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jack98230
Reviews
The Book Thief (2013)
Well crafted, tense and quite accurate
An amazing performance by 13-year-old Canadian Sophie Nelisse in the movie version of Australian Markus Zusak's best selling young adult novel (2005). It's a fine way to introduce the era and what happened in it to children, as director Brian Percival gets a lot out of Nelisse and co- star Nico Liersch, letting these two kids play people their own age (and a bit younger) accurately and believably.
The tension that runs throughout the film is like watching children play with loaded guns for 131 minutes, truly and fairly representing what these people must have lived for six years. I disagree with other reviewers who found that it didn't dwell on things long enough...it's shot from a young person's point of view, with that kind of simplistic acceptance of things that happen outside one's field of view.
This is the kind of film that provides much to chew on afterward, if taken seriously. We saw it with members of our synagogue so that wasn't an issue. The tension for us began with simply seeing that this was set in Germany during WW II.
Blackfish (2013)
Many nearby locales and shots give this movie credibility
Perhaps a little preachy, but essentially right-on expose' of one of the nastier roadside zoo type companies around.
Sea World was shown the door in Washington because of the numbers of whales they killed trying to capture a few for their parks.
As against elephants or ostriches or other exotics, killer whales are fairly easy to see in their natural environment. All you have to do is come to where they like to hang out and go out on a whale watch boat.
Sea World, if it were responsibly run, might have a case for what it's doing now as long as it doesn't trap any more wild animals. But the spin, the bullshit and outright false information, shows that their chief interest is in the almighty buck, not taking care of wildlife or even their own staff.
Sea World seems to be continuing a vestige of old-fashioned zoo attitudes that once gave us bears in chains dancing at county fairs, especially when they confine these animals to such small enclosures. It may be true that animals born in captivity know nothing of life in the wild, but they're still physically equipped for that life, and can and should be returned to the wild.
This is not because we can do that, but because we should, just as we should be about cleaning up our act so there's enough fish for these creatures to eat. In the wild.
In the beginning and toward the end of the film there are local Washington state shots, even one that shows one well-known bull, "Ruffles," and others of his pod in their natural environment, one I can almost look at directly (but for the trees) from where I sit writing this.
So if Se World wants to do this right, assuming it can be done "right," it wouldn't cost any more money (their basic value) to tell the truth and offer good solid scientific information, instead of making it all into one more consumerist game.