Review Dump - June 2008

War, Inc. - 2008

What It Is: Witty satire on the privatization of the military.
What I Thought: Equal parts funny, thought-provoking, and scary!

Robocop - 1987

What It Is: Old-school ultra-violent sci-fi action movie.
What I Thought: I watched some graphic shit as a kid, and still love it today!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 2008

What It Is: The first Indy movie in 19 years.

What I Thought: Just as awesome as the originals, and Shia was cool too.

F*ck - 2005

What It Is: A fun and funny documentary on a very flexible word.
What I Thought: A lot of really fucking funny fuckers enter-fucking-tained me.

Fool's Gold - 2008

What It Is: Adventure film with the dim-witted but lovable McConaughey.
What I Thought: A dim-witted but lovable film.

The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite) - 2007

What It Is: A gritty drama by the director of Head On.
What I Thought: Visceral, but not quite as cool as Head On.

Iron Man - 2008

What It Is: Um, the big Hollywood movie based on Iron Man.

Why I Watched It: It was shiny!

What I Thought: A very fun comic movie.

Strangely enough, it felt a little more adult than your average Spider-Man or Superman tale. I'm not sure if it was Robert Downey's smart ass playboy role or the fact that Iron Man actually kills bad guys rather than just tying them up.

Regardless, the movie was fun and funny. Pretty goes without saying, this whole new generation of comic movies is sexy as hell and Iron Man was no different. Gwyneth Paltrow was as forgettable as always. God, I hate that woman. Jeff Bridges played a good maniacal villain though!

Did I mention Iron Man was really, really funny! Like surprisingly so!

I should mention, when you watch the film. Stay through the credits for a surprise cameo buy everyone's favorite Sam.

Highlights: The name of Stark's digital butler, an awesome performance from Robert Downey, and lots of funny bits!

Who Should See It: Comic fans, action fans, and the significant others that are dragged along with them.

How Soon: Makes a good theater trip while you wait for Indiana Jones 4!

Zeitgeist, The Movie - 2007

What It Is: Documentary about controversial conspiracy theories regarding Christianity, the 9/11 attacks, and the NWO.

Why I Watched It: I heard it mentioned on Hometown Tales just before a buddy said "it'll literally change your life."

What I Thought: Extremely thought provoking.

Any of you that know me already know my #1 rule for movie watching. Have No Expectations. Did you ever notice how many people don't say a movie was bad or poorly edited, but instead say they were "let down"? You can't be let down if you never expected anything from the film to begin with. Forgetting what you want or need the film to be and simply enjoying it for what it actually is is the key to being a movie slut.

That said, I'm guessing no one knows my #1 rule for documentary film watching, but it should be no surprise. Documentaries Are Biased. A documentary, and media in general, is biased because the people creating it are biased. It's human nature and it's unavoidable. Even an American made historical documentary about Napoleon's exploits of 200 years ago would be selling a completely different view than a French made film about the same events. Does this mean documentaries are pointless to watch? Absolutely not! It just means you may have to watch more than one to get the whole story. Zeitgeist in particular, is selling a fairly unique viewpoint. These views have been around for a while, of course, but not readily available.

What views are we talking about? Well, Zeitgeist posits that Christianity as a whole is just a poor mash up of the Egyptian religion and pagan astrology, but it's links to pagan tradition should be pretty common knowledge to most. The film then puts forth evidence that 9/11 was a False Flag operation. In all honesty, that was my gut reaction when I watched it live on the news and I haven't yet been convinced otherwise. The last section of the film covers the (not at all)Federal Reserve Bank, secret cabals of international bankers, and their plans to unite the world under a global government that would make Emperor Palpatine proud. This last part was completely new to me.

Zeitgeist was a lot of thought provoking fun. Much like a Michael Moore documentary, the film was heavy handed with its sales pitch. But just like a Moore documentary, Zeitgeist's particular pitch was a side of the story we weren't hearing anywhere else. With the media covering the "War on Terror" every day, it's nice to finally see another side of the coin. Hell, it's nice to be reminded that coins are two-sided to begin with!

Ready for the best part? Zeitgeist is completely free! Watch it online via the website or download it with Bit Torrent for free. Watch this movie, but retain your critical thinking skills and stay just as skeptical of their facts as you are of everyone else's.

Highlights: Far too many juicy bits to mention. The whole movie is chock full of conspiracy, cover-ups, secrets, and more.

Who Should See It: Free thinkers, conspiracy theorists, skeptics, and anyone that doesn't eat what's shoved in their face without first asking "Wait. Where did this come from?"

How Soon: Now! Why not? It's fucking free!

Hamburger Hill - 1987

What It Is: War movie about one of the most pointless battles of the Vietnam war.

Why I Watched It: A sucker for Vietnam films, I hadn't seen it years and recalled it being one of the best.

What I Thought: It's one of the best Vietnam movies I know of!

There are a lot of damn good 'Nam movies. What makes Hamburger Hill so cool, aside from the awesome cast and exceptional performance by Courtney B. Vance, is the film's tight focus. We don't see the soldiers at home and we don't follow them through Basic Training or anything else. We just see a couple days leading up to the battle and the battle itself.

I think it's this focus that allows the movie to cover so much more than battle alone. We see the aloofness of the command structure, we see the mistreatment of new soldiers, we see further mistreatment by protesters at home. Hamburger Hill is as much about the politics of the Vietnam War as it is about the actual battle. And it portrays both with equal prowess.

Great fucking war movie!

Highlights: All the colorful 'Nam slang, a great cast, meaningful violence, good drama, profoundly pointless casualties, and kick ass monologue after kick ass monologue!

Who Should See It: History buffs and war movie fans.

How Soon: Anytime.

300 - 2007

What It Is: A brilliant adaptation of Frank Miller's (Sin City) highly stylized graphic novel about a Spartan last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae.

Why I Watched It: Cause it looked like Gladiator on speed!

What I Thought: Liquid awesome.

The movie was pulled scene-for-scene from Miller's book with some decent political intrigue scenes filling out what be a pretty short movie otherwise. Even Ephialtes' suicide was filmed but cut for pacing reasons (a decision I fully support this time around).

The action was incredible with the movie living up to every expectation I had from the trailer. Even the drama was successfully pulled off and resulted in me tearing up when King Leonidas died.

I can't say enough about the movie. 300 is not a movie to be discussed, it's a movie to be experienced. 300 is not an accurate historical documentary, it's a visceral rush of blood, guts, and glory!

Highlights: The stylishness, the action, the blood, the glory, the heroism, the Spartan awesome, and the scene-for-scene transfer from the graphic novel!

Who Should See It: Comic fans, action fans, and history buffs that aren't snobby.

How Soon: Watch this fucking movie! It's on DVD, buy the fucking thing!

300 (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition)

Nomad - 2005

What It Is: A historical epic from Kazakhstan and the country's most expensive film to date.

Why I Watched It: The little boy in me loves to see sword fights.

What I Thought: It was good. I wasn't Braveheart good, but it was enjoyable, if a bit slow at times. Nomad didn't have any of the artistic license taken with recent Asian epics like Hero or House of Flying Daggers. It also didn't have any of the inserted pop music weirdness of Asoka.

The combat was fun, but I'll stick with Braveheart or even The 13th Warrior if visceral swordplay is all I'm in the mood for. The story was decent as well, but doesn't hold a candle to great epics like Hero. Nomad still kicked the shit out of schlock like Alexander though!

Ultimately, Nomad felt like a really strong effort that just didn't quite reach the mark. I'll definitely keep an eye out for anything else coming out of Kazakhstan, however.

Highlights: Mark Dacascos, Jason Scott Lee as a fun Obi-Wan style mentor type and brother vs. brother gladiatorial action!

Who Should See It: History buffs and other fans of epic action.

How Soon: You can take your time.

The Day After - 1983

What It Is: A 1983 made-for-TV movie about nuclear war.

Why I Watched It: It scared the shit out of a whole bunch of people. It aired quite a few times after it's initial showing and many people (depending on age and temperament) were deeply affected.

What I Thought: The Day After was cheesy as hell, but a certain allowance must be made for what passed for "special effects" and "science fiction" in 1983. The movie had Steve Guttenberg and John Lithgow after all, how good could it really be?

Aside from all that, it was okay. The film was chock full of all the Reagan-era Cold War fear they could fit in, but it was a fairly decent dramatization of nuclear devastation. It felt too preachy or educational at times, but at other times it succeeded in being kind of scary or kind of gross.

This is yet another example of a classic film, that loses a lot when watched 20 years later. The Day After won special effects awards for things the Photoshop tutorial could teach me to do in 30 minutes. The level of nuclear paranoia isn't quite where it used to be either. I'm not as concerned about Russia bombing the US, despite how much I probably should be worrying about North Korea. Perhaps we've just lived with the threat long enough to get used to it?

Highlights: Cheesy X-Ray skeleton shots during the bomb's flash, some decent attempts at touching family moments.

Who Should See It: Nobody. Seriously. Unless you're just dying of curiosity regarding all the hype this movie received, skip it. If you want a hard-hitting movie about the price of nuclear war, watch Barefoot Gen. Now that movie will fuck you up!

How Soon: Seriously, don't bother. It won't make you a better person.