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50 First Dates (2004)
An imperfectly good movie
Fifty first date has a lot of potential. In fact, in some sense, the movie succeeds in realizing the core theme: persistent and undying love for someone in spite of the daunting condition of a short term memory; nothing hurts more than to be forgotten by someone you love. Moreover, the creative measures the protagonist undertakes to help his lover remember him are moving and touching. Overall, the dramatic and romantic elements of the movie are wonderful, but the comedic elements are typical Sandler humor extraneous to the film's essence. For many reviewers, Sandler's style of humor has a corrosive effect on the film, but I think the strength and message of the film endures in spite of its flaws. I would add this this movie would easily be the best romantic movie had Sandler decided to make this into a romantic drama than a romantic comedy. This doesn't mean he should do away with any comedic elements. There were some decent ones, but he could easily get ride of a lot of bad comedic moments. Moreover, Sandler is capable of doing drama as evidenced by his decent performance in drama movies like Reign Over Me and Punch Drunk Love. It would have been one more decent drama performed by Sandler. Unfortunately, it is too late and the flaws will remain permanent parts of the film. Nonetheless, I still think this is a good movie which is quite underrated due to the recent and understandable backlash against Sandler.
Teen Titans Go! (2013)
Disappointing, but average
I loved Teen Titans and I still do, but I am pretty disappointed with the new Teen Titans series. The creators could have continued the Teen Titan series in another sequel with better animations, script writing, and plots. Perhaps they can finally reveal what really happened to Terra and who Slade really is, but instead they decided to create an entirely new version of Teen Titans that severely caricatures Teen Titan characters as well as their villains.
Nonetheless, despite this disappointment, Teen Titans Go! is not entirely disastrous, it hasn't changed everything: It still retains many of the same voice actors from its predecessors from Robin to Beast Boy. Even if one does not remember who played who, anyone who saw the original Teen Titans can recognize the voice of each main character.The humor is relatively similar to that of its predecessors, although I cannot help but feel that it resembles Fairy Oddparents to some degree. While Teen Titans Go! is unlike its original predecessor in many ways, it is nonetheless an average animated TV show I would watch when I am bored.
Personally, Teen Titans Go! is simply a shadow of its predecessor's former glory. In some sense it is a continuation of the original Teen Titans, but overall it disappoints its core fans by presenting an alternative version with new story lines that are not relevant to those of its predecessor. We were looking forward to a new Teen Titans that would continue the storyline from the old one, because there are still some unanswered questions: who is Slade? What really happened to Terra? etc. Some of my favorite villains probably won't be around such as Red X, but even if he shows up it won't be the same.
Overall, Teen Titans Go! is an average animated TV series, but it certainly disappoints fans of the original Teen Titans. From the perspective of the fan of the original series, I could give this a far worse rating, but I decided to give it an average rating since if I evaluate the series independently of its predecessor its an average animated series. Nothing more.
Homo Sapiens 1900 (1998)
One of the best documentary on Eugenics
I want to begin with saying that I did some research on Eugenics in my first semester of college in an anthropology course "Globalization of Hatred", this eventually extended to my personal/independent research as well. I tried very hard to find as many documentaries as possible on the subject of eugenics, to my disappointment there aren't that many documentaries. Some interesting documentaries were produced by BBC and James Burke, but they were often very short and brief. However, when I came across Homo Sapiens 1900 I was ecstatic because it's an hour and twenty minute documentary that focuses solely on eugenics. I watched it twice and I am not a bit disappointed.
Homo Sapiens 1900 pretty much is a decent overview of the history of eugenics in America, Germany, Sweden, and Soviet Union (or Russia). It shows how eugenics has different meaning in different nations due to different socioeconomic, cultural, and political contexts. It also goes reviews over some really standard facts that many scholars, who are interested in eugenics, already know about. For example, the documentary mentions Supreme Court cases of sterilization in United States called Buck vs. Bell. It also mentions the founder of eugenics named Francis Galton. These are things that many people who are interested yet new to eugenics would find to be useful bits of information or references. In other words, Homo Sapiens 1900 is a very good starting point to get into some research on the topic of Eugenics. I also want to add that the narrator's voice and tone fits very beautifully with the whole theme of eugenics: it is slow, solemn, dark, and cold. I think it was meant to be that way deliberately to convey how eugenics is a very dark topic in the history of humanity. Furthermore, the director knows how to write scripts very well: the way he introduces the subject from the beginning is very profound and deep.
Now that being said I do have at least one criticism against the documentary. There are some very important information and historical figures in eugenics that the director Peter Cohen briefly goes through without adding in some more important information. For example, while Cohen does go over Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics, he hardly gave any basic biographical background of Galton as well as examining what Galton's motives were in researching eugenics. Galton is a statistician, which is an important point to make because he applies statistics to heredity to find out probability of passing on dominant traits. Knowing this is important for Galton since it gives anyone the opportunity to use it apply selective breeding on human population by help passing on positive traits. This is something that Cohen pretty much skipped. Cohen does this similarly with other important figures of Eugenics such as Charles Davenport.
Despite this problem with Homo Sapiens 1900, this is an excellent documentary to watch for anyone especially someone interested in the topic of eugenics.
Nonetheless, I found it somewhat unfortunate that some reviewers judged Homo Sapiens 1900's aesthetics as "depressing". I think the subject of eugenics is depressing one, since it attempts to rationalize oppression of some people as "inferior" in order to promote privileges of other people's reproductive capacities. Eugenics, by its essence, is privileging reproductive practices of some people who are deemed to have "superior" traits by breeding them together, whereas it marginalizes others' reproductive practices by sterilizing them from reproducing to prevent them from passing on "inferior" innate traits. I think the depressing aesthetic is quite appropriate for this subject, so I don't see it as a turn off.
I will concede that Homo Sapiens 1900 may not be the best documentary, it may as well have its flaws or it does not appeal to general audience. However, if one compares it to other documentaries on the subject of eugenics I think this is the best documentary on eugenics yet. Unfortunately, ever since Homo Sapiens 1900, there aren't that many good documentaries on eugenics. I strongly recommend anyone interested in eugenics to watch this documentary.
Un homme qui dort (1974)
One of the most excellent existential films
It has always been one of my endeavors to find a film that expresses existential themes without subtlety or pretense. Whenever I watch a film that audiences or critics viewed as being existential, I am always left with some degree of disappointment (although I liked all of these films) because the existential themes were not as explicitly expressed as I hoped it would. Fight Club, I Heart Huckabees, and American Beauty were a few that came to being pretty down-to-earth about the intended existential themes.
However I find this specific film, Un Homme Qui Dort (The Man Who Sleeps) to be very blatant about the intended existential themes. When you watch the film, you do not have to try to look for any existential cues, as you would in other films, and consequently dub one of them as "An Existential Film". In this film the existential theme becomes a completely disclosed reality through both visual scenes, music, and second-person narrative monologue.
The second-person narrative monologue can be little dry, repetitive, and occasionally boring, but it is also full of the use of metaphors, similes, and existential terms (Existence, Emptiness, etc.) that conveys the boundless empty depth of the modern soul. This does not only express itself through the monotone and speech of the second-person narrative but also in visual scenes such as a wide empty road, an empty hall, or an empty subway.
In this films...existentialism is right in your face...because it captivates the indifferent motion of the mundane reality in various facets. It conveys meaning to captivate meaninglessness. The transition from unauthentic artificial living towards the self-realization that one's existence is vulnerable, obscure, and contingent becomes apparent in the film as well.
I personally think that while the film can be a little dry and boring to most people who are use to the the adrenaline rush that Hollywood tries to enhance, the film offers something very valuable that I haven't found in other films. Rather than constructing a reality through plot, characters, acting, special-effects, script, etc, this film makes existence as it understands it as explicable as possible. It is by this intent and the success of it that I have this film a full rating.