Change Your Image
yoyogi
Reviews
99 Homes (2014)
makes you hate capitalism
I enjoyed this movie immensely. The acting was top tier. The heartlessness of our system was nakedly displayed. I'm not sure I understood exactly what the next scene would be after the movie ended. I didn't think Laura Dern was very convincing as the mother. Also these people could not have been so out off touch that they did not know what was going to happen to them. Waiting to the day of the actual physical eviction without preparing for it? I find that hard to believe. I was foreclosed on. I took the bank's money and didn't pay my monthly due for many months. Then while Wells Fargo went through the first stages of foreclosure I had another 2 years of living in my condo rent free. I got help t understand the process at the Federal Court House and Housing Court in Boston. There were lots of law students available to do pro bono advising. Maybe Orlando didn't provide any of these services, but the entire Florida real estate world was falling down around everybody's feet and you would have had to have been illiterate to not now in a very general way would happen when the sheriff taped up a notice of foreclosure and eviction . The heartlessness was impressive. Jungle capitalism at its best. The cynicism has been at the heart of our country since its inception. We can all get indignant about turning out confused elderly onto the street or families with very young kids, but if you don't advocate for revolutionary change and use your vote to do something then your passivity and helplessness is in part deserved.
I think that is like in war. There are never any real civilians. Everybody contributes to the war effort in some way. We all share the responsibility of our country going somewhere and killing other people. I think the same hold true with the financial system that protects the banks. Don't like it? Then stop voting for all these corrupt people who are paid by Wall Street.
Anyway this is a great movie. Garfield and Shannon shine.
Vikings (2013)
fun but accurate?
it's a fun series. i especially love the clothing and hairstyles. i'm not sure of some of the historical facts. for example, kattegat is a very large geographical area today so i don't know if the vikings in Ragnar's group are danish, Norwegian or Swedish.
in one episode the earl goes to upsala - the whole troop is show hiking there. if they indeed go by foot it would have taken a very long time from kategat to upsala - a month's walking?
Gabrielle burn talks of raiding in Russia. could Russia have existed then.
how could a people who fished and raided and lived in such cramped geographical zones not known of the north sea, the coasts of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands? they were great traders and would have had material contact with the Mediterranean world from pre- imperial times. so not at least hearing about england seems to me impossible. these people were at the edges of the known world but they were not isolated and cut off.
one saxon soldier tells his liege that other saxon enemies are holed up on 'an iron age fortress hill' - please. like they would use such terms.
these may be piddling gaffes but they make me think i must be very careful not to think a lot of the physical material world portrayed here is accurate.
for another example. some of the woven clothing of the earl's wives seem to me to be too sophisticated for this era. also the dyes of the clothing. people didn't have a lot of color in their clothing. i know it looks good on film but then it makes me think - are the viking interiors accurate? the jewelry? the ships?
to many people this will not be important. the series is fun and many of the characters are people we care about.
Truth (2015)
too worshipful
Kate did a good job. You care about her character. The story is interesting but obscure now. They should have made a movie about Mary Mapes making her award-winning show about Abu Grave. Dan Rather does not deserve the worshipful tone this movie takes on his career. It's hagiography. The music swells to portray 'heroic' journalists but I have always found it strange that many of them think of themselves as guardians of the truth but they are not elected to be our representatives so I'm not sure I am pleased that they think they are speaking for me. Both Bush and Kerry had funny stuff concerned with their Vietnam War era records. Anybody with any sense in those days would have done anything to avoid participating in that horrible waste of a war. Nobody was covered in glory. If Bush got his Dad to help him stay in America, well this is what you do when you have clout.
But it is always a pleasure to watch a Kate movie even when it is a bad movie. She so often seems to play somebody with an American southern accent. I guess it must be the easiest accent for Brits and Ozzies to mimic.
Okkupert (2015)
Russia has no gas or oil?
with all of Russia's gas and oil reserves, why would it act in league with the EU to force norway to continue north sea gas/oil exports? it is not logical. if anything Russia should be ecstatic that the EU is now forced to buy all fossil fuels from Russia. in any case in 2015 the oil/gas deposits are dwindling so in the 'near future'there would be even less to go around. and what % of EU fossil fuel imports come from norway? the premise is not logical. but the story is great and the acting is fine. it would have made more sense if the EU and Russia had become dependent on thorium and norway was the only place where the element was found and somehow norway saw it as a threat to the climate and stopped all production and exports.
sweeden again proves itself craven in screwing over the norwegians and allowing an aggressor country to bully its neighbor.just as in the second world war when they let the Germans cross over Swedish territory to invade norway. go Sweden!
all 2 million norwegians should take the ferry to denmark. then let the russians try to run the electric, water, food, industries for its own people. they'd screw it up in a month.