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Reviews
The Missing (2014)
Riveting, captivating and suspenseful
I am not going to go into the details about the plot but suffice it to say that it is one of the best TV series in a very long time. Unlike most crime TV series coming from Hollywood, this one is far more realistic. It does not center around some remarkable detectives whose unorthodox methods help them solve all cases, even when there is no physical evidence present at the crime scene.
This TV series focuses on a child that goes missing in a French village and the father's indefatigable quest to find his son. The search for his son turns soon into an obsession that threatens to tear him apart piece by piece. Unpredictability and the omnipresent suspense gave me goose bumps throughout the eight episodes.
Strongly recommended!
American Sniper (2014)
Egregiously pro-American and ridiculously biased!
The movie American Sniper has been lauded by critics throughout the world for showing and subsequently glorifying the bravery of the American soldiers in their fight against vicious terrorists, the primary goal of whom is to wreak havoc on the free world. The plot is pretty straightforward and not too unfamiliar to those even vaguely familiar with the prevalent paradigm of the U.S. foreign policy. American soldiers are dispatched to Iraq in order to kill as many terrorists as possible.
I watched this movie last night with two of my friends. What strikes me the most is that not only is it appallingly pro-American but also extremely prejudiced, biased and grossly chauvinistic. It portrays all Iraqis as potential terrorists and further exacerbates the already widespread stereotypical view of the people in the Middle East. Everyone is presumed a potential terrorist, be it a small child, a woman or an old man. Even a family that offers the American soldiers some food turns out to be involved with terrorists. There are no shades in this movie, it is all black and white. Americans are depicted as the good guys with altruistic motives whereas the Iraqis are depicted as barbaric, evil and a malignant tumor that must be eradicated at all cost. One cannot stress enough the level of induced polarization that pervades the entire plot.
Guess what? The world has had enough of this atrocious Hollywood propaganda. It makes you want to puke, it is so transparent and ridiculous that no person with the slightest knowledge of anything could possibly buy into this crap. How hard can it be to understand this simple fact? The superpowers choose to intervene in conflicts not because they safeguard human rights or because they want to spread liberal and democratic ideas but because they have economic and imperialistic motives. Every single military intervention is driven by geopolitically strategic and economic interests. One must be gullible and naive to believe otherwise.
Throughout the entire movie, the main character keeps reminding his comrades of what might happen if the Americans do not get to the bottom of this; that is rooting out all the terrorists. They will allegedly pose a very serious threat to the Americans and will eventually end up on the American soil if the Americans fail to exterminate every single one of them. If the U.S. genuinely cared about human rights and democratic values, why is Saudi Arabia one of its biggest allies? Given what we know without a shred of doubt about this egregiously repressive regime, why does the U.S. government choose to collaborate with them and why are they allowed to own a substantial percentage of the United States? One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that it has to do with economic interests. Everything else is but an excuse to justify the illegitimate invasions of other countries under false pretenses.
I wish that people would wake up and start asking questions. Also, it is time to realize that many American soldiers who return home from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after witnessing and in some cases participating in horrific atrocities. They have to sacrifice their own lives for a purportedly noble cause, when in fact the truth is that they are sent to war zones to secure the economic interests of the U.S. government.
American Sniper is a disappointment in every imaginable way. Its sweeping over-generalizations and oversimplifications make it unbearable to watch. I do recommend it though, but a word of warning is appropriate here. Utilize your critical skills and do not simply be a passive recipient of the vicious propaganda conveyed by this movie.
Psychiatry: An Industry of Death (2006)
Seriously biased but not completely worthless
It goes without saying that this documentary is seriously biased and not meticulously researched. Also, the creators of the documentary are affiliated with the Scientologists making it fairly easy to identify their hidden agenda. The primary purpose of this documentary is to fully discredit psychiatry and to make a convincing case against not only psychiatry but also psychology. Some of the most outrageous claims in the documentary are that psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and mood disorders are actually made up and do not even exist. The evidence is abundant that schizophrenia and for instance bipolar disorders exist and affect people worldwide. Also, the documentary uses various techniques to make a strong case against psychiatrists whom it portrays as evil, manipulative and insidious. They are somehow always working for pharmaceutical companies by advocating their drugs. The documentary continues to overgeneralize and distort the field of psychiatry by invoking conspiracy theories which do not hold water.
Despite what is mentioned above, psychiatry has been responsible historically for some gruesome human rights abuses by employing highly questionable and unethical techniques such as the electric shock therapy and lobotomy. Also, psychiatry played a pivotal role in Eugenics and has helped justify horrendous crimes throughout history, let alone slavery and the Holocaust. Psychiatrists have asserted that intellectual inferiority and propensity towards violence is inherently related to race. We can keep denying these truths at our own peril.
One interesting aspect of the documentary is the fact that it claims that psychology has no scientific merit and that it must be dismissed on the grounds that it is a pseudoscience. Nonetheless, it then goes on to discuss psychological techniques used by the governments worldwide to extract intelligence from prisoners of war. The psychological techniques effectively remove the defense mechanisms in these prisoners by breaking them down. If the creators of this documentary in fact oppose psychology then these techniques must be non-existent. They cannot even be used because psychology as a pseudoscience must be fully and completely spurious and worthless. There are numerous contradictions in the documentary which seriously undermine its credibility. The arguments are one-sided and sweeping over-generalizations take place throughout the entire documentary.
Scientologists largely responsible for creating this documentary have an insidious agenda, which is to completely dismiss psychology as a whole and to convince you that psychiatry is inherently evil. While psychiatry has a dubious history it has important current real-life applications without which the suffering of many people would continue and their symptoms would not subside any time soon. I recommend the documentary but remember to be source critical.