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Reviews
Dopesick (2021)
The Opiod Crisis & How We Got There
There are some things that U. S. citizens take for granted that would be unthinkable in most advanced societies. First is that Health Care is regarded as a privilege, not a right. Usually, having good or 'Great' health care is tied to one's employment. Lose that job, and you could be on your own. Second, if you are poor you might qualify for Medicare. Not great, perhaps, but far better than nothing. This is a government benefit, usually requiring the state to participate to some degree or another. Third, pharmaceutical corporations are allowed to advertise: in magazines, flyers, on-line, and on TV. This is absurd, because it distorts the marketplace. The medical profession itself is under enough pressure from pharmaceutical companies to prescribe this drug or that one - witness all the competition for drugs to reduce high cholesterol levels. The notion that doctors now need to cope with hordes of self-styled 'experts' demanding medications they only know about from glitzy TV promotions is ludicrous. Bottom Line: this sets the stage for what one very wealthy family, the Sacklers, who owned Purdue Pharmaceuticals were able to do with their power and influence. 'Dopesick' tell that story, and does it well. It is something that most of us are familiar with. A new 'miracle' drug to reduce pain comes on the market and is aggressively pushed by a large pharmaceutical company. In this case it is OxyContin. The Sacklers even manage to get the FDA to approve the Opiod and create a new label minimizing any harm of addiction - something that had never been done before. Please ignore all 'Low Ball' Reviews. This drama is extremely well done, and all involved deserve kudos. This never should have happened. But because of the underlying fault lines in the U. S. healthcare system, perhaps it was perhaps inevitable. Having seen the consequences of the Opiod crisis in West Virginia where I was living and working at the time, I can tell you that whole communities were gutted, hollowed out, and destroyed by what the Sackler family knowingly visited on the country. This is a story that needs to be told and I can confirm that 'Dopesick' is unflinching in its depiction of just how corrupt and difficult the whole ungodly triumvirate of Advertising, Big Pharma, and Corporate Power is to the pursuit of Justice in a country with its priorities not in line with its basic directive to protect its own citizens. By all means, watch this one.
Black Woodstock (1969)
The Music Festival of 1969 You Never Heard About
My wife and I just watched this documentary this evening (July 4th, 2021). It is astounding to me that I had been unaware of this summer-long series of Live musical concerts in New York City that drew tens of thousands of people out each time. Sure, I had an excuse. That was the summer I hopped on board an airplane at JFK with my college girlfriend for a two month vacay touring around Europe on a British motorcycle. But.... I knew about the Woodstock Festival. I also learned about the festival on the Isle of Wight that happened that year. And, of course, we all knew about the Monterey Pop Festival a couple of years earlier. How was it possible that a whole series of weekend concerts featuring such artists as Stevie Wonder, B. B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Sly and the Family Stone, The Fifth Dimension, Mahalia Jackson....just to name a few, went by completely under the radar? The reason is that despite it being filmed and recorded, nobody at that time was interested. When I say "nobody," of course, I mean the Powers that Be who decide what was worth their time and $$$ in producing, packaging, promoting, etc. A project that was basically about "Negro" musical artists playing to a mostly "Negro" audience. So, my friends, the record of those concerts sat in a basement for 50 years. As one person in the documentary says, "Black folks are used to not having their history told. This was nothing new." But this is now 2021, and....as Bob Dylan said a long time ago, "The times they are a-changing! (btw.... Dylan did NOT play at Woodstock that year, but he did play at The Isle of Wight!). , If you weren't around in '69, here's the Cliff Notes on that period: Beginning with the assassination of JFK in 1963, it seemed the U. S. had been through a rash of them. Malcolm X in Harlem in 1965. Martin Luther King, Jr. In Memphis & Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles - both in 1968. There had been a whole series of deadly riots after the MLK assassination all across the country. The war in Viet Nam was ramping up with no let-up in sight, and the My Lai Massacre was something Americans were having trouble processing. Richard Nixon was president and the Press was under attack like never before. "Easy Rider" was the surprise hit movie of the Summer, which showed just how divided the country had become over the War & "those damned longhair Peaceniks!" The heroes of the film wind up being splattered by a shotgun-wielding redneck on a lonely stretch of southern blacktop decades before "drive by" shootings became commonplace. (Hmmmm....any of this getting your attention?) It was also the summer of Apollo 11 and the first time humans walked on the Moon. Now some 52 years later there are actually a large percentage of people that swear THAT never happened, despite all evidence to the contrary. (I was in camping in the outskirts of Paris that day, so did not see those grainy B&W TV shots of Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon, but I do remember the day!). It was also the year the Beatles had their last public performance (on the roof of Apple Records in London). The first Concorde airliner had a test flight in France. Pontiac introduced its Firebird Trans Am. The Manson Family would murder Sharon Tate and several others that August in L. A. And....in December of that year, The Rolling Stones would hold a free concert at Altamont Speedway in Northern California. It drew 300,000 fans. Thanks largely to the not-so-bright idea of having "Security" supplied by the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, the concert degenerated into just possibly the most chilling finale a decade ever saw. (The documentary of that debacle came out the following year: "Gimme Shelter") The Era of Peace and Love definitely had the final nail driven into its coffin on that day and the 70's were about to get a whole lot worse. But, please. Do yourself a favor and watch this film. And then maybe you might ask yourself, is there anything else in our History that has been kept under wraps, or hidden away or not taught? Because today it seems that very question is almost........ (I will leave it for you to fill in the blank.)
The World's Fastest Indian (2005)
A "Must See" Film for Anyone who Enjoys Real Life Drama
I was first alerted to this film by a piece written in the January issue of Cycle World magazine by Editor-in-Chief, David Edwards. In it he describes his experience of talking his wife into going to the Hollywood premiere. She was reluctant until learning that Sir Anthony "Hannibal The Cannibal" Hopkins, not only starred in the film, but also would be in attendance at the gala. Intrigued by any main stream film that has at its core some correlation with one of my favorite passions, tantalized by the prospect of someone of Hopkin's stature lending his considerable talent to the project, and "hooked" by learning that the subject of this film was a real-life countryman of mine (I am originally from Taumarunui, New Zealand), I immediately put "The World's Fastest Indian" on the top of my "Must See" list. Last night, I got my opportunity. A local Portland motorcycle club with their own Bonneville Salt Flats aspirations (their project streamliner was on display down in front of the seating area in the theater) hosted a Special Benefit screening at a local theater last night for a highly partisan crowd of the fans of two-wheeled transport. Many of these riders were either wearing their leathers, or carrying helmets into the theater. I even met a fellow Kiwi inside who hailed from Nelson (on NZ's South Island)! We are everywhere! I was accompanied by a long time female friend who had also gone with me to that wonderful South American "road movie" about Che Guevarra's life changing trip with his friend on an old battered Norton motorcycle, "The Motorcycle Diaries." So how did this movie stack up? In a word, "wonderful!" Anthony Hopkins' performance is magnificent; the story of an eccentric back yard tinkerer and his obsessive quest to run a collection of cobbled together bits and pieces of mostly fabricated disparate parts into a record challenging two wheeled rocket nothing short of mesmerizing; and his quixotic adventures with the characters he meets along the the long road to Bonneville from halfway around the world completely takes the viewer in. By the time Munro arrives at the fabled locus of Speed and anoints it by peeing on the salt...we are at last where we all want to be: with Burt Munro and his amazing Indian motorcycle. I won't tell you anything more, except...see this movie! Oh...and take your wife, or your girlfriend. She will love it!