meir_anolick Reviews

Classroom for Heroes (2023)

Disappointing

[5/10 · 30 October 2023]

It started with potential for a fun but stilly anime, but quickly degraded with regurtitated stereotypes such treating everyone as a potential friend despite clear murderous intent. It doesn't matter if it's a robot or an army of clones, it doesn't matter if they have no intention of doing anything but getting strong enough to murder the main character, nor does the fact that they've already made multiple murder attempts already, everyone is really a nice person and just wants to be their friend. Other notable problems are the harem-nature of the show and the fact that there's a limit to how stupid you can believe the main character to be.

It was a somewhat enjoyable watch, but I've no interest in seeing anymore.

The Present (2020)

Wildly Inaccurate

[1/10 · 30 November 2022]

For starters, this whole film is based on a lie. It portrays a Palestinian man who has to go through an Israeli checkpoint to travel through Palestinian territory. Such checkpoints do not exist! Checkpoints are only for crossings in between Israeli and Palestinian territories. Palestinians are free to travel within their territory and do all their shopping like anyone else without ever seeing a checkpoint.

There are claims that the footage at the beginning was real footage from a checkpoint. This footage conveniently failed to show anything that could be used to verify this claim, but none of it looked real. For example, why were there guys climbing on the wall and clinging to the fence? That doesn't happen.

They portray these miles-long hikes to get to/from the checkpoints. Why didn't they just drive? Palestinians own cars and regularly drive through. Those who don't have cars get a ride with someone. If it happens that a person has to hike, it's a rare occurrence and not a daily travail.

Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part the soldiers at a checkpoint want to get everyone through as quick as they can. They don't needlessly stand around chatting just to make people wait longer, nor do they have cages to lock people up for fun.

There are no happy Israeli families casually driving through these checkpoints. If this was actually in Palestinian territory, the Israeli family would be forbidden entry, and if found leaving they would be stopped for questioning and possibly even detained. Yes, Israelis have areas forbidden to them and can be detained.

While it could be possible for soldiers to block off a road, it's unlikely they would not let any traffic through. More likely they'll have received a security alert and are looking for a specific vehicle. They might stop and question vehicles but still pass them through.

Asking to check the fridge is perfectly reasonable since explosives and weapons could be hidden within. However, the soldier would likely open the fridge himself and then dismiss it as soon as he saw it was just groceries. It's unlikely he would make such a big deal over it without specific cause for suspicion.

Lastly, there's no "rule" that the road is for Israelis and it's forbidden for Palestinians. As I said before, Palestinians regularly drive through. Also the soldiers are more lax about allowing Palestinians to return home than about allowing them entry into Israeli territory. This argument over a fridge would never happen.