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Reviews
Painkiller (2023)
Fabulous acting; kind of a black comedy.
First, as a cancer survivor, I defend the use of powerful pain-reduction drugs. Ibuprofen won't help with some of the exteme pain.
Next, some of the ODs are a consequence of idiocy, i.e., people mixing alcohol with opioids, something that's not the drug manufacturer's fault.
But the film is not so much a critique of the drugs but of their oversales. And the young women who played the sales force, the mentor was effectively evil, and the other one-I don't want to give anything away--was prone to extreme materialism. Great acting.
Oh, and I know that technique was typical of drug companies. The late activist Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a couple of books on the job hunt. She had a PhD is something biology related so applied for a sales position. She didn't get the job as they wanted a former cheerleader!
In any case, each episode starts with a parent or parents of victims of the oxycontin epidemic. They warn us that liberties have been taken for dramatic effect, but "my dead son or daughter" is not a fiction.
The garage owner who's injured and becomes addicted to oxycontin and it, shall I say, changes his life. (At the end of the series, you're not sure what happened to him...)
The black woman who represents the US Attorney's office who has a brother in prison for dealing drugs, and has been sentenced for a long, long term, while the Sacklers--no spoilers--do not., A key element of the story.
Part of what makes it a black comedy is the Sackler family dysfunction. The deceased patriarch and company founder reappears as a Ghost of Chrismas Past, and fights with Matthew Broderick's character, his grandson and company CEO.
Important is that their sole drive was MONEY.
I recommend it, but to through the whole series, in spite of some parts being a little hard to watch.
Science Friction (2022)
That of which we MUST be aware when we watch "the media."
We're way past the 3-channel days, and now have a selection of channels of various political angles--don't get me going on some of them!--and even some, say the History Channel, from which we'd expect something credible.
As Gershwin wrote in "Porgy and Bess," "It ain't necessarily so."
Idiocy sells. In my own case, when I was about 15, long, long ago, I read "Chariots of the Gods." I was excited, thought myself to be a step beyond those ignorant fools who haven't yet seen the light.
By the time I was 16, I laughed that it was adolescent nonsense.
These post-truth, post-reading days, we often see claims as aburd as those in that "book" and we look to confirm or deny them. So we can turn to various cable channels to confirm or deny. Unfortunately, they're not very accurate or reliable.
I like those who represented truth in the film, some of whom, Jamie Ian Swiss and Michael Shermer, I've met and spoken with. But there are many others, scientists, lecturers, scholars, who had written something or lectured on it. When the material went to some of those media, their words were pathietically misrepresented.
That's the whole theme of the film. It's well done, reasonably entertaining, not pedantic.
It's a film that I purchased and show to some "true believers," especially those who refer to some of those cable channels as credible information sources.,
My profound hope is that some of the channels are better at screening what they show. I may, if they do so, watch them. Until then, I recommend Science Friction.
The UFO Movie They Don't Want You to See (2023)
The best I've seen on the subject!
When I was about 10, I was sleeping outside with friends. We saw something, probably Venus, that swung to the right and turned into a disc. So it seemed.
I was a believer!
Over the years, after, for example, a period in which I challenged the JFK assasination, I "matured" and became a skeptic overall.
This wonderful film demonstrates angles I'd never even considered as the the reliability of UFO sightings. They relied not only on Brian's skeptical expertise--Thanks, Brian--but also Steven Novella and even Jimmy Carter, another "witness" of yore.
For instance, what if some extraterrestrials had visited 22 million years ago? Not only WHY might they have visited, but (2) how long would it have taken for them to get here from wherever and (3) Does their species even still exist?
(Look at our primate/human timeline: we've only been here for a few seconds!)
I think legitimate skepticism is a valid, and necessary institution in the post-truth nature of our times. This is so good I recommend it as a primer to skepticism and as an expose as to the absurdity of the dogma of the ufologists, many of which infect us.
You need to convince a true believer? Show it.
Where to Invade Next (2015)
The funniest Moore film yet!
I've always liked Michael's films. To refer to them is "biased" is silly as that's what Moore does. Indeed, I watched two movies which were a reaction to his over the last couple of years, and the idiots who did the film used essentially the very same style that Moore uses. In other words, like spoiled kids, they said, "Moore does such and such," and did exactly the same thing, but Michael had done it first.
And most of his films have a comic element, if not also mixed with at least a touch of ego. That's okay. He made the movie, and I didn't. Heaven knows lots more of my ego might be in it if I'd made it...
But I did anticipate a "comedy" with this film. That's the way it's advertised. It started very cleverly, thought I don't want to spoil anything by saying how. And I laughed from the beginning. He travels from one country to another and finds: Well, it seems their citizens mean more to the government of those countries than ours do to our government! Even one Muslim country--the name of which I won't mention here. But the women of that land took a stand against the Conservative Muslim government, and won! A highlight: Micheal was able to talk with that Muslim president of that country who said, I think in these words, "Power isn't everything."
Bravo!
Then, at the end, after a couple hours of reflecting on the great elements of these countries, Micheal reminds us that, AS EVEN THE OFFICIALS IN THOSE COUNTRIES ASSERT, WHAT THEY PRACTICE AND PREACH THEY GOT FROM America!
So, those who are inclined, like some of my extended family to contend that Moore is "anti-American," that's nonsense. He reminds us of what were were, and CAN BE.
Then why only 8 stars? The only problem I had with it was that it was slightly "post-modern." For example, of all the banks in Iceland, the only one that didn't collapse was run by women. He deduces that, therefore, if the world were run more by women, it would be more just. One of the woman Iceland officials said, "It's in our DNA." With that I disagree. First, doubtless, the worst boss I ever had was a woman. And arguably the second worst was a black woman. The issue is that of POWER, not sex, not race, not just breaking what's been typical, i.e., male, Caucasian, heterosexual.
Aside from that, it's another classic I'll purchase and add to my Michael Moore library once it's released on DVD.
Category 7: The End of the World (2005)
A low grace comic book
I like bad movies. In fact, I collect them. Some because the figures who created them are fascinating(e.g., Ed Wood). Some others because they're SO bad they're entertaining in themselves (e.g., "Robot Monster." I got this one as part of a cheap collection of disaster flicks. I can only summarize it based on I'm amazed any company put up the money for such a story; the bad guys all die--I especially like the scene where one of the kidnapped uses a shotgun to blow down the door of a room causing the kidnappers to get sucked into the sky by a tornado. He then enters the room and his hair doesn't even get mussed up.
The good guys? The only ones who die are heroes, e.g., Tom Skerrit's character, a colonel whose SR71 gets ripped apart.(The plane, by the way, doesn't do what the movie suggests that it does).
This flick might not be bad for a 6 year old. After that, it's just inane.
Scorcher (2002)
More clichés...
And more clichés. The whole film is a conglomerate of third rate movie clichés, from the smart Aleck military guy, the two fathers who seem to reject their daughters...from beginning to end Cliché! What's more, it makes no sense. One sample of that summarizes one event after the other: the heroes are in need of emergency departure. There it is: a corporate jet just waiting to pick them up on the streets of a deserted Los Angeles.
And then there's the doomsday scenario with pseudo-scientific jargon to spin the mind...
It's okay if you want to occupy the pre-schoolers...I guess.
This makes Ed Wood look classy.
Alice's Restaurant (1969)
Profoundly disappointing
The last time I saw this film, it had just come out in the theaters. I was in high school, preparing for college, had a rebellious streak in me...you know, the usual.
What I always remembered about it was the funeral song, at Shelly's grave, "Song for Aging Children," a song I still love. So I got the DVD.
Now that I'm older, though not less rebellious, I find the film to have been put together like it was done by a junior high school kid with a few bucks to spare. It had the anti-authority clichés, you know the cops are all a bunch of idiots, and the young people who make up the bulk of the cast were all well-meaning and care-free. Well, yeah. But it takes some money to do what they were doing. From where did they get the money? There was also a theme of motorcycle racing that really didn't fit in well, or was at least not adequately explained.
And the acting was ghastly. Apparently the director picked some people, I don't know, maybe friends of Guthrie? Or they were in the director's garage band or something? Overall, it was a band of silly late-60s clichés, and a story without a point. And that's kind of sad. The song is a classic folk song/tale, an anthem to an era. But the film, is pretty useless, unless you want to show those clichés and what they ostensibly represent.
Red Dawn (1984)
What a terrible flick.
It's interesting to read the trivia, that the "film" has more violence than any before. But the story on the face of it is absurd. If the Soviets were to have invaded, why would they take over a small town in Colorado? The film starts with some hypothetical stats on how the Soviets were taking over the world, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc. Well, long, long since we've all learned that the Soviet "threat" was always so overblown as to be absurd.
In short, this flick is a must for the teen, survivalist redneck, but as to substance, it's about as substantial as "Battlefield Earth," with John Travolta.