educated_indio Reviews

A Few Good Men (1992)

Entertaining But Not Remotely Realistic

[7/10 · 18 July 2022]

A fun movie, but almost every major premise is false. That civilians who've never known a single person in the military wrote this is really obvious:

1. Demi Moore's office doesn't exist. No such thing as Internal Affairs for JAG.

2. No, the Marines at Gitmo are not especially hardcore, not any more than any other Marines.

3. No, the Cuban soldiers at Gitmo don't snipe at or target US soldiers. There are formal cordial meetings high up to make sure there are no conflicts.

4. No, there's no way a Marine lt. Colonel would wind up as National Security Advisor. Never been one in all of US history. Maybe a general someday.

5. You don't approach witnesses in a courtroom without asking the judge. True for civilian trials too.

6. Any vet can tell you the "code red" is a plain old blanket party. Still fairly common but technically illegal. Very rare outside of basic training.

7. Officers sure never order them, though sergeants often look the other way. Almost impossible to prove charges, but they do rate low level court martial like loss of rank or 30 days in the brig.

All the falsehoods aside, it is an engrossing film with fine performances.

Jack Ryan (2018–2023)

Clancy's Wacky Conspiracy Theories

[2/10 · 18 July 2022]

Season one mildly entertaining. Season two is garbage.

Tom Clancy was an insurance salesman who imagined himself a military and intel expert. Most of his books were more fantasy than anything else, made for the kind of people who actually thought Red Dawn was a serious film instead of hokey.

Some films like Hunt for Red October were entertaining because few of us will ever be on a nuclear sub and so we don't know how accurate the book or film is. Other Clancy books like The Bear and the Lion were not just garbage, they were long racist rants also. Clancy actually argued for the mass murder of all Asians.

Jack Ryan is closer to the second. Clancy's hatred for Muslims was well known. Here he imagines nonsense like a biowarfare attack through a small airport when anyone whose traveled knows only international airports have international flights. To try to hide Clancy's bigotry, the screenwriter invents a Black American Muslim character and makes him the CIA agent in charge, even including a scene of him staring down a French bigot.

The whole of season two is a long series of wacky conspiracies:

1. Venezuela trying to build an A bomb. In reality, it has zero and even led an effort to ban all nuclear weapons in the Americas.

2. The opposition led by a human rights lawyer instead of a wealthy elite puppet appointed by Trump that tried several times to overthrow the government.

3. Russians running the country. Amusing, still trapped in 1955 paranoia.

And they apparently don't bother to get the accents right. With mostly Mexican American actors, they were as phony as everything else. To Spanish speakers, the difference is as obvious as Stallone playing a guy from Alabama.

Gunsmoke (1955–1975)

A Civil Rights Western

[8/10 · 15 June 2022]

Hear me out, but this is exactly what the series was most of the time. A way for many Americans to hear, understand, agree with, and learn about civil rights.

Among the episodes:

Numerous Native characters actually played by Native actors. Not so for many other series.

Sympathetic depictions of Native issues.

When Natives were villains, they weren't demonized or shown as naturally evil. They often were given credible motives and fully developed as characters.

Black actors playing Blacks. At the series start, you still a few series with white actors in Blackface.

Sympathetic depictions of Black issues.

Mixed race characters at a time when race mixing was still illegal in most of the south. You can even find a young Ron Howard playing a boy with a Native stepmother.

There were even episodes depicting Romany (Gypsies) and exploring their culture.

So here's to Gunsmoke for not only being great drama, well written, well acted, and lasting 20 years. Here's to being ground breaking.

White Feather (1955)

Just a Lot of Playing Indian...

[2/10 · 15 June 2022]

None of the film was believable from the start. The white actors playing Indian were so pale they were almost glow in the dark. Debra Paget is not just too fair skinned to be believable, she's also wearing obvious lipstick and mascara.

The wigs were laughable as well, a lot of horsehair braids. Add to that feathers that seemed obviously plastic and buckskin that obviously wasn't.

There were plenty of Native actors they should have used. Spare us the "of that time" excuse. Jay Silverheels played Tonto in the Lone Ranger eight years before this. Gunsmoke often had whole casts of Natives playing Natives. The first Natives to play Natives were way back in the 1910s, over 50 years before.

Another reviewer pointed out the colonists weren't that accurate looing either. Robert Wagner had an obvious blow dried pompadour.

The love story was not just ridiculous, it was offensive Pocahontas imitating. Native women falling all over the white guy for no reason, and somehow the Native men are to blame.

The only reason not to rate this film a 1 is because there is a message of tolerance in it. But the way it was delivered completely undercuts it.

Assault to Freedom (2016)

Wow, This Is Bad

[1/10 · 14 June 2022]

As poorly written and spoken as the title. Sounds like they wanted to attack freedom.

And that's what this film does. Right wing Cubans are their own peculiar brand of crazy. The whole film is so detached from reality, written by people who can't see past the end of their own nose.

The Queen and the Conqueror (2020)

Overblown and Unbelievable

[1/10 · 14 June 2022]

Even for a novella, hard to believe. "Indian princess"? Is this 1950?

Falling in love with your kidnapper, and the one who abuses your people? How is that not racist to claim that?

It's pretty obvious this is a fantasy for white guys who buy "sexy Indian" costumes for their girlfriends for Halloween.

It's a Pocahontas ripoff.

The Bamboo Prison (1954)

Bad Prison Film, Bad War Film, Bad History

[2/10 · 9 June 2022]

Nothing to recommend in this, not a thing believable about it.

The prisoners come in from a death march where over half of them supposedly died...and don't even appear tired. They're even clean shaven.

North Korean soldiers played by Chinese American actors with Chinese accents. Seemingly the film makers didn't notice or thought the audience wouldn't know the difference.

Having prisoners constantly joking makes it seem like the prison isn't bad at all. Unlike Stalag 17 where the abuse was executing escapees but not starvation.

The brainwashing is shown as just giving lectures about Marxism. And having a Black prisoner defend racism in America is bizarre and not believable. IRL many of those who defected were Black GIs fed up with Jim Crow.

The romance is hokey and unbelievable and so is an American newspaper man defector in the camp wearing an expensive suit.

At best a curiosity to see Brian Keith and Henry Morgan in early roles.

The Deep End (2022)

Mary Bosworth AKA Teal Swan

[8/10 · 9 June 2022]

This is one of the grimmest and most dangerous cult leaders out there IMO since she promotes suicide and seem incredibly mentally disturbed herself, but is charismatic enough to draw many others in.

Bosworth claims to have been part of a "Mormon Satanic cult" and been repeatedly raped as a child, even sewn up inside a dead body. Besides the lurid bigotry, her claims will obviously draw in many who were abused, as well as cause many to overlook the ridiculousness and falseness of what she says. There are no violent Satanic cults. That's been constantly debunked by the FBI every year since the early 80s.

Quite a few sites out there devoted to debunking her and warning others.

The gucci guru inside teal swans posh cult Teal Swan, an emerging cult leader, claims she is a multi-dimensional Arcturian alien working with 11 other aliens in an "intergalactic Green Peace" type organization....

jessicaschab I was contacted by Cameron Clark, a former follower of Teal who had lived with her and was very traumatized by her experience. Among many things, Teal Swan tried to talk her into committing suicide....

amoraobscura Teal either lied about traveling to and living in eight different countries by the age of 20, or she lied about enduring 13 years of ritual abuse. Or she lied about both...

The Alamo (1960)

Bloated Cold War Propaganda and Deeply Racist

[1/10 · 7 June 2022]

Bad film and worse history.

Just like Wayne himself and the original Alamo myths, this film demonizes Mexicans as faceless evil, obvious stand ins for Russians. The only Mexican is an Argentinian actress for Wayne to lust after and then lecture her she should go away.

There is no mention of the Mexicans inside the Alamo.

There is no mention that the Americans were all recent immigrants, most of them there less than a year, fighting not for freedom but to keep their slaves. Instead the film tried to make slavery defenders into Bible thumpers.

There are no mention that Bowie was not noble but a brutal slave trader. The great Richard Widmark is wasted.

There is no mention that Travis was a criminal on the run. The great Laurence Harvey plays him as pompous.

There is no mention that Crockett was there by accident, and that he survived the battle and even bargained for his life. Crockett was a long haired Indian lover that Wayne would hate.

The Ridiculous 6 (2015)

Not Just Bad But Deeply Deeply Racist

[1/10 · 2 June 2022]

It's not just bad even for an Adam Sandler film, which are already widely held up as lazy, unfunny, and just him taking the money and running.

It's not just that every "joke" is one you can predict before it's said, and wasn't funny.

It's racist, racist, racist. Dozens of racist jokes degrading and insulting Natives. Even Mel Gibson's racist Apocalypto wasn't as racist as this is. The walk off and mass protests by Natives of this film were well deserved.

Apparently Netflix is A OK with lots of racism, and so are Sandler and lots of his fans.

Death Race (2008)

The Original Was a Classic Satire, This Is a Piece of Feces

[1/10 · 25 May 2022]

From a satire ruthlessly mocking brainless people who are entertained by high body counts and car crashes, they decide to do a remake aimed at brainless people celebrating high body counts and car crashes.

The original was funny. This doesn't have a single laugh other than the joke's on the audience.

The original was a sci fi classic of a dystopian future. The audience for this is too stupid to spell any of those words, much less know what they mean.

Hamburger Hill (1987)

The Most Cliched and Least Realistic of the Vietnam War Films

[2/10 · 15 May 2022]

Platoon-written and directed by an actual combat vet.

Full Metal Jacket-lead sergeant was an actual Marine drill instructor during Vietnam.

This one doesn't have one believable line of dialog. Everyone speaks in cliche after cliche.

That's why it bombed, both critically and commercially. That's why it's the least remembered of the three films.

Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)

The Draft Dodger Takes Center Stage While the Real Heroes Were Ignored

[1/10 · 10 May 2022]

IRL Marion Morrison dodged the draft. He avoided serving and changed his name to John Wayne. Then he spent the rest of his life trying to hide his draft dodging with cliched films like this one.

IRL the flag raisers at Iwo Jima saw most of the platoon killed. This film gives them the briefest of cameos, just a few seconds. You could actually cough and miss it. They deserved better than having their screen time given over to the draft dodger trying to hide his shame.