tkchess Reviews

WWII from Space (2012 TV Movie)

One of the most interesting overall documentaries on WW2

[10/10 · 24 August 2014]

Absolutely amazing piece of work. I have watched this documentary twice, and I still think about it every so often. It gives a whole new perspective to the war as a whole. My second viewing was with my dad, who is a World War 2 buff, especially in Pacific knowledge, and he loved it. Now, admittedly, the documentary brushes over some finer details of certain battles (as I learned from my father), but it does not detract from the overall picture. For example, at the Battle of Midway the documentary glosses over the tactical details of how the Americans easily defeated the Japanese carriers (as my dad mentioned to me while watching). If you are a serious WW2 buff, you would know that and probably be upset. As guy from the Millennial generation getting a scope of the battle, it is not a big deal. You just have to remember that they are trying to fit in a 6 year war in 90 minutes.

I never really studied the war as a whole, with regards to how it affected global politics after the war was over, or why certain decisions were made with regards to geography, or how it affected politics locally in America. For example, before watching this I would have said "America dropped the atomic bomb on Japan solely because the Japanese were relentless and refused to surrender". Now? After watching this with some global geographic politics shown to the viewer? My answer is "America dropped the atomic bomb on Japan for two reasons, Japan was relentless and refused to surrender, and because they needed to prevent the Russians from defeating the Japanese". I realize my answer is quite overly simplified, and I can guarantee that there were 100 other reasons as well, but this global space map production really shows events in a whole new light that is hard to grasp from a high school text book.

Thanks to the power of technology, they really paint the global picture and educate the viewer very well. If I had to say, it was like watching Total Annihilation (PC Game), WW2 style. They use such cool sounds and graphics which really makes you feel like you are in a PC RTS game, no joke. For example, they use virtual maps with digital shading and digital lines to show movement and route plans and force positions, something that you certainly can't get from a textbook.

If you watch only one World War 2 documentary, I would suggest this one. The 90 minutes goes quick, they really take their time detailing the global scope of the war, and they cover things that include not only the battles themselves but the ancillary events that occurred to make the battle (or victory, or loss, or whatever it may have been) possible.

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Negative reviewers prob had super high expectations

[7/10 · 21 July 2014]

I went in with no expectations. Sure, I knew about the DinoBots, but I wasn't expecting anything with regards to them. Everything else was unexpected. Galvatron, the seed, Kelsey Grammar...everything was news to me.

Were there problems? Sure. Was it a bad movie? No. It does the job. I enjoyed it. Explosions, mild comedy, John Goodman.

The 2.75 hours went by quick because it was gripping. I thought John Goodman stole the show. He did some really good voice acting - took me a while to figure it out. People are upset that they changed the human- support cast, but I must say, it is a breath of fresh air not having Shia LeBouf screaming "OPTIMUS" every five minutes, or a girl yelling "SAM" every chance she can get. Someone commented about the girl yelling "DAD" too much. I didn't find it a problem - I've heard worse.

Someone commented about the comedy not being up to par, or being stupid and cheesy. Frankly, I think the comedy was just right. It wasn't cheesy, nor was it wasn't the main focus as it was in Transformers 2. Perhaps I am a bit biased since I love Mark Wahlberg and he makes the majority of the jokes in the movie. And, I love Stanley Tucci, who makes his fair share of jokes. The #1 joke (which probably was not well- received by conservative viewers) came from the Transformer Brains who, when asked about the slave work he was performing, comments that he is doing all of his work in the absence of union benefits.

The major problem with the movie are plot holes that either go unexplained, or they are explained well later into the movie. But other than that, it is an enjoyable movie.

***SPOILERS*** So, very early in the movie, Stanley Tucci's character's subordinate discovers a fossilized dinobot, and she returns to Stanley's character all excited, talking about how this could upend history as they know it. I.e. an asteroid didn't wipe out the dinosaurs. Well, that is the last we hear of the dinobots until they are summoned towards the end of the movie. What did the dinobots have to do with anything, especially since the story is that the creator-transformers were just burning the earth and its biological non-transformer lifeforms to a crisp with their seeds to create transformeron (transformer metal)?

The dinobots just appear out of nowhere. Optimus saves one of them, but then four appear in total? They are pretty big too, so what the hell? Where were they hiding? All on that small ship? It wasn't like they had any relevance either. The creators were killing earth-born organisms, not dinobots.

So, John Goodman's character and Bumblebee can run out of ammo, but Mark Wahlberg's transformer-gun doesn't run out?

Chicago was ridiculously destroyed, but in 5 years it is back to how we know it today?

So, when hunting down the transformers the CIA agents can read heat signatures with IR and the sort, but when searching for Optimus in the barn they can't see a single signature and act like nothing is there?

Mark Wahlberg is able to repair Optimus, with advanced circuitry, in a matter of a couple hours before the CIA arrives?

I don't understand why the CIA cares about Mark Wahlberg, his daughter and her boyfriend. Kelsey Grammar's character is worried they will go to the press and leak info about how KSI is melting down auto-bots to make their own transformers. So what, big deal. Who is going to believe them, and with what evidence?

How many different damn stories about the birth of Transformers are there? In Transformers 1, it is about the all-spark that can create a live robots from metal. In Transformers 2, it is about the existence of Energon from the Sun which gives life to the Transformers. Now in this movie we learn of creator-Transformers that create Transformeron from biological matter. So...which is it? How do you arrange those three creation events? And where do dinobots fit in that?

So...Jetfire (from Transformers 2) is an old and busted unit that is falling apart. The Dinobots are millions of years old and act like they were built yesterday. So...do Transformers actually age, or not?

Frontline: League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis (2013) Season 31, Episode 17

This is a must watch for any sports fan or parent with children interested in sports

[10/10 · 25 October 2013]

I'm not going to lie. When you load up the episode (either on your DVR, OnDemand or on the internet) and you see the length at 1 hr and 53 min, it is hard to visualize yourself watching this to the end. And even more, the first segment which covers the late Steeler great Mike Webster is very slow to materialize and arrive at anything substantive related to the title of this episode. But, once they start getting into Webster's health issues in the late 90's, along with his subsequent disability claims granted by the NFL, you will find yourself unable to stop watching, and stop shaking your head at how bad of a situation exists with the NFL, and just sports in general.

I once was a huge fan of the NFL over 10 years ago, dancing at Eagles touchdowns, making or breaking my week based off the Eagles' performance that past Sunday (or Monday), but I have since become rather disconnected from the NFL. My decline is certainly associated with the Eagles' decline after 2010, but more so to do with the strike that almost occurred in 2011, realizing that this is a game of millionaires versus billionaires not caring about the interests of the people who watch their sport. The NFL's non-profit status certain doesn't help matters, either. I mention all this because prior to watching this episode of Frontline, I still had a sliver of interest in the NFL - mostly because I am a native Philadelphian and Philadelphia is a sports town where you are pretty much out of the loop if you don't follow sports (compare this to DC where the Redskins take second fiddle to politics). But now? After watching this episode of Frontline, I have no interest in the NFL. I don't cheer, I don't watch, I don't follow.

As if you needed any more proof that the National Football League is just another scummy big business that doesn't care about the livelihoods of the people who work for them (which in the NFL's case is a bit more meaningful than just a standard big business bank or phone company or the sort, since directly putting your life at risk is part of the NFL job description), this documentary really exposes the true nature of football and how dirty the NFL is.

The documentary explores how football appears to be a cause of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), which causes the victims to lose normal function of their brain, directly causing death by one means or another. CTE is nothing new to the medical practice but, what the physicians were finding, however, was the cases were quite unusual with what they are accustomed to seeing. As someone who has watched the NFL, I was inclined to write this off as "oh these guys were just susceptible to concussions, they had a lot of them, and therefore they got CTE. Thus players who don't get concussions won't get this". But Frontline uncovers how inaccurate this statement is. To top it off, which is the real meat of this documentary, the NFL has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the neurological risks of playing football. I won't go into details here, since I wouldn't be doing the documentary justice, but it is pretty bad, especially when you consider the quiet $760+ million settlement the NFL recently had regarding this issue. People are quick to reply that "oh players know what they are getting into when they play this game, which is why they are paid so much". Unfortunately, after you watching this documentary you will realize that these players really don't, both as a result of the ground-breaking medical discoveries about CTE discussed in the documentary, discoveries which still require a LOT more research, and because of the NFL's absolute refusal to acknowledge the risks outside of the obvious physical risks (bones, muscles, etc.).

After watching this documentary, not only will you have a different perspective on watching the NFL, but you will have an entirely different perspective on sports as a whole. Yes, football is a sport that, by far, presents the highest risk of injury to its players (second I guess would be hockey, as it is full contact, but a distant second since the game is far removed from the days of the Broad Street Bullies), but given the nature of sports and what is presented by Frontline, you can't help but wonder whether any sport as a whole is worth the risk. The human body, and more importantly, the human brain, was not designed for this kind of punishment.

3 Idiots (2009)

An American POV: Very good movie, but longer than needs to be

[8/10 · 5 August 2012]

First off, take note of the length of the movie (IMDb here says 170 minutes). You got that right, just shy of 3 hours. But don't let that scare you from watching the movie - it is a really emotional movie which will grip you for the full 3 hours.

Second, it probably does not need to be 3 hours. I hear there is an American remake in the works. I am anxious to see how it will be done, and what will be cut because there is a lot of stuff in this movie which probably can get the boot. We Americans generally believe that all Indian movies have dance numbers, and this movie doesn't disappoint, with several useless numbers (useless in my opinion).

Third, the IMDb synopsis, while accurate, refers to like...one quarter of the actual movie. In other words, it is a lot like "Forest Gump" in that the "present" that is initially presented (which involves Forest finding Jenny and his son, and then moving to Alabama, etc. etc.) is setup through the telling of the whole back story, which takes up the majority. Same deal here with "3 Idiots". The IMDb synopsis covers the present, in that three guys are on a journey to find their lost friend, but the real meat of this movie is the whole back story which is not mentioned in the least. So just keep that in mind before starting the movie. I say that because when I read the synopsis I came in with this mentality that this was going to be an Indian version of "Road Trip" or something, just based on the title, the cover and the synopsis (it really isn't).

Fourth, this movie is nothing like your vulgar/sexual American comedies involving some good buddies and their adventures. There really are some useful messages in this movie, especially some that will really touch home with anyone who has gone through engineering studies (like myself).

With that aside, the movie was great. The emotions are really powerful, the acting is really good - a very touching story. The dean (Viru Sahastrabudhhe, played by Boman Irani) really touched home with me. I had a teacher exactly (Yes, EXACTLY!) like this guy in my engineering studies. Thankfully for me he was just a teacher of a couple classes and not the dean of the school (whew!).

The three hours really flies by because the advancements in the "present" story (the three guys on the journey to find their friend) are made after finding out the back story. For example, the movie starts out with a guy feigning a heart ailment to get a plane to turn home, rushing to a friend's house, waking him and rushing his good buddy out of his house (so fast that he forgets to put on his pants) all to arrive at this random location where they meet the third buddy. The third buddy tells them that they all made a promise to meet there 10 years prior. The next (very long) segment of the movie goes back to square zero to introduce everyone and educate (pun intended) as to the significance of the location. After that, the "present" advances to the next location. In my opinion, if the movie just focused on the "present" without giving any life to the characters, it would be very hollow. I mean just think if "Forest Gump" just started with him talking to that lady who tells him that Jenny's address is around the corner and he just runs off - you would never learn of Jenny's issues, Forest's history with Jenny, etc.

My only complaint is that the movie is just too damn long, and there are things that probably don't need to be elaborated multiple times. I get it, Rancho is different from everyone else, and will excel at everything. I don't need it to be reiterated 10 times. I also don't need the dance numbers, they provided nothing to the story. If you have seen the movie "Men of Honor" I think you can understand of what I speak (Cuba Gooding's character keeps pushing through the barriers to achieve his successes over and over to the point where the movie is longer than it needs to be. OK, he beat the racist general. OK he beat everyone else in their times underwater. OK he beat the racist who cut his tool bag. OK OK OK OK...heh).

All that aside, it has some really powerful messages that you can really take home as a future (or current) parent. I'd say that if you are current or prospective engineering student, this is a *MUST* watch. No joke. For graduates of engineering studies, I'd say you should definitely check this out to get a few chuckles, reminiscing about your days in engineering and to gather an idea of the Indian culture with engineering (if what they portray is true, I'd say it is eye-opening).

If it was more to the point, and not as dragged out, I'd give it a 9 or a 10.

College (2008)

Very poor man's Superbad

[5/10 · 20 June 2009]

I read a lot of the comments on here before viewing. OK first off, it is certainly not worth paying money to see in theaters (but that is besides the point considering that it's not in theaters anymore). The acting wasn't bad, nor was the actual content in the movie, but it just felt like the poor man's Superbad...same premise, just done worse.

Casting Drake Bell as the lead is a bad idea. I've watched a few eps of his TV show "Drake and Josh". I think it is a pretty decent TV show, just it has him in a dual-lead situation with Josh Peck, and Josh is the real reason the show is as good as some perceive it to be. Casting Drake without Josh is akin to casting David Spade without Chris Farley, to put it better.

The other two main characters, the fat one and the nerdy one weren't terrible, but they weren't great either. What you usually find with these trio-lead movies like Superbad, or quad-lead like Road Trip, is good harmony between the characters that makes for some funny situations. There really wasn't much of that in College, especially with the fat one knocking on the nerdy one all the time. Remove that from a movie like this and you are spelling disaster.

What made Superbad good was its slapstick comedy and some very good banter back and forth from the all the characters. There wasn't much of that in College, but the movie was comical to watch. OBVIOUSLY what occurs in this movie is not what goes on in college for the most part, but its fun to dream, i suppose.

Contrary to what all the 1/10 comments would have you believe, you should be capable of sitting through this movie start to finish. There's a lot of TNA in the movie (look it up if you don't know what it means), so some good eye candy. The only thing that this movie was lacking was some good dry, sarcastic humor that you would find in Superbad and the sort.

Far Cry (2008)

It wasn't terrible, certainly not a 3/10...

[6/10 · 2 May 2009]

I am well aware of Uwe Boll's work, I am also aware that the people on this site are not fond of his work and mercilessly down-rate his productions. That said, I don't think this movie is worth only a 3 or 4 out of 10.

The acting wasn't terrible, then again there wasn't much acting to begin with. The movie seemed like something out of the 1980's with its numerous action sequences, a lot of which involved boats, water and explosions.

The movie's plot didn't exactly follow the game's, but it worked to some extent. Simply put, there is a crazy scientist genetically engineering soldiers to be super soldiers. One of the normal soldiers on the island decides to organize a meeting with his journalist niece on the island to expose the work and in the process gets caught. The niece hires Jack, a guy who runs his own tourist boat, to get to the island to meet her uncle. She gets caught, Jacks goes to save her and also gets caught. Blah blah blah blah, Jack and the niece escape and live happily ever after...oh and the scientist guy dies. You know, your standard Hollywood movie plot...there's a bad guy, the good guy infiltrates and gets caught, eventually escapes and in the process kills the bad guy and destroys his evil operation.

Yeah, at times it drags, and yeah the guy who plays Jack isn't a native American which doesn't really work since the guy in the game comes off as your run-of-the-mill beer drinking American. The action sequences involve fake guns and props which appear to be just that...and yes, we can blame the director as he likes to rush his dreck movies into theaters which allows for little post production time...but the movie worked well. I put it on par with any other fairly rated action movies with similar plots that lack any sort of serious character development...Collateral Damage, Eraser, Escape from LA, Mission Impossible 2, Resident Evil movies, Tango & Cash, xXx, etc. In other words, if you are looking for just another run-of-the-mill action movie where the good guy wins, bad guy loses, and there is no character development, Far Cry is another movie to put on your NetFlix.

Beyond Treason (2005 Video)

Not the best made documentary

[6/10 · 22 November 2008]

They definitely could have made this much better. For a movie made in 2005, it felt like it was something out of 1985. The music, which was annoyingly and eerily played throughout the movie, sounded like it was out of the 80's. The graphics looked 80's-like. Production was very poor. I have seen some low-budget documentaries, and they were produced much better than Beyond Treason.

These things made watching this film very difficult.

Sicko, Michael Moore's documentary on the health care system, focusing a lot on the ailments sustained by 9/11 first response rescue workers, was a lot more...entertaining. Its hard to use that word as exposés like documentaries are not meant to be entertainment, but I use more in the sense that the film is made watchable from start to finish, which is not the case with Beyond Treason.

I stopped the movie half way through as the material they were presenting just became very repetitive and not presented in any new interesting way.

This is not to take away from the information presented. The information is rather accurate and credible. The main focus is the Gulf War as that was a large scale representation of our Government involving our military in a war where we used arms hazardous to both our enemies and our own military. But it was not really presented in an interesting way. It was not aided by the fact that the central points are made by scientists who are rather boring and rather stoic.

While the information was definitely credible, there didn't seem like much organization to it. It seemed like it was all over the place, rather feeling like a big mish mash of information thrown at you about how our government covered up the use of toxic substances on our military.

Overall, it gets its point across, rather early in the film for that matter, but it was produced very poorly making it very difficult to watch from start to finish.

Sex Drive (2008)

Think...The Girl Next Door with the premise of Superbad with a bit of Roadtrip

[7/10 · 24 October 2008]

Some guy wants to get laid and his friend wants to help him get laid. So they make a journey across the country to make it happen. That's pretty much the premise. A lot of stuff happens in between, which is what makes it fun, but its the standard dirty movie premise.

Roadtrip in that its a fun journey across the country. Superbad in that the premise is there...friend wants to help a friend get laid. The Girl Next Door in that the previews make it look like a dirty sexual comedy but ends up being a comedic feel-good, get the right girl movie.

Don't get me wrong, I laughed a lot during Sex Drive, but I got the same exact vibe as I got from The Girl Next Door (mind you I also rated that a 7/10). It comes off as this ridiculously "wrong" movie, but for the most part it is a tame comedy with a lot of dirty jokes sprinkled in. Sure, I wouldn't bring kids to this movie, but at the same time I'm not going to sit here and say I laughed as hard as I did at Superbad the first time around.

Is it a good movie? Sure, but probably worth waiting until it comes out on DVD. Superbad had nonstop comedy. I literally missed a lot of the spoken lines because I couldn't stop laughing. But with Sex Drive, on the other hand, I had time to catch all the lines...and there certainly were breaks between good dirty jokes.

Best comedy of 2008? Probably not. I'd reserve that distinction maybe to Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Good comedy worth seeing at some point? Certainly.

On another note, like Superbad, there really aren't any good quotes from Sex Drive to recite to your friends...that unless you really want to go out of your way and memorize Seth Green's unexpected, and comical lines.

Son of the Mask (2005)

Two elements make this movie bad: the script, and Jamie Kennedy's attempt at doing the Mask character.

[1/10 · 23 March 2006]

The script: The script is pretty bad. Dog finds mask...Jamie wears mask to party...Jamie comes back home and knocks up wife...they have a baby. Thus the son of the mask. Baby has ridiculous cartoon-ish powers, while the god LOKI is trying to get the mask back as it was a god creation. So dumb. And if you think Jamie Kennedy doing the Mask was bad, look no further than Bob Hoskins character, Odin. Every time he enters he is yelling...what is up with that? The whole Odin/Loki gods stuff is such a stupid angle.

Jamie Kennedy and the mask: What made the original Mask movie great was Jim Carrey. Not only did Carrey act the Mask better, his "Mask" was dressed much more appropriate. The Mask character was modeled after the Wolf character in Tex Avery's cartoons. Jim Carrey portrayed that character almost perfect, with the clothing, the voice, the actions...everything. Mind I note Jim Carrey's face is much thinner and therefore works better in mimicking the wolf character. Jamie Kennedy has a fat face, is dressed in horrible clothing, wears this UGLY red wig, and worst of all, his voice over on the mask is horrible...not to mention his acting as "Tim Avery". The Mask here is more like...a cartoon version of Mo Collins (from MadTV) doing that character who never finishes her sentences and continues to go higher and higher with her voice. It is horrible. There is little, if any, evidence of the Son of the Mask resembling Tex Avery's creations. Jamie Kennedy's performance, alone, makes this movie very hard to watch.

Phone Booth (2002)

This isn't an original movie...

[5/10 · 14 May 2005]

If the Wesley Snipes movie with the same premesis didn't do it for you, this one will. Something about this type of story makes you want to scream, since (WARNING: SPOILER) the bad guy doesn't get his due. You REALLY want to see the bad guy (Keifer Sutherland) get his due after this crazy stunt this guy pulls. If a guy wants to cheat on his wife, let him...hehe. Let the woman find out herself and cause some trouble!!! If you want to see a movie where a bad guy you really learn to hate (in the movie of course...heh) gets his due go see Stalag 17 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046359/)...great movie from 1952...one of my favorites.

But yeah, the Wesley Snipes movie called Liberty Stands Still was the first to do the "guy-makes-person-his-pawn-with-a-sniper-rifle" theme. Sure, they were both in 2002, but the Wesley Snipes movie was first.

Both movies are exactly the same. Some person has some kind of "issue" that this crazy guy with a sniper wishes to make this person admit to on TV and such. And while holding this person in the sniper's scope, the person is unable to do anything that would attract the attention of anyone, namely the law enforcement. And of course in the process there are innocent bystanders who are killed, as they interfere with the person talking to the sniper.

The nice thing about these kinds of movies is that its all shot in one place and the number of actors/actresses are minimal. So there is little chance that viewers will get lost in the movie...and its not that hard to jump into the movie half-way through. And, if you have to take a bathroom break while you are watching there is really no need to hit the pause button...hehe.

I'm not a big fan of these movies where someone is playing a game with some other person...well then again, the movie The Game with Michael Douglas was a game, but the idea of pulling a game of life that was so serious yet fake made the movie fun and interesting. But these movies, I just don't like the fact that (WARNING: SPOILER) the bad guy doesn't get his due. At least in The Game, they make it seem like the bad guy gets his due when Michael Douglas starts to realize its just a game and he decides to do something about it...

There is no replay value with Phone Booth or Liberty Stands Still. Once is enough for me...