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pootzboy
Reviews
UnCivil Liberties (2006)
Indie Feel but Quality Message
The plot was everything to this film...the common poor picture/cinematography is forgivable as it is an budget indie, the acting is not top tier but what they lack in polish they made up for in passion.
And it really is "Passion" that this film is all about...the passion of cast, directer and writers to send a passionate message. Now, if you are not a person who wants a film sending messages, or demanding you do some political thinking, and just want to the entertained, pass on this flick and go back into your one dimensional coma.
If however you are a thinking person and take citizenship and patriotism seriously, this is a film that emotes the question of our age. Its about who the terrorist really is....is it an overbearing state gone rogue? Is it people who take the words of the patriotic founders seriously? Or is all this issue of "terrorism" just a misnomer for the age old struggle for liberty? A struggle in which many people get lost and end up serving forces which deny liberty. This story makes you honestly explore the definition of terrorist...is one man's terrorist another man's freedom fighter? That seems to have been the Zeitgeist of 1776 as it is in this imaginary future USA under martial law...but can the fight for liberty take a despotic or inhuman route? Good questions.
Watching this film I was struck by the realization, that by the standards of the security agents of this imaginary US martial state, the very men who founded their nation would be classified as terrorists.
Watch this film....it will bother you...you'll mull it over in your mind a few days afterward...and maybe see it a second time.
Syriana (2005)
A morality play for modrn times
Unlike most of the reviewers I do not see the prime directive of this movie as being a political statement or favoring any particular partisan brand of politics over another...It IS however( for me at least) a powerful statement on the modern phenomenon of devolved government, corporate and personal ethics at play in global profiteering....all this with several interesting stories within a story all intersecting at a point of moral imperative.
We see a "trickle down" of corruption and compromised ethics that starts at the top of the corporate-bureucratic ruling class which sets the standard for the rest of the social/political pecking order right down to the lowly consumer who turns his head to the corruption so he can keep his gas tank filled with affordable fuel.
I thought I may not like this film as there are so many preachy political films out there trashing one or another partisan ideology and blaming the ills of the world on the wrong brand of politics, but this film transcenes laeft righ bickering and focuses on the value nsystems at play in the geo-political arena. As such this film was non partisan and tastefully done,... powerful in its message but subtle in delivering it it in an interesting intertwining story line.
A good film to curl up with on a cold Febuary night in snow bound environs and ponder the forces at play which keeps your home warm and your car running for a warm ride to work.
The World's Fastest Indian (2005)
Hopkins Shines in this excellent sleeper
Take 1 part Crocadile Dundee, 2 parts Oscar Madison, 1 part McGuiver and you have the raunchy old biker character Hopkins created to approximate Burt Munro...a 68 year old pensioner from Kiwi land that set the world speed record in the 1000cc motorcycle class.
Burt Munro lives in his garage, fills his tea pot with quench water from his forge and urinates on his lemon trees ( best fertilizer you can give 'em)...but the ladies seem to take to his free and easy life style and Hopkins/Burt seems to have no effort charming bunk mates....he even charms the cross dressing desk clerk at his Hollywood motel.
Much of the movie is spent with Hopkins developing and personifying Burt's character and playing his rustic stoicism and mellow temperament against life's hard knocks, modern times and some pretty bizarre Hollywood denizens and the pursuit of his dreams of speed....and this works because you are kept enthralled with his hapless journey to the "holy ground"...the salt flats of Bonneville not realizing 2 hrs have shot by.
The final stages of the movie involve Burt's endearing himself to the
"kids" competing for the Bonneville speed crown and having the rules bent so he can make his famous run on the flats.
If you ride motorcycles and don't usually like motorcycle movies ( like me), this one is for you....actually this is a great old fashioned success-against-all-odds movie that entertains, makes you laugh and also reflect. Hopkins shines in characterizing the resilient grease monkey Burt Munro and there is enough action, comedy and pathos to keep a broad audience absorbed in Burt's quest.
Probably the most enjoyable movie I saw this year. Donaldson has a sleeper on his hands with this fine effort. You can tell that the director had a passion for telling Burt's tale. It comes through strong in the small details that make this movie so believable and the characters so real. Too bad it was so poorly promoted. I don't understand how such a great film got 3rd rate distribution and promotion...methinks some politics are at work...shame, everyone should see this one it's a classic.