when all else fails, the film-makers resort to explosions and over-the-top violence, including the justifying of torture and assassination as long as they are done for politically correct reasons. The makers did not even do their research on military equipment and tactics -- nearly all of it is wrong -- and know nothing about how the US government operates. Beatty's Senator is particularly laughable as is the Attorney General bit -- whoever wrote those parts knows nothing about the law or how government works. I am also tired of movies with Canada standing in for the USA. I can always tell.
Wahlberg's acting is muted and passable (although he mumbles a lot) but most of the rest of the actors are just mailing it in. Glover is particularly bad -- he looks worn out, tired and bored. I did not give it one star as some of the scenery is quite nice and some of the explosions not bad.
If you want a political paranoia film that has some class, suspense, and humor then you should go see Pakula's 1974 "Parallax View" which this film tries to rip off without success.