Reviews

This is not as good as Jiuliang Wang's more recent "Plastic China" (2016) (see my review), but it is very interesting nonetheless. And it covers more ground, as it were; in fact, Wang visited hundreds of trash dumps, landfills, pig sties, high rise construction sites, polluted rivers and streams, etc. in and around Beijing during the filming.

He shows truckloads of human waste poured into ponds, and trucks dumping huge loads of trash, especially plastic trash onto piles and piles of trash in which men, women and children make their meagre living. I was particularly grossed out by how the penned-in pigs are fed their swill (primarily semi-liquid garbage from restaurants). According to Wang, sometimes the oil from the restaurant garbage is filtered out and resold for human consumption.

Of course, what Wang shows in this film could be filmed in many other cities of the world. The point here is that Beijing is a particularly polluted city. The ground water is polluted, the air is polluted and apparently some of the food is polluted.

The reason I believe that "Plastic China" is a better film is because it focuses more closely and revealingly on the people working the trash. This film is more impersonal and not as well- focused. Additionally, in the six years of so between these two films, Wang has become both a better cinemaphotographer and more aware of the viewer's needs.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

This very interesting documentary shows the life of two Chinese families three generations deep living on, beside and surrounded by plastic waste. Their job is to turn the plastic into pellets to be sold to industry.

It's a Chinese language film with English subtitles. The focus is on 11-year-old Yi Jie, daughter of Pen who works for "boss man" Kun who has come in from the country where he was a farmer to recycle plastic waste so he can afford to pay for education for his children (and no so incidentally) buy nice things like a new car. We see the children at work and play among and amidst the piles of mostly white plastic. We see the workers and children sort through the plastic for the right kind to feed the machine that makes pellets that can be sold. The children play, the families eat together, they sing, they joke, they moan about making the equivalent of five dollars a day. They dream, and strange to say learn a lot about the world by examining and reading the plastic trash from all over the world.

I learned a bit about plastic recycling some twenty years ago when for two months I walked the streets of the beach cities in the Los Angeles area collecting bottles and cans. I found out then that the plastic that was not deposit bottles was gathered into great shipping crates and sold to China. In turn many American companies bought the resulting pellets from China! This film shows why it was economic to ship the plastic waste to China and then effectively speaking buy back a value-added product. Quite simply the labor costs were and are so much less.

Curiously this is an uplifting doc with almost no political message. Because the people are shown going about their daily lives we come to feel we know them, and indeed their hopes and dreams and the way they live with one another is very much like people everywhere.

Director Jiuliang Wang demonstrates in this film that he has a fine eye for the right kind of detail and a good sense of people and even how to tell a story, because, yes this is a story, a true one about people living in poverty but filled with hope. Wang is also the director of "Beijing Besieged by Waste" (2012) which I haven't seen yet.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

This documentary comes seven years after the first "Under Our Skin" from 2008. A lot has been learned about chronic Lyme disease since then not only in the United States but throughout the world. Director Anthony Abrahams Wilson follows some of the victims of chronic Lyme disease from the first "Under Our Skin" while bringing the viewer up to date on both what science has since discovered since and how the political battle between chronic Lyme disease deniers and others have changed. It appears that the deniers are losing.

As I wrote in my review of the first "Under Our Skin" what is apparently happening is this:

(1) some people get a chronic form of Lyme disease and, (2) the insurance companies don't want to pay for the long-term treatment required, and (3) their method for avoiding the costs is to deny the disease exists. (4) Additionally, the sufferers are accused of faking it or having it all in their heads.

Furthermore, doctors who treat (and apparently cure) patients with chronic Lyme disease are threatened with losing their medical licenses because the medical establishment believes that the long- term use of intravenous antibiotics is harmful.

What is obvious from this documentary and the previous is that the pain and suffering that victims have experienced is real and horrible. They are not faking it.

The documentary presents evidence that the infectious agent was able to hide from the immune system in biofilms within the body for months or years. I also believe that the infectious agent Borrelia burgdorferi disrupted or compromised the immune system of some people so badly that it took months or years for their bodies to recover.

By the way, the disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi is only one of many similar diseases caused by tick bites throughout the world. Consequently, when doctors are not able to find the Lyme disease agent in a chronically sick person it may be the case they are looking for the wrong bug. Or it could be they didn't look hard enough. In the documentary, we learn that a Norwegian doctor diluted blood samples from patients which allowed him to see previously unseen infectious agents with a microscope.

By the way, one of the questions asked in this video is did "Lyme rage" have anything to do with the horrific murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012? Did Adam Lanza have Lyme disease? This documentary suggests that might have been the case; however, Adam Lanza had a long history of mental and social problems. Nonetheless it is possible since during autopsy he was not examined for Lyme disease.

I invite the reader to see the recent Australian documentary "Our Battle Ongoing: Lyme Disease in Australia" (2017) for more information. Interested people should also read relevant literature on the Web and reach your own conclusions.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

What is apparently happening according to this mostly convincing documentary is that

(1) some people get a chronic form of Lyme disease and, (2) the insurance companies don't want to pay for the long-term treatment required, and (3) their method for avoiding the costs is to deny the disease exists. (4) Additionally, the sufferers are accused of faking it or having it all in their heads.

Furthermore, doctors who treat (and apparently cure) patients with chronic Lyme disease are threatened with losing their medical licenses because the medical establishment believes that the long- term use of intravenous antibiotics (as seen in this film) is harmful.

If all of this is true then this is a national disgrace of a criminal nature.

However, according to the article in Wikipedia, "Chronic Lyme disease is a generally unrecognised diagnosis that encompasses 'a broad array of illnesses or symptom complexes for which there is no reproducible or convincing scientific evidence of any relationship to B. burgdorferi infection.'" One of the citations that Wikipedia gives is an article in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The documentary shows several persons who were bitten by a tick or ticks and contracted Lyme disease but continued to have horrendous symptoms months or years after they should have been cured. Then these same persons are treated with intravenous antibiotics over months or years and then become free of symptoms.

At issue here is did the antibiotics cure them? And if so, what was it that was cured?

My belief is twofold (1) that the infectious agent Borrelia burgdorferi disrupted or compromised the immune system of these people so badly that it took months or years for their bodies to recover, and (2) the infectious agent was able to hide from the immune system in biofilms within the body for months or years. Consequently, in the first case, the antibiotics did not cure them. The passage of time and perhaps love and good life style choices did. In the second case gradually the antibiotics may have cured the disease. In other cases the immune system may be keeping the bacteria at bay.

By the way, the disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi is only one of many similar diseases caused by tick bites throughout the world. Consequently, when doctors are not able to find the Lyme disease agent in a chronically sick person it may be the case they are looking for the wrong bug.

I invite the reader to see the recent Australian documentary "Our Battle Ongoing: Lyme Disease in Australia" (2017) for more information. There is also an "Under Our Skin 2: Emergence" 2015 that brings the viewer more up to date. Interested people should also read relevant literature on the Web and reach your own conclusions.

As far as this documentary goes, it is very well done, nicely edited, clearly presented and seemingly fair, but alarming. Perhaps a subject like chronic Lyme disease IS alarming and should be treated as such.

I hope that this documentary will encourage more research so that we can understand what happens to the relatively few people who get "chronic Lyme disease" and find a cure that spares them months and years of pain and suffering.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

(For the most part.)

Here are some things to know about this movie:

Gia Coppola (Francis Ford Coppola's granddaughter) directed, her first outing. She also wrote the screenplay based on James Franco's short story collection also entitled "Palo Alto." She was 25-years- old at the time.

Emma Roberts who plays April and was 22-years-old when this film was released in 2013 is Julia Roberts' niece. Her father is Eric Roberts (467 credits as an actor).

Palo Alto, California is an upscale Silicon Valley community and home to Stanford University.

Franco, who plays soccer coach Mr. B, is from Palo Alto. He has a degree in English with a concentration in creative writing from UCLA.

There are no helicoptering parents in this movie.

Initially I had a lot of trouble watching this because of all the unnecessary cigarette smoking apparently as product placements. It's sad that some producers can't get funding without taking big tobacco's money. However, I'll give that a pass since some of the smoking had relevance to the story—or "stories." The viewer can see that Coppola cleverly weaved parts of Franco's various stories and characters into a mostly coherent whole that plays as a larger story.

The other problem for me was the intensity and raw teenage emotional abandonment depicted. This is life lived in the fast lane when you're still living at home and have an incredible need for experiences, sometimes regardless of the consequences.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the movie review collection, "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote"

There's a lot of restraint and subtlety in director Abderrahmane Sissako's tragic delineation of what it's like to live under an ISIS takeover of a Muslim community. And there's a beautiful artistry in the way he shows the barbarism of Sharia law so horrifically played out while the subjugation of women is made clear. (Actually the women in the movie stand strong against the subjugation.) Thus the evil of the "jihadists" (ISIS is never named but a black flag is flown) is contrasted with the normal lives of Muslim people.

Sissako, who also wrote the script, is careful to make this distinction—a distinction that a good part of the world is currently working on. It is not Muslims who are bad; it is the extremists. Yet I could not help but think as I watched this with the incessant talk of God will's, etc., that maybe, just maybe, the tribalism of religion itself is at fault. How horrible it is to live with the constant thought and expression that it is all God's doing (with a little help from the forces of evil), and that we are just pawns in some absurd game played by a nearly omnipotent power that can send you to heaven or hell based on the very behaviors built into your psyche.

Well, such would apply to most other religions as well I suppose. So an indictment of Islam is not appropriate. Nonetheless the intense religious climate of the movie was for me almost tyrannical. I felt so sad for all the poor ignorant people and again was reminded of the saying "willful ignorance is the only sin" and again told myself that the only way out of the morass of the Middle East is education leading to enlightenment.

The film is in Arabic, French and a bit of English with English subtitles. A lot of what is said is not translated into the subtitles, but little is lost in the comprehension. There are scenes of great beauty contrasted with ugly violence. Beautiful music is played and sung, and there is a soccer game played without a ball. Such is the absurdity of life under the jihadists, who are really just thugs using a distorted vision of Islam in order to justify their crimes.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "Understanding Religion and Ourselves"

The most stunning thing about this movie (aside from Scarlett Johansson) is the deep spiritual meaning that comes near the end. Yes, amid all the mayhem, the shoot 'em ups, the science impossible there is something very redeeming about this and it has to do with what it means to be alive and to be human.

What Lucy is able to do cannot possibly come about from taking substances into her system as in the movie. However the incredible power, knowledge and freedom she achieves is something that may be possible for humans some distant day--or rather possible for our intelligently designed descendants who will be cyborgs or something beyond that.

The story itself and the way French born director Luc Besson ("Léon: The Professional," "La Femme Nikita," etc.) moves the plot along with action that keeps us enthralled amounts to a first rate sci fi thriller. Johansson who plays Lucy and whose countenance dominates the film is wonderful. And I don't mean merely from the fact that her face is mesmerizing but also because she does such a great acting job in a demanding role.

I am giving this film only 9 stars because of the rather lame idea that we use only ten percent of our brains. That idea was disposed of decades ago. Of course as a metaphor it works okay. However it could be better said that we are currently achieving only ten percent of what we could achieve.

I also don't think Besson, who also wrote the script for the film, has the right notion about time. He has Lucy say, "Time is the only true unit of measure. It gives proof to the existence of matter. Without time, we don't exist." However, time like other units of measure really just compares two or more things, in this case events. Many scientists believe that time per se does not exist and is an abstraction, or as I see it time is a mathematical point.

But much of the philosophy and/or psychology in the film is if nothing else interesting and worth thinking about. For example Lucy says, "We've codified our existence to bring it down to human size, to make it comprehensible, we've created a scale so we can forget its unfathomable scale." This is true in a practical sense but I believe it is also true in a philosophical and a spiritual sense.

I will be seeing this film again.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

Not to mention beautifully and cleverly directed.

This is the first of Chan-wook Park's films I've seen and if the others are half as good as "The Handmaiden" I'm going to see them all. Min-hee Kim stars as Lady Hikeko, a young Japanese woman of wealth and beauty living in an isolated estate with her sadistic uncle in Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1930s. A gaggle of Korean thieves and con artists dream up a scheme to separate Hikeko from her fortune. The idea is for one of them to pose as a Count Fujiwara, seduce Hikeko and then marry her. Aiding this scheme is a pretty little pickpocket named Sook-Hee (played with great skill and charm by Tae-ri Kim).

That's all I can tell you about the plot. Rest assured it is fascinating with some very surprising twists and turns. This is also one of the sexiest movies I've ever seen. It is billed as a crime thriller but actually it is the story of a beautiful love affair. Again I will not elaborate since any more information might spoil the film for many viewers.

Bottom line: I plan on seeing this again and I seldom watch films more than once, only the great ones.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the movie review book, "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote"

I didn't see this when it came out in 1987 which is just as well because I really enjoyed seeing it the other night. It's a political thriller with Gene Hackman as David Brice, U.S. Secretary of Defense. Brice employs the kind of political machinations usually seen in corrupt congresspersons as he tries to wiggle his way out of a terrible jam. At his side is the particularly sleazy sociopathic Scott Pritchard (Will Patton) who defends his boss with true devotion.

Okay what makes this so good? I mean Sean Young is to die for pretty of course and Kevin Costner is just the kind of guy few women can resist. So we've got good eye candy, but what makes "No Way Out" head and shoulders above almost all other thrillers is the oh so ingenious plot. Yes the plot in this movie is very clever—some might say too clever, especially the ending which some viewers may feel is unlikely or tacked on. It is a doozy of an ending and it follows some mesmerizing twists and turns along the way. I found most of them plausible, and I think the only thing wrong with the ending was Kevin Costner's accent! The screen play was adapted from Kenneth Fearing's novel "The Big Clock" which I haven't read. There was also a movie with the same title from 1948 starring Ray Milland, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Charles Laughton. I do know that while "No Way Out" is about the Pentagon and the intrigue centers around the secretary of defense and a naval officer, Commander Tom Farrell (Costner) "The Big Clock" was about a publishing tycoon. Apparently what is the same is some kind of similar action removed from the backdrops.

I find most thrillers have too many plot holes and implausibilities while relying too heavily on action and chase scenes, car crashes, etc. Here most of the chase scenes are on foot. What made me decide to take a look at this was to see the young Sean Young again. Who could forget all the close-ups of her face in "Blade Runner" (1982).

By the way, the title "No Way Out" is especially apt since it really does look like neither Brice nor Farrell have any way out. The plot is that diabolical.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "Dennis Littrell's True Crime Companion"

As I was watching this expecting not too much and a bit distracted I was wondering vaguely how this managed to get such a good cast. Surprisingly the movie surprised. This a fine example of the "hit man" genre infused with comedy. Yes, they made yet another hit man movie…I mean let's glorify the poor bast…guys. So, so Hollywood. I actually Googled "hit man movies" and I was really, really surprised at how many there have been. I've seen maybe a half dozen, and if I feel like making the effort I'll look them up and make a list.

But this movie creates another genre: the hit man comedy. "Leon: The Professional" (1994) and "Panic" (2000) gave us the hit man we can identify with and empathize with while experiencing a little satirical intent along the way. But this expands the possibilities. I mean the hit man is Chuck Barris (oh, boy) of "The Gong Show" fame and infamy played by Sam Rockwell as the heroic flawed hero. (Story based on Barris's own book. Ha!) And how did the director get such a great cast? I mean George Clooney, Drew Barrymore, Julia Roberts and Sam Rockwell. Answer: George Clooney directed a script by Charlie Kaufman. Yes, Clooney was the director and did an outstanding job; and yes, Charlie Kaufman is the author of screenplays for such cutting edge and entirely original films as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004) and "Being John Malkovich" (1999).

So yes I would be persuaded to take a role and not worry about the box office. BTW there are some interesting cameos including Brad Pitt and Matt Damon as The Dating Game contestants. They appear almost as sight jokes.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the movie review book, "Cut to the Chaise Lounge, or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote"

This is about the hundreds of U.S. military bases scattered across the globe. According to various sources the U.S. has anywhere from 662 bases in 38 countries (from the Wikipedia article) to something like 700 (according to this documentary) to 800 (according to an article in The Nation Magazine). The question is why?

It's been 71 years since the end of World War II and yet there are still hundreds of bases in Germany and Japan. The documentary shows protests against some of these bases. In particular Kadena Air Base in Okinawa faces daily protests. Japanese citizens claim that the land on which the base stands belongs to them and should be returned. Of course Osama bin Laden used the presence of U.S. military bases on Islamic lands as justification for the murders of thousands of Americans.

The documentary basically asks how would we feel if there were foreign military bases in the United States? It is easy to say, well, we didn't suffer unconditional surrender, and yes Japan attacked the U.S., etc., but that was then. This is now, and Germany and Japan are our allies. Regardless of how other people feel about the bases the question we should ask ourselves—and it's a question this documentary asks—is isn't this a great waste of taxpayer money?

Directors Thomas Fazi and Enrico Parenti use interviews and film footage to show what a waste these bases are and why there are continuing to be maintained. Naturally Eisenhower's famous warning about the "industrial military complex" comes into play. In short, this production argues that the bases are not only a waste of money but do not add to our national security. Indeed David Vine in his article in The Nation claims the bases are "doing us more harm than good."

Personally I agree that the bases add little to our national security. Some bases, such as the one in the middle of the Indian Ocean and others in the Middle East may allow us to respond quickly to terrorists and pirates. This is good since it facilitates global trade which is beneficial to the U.S. But why should the price be so high, and why shouldn't other countries pay more for their defense and keeping the trade routes open? Good questions, but the fact remains that, as this interesting and compelling documentary makes clear, we have far, far too many bases overseas at a cost well beyond their value. One could say it's time to bring the troops home. One would guess that we could be just as safe with perhaps a quarter of the bases. As the headline in The Nation puts it: "The United States Probably Has More Foreign Military Bases Than Any Other People, Nation, or Empire in History."

The importance of this documentary is in the fact that the vast majority of Americans have no idea how great and expensive is our military presence globally. This should open some eyes. Spend 76 minutes watching this documentary and decide for yourself: Do we really to spend an estimated $156 billion or more a year while incurring some serious animosity and ill will?

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

If you've been wondering just which parts of Sharia law are being incorporated into laws (or are in danger of being incorporated into laws) in Europe, Canada and the U.S. this documentary has the answer. In Sharia law it is a crime punishable by death to criticize or speak negatively about the Prophet or about Islam itself.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC: 57 Islamic nations) has it as one of their goals to make it a crime not only in Muslim lands but in western democracies to say negative things about their religion! This film is in part a report on how well they are doing in this effort. The idea is to label criticism of Islam a hate crime as defined in Western nations including the U.S. If they are successful this documentary warns us that will be the end of freedom of speech in the West.

It's a rather outrageous attempt on the part of the OIC. It's one thing to have laws in an Islamic country against defamation of the Prophet and Islam, but quite another to try to impose such laws on citizens of other nations. What is particularly glaring is that no such prohibition is being hawked about to "protect" other religions.

Personally I don't think Islam needs the protection. This attempt is really an embarrassment to the world's second largest religion. I see pluses and minuses in all religions. No religion has a monopoly on truth (or falsehood) and no religion should be free from criticism.

I should also like to point out that there is a difference between speech that applies to race and that which applies to religion. Racial differences are biological facts of life superimposed, as it were, on individuals without their consent. Religion is a social, political and (hopefully) spiritual human invention. Criticism of religions and religion is part of the exchange of ideas protected in U.S. by the First Amendment to the Constitution. I hope and trust it will stay that way.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

This is a nice vehicle for Tobey Maguire who does a good job of portraying a paranoid schizophrenic, but that person is not Robert James Fischer. They got Maguire's hair style right but otherwise any resemblance between the tall, lanky, expansive Bobby Fischer and Maguire is slight. He probably didn't see enough footage of Fischer at that age. He didn't use any of Fischer's mannerisms that I noticed and of course Fischer was several inches taller. Liev Schreiber who played Spassky actually looks a bit like Spassky but is bigger and more robust. So we have in the movie Fischer vs. Spassky at the chess board but Spassky bigger than Fischer! As for games mentioned in some detail I had to go back to the first and sixth games of the match to recall what happened and to compare my perception with that of the commentary in the movie. The sixth game was a brilliant game as almost everybody agrees, but contrary to some popular opinion Fischer did not blunder away his bishop in game one. He and Spassky were in a clearly drawn bishop and pawn ending. He wanted more, but there was nothing he could do, so what he did was sacrifice his bishop for two pawns, not as some people think in an attempt to win the game but to show his confidence and to shake Spassky up a bit. Fischer thought the resulting position after many moves would be a draw. He was wrong but this is an example of Fischer psychology: I will make you play a hundred moves if necessary just to show you how strong I am. You will weaken not me.

Some reviewers pointed out some chessic type errors but there weren't that many and they were minor. Here's one they got right that may surprise some people. Notice that Fischer used the descriptive notation ("P-K4") while most other grandmasters even back in 1972 used algebraic notation ("e4"). And while there were chess clock on analyst boards where they serve no purpose at least the boards were set up right with the white square at the player's right hand, avoiding a common error in movies.

Probably the biggest error had nothing to do with chess but with the fact that Fischer's mental illness at the time of the Spassky match had not developed as much as the movie suggests. His personality was more rounded than displayed. He actually had a charming side. People liked him in spite his bad manners and selfishness. There's a YouTube video of him on TV with Bob Hope filmed sometime shortly after the match with Spassky that shows a very different Fischer than the one Maguire portrayed.

The bit with the girl (sarcastically she says to Fischer: "it was good for me too" as he studies a chess game in bed) was apparently director Edward Zwick's take on the nagging question of Fischer's sexuality, meaning yes he was heterosexual, but chess was just more interesting.

The real disappointment for me was that they did not make clear the really great triumphant of Fischer's preceding the championship match. He destroyed three of the top grandmasters en route to the title match, at one point winning 20 games in a row. Amazing. The greatest streak in grandmaster history. So he was a clear favorite although Spassky was the World Champion. That's why he wanted so much to win the first game and confirm immediately that he was clearly superior.

I was also disappointed that Fischer's life after winning the championship was not explored. I had hoped for a cinematic take on what happened to "The Wandering King" (the title of a book about his life by Hans Bohm and Kees Jongkind). Perhaps that material would be better presented in a documentary than in a popular flick.

Bottom line: worth seeing but not as good as I had hoped.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "The World Is Not as We Think It Is"

What is enlightening here is the terrible waste that Jenny Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin uncovered as they went for six months living on only thrown-away vittles. Wow. Six months of dumpster diving and the like. They must have gotten very hungry and really bored with the food choices. But—no! Grant Baldwin gained about ten pounds and they had so much food that it was an embarrassment. True this was in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada which is, relatively speaking, a very well-off place to live.

If that were the only point of the documentary it would not be so good. What makes this work is the research that Rustemeyer and Baldwin did about food waste in not only Canada but in the US, and the filming and interviews they did with other people in the food business. They report that it is estimated that 40% of the food grown in the United States is wasted. It is mostly thrown into landfills where it produces the greenhouse gas, methane, as well as creating an unsanitary mess. They also show that responsible farmers allow gleaning on their property so that unharvested food does not go to waste. Additionally of course farmers typically compost anything they can't sell.

What I found most interesting was the part about how the expiration dates on food products are contributing massively to the waste. According to another source (treehugger.com) "Most consumers think that the dates on the food in their fridge say something about food safety. But most 'sell by,' 'use by' and 'best by' dates are intended to indicate freshness, and say nothing about when food may spoil." So, because of the confusion in the minds of most people food retailers find it best to remove food that is past the expiration date on the package from their shelves. What to do with it? As we see in this documentary often what they do is just throw it out. That's often the easiest course for the retailer. Thus Rustemeyer and Baldwin in their dumpster travels come upon a very large dumpster (as big as a swimming pool, Baldwin remarks) full of hundreds of hummus packages all perfectly good to eat. The shot is arresting: it looks like you could swim among the packages there are so many of them! Another problem for the retailer that results in throwing away perfectly edible food is the sense that if it doesn't look good nobody will buy. Ugly fruits and veggies are removed from sight and again end up most often in the dumpster. (Old hippy dumpster divers know this!) I would observe that many food producers are vehemently opposed to GMO labeling but are very accommodating with the "use by" labeling. Why? Well, if the retailer has to throw out the food they will probably have to buy more, which would be good for the producer's bottom line. GMO labeling…not so good since people might not buy their product.

In addition to the fine editing, excellent camera work and the well-researched presentation of this Indie documentary there is the pleasure of seeing people who really care about the environment and about the waste.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "Yoga: Scared and Profane (Beyond Hatha Yoga)"

There is a zero theorem in math but it has nothing to do with the zero theorem of this movie. Here the zero theorem is an idea that leads to the end of the universe via a black whole gobbling everything up. I believe. At any rate the science here is just window dressing. What counts is the ever quirky sets and wandering story line made entertaining by some fine acting and surprising twists and revelations in the inimitable Terry Gilliam style.

I was particularly mesmerized by Mélanie Thierry who plays Bainsley, a stylish hooker with a hankering for older men (QED). She is after partially mad scientist Oohen Leth played with a steely estrangement by Christoph Waltz. I also liked Lucas Hedges' Bob who slyly wisecracks his way amid the clutter and chaos. Yes, the infamous Terry Gilliam clutter is in full evidence, white pigeons, screens on their sides, clashing art work on the walls, dark staircases, weird people, electric (?) cables the size of fire hoses, rats, bizarre costumes and much, much more. And of course the thousand and one sight gags. The one I liked best (and we see it two or three times) comes to us through Oohen Leth's computer screen. It's a certain kind of Website displaying Mélanie Thierry with a strategically placed heart-shaped sign reading "Enter Here." (You have to see it to get the joke or have a saucy imagination.) Matt Damon has a cameo as "Management," "Bob's" all powerful father. Yes, there are some corporate jokes throughout as well as science gone amuck hilarity or attempted hilarity. I think this is one of Gilliam's best but it is the performances by the actors that really carry this and perhaps that's a good thing in a Terry Gilliam movie.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the movie review book, "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote"

This is in part a farcical takeoff on the kind of teen movie that pits a good, wholesome girl perhaps from the wrong side of the tracks against a clique of socially snobby girls. I have in mind films such as Mean Girls (2004), Pretty in Pink (1986) and Cruel Intentions (1999). Here the premise (she's an orphan trained since childhood to be an international assassin) is more than a bit ridiculous but has the virtue of serving up a heroine as fashionable as TV's Super Girl and Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen.

Hailee Steinfeld plays the awkward girl trying to have a normal high school life as an exchange student. She's sweet, honorable, emotionally vulnerable and has little idea about how a teenaged American girl should act. However, thanks to her training she is tougher than the biggest dude on campus, which might come in handy.

I only want to say one more thing about this surprisingly fun movie: you know the formula: the good girl overcomes the mean girls, rejects the bad boy, and finds the perfect boyfriend (who is not all that popular but is also good and true) and lives happily ever after while the audience lives vicariously in triumph over their own high school demons. Or not. See this pleasant diversion and find out.

--Dennis Littrell, author of "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote"