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Reviews
Bomb City (2017)
Thoughtfully presented using well adapted tools.
The film is based on events surrounding the 1997 homicide of an urban punk enthusiast and musician, Brian Denek, by a high school football player in Amarillo, Texas. The cultural clash depicted between the athletes and punks shows how both life styles mirror each other, at some level, but how the culture of the athletes is actually based on real violence vs the overarching perceived violence of the punk rock community. Neither side of the conflict is without blame, however, and the film does a good job of depicting this fact, as well as showing the difference between how society reacts to the athletes social culture vs the punk's social culture.
The narrative of the film is draped over the trial resulting from Denek's homicide. Through most of the film, the defense attorney appears to actually be the prosecutor. In fact, the film depicts the entire punk culture as being dangerous to American culture without objection from the prosecutor. At one point, the defense attorney says that Denek's death was the right thing to have happened, that Denek's choices could only result in his homicide.
The court case sparked debate over injustice in the American judicial system. The athlete, despite overwhelming evidence that he committed vehicular homicide, was sentenced to probation, after which he graduated from high school and attended college. The conclusion of the film seems to be that the athlete's guilt is meaningless because he killed a person whose value is not easily understood by mainstream society. This isn't a new subject for a film, but the film approaches the issues using unusual subjects and well thought-out narrative techniques.
Waiting for the Barbarians (2019)
A Beautiful Film About An Ugly Subject
Spoiler: this film is not a happy, easily digested, date-night rollick. Spoiler: you never get to see the good guys whack the bad guys.
The good news: this is a excellent film about how colonial powers are excellent at making a bloody mess of things by arrogantly treating native populations like animals, creating conflict where none exists, and thinking somehow these will help them achieve their geopolitical goals.
I highly recommend this effort. The film depicts what is a historic trope: Europeans come to a place and attempt to squash the natives for no reason at all. The natives fight back, and things become complicated. But the film is so much more than the trope.
The plot: The film, and the book it is based on, never names the empire, the native population, or the primary character, the magistrate. On the boarder of an unnamed frontier, in an unnamed outpost where the inhabitants live peacefully with the natives, an "empire" appears with the clear objective of creating conflict that will eventually "subdue" the natives. Caught in all of this is the unnamed magistrate who has maintained the peace among both the outpost's inhabitants and the native population.
The magistrate's primary interest, beyond keeping the peace, is the archeology and history of the region. The magistrate is a gentleman about to be awash in a sea of scoundrels, which the empire demonstrates, at one point, by telling him no one cares about the region's gistory. Thus, in a nutshell, is the story of every invading empire and the presumptive belief that the empire will write the history of the region so as to wash away that which came before.
The film's actors do a great job of creating the atmosphere necessary for the film's purpose. This is no surprise given the cast. A couple of characters come and go without explanation, which is disappointing, but the script is excellent despite this small flaw. The sets and staging are top notch.
Any serious film fan will find much to think about and appreciate, although I could never use the word "enjoy." The person looking for an action/adventure will be seriously disappointed.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
I've never rated a movie as '1' before - it's that bad
I'm not even sure what to say about this film other than, Are you kidding me? How did all of these film stars, with so much talent, get sucked into this mess? How did Disney ever conclude the movie should be made? (Wait. It made $400 million worldwide... Really? Are that many people so desperate for entertainment they will sit down to watch Russell Crowe do a routine out of The Marx Brothers?) I didn't make it through half of this foolishness, and then only because I have an intestinal virus. In full health, not sitting on the toilet, I would have turned it off during the Valhalla-gone-Disneyland scene near the beginning. I hope Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman never go near this franchise again. I know I won't.