censorshipbites Reviews

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

"The Notebook" set in a swamp

[3/10 · 6 September 2022]

"Where the Crawdads Sing" is basically the movie equivalent of Young Adult fiction written by women for coming-of-age girls. And it clearly shows in some of the clunky and unlikely dialogue: the main character, on trial for her life, refuses to testify because "I won't defend myself." And then's there are the lines that are entirely implausible: "I don't want to 'go all the way' with you because I respect you too much" has never, in any country and all of human history, ever been said by an aroused young man to a young woman.

This movie has an interesting premise and a lot of potential but ultimately squanders it in favor of treacly dialogue that seems to be directly borrowed from Twilight/Divergent/Hunger Games.

Ultimately, "Where the Crawdads Sing" is just "The Notebook," but set in a swamp.

The Wall (II) (2017)

A war movie for someone who knows nothing about the military

[2/10 · 2 April 2022]

I went into this film neutral, hoping for a regular war film. Instead I got one of the biggest disappointments imaginable.

Put simply, this movie was laughably bad in its depiction of military protocols and procedures. Sure, that furthered the drama, but it was like a superhero showing up in the Old West or a musical number in a disaster flick.

1) The military uses call signs, not names, on the radio for the specific reason of avoiding giving away too much information should an enemy be listening.

2) An enemy tapping or intercepting military communications is WWII-era tech. Modern radios have built-in signal hopping, so radio frequencies change periodically. Where'd the enemy get the new freqs from?

3) A foreign enemy (Middle Eastern) with a perfect American accent? Ridiculous. That's why US troops in the Pacific used passwords with Ls and Rs since Japanese would have trouble pronouncing them.

This movie supposedly had a military advisor, but the screenwriter and director clearly ignored everything he told them.

Anyone with any military service whatsoever will immediately realize how unrealistic this movie is. It's like a movie about a famed soccer match, only a player picks up the ball with his hands and runs with it.

Absolute garbage.

The Hater (2022)

A thorough disappointment

[2/10 · 18 March 2022]

An interesting premise, but the film falls completely flat. Dorothy never grows or becomes truly likable at any point. Unlike Doc Hollywood or My Cousin Vinny, Dorothy never really comes to respect her hometown or warm to its inhabitants. Midway through, the film also hints that the bullying of Dorothy wasn't necessarily one-sided, but it never delves any further and Dorothy doesn't reflect on any mistakes she might have made. Worse, she starts and ends the film manically spewing unfounded assertions and spouting slogans. Dorothy remains a schemer throughout the campaign, so she never moderates or compromises on her far left environmentalism nor does she manage to learn what folks on the Right think. In short, you're far better off watching a political comedy like The Campaign, where the two main characters aren't political stereotypes and neither is entirely good or entirely bad.

Good Sam (2022)

Yet another spin on the Shero's Journey

[2/10 · 8 January 2022]

Anyone familiar with modern movies, literature, etc. Has seen the Hero's Journey (often in a montage): a male weakling, neophyte, or outcast is called to do something which he initially rejects. He trains and suffers/learns something about himself until he is finally ready to take on series of tasks, attempt an impossible feat, confront an evil villain, etc. In contrast, we now have what comedian Ryan Long calls the Shero's Journey: a female character is gifted and awesome but everyone around her fails to see her awesomeness. The shero begins to doubt herself but fortunately regains her confidence, and ultimately everyone else finally realizes the shero is awesome, too.

Good Sam is just a Shero's Journey. So Sam isn't going to learn, evolve, or grow; instead, every episode is going to be nothing more than all of the other characters finally realizing how mistaken they were and just how awesome Sam is.

Count me out.

God Incorporated (2019)

Diversity, equity, and inclusion

[3/10 · 4 July 2021]

Another example of the DIE religion at work. The film has an intriguing premise; too bad the director went with a cast straight out of a Benetton ad.

Snowden (2016)

Given the back story, you'd think a Snowden movie would get the facts right

[3/10 · 21 February 2021]

But it didn't. The film was rife with small errors and a glaring omission. In the early scenes, Snowden is supposedly in Army boot camp: 1) When Snowden responds to the Drill Sergeant, he says "Sir, yes, Sir" and "Sergeant" - that's the Marine Corps. Instead, he should have said "Yes, Drill Sergeant." And in the Army, Sir is only used to address warrant officers and officers. 2) Snowden couldn't have fallen from a top bunk - Army boot camp is done in open bays with about 40 single metal beds and lockers - bunk beds in wooden barracks went out after Vietnam. 3) At Yokota Air Base, Snowden would have been in cinder-block base housing. 4) The "Tokyo" apartment scene is laughable: Tokyo apts are expensive and tiny; a "kitchen" consists of a sink, a two-eye stove, and maybe a dish rack, and it shares space with the dining room. A separate walled off kitchen is only found in (really expensive) condos with multi-decade loans. And then there's the glaring omission - Snowden took 4 laptops with him, to which he undoubtedly gave Russian and/or Chinese intelligence access as a condition of his safe passage/stay. Commending some of Snowden's actions is fine, but leaving out his questionable actions and deliberately falsifying facts and events doesn't help his case one iota. And it immediately makes the film far less believable.

The Social Dilemma (2020)

An attempt to highlight social media's problems, blind to its own bias

[4/10 · 23 October 2020]

This doc attempts to identify and describe the pitfalls of social media by mixing interviews with former social media employees and dramatizations, but the characters - a mixed race husband and wife with 3 clearly white kids - seem more Benetton ad than reality. The doc takes pains to appear politically balanced, going so far as to depict the Extreme Center as its bogeyman, but the film fails to see its own biases. If, as the film contends, social media is manipulative and damaging particularly to young girls, then why not simply tell them to turn it off/not join in the first place? The film *assumes* social media is a necessity that needs to be nerfed for our protection, without ever questioning that assumption. Later, the lead interviewee says in passing, We need to get rid of populism. Which is richly ironic, since most of the population - be they Trump or Bernie supporters - would vehemently disagree. The doc derides fake news and disinformation but *never* mentions social media's left-wing leanings, which is amusing given that there are almost no right-leaning social media companies and it clearly explains social media's recent censorship of the Hunter Biden e-mail scandal. And it might explain why the film only offers one solution: more regulation/legislation. In short, this doc is well made, but it's completely one-sided and extremely forced.

Late Night (2019)

Mind-numbingly predictable and wasted opportunities

[3/10 · 22 October 2020]

Emma Thompson didn't have much to work with because her character was essentially a walking cliche: a female late night host in NYC who's left wing, a bit long in the tooth, and world wearily cynical. Each of Thompson's monologues flopped like a European soccer player, and her views and traits were easily predicted from her politics. Mindy Kaling plays the writer's room diversity hire. The funniest scenes of the movie were Kaling at her day job as announcer at a chemical plant, trying out material. But all of Kaling's scenes with Thompson seemed forced, and none of Kaling's pro jokes were funny. The film deliberately wants to be "woke" instead of trying to be "funny" or "good," which is why it evokes clapter and not laughter.

Hamilton (2020)

For all the hype and fanfare, you'd think this musical was actually good

[3/10 · 23 July 2020]

First off, I can go either way on musicals. I love Les Miz and Sound of Music but have absolutely no interest in seeing LaLa Land. With that in mind, Hamilton was mediocre at best. The best songs were those by King George, decent work was done by George Washington; many lines by Hercules Mulligan were entirely unintelligible. Audience clapping between each musical number was also unsettling. As for historical accuracy, let's take one scene: Lafayette and Hamilton: "Immigrants, we get the job done!" [Crowd: woohoo!] The annoying crowd cheer might be attributed to political sentiments (the musical was filmed in 2016). Regardless, the line is historically ignorant since neither was an immigrant. Even though several US states granted Lafayette honorary citizenship, he returned home to France after the Revolutionary War and remained an officer in the French military (when captured fleeing the French Revolution by Austria, he tried using his US "citizenship" but given his French rank no one bought it). Hamilton was a British subject who simply moved from one British colony to another (just as someone moving from NY to NJ isn't an immigrant). King George's songs and the love songs were traditional musical fare; many of the rap/spoken word numbers were undecipherable. You can learn as much about the American revolution while watching this musical as you can WWII while watching Inglorious Bastards.

Radioactive (2019)

A terrible movie as bad as 2018's Entebbe

[2/10 · 22 July 2020]

For anyone who might not know, the 2018 movie Entebbe is supposed to be about Israeli special forces rescuing the passengers of a hijacked airliner. The actual raid, the supposed topic of the movie, is only depicted for about 5 total minutes in the film. Even worse, scenes of the raid are interspersed with some scenes of a completely unrelated musical-art stage production. What the ....? Radioactive has the same pointless artsy angle. Instead of simply depicting Curie's tumultuous life, the film mixes in scenes of a completely unrelated dancer on a stage and other pointless bits. Radioactive is a postmodern biopic that doesn't focus on telling the story of its subject's life, like a comedy special with no jokes.