peterberkey51 Reviews

Evolution (2015)

Childhood Fantasy & Nightmare

[7/10 · 13 May 2017]

This movie is a magical mystery journey that touches on the best fantasies and the worst fears of my childhood. I needed to watch it twice to get a better understanding, there's just too much going on here. Certainly brings up more questions than answers, but I appreciate how the movie allows my imagination to wander and come up with my own observations and interpretations. That's what I like most about these kinds of movies.

Those mermaids using the boys as reproduction tools was a really wild idea. What a nightmare! Perhaps a bit far fetched, yet it really enhanced the paranoid "creep factor" in this movie. Still wondering what that "thing" was being passed around during the beach orgy, but that's part of the mystery, isn't it?

I could totally relate to Nicholas asking the important questions and realizing that everything about his existence needed to be questioned. Indeed, even questioning if his perception of reality is true. He uses drawings as therapy to create a world he understands. It's a process and Nicholas stays strong throughout his struggles to uncover the truth about the weird reality around him. He finally learns to "let go" with the help of the lover nurse and this is where the movie ends. Evolution leaves plenty of room for the imagination to wander.

My Side of the Mountain (1969)

This movie changed my life !!

[7/10 · 15 March 2016]

This movie was one of the first movies I ever remember seeing as a kid. Viewed it on one of the most state-of-the-art big screens in the 60's. Yeah, it was a very impressive film for a kid my age (10). Based on a book that came out the year I was born.

I just saw the movie again (47 years later) on Netflix and I am stunned to realize how much it changed my life. I was a runaway in Seattle (1976), although for me it was more about running into future opportunity rather than running away from past problems. I learned from this movie. Challenging to live on my own at age 16 in the big world. I now live my life on the side of a mountain... quite happily I might add. Never quite understood how I began to 'think outside the box', but this film is all about thinking outside the box. It's a revolutionary concept of independence... no cell phone, indeed, the kid is not depending on other people, parents, or government to solve his problems. The kid is really arrogant, but hey, he's 12 years old. How many 12 year olds today would try this? Imagine a world where kids decided they wanted to take responsibility for their choices.

If you can get past the errors of the script and arrogance of the kid (that's why I gave it a 7)... this film really has got something to offer most everyone.