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Vertical Limit (2000)
Very educating movie
On how to not make a movie.
Here is how you do that:
You start with a vague idea of what you want to do based on a succesful movie that just came out before.
You start with the action scenes and make each of them as suspenseful as they can be.
This is what you need as a baseline:
Safety equipment protects people's lives. You want to show life-threatening situations. Establish very soon and make it clear that safety equipment is unreliable.
To maximize suspense, you need to use the concept of 'plot laws':
In the real world, material items act according to laws of nature, physical, chemical and biological laws.
People act based e.g. On their values, knowledge, capabilites and social context.
That's in the real world, though.
In your movie, everything acts and behaves as your plot requires.
Here is how you could use this:
We have characters A, B and C. A is standing on a ledge. B and C are hanging on a rope that A let down to them.
B is slowly climbing up the rope and is now also on the ledge. C hasn't done much yet, but is the best climber of the group, world class.
Now, when the attention goes to C: Show the wall, which should be beginner difficulty level. A and B now need to discuss, if the rope can hold the weight of C. C needs to be really scared now and should not be able to climb up the rope. Climbing the wall should never come up as a possibilty. The rope is the only thing that matters.
A and B pull up C.
A, B and C then should climb up a very difficult wall very quickly next and this should be the first time without using any safety equipment.
Ideally, C complains about A and B being too slow and is very vocal now.
Next scene: rope falls down the mountain and is lost.
Next scene: rope is used to carry 5 people without any concern.
Next scene: rope would be needed, but has fallen off the mountain.
Rest of the movie: use a lot of different very long ropes and never have anyone talk about ropes again.
In parallel do a similar thing with water:
Show people drinking then run out of water. Have them discuss how long they can only live now, while ignoring a source of water directly behind them. Never bring up the subject again or show anyone drinking later.
Not what happens in that movie, but they probably should have and the movie marketed as comedy.
Clearly, the movie is trash.
I guess 5 stars, because I have to assume the actors understood the level of trash they were involved in and still managed to deliver good performances. Also, some scenery shots are nice.
Clickbait (2021)
Starts strong, but gets worse
Show has an interesting concept of telling one story with the focus on different characters: the sister, the detective, the wife, the son, etc.
You could see the sister as the main character probably. It is a very unlikeable character who is treated with far too much kindness by those she meets. But most characters act way too rude for real life. Most telephone conversations end with people just hanging up their phones e.g. Characters generally talk too little with each other, get enraged too quickly and tend to resort to hectic activism.
The plot is good though and kept me interested. At some point all the mysteries have to be solved though in this sort of crime show and that is when the show drops in quality. Not because the plot twists are unlikely or the solutions are unlikely, but because there is an actual quality issue with those episodes.
The worst piece of music and the worst camera and editing work is actually in the final scene of the series.
If you are annoyed by the sister character too much, I would recommend to not watch it. She does not get less rude or annoying at any point, really.
Overall, I would say the show misses some real characters. Everyone seems to be too much of a stereotype and way too little empathetic to accept them as real persons.
Vikings: Valhalla (2022)
Actually surprised this is rated so low by many
Well, Vikings was not historically correct and so I knew Vikings: Valhalla was not going to be either. All you need to do to see that is search for "Viking historical".
Another tip: Leather clothing. A 20th century invention, really, with some very specific exceptions only. Good to protect the skin against abrasion when crashing a motorcycle. Heavy and terrible clothing in rain, does not offer any substantial protection against the sort of violence that occur from other people's weapons. Leather coats with rivets? Yes, in a motorcycle gang or as fashion item derived from that. No anywhere else.
So, if you see anyone wearing leather with rivets on it and it is supposed to be earlier than the first motorcycle gangs, it is probably not historically correct, but rather your movie producers being inspired by what your typical motorcycle gang member looks like and pushing that up a couple of notches. You know: wild beards, a lot of tattoos, leather, always having a grim look on the face, pretty much like every bad guy in fantasy movies, dystopian sci-fi and pretend period pieces.
I had watched Vikings and stopped at some point and then never picked it up again. Vikings was ridiculous mostly, but had some decent dramatic plots and acting and even though completely unhistoric somehow always impressed by being somewhat spectacular.
Vikings: Valhalla starts with an interesting plot. The biggest problem it has, comes from its wokeness. (I believe that is how it is called.)
Can a black woman be the chief of the tribe that governs the most important Viking town, Kattegat? I don't know. If she is, though, then she needs to be a leader and not someone that lets people she barely knows make decisions and take action and standing in the background like she does not belong. That is where the main actress comes in. A skinny white woman that is supposed to be a good warrior and ends up in an all-women city guard. Now, were there Viking female warriors? Absolutely. Why? Because Scandinavians where taller and stronger than most other "races" and a strong northern woman would actually have been stronger than an average male in opposing forces. That is why. Otherwise it would not have worked. But Vikings: Valhalla shows us all these crappy fighting scenes with the main actress, who seems to be doing those scenes herself. She is moving incredibly slow, obviously has almost no power and also it shows that she has no clue at all how to use any of the weapon props she is given. I could beat her with one leg and one arm tied behind my back, well anyone could really, because all you would need to do is stab at her at the right moment. She is never covered really. I don't know what it is with the series, but people always have the shields at their sides, horizontal even. It is ridiculous. Gladly, the bigger fighting scenes are choreographed better and obviously some capable stuntmen and women were used there. Those are actually quite enjoyable. Even the archers play a better role than in other productions and actually shoot fast and hit. So, strong women, yes. But then, please actually strong women: as leaders and as good fighters. Not just some women that are pretend strong and make this work by having everyone around them starting to act like idiots and suddenly not being able to think and discuss sharply or fight furiously anymore.
Then, there are the political statements. I forgot the episode, but they are actually talking about "open" society and love that unites for some minutes in one episode. Those were the worst minutes of the series so far. Then, Christian men: very terrible people. The pagan believes need to be protected against the evil that is Christianity. I mean you can be unhistoric, but not understanding that a single god is an advantage for a single person ruler is just blatantly ignoring how humans function. Of course, a lot of leaders all over were totally eager for Christianity, because then they were able to present themselves as the one human that represents the will of the one god. The one god idea in itself makes people prone to more readily accept one human for leading a large group of people. So, that is not only not historic, it is totally against logic. Same as never bringing up an argument for trade, when "open" society/ city/ culture whatever is mentioned. Of course, trade was the reason there was more acceptance for multiple believes in some areas or cities. You don't have to argue that with love that unites, there are very pragmatic reasons for an "open society" and a clever ruler trying to defend their own pagan believes would of course have used those for an argument to not have everyone converted by force.
It could have been a better show, if they had driven the plot a little faster, because the plot is actually somewhat interesting. But they are spending a lot of time on weird dreams, religious experiences, or dumb things like the main actor burying two of his buddies all by himself. All heroes of the decisive battle by the way. So, next couple of minutes spent by him preparing a little boat with the bodies, some straw, talk some words and then finally setting that little boat on fire and pushing it away into the water. Totally how you would imagine that to happen and just nothing really. What did the other Vikings do at the time? Well, they were mostly Christians, so obviously they were drinking, molesting women and kidnapping the Queen's two children to find out, where she was hiding the kingdom's treasure. Just the stuff that Christians do, I guess. Probably did not need to bury their dead. Did I mention that the strongest believer is insane and talks to an empty cage, in which he thinks is the last priest of Uppsalla? Oh, and marriage does not really matter either. Can be questioned easily and if needed for other purposes can just be done without a scene.
So, the show is spoilt by the weird political and societal views of the producers that seem to have oozed their way in the writing quite a bit.
But the plot is actually pretty decent, the acting is ok and the camera work is pretty good actually.
Including historical accuracy, it would be one star, but I assume everyone knows by now that Viking is not the least bit historic. This would be 7 without the political stuff in it. I am going to deduct 2 stars for it, making it a 5 star show.
Forgive Us Our Trespasses (2022)
So wrong
First off, there are some sentences in the end of the short movie and they are just not correct. It is important to have a good understanding of history, so I am going to correct those first.
"In 1939 Hitler implemented Aktion T4, which led to the murder of 300,000 disabled people, while sterilizing an additional 400,000. This secret program developed the gas chamber technology used in concentration camps during WWII.
This history of disabled lives has slowly been forgotten."
1. "Aktion T4" is a wording that was made up after the war. The Nazis were mostly referring to this simply as "Aktion" and it is known today in Germany by "Euthanasie" (euthanasia). In Germany the word "Euthanasie" today only refers to the program of the Nazis, its original meaning is given in the dictionary, but there is a remark explaining this.
The sterilization of 400,000 people was a public process, actually governed by laws. It started before the "Aktion", which was secret. Other countries that sterilized people with certain types of disabilities at the time were Switzerland, Denmark and Canada. Some of them started doing this before the Nazis. So, "Aktion" and sterilization are actually very different in character.
2. Gas chambers were not used in concentration camps. They were used in extermination camps. Very big difference and absolutely necessary to make. Without it, it is not possible to understand how these mass-murders were organized.
3. Claiming that the history of disabled lives has slowly been forgotten is just a statement to promote self-importance. On the contrary, while the remembrance was mainly focused on Jews in the decades after WWII, more and more groups have found recognition as victims of Nazi crimes in later years and are remembered not only in today's memorial services, but also as part of the curriculum in public schools.
For the content of the movie:
Maybe people are less educated about history today or generally more gullible, but lately there have been a lot of supposed "period pieces" that have nothing period to them. These are productions that put 21st century people in costumes and settings of a different time, then take some naïve idea about that time to tell a story that they could just as well have told in the 21st century or in a fantasy setting. The "period" seems to serve artistic and marketing purposes and there is no actual effort to really portray the supposed period at all.
From the first pictures in this short movie, I had the feeling it was going to be like this. And it was. Just search: "German classroom 1939" or 1940. Make sure, you are actually looking at a German class room of that time. Pay attention to the seating order and the postures. Do you see any mixed-gender classes or a woman teaching boys? Do you see anyone, boy or girl with hair covering most of their forehead? No? That is because it did not exist. If you happen to see a picture of a primary school, where coeducation existed, you might notice that the boys all sit in the middle. The girls sit around them.
Now, just by doing half an hour google search, you personally have the knowledge to improve the first scene of the movie. Just get everybody to get the hair out of their face as much as possible, make them sit straight and sit the girls at the side and the boys in center. If you want to save money, then you don't paint the whole wall with red and swastika, but hang a flag somewhere instead. Now, you even saved money, while improving the movie. Could a producer show us more clearly that they did not do any research than by spending money on things that could have been done better with less money spent?
So, the scenes are all completely unrealistic, not only in details but as a whole. So is the story. Basically, the story is that some soldiers pull up to the house of a teacher and her son. The son, who is missing a limb of one arm, is running away. He stops at a barn and there is a woman hidden and it is actually pretty confusing what that has to do with anything, but it is used plot-wise to make the boy show himself again to the soldiers and keep running. Then he is followed by one of the three soldiers, their officer. They fight, he kills the officer with the officer's pistol and then puts on the officer's coat and keeps on marching away.
I don't get the whole point of the story. Why should any of this have happened? The idea of wanting to kill a young boy for missing a limb is completely absurd.
Here is an idea for the producers: If you want to make a movie again about something that actually happened, consult with experts and then do that. Don't make something and pretend it has anything to do with things that actually happened.
One star for misinforming the public and making me write this review trying to stop that from being successful.
I just hope that this kind of movie stops being made. You can't learn from the past, if you think it is different than it was.
Munich: The Edge of War (2021)
Don't watch
The following sentence is shown at the end of the movie:
"The extra time bought by the Munich Agreement enabled Britain and her Allies to prepare for war and ultimately led to Germany's defeat."
At the time of the Munich Agreement the nations regarded as Allies today were not allies. As a direct result of the agreement, the Soviet Union sided with Germany and helped Germany to conquer Poland very shortly after. The British and the US actually had to fight France in the war, before France became an ally (e.g. Naval battle of Casablanca).
By occupying Czechoslovakia, the Germans were located behind instead of in front of the massive Czechoslovak border fortifications and gained access to 70% of Czechoslovakian iron and steel industries (which Germany desperately needed, because that is what you need to build weapons). Germany also gained 3.5 million additional citizens/ tax payers and 70% of the electrical power production of Czechoslovakia.
But, even more important the Germans also gained immediate access for enough weapons to arm half of their army (Wehrmacht). To be precise: 2,175 field guns and cannons, 469 tanks, 500 anti-aircraft artillery pieces, 43,000 machine guns, 1,090,000 military rifles, 114,000 pistols, about a billion rounds of small-arms ammunition, and 3 million rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition. Those weapons later played a major role in the German conquest of Poland and France.
So, how exactly did that enable "Britain and her Allies to prepare"? Britain lost a significant ally, Czechoslovakia, which ceased to exist as a free country very shortly after, they had armed Hitler's Wehrmacht, they had driven the Soviet Union to become an ally for Hitler. It took about a year for Stalin to become Hitler's ally and after that Europe saw "Blitzkrieg" powered by Czechoslovakian weapons, courtesy of Britain.
"Munich" is used like "Waterloo" and "Versailles" by some people. It signifies a terrible outcome.
I will not even go into what happened in the movie before that. There is so much that is just so wrong either historically or because it is just completely unrealistic. Some of this is mentioned in the goofs and in other reviews.
This movie truly earns its one star. It just does not say anywhere that it is doing history revision, which it does.
Trial 4 (2020)
Too lenghty and not focussed on the interesting things
I stopped watching after the 3rd episode. I looked how many there are in total and it would be 7 more to go. The whole story should have been told within 5 episodes imho though, but more below.
In the middle of episode 3 I paused, did an internet search and read the Memorandum of decision and order on assented-to motion for new trial...Criminal Action NO. 9382-CR-11743 from May 4th, 2021. It is a 5 page document. According to that, the case itself is actually pretty clear-cut and involves criminals within the police, paid witnesses, faked evidence and very obvious motives of the criminals that were police officers.
On imdb it says "Sean K. Ellis fights to prove his innocence while exposing police corruption and systemic racism".
I fail to see any evidence for racism in the first three episodes. I doubt that there is going to be any. Let's see who Ellis is: Mother crack addict at the time (dealer who?). Uncle just released from prison and says about Ellis: "He could kill the pope, but not his cousin." Friends that Ellis wants the producers to meet: "Yeah, everybody was dealing drugs you know? What else could we do?" Ellis: "That's right. I remember, trying to get a job at the mall, filled out all the applications. Never even got an answer." Now, that is what Ellis is saying after having spent years in jail. Remember who actually killed officer John Mulligan? It was the guy that drove Ellis to Walgreen's and he shot him while Ellis was inside Walgreen's. Think about what that means for a minute. Did he shoot Ellis after that? No, he trusted him to keep quiet about it, otherwise he would not have done it to begin with. And Ellis did not go to the police, his ride was correct. His friends were gangsters, his ride to Walgreen's was a gangster and murderer and he thought it a great idea to not go to the police with the knowledge that his gangster buddy had shot the officer.
So is it safe to say that Elliot was a gangster? From what the show reveals: certainly. He does not even hide it after being released from prison. How is the show going to fit "systemic racism" into that? Wouldn't any possible discrimination of him most likely have happened due to his gang affiliations? Wouldn't you actually expect law enforcement to look harder and dig deeper and try to convict at all costs, if someone belongs to a criminal organization? How long would Ellis have kept his "clean record", if they had not put him in jail?
Here is a little thought experiment. Just answer all the questions: What is the connection between churches and prayers? Do people in a church pray? If someone goes into a church on a regular basis, would you expect that they frequently pray? How about the connection between gangs and crimes? Do people in a gang commit crimes? If someone is meeting his gang on a regular basis, would you expect them to frequently commit crimes? Oh, I forgot one thing. It is the same person (a police officer) and the gang consists of corrupt police officers. Now, you are the investigator. Are you going to ask people in the church about him, when you investigate? Are you going to investigate by questioning his friends and family and at places that he was regularly visiting? Sorry, to have to change that again: The person is actually Sean Ellis, a black male and he probably did not go to church. Have you answered yes to the last question? That means you would have had to spend days over several weeks in the neighborhood of Sean Ellis, a neighborhood where for no apparent reason everyone has a black skin color. It is exactly what the cops did and it did not leave a good public opinion. At least, the series lets one detective explain this and not just shows all these weird opinions and newspaper statements that somehow portray this as something bad.
There is a lot of jumping back and forth in the time line in the series, excessive amounts of irrelevant information, which makes it very hard to follow the facts. Facts, which are really simple. There is very little evidence and the show takes ages to show the differences in evidence presented in the first two trials versus the third one. I got the sense the show just wants to lull me into believing that Sean Ellis is a nice guy. Well, clearly failed. Don't show me someone who sees crime as something everyone just had to do "to survive" and pretend that that is an acceptable position that any decent human could possibly adapt. I did not even get to the criminal gang within the police while watching. That is actually sad, because I was looking forward to it, but the show is just too lengthy and confusing a story that could have been told very straightforward.
Three stars for turning what could have been a very interesting story into a lengthy confusion and a hymn of praise for a person that does not deserve it. He did not deserve to be in jail either for a murder he did not commit, that is without a doubt.
Frontier (2016)
Hard to rate
It is really hard to review and rate this show.
It was co-produced by the Discovery Channel Canada. This might lead you to the assumption that it has some qualities regarding understanding the history of fur trade in the Hudson Bay area. But that is not the case.
The series is completely fictional. Its writing is naïve. The writers don't seem to have cared about history at all. It is a show about evil white men doing horrible things to women and "minorities". Only, the natives were not a minority in that time, they were the majority. They were also actually interested in trading as history clearly shows.
Just to get the history right, some Wikipedia quotes on how the Hudson Bay Company started (their first expedition): "In 1668 the English expedition acquired two ships, the Nonsuch and the Eaglet, to explore possible trade into Hudson Bay." "the Eaglet was forced to turn back off the coast of Ireland." "The Nonsuch continued to James Bay, the southern portion of Hudson Bay, where its explorers founded, in 1668, the first fort on Hudson Bay, Charles Fort at the mouth of the Rupert River". "After a successful trading-expedition over the winter of 1668-69, Nonsuch returned to England on 9 October 1669 with the first cargo of fur resulting from trade in Hudson Bay."
So, the English acquired two ships to explore the possibility of trading. One ship did not even make it very far, showing how much risk it involved to even try and cross the ocean in the age of sailing. They then sailed into the Hudson Bay and turned south, went as far as they reasonably should have, which was until they reached the mouth of a river in the South East corner of the Hudson Bay. They went ashore (that is what founding a fort is) and then started to look for people to trade with. Probably the people of the area, natives of course, would have made contact. A sailing ship of that size can be seen from far away, they were navigating using landmarks so have been visible all the time while sailing South. The people of the area would most likely have been aware of their presence long before they ever dropped anchor. Obviously, the natives were interested in trade and communication worked well, because the crew stayed the winter and when they sailed back, their ship was full of pelts.
So, instead of just exploring possible trade, they had actually traded a lot already, a full shipload of valuable cargo. When the ship returned to England after one year and four months with that load of pelts, the financers found out that their investment had been very successful and of course they wanted to repeat that.
Another historical fact: "By adoption of the Standard of Trade in the 18th century, the HBC ensured consistent pricing throughout Rupert's Land. A means of exchange arose based on the "Made Beaver" (MB); a prime pelt, worn for a year and ready for processing: "the prices of all trade goods were set in values of Made Beaver (MB) with other animal pelts, such as squirrel, otter and moose quoted in their MB (made beaver) equivalents. For example, two otter pelts might equal 1 MB"". So a measurement of unit was introduced quickly, when there were more trading posts (e.g. Forts). The price was consistent throughout Rupert's Land, an area of roughly 3.9 million square km. (For comparison: Canada today has roughly 10 million square km.)
Now, the series:
In the series the trading has been going on for about 100 years. No one is really trading with the natives, it is a white men business. There is no "Made Beaver". Natives are somewhat involved, although it seems like source for cheap labor. When someone has the idea to trade with ONE tribe (the Lake Walkers), that is a real innovation. Later, it is suggested that there has already been trade with that exact tribe, but somehow they were being paid too little. When comparing that with the historic reality, it is just unrealistic, hostile towards a company that exists to this day and generally ignorant towards the actual size of the trading and amount of people involved.
Other things that are extremely wrong: Powerful women are at the center of most plots and the plots are centered about achieving social justice and variations of "knight saves princess". Slavery, arranged marriages, prostitution are considered by most characters as terrible things and whoever is linked with that is a "bad" character in the show. In reality, slavery was practiced by all European nations since the 16th century and was seen as crucial to establish overseas empires. Arranged marriages were common practice. Prostitution was thriving in frontier cities in the new world with prostitutes easily making up 1% of the population. Regarding these issues, all main "good" characters have a very clear opinion and they all condemn these realities of the time. To present a group of main characters that all do not share commonly held beliefs or have big troubles with the realities of the world they live in, is an insult to an educated audience really. The whole point of a show like that must be to work with the believes and values of that time, allowing for different stories from those that work in modern settings.
Things that are extremely annoying (series vs reality):
Soldiers are terrible fighters vs the English army was one of the best of the time.
Guns are useless vs guns were in their second stage of evolution already (flintlock rifles) and even in their first one (matchlocks) had already revolutionized warfare.
Rivers can have current in two directions vs rivers always flow in the direction the characters need to travel.
People need a lot of supplies when travelling for days vs people marching in the wilderness with nothing but their coat and a weapon.
People adjust their clothing to the situation vs people wear just about anything, unless it is important for the plot.
My last comments on the series' content refer to the "battle" scenes. Now supposedly, the series covers the conflicts arising from the monopoly of the HBC. Historically, there was actual warfare going on over the issue at different times, involving the English and French armies. In the series however, it is actor Jason Momoa and his handful of friends against the English. They are always less in numbers than the people (usually the English army) that they attack. How are you going to beat a professional army that has you outnumbered? According to the series, you need axes and knives and then charge directly towards them in open terrain from the direction that they are facing. It will be a tremendous victory with almost no losses instead of everyone dying for the insane stupidity of that sort of attempt. The guns used at that time by the English army were smooth bore muskets (Brown Bess) that would have hit reliably at 50 yards and the power is equivalent to modern assault rifles. They shot lead balls though, which cause gigantic wounds and take clothing particles with them into the wound. Wound infection was one of the main casualty reasons from battles in those days.
As a viewer of the series, however, you have to watch Jason Momoa not only run around for minutes "stabbing" and "striking" extras or stuntmen that have the obvious order to not endanger his health (they barely move). He and his friends get wounded plenty, but why worry right? Wound infections don't exist. Off to the next frontal charge against people that have brought their muskets for what reason again? Surely not as weapons, because they have no impact on the fights at all. Cringeworthy.
This leaves only one question, which is why am I even watching it? I guess I have accepted it as a fantasy series with a lot of magic involved and on that level it works.
As a self-proclaimed periodic piece it is one star. I would actually argue that it is unethical to produce shows like this, because the producers must know that a lot of people will think that it somehow shows history.
Making a Murderer (2015)
Deeply disturbing and sadly one-sided
In a good democracy, the public opinion on the guilt of a suspect is not supposed to matter. This series shows how that is not the case in the US at all and how prosecutors used the media and the resources available to them to convict two people of the most serious crimes on the basis of very doubtful evidence.
Is the evidence very doubtful though? The series does not show some of the most important evidence. Never once does the audience get to see the most incriminating part of the Dassey confession. As a viewer you will only hear about it from the state attorney defending the appeal in the 7th circuit court of appeals. The attorney uses it in two hearings to successfully refute the appeals in the Dassey case. There are three very disturbing facts about what is allowed in the US. Prosecutors can mislead heavily regarding their role and the facts. Telling a child: "See me as a father now, not as a cop" is highly problematic, because it is not the situation at all. Telling someone, when you actually do not know xy: "We know that xy is true. We just need to hear it from you, otherwise we cannot help you." What it amounts to is this: "Hey, don't worry, I am only your father (looking out for you). We know that you have done/ seen xy. (implying: because we have a witnesses/evidence that says xy) You better confess as that will lower your sentence." Really, US law makers think that is how you should be allowed to work with witnesses and suspects? Disgusting. Also the facts that they were feeding? What the heck. Why don't they just write them in the newspaper to begin with? In what world do investigators give away information about their investigation to potential suspects and witnesses? Of course, they did not get any other statements corroborating Brendan's guilt later. With that amount of information anyone wanting to protect Brendan could adjust their statements accordingly right afterwards, from the information Brendan and his mother could immediately start spreading.
There is a big difference in how professionals in law identify lies vs what the public believes on this are. I know that the FBI has the best interrogators in the world and also that in my country the same techniques are trained and used. From personal experience as a witness in two criminal cases, I can say that the interrogation of Brendan Dassey lacks every aspect of state-of-the-art. The show does not focus on that at all. Why? Because, there are clear indications that however bad the interrogation was, he was actually telling the truth. A statement from Brendan after his confession is: "They got into my head." Brendan's defense attorneys have taken this as an indicator that he made everything up and was just saying what they wanted to hear. Actually, this statement does not indicate that at all.
You can read that Steven Avery changed his account of his encounter with Theresa Halbach nine times. This is not mentioned anywhere in the series.
Kayla Avery is the person that pointed the investigators towards Brendan Dassey. She contacted the police and told them in detail what Brendan had told her. Where did that statement go? It pretty much disappeared. Which makes sense, because she was a child when she gave it and children need that sort of protection. However, it is THE single and only event leading investigators to investigate Brendan and ultimately resulting in his conviction. What is the role of Kayla Avery later? Has she been outcast by the family, because of making up such a horrible story about Brendan that ended up in putting the good and suggestible boy into prison for life? Nope. She is in the middle of the family, helping out Dolores, commenting on the case etc. How exactly did that happen? Is this what happens, if your actions put an innocent person in jail? Or is this something that happens, when you just messed up and due to your actions a guilty person is in jail? How can the statement that ultimately lead to Brendan's conviction become such a triviality in reality and within the family?
There are a lot of phone calls, especially between Steven and Barb on the show (his phone calls from prison are always recorded) that seem to incriminate Steven. He says things like: "If you know the truth, you stick with it." "It could not have happened this way because x saw y doing z. (short pause) And also, because I am innocent."
The famous defense lawyer, Katherine Zellner, that represents Steven Avery is at the center of the second season. She is presenting all sorts of testing that suggest the physical evidence has been planted by the police. There are two things that need to be said about this. Physical evidence is always weighed less than witness testimony. She might never get the chance to present any of the results in court. And that is actually the real scandal. A bill passed by the Clinton administration in 1998 (?) referred to as AEDPA has made appeals almost impossible in the US. Originally targeted to speed up the execution of death sentences and limiting the appeal possibilities of those, it has changed appeal possibilities for everyone. It is probably not possible in a different way, because under the law everyone has to be treated equally. Only, no one ever makes an effort to change that bill or discusses it, really. The idea that the victim's families and friends deserve "closure" is governing bills like that and also the actions of state prosecutors. A very simple idea to make the justice system better is to get rid of that "revenge" idea that is still present within US law and maybe focus on the principle "innocent until proven guilty" instead. The whole "revenge" and "closure" idea is what motivates the whole law enforcement and legal system to dial in on a suspect and want them guilty. What is one innocent person in jail in exchange for so many people finally having "closure", right? Especially, if that innocent person is perceived as a bad person already. Parallels to the history of witch hunts come up easily, when you watch this show and are used to European legal systems.
So, in totality a highly interesting, compelling documentary. But it makes itself part of the problem, which is that in the US people are judged publicly and then people from this public become jurors later. For being one-sided and leaving out a lot of relevant information I can only give 5 stars, although I would recommend to watch it. It is exactly, what you never want European legal systems to become and there is a good chance that the US law enforcement and legal system have destroyed the lives of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey. Because of the same systems, we will probably never find out.
Murderville (2022)
Funny
I am generally not a big fan of improv. However, on this show the only one doing 100% improv is the guest, so it is different.
The episodes are on different levels of funny, though. After 3 episodes, I would have given a 10 and a 6 already.
One problem is the camera work and the editing. Shaky camera is super annoying in many scenes and it makes it really difficult to catch the clues. I always ask myself: Could an 11 year old have done this better? If the answer is yes, then obviously it is a shaked camera, not a shaky camera.
For me this is a 7. If you have no issues with shaked cameras, then you can interpret this as a 9.
Don't Look Up (2021)
No adressing the elephant in the room
Stopped watching 25 minutes in.
This movie does not work for people who can think in my opinion. It is not enjoyable at all.
I can guess how this movie keeps going on, I would be very surprised, if it was any differently.
So, here is the story as far as I got:
A phD student discovers a comet on her shift working a space telescope, calls her professor. People working at the institute come in to celebrate the discovery. Group starts doing math on the trajectory (completely unrealistic scene), diCaprio as professor is completely stereotypical and unbelievable, I am sure he was supposed to play it like that, he should not have taken that role.
So, they find out it is going to hit the earth, call someone responsible, get in an audio conference with the actually responsible head of planetary defense coordination office that exists in US against this sort of threat.
They fly to Washington, D. C., to explain to Mrs. President (Meryl Streep, playing like she was in a sitcom, overacting and seemingly not distancing herself from the role, you have the feeling that she is amused about herself, while playing it).
She does not meet them the first day, postpones meeting and the second day she does not care, because someone always comes up with end of the world stories and they are just some scientists not from Ivy League and all sort of nonsense that no one ever would say.
Btw, the professor (DiCaprio) had a really hard time explaining it, because it is so complicated. I don't even know why he talked in the first place. Obviously, the head of planetary defense coordination office would have talked, because it is his job. (And the sentence: "A comet of 5 to 10 km diameter will hit the earth in 6 months and 14 days and it will destroy all life on the planet, if we don't do something about it." is just really hard to come up with for a professor.
So, professor, student and head of planet. D. are on a platform and discuss how they will proceed and the idea is to leak it to the press and something else and professor says that he doesn't know how to talk to people, because that is not his thing.
That is when I quit watching.
I know they will be talking to a lot of people and the pattern will keep repeating itself and it will be as lengthy and boring as it has been the first time, because how could it be any better, if it was bad the first time they have showed it.
The whole story is ridiculous, like there would be one professor and no one else and of course the US is the first one to discover it and it is probably going to stay an isolated US story as well, because that is the IQ that the writing conveys so far. I am assuming no other scientist will discover it later either, because it is soo hard to find a comet that is hitting the earth in 6 months that is so big.
And then, the question is:
What is this movie about? It is about not adressing the elephant in the room, because everyone is too distracted with everything else right?
So why does the movie not adress an elephant then?
If you want to make that point, why not take someting real, e.g. The war on Iraq and just make it a movie.
You do not even have to make anything up.
It's not like this has not happened before.
If you want to make it dark and hurtful to watch, why not take something that has happened and not change it the least bit?
The culture is far beyond what this satire is trying to criticize and has been for a long time.
And by not using an actual elephant while adressing that the elephant in the room is often ignored, the movie becomes part of that problem.
Why are you wasting more than 2 hours of people's life teaching them and using something unfunny and hypothetical in a way that it could never happen? (Of course there are a lot of science institutions watching the sky all over the world and most of them probably have better equipment and also, if a scientist discovers something like that, they are going to tell their community, so everybody will be looking at it, if they can. (The earth is turning, you know? No one can watch anything all the time from one location, except from telescopes in space and that was not the type shown in movie. These people are used on working together and sharing data. It is what they do.))
So, no. I do not want to watch movie, telling me that people don't talk about the important things (adress the elephant in the room) from people that fail to adress the elephant. What is the elephant? There are actually a lot of elephants. See, how the movie maker did not understand that he is criticizing something that everyone knows already and does not give a solution or say what is important for them? Because, NO ONE is going to ignore a comet that will destroy all life. However, there have been actual elephants not being discussed and he is too scared to name one of them.
Which is the same reason why it happens.
They are trying to teach us something? Yes, they have shown why that happens. They had someone's attention for over 2 hours and did not use it, because they were too scared.
They did not have mine, because like the professor in front of the president, maybe you start with what you want when you want something.
I could have done the movie in 5 seconds:
"People don't listen when it is important."
End.
Guess everyone knew that already, why make it a 2 hour movie?
De slag om de Schelde (2020)
The Forgotten Requirements of a War Movie
War movies are supposed to be realistic. That is what makes the difference between action movies and war movies mainly. If you watch an action movie, you know from the beginning that the following will most likely happen:
- Hero gets hurt, but it will just make everything so much more "exciting".
- For any type of weapon, but especially guns and knives movie characters are just ridiculous. No real persons, unless handicapped with something specifically needed to use those, is that bad.
- Plentiful yellow explosions have no splinter effect or loudness, so they do not bother anyone. You have to ask yourself why they even care about it, because obviously they don't do anything.
- People constantly talk about stuff that does not matter, will get in arguments over nothing and show completely unrealistic unlogical behavior. They willl even talk, when they really, really need their hearing senses, talking would mean one could miss information and the people you were listening to, could actually hear you the same way you are hearing them in that moment.
- Characters have so many feelings and express them all the time. They also block them from functioning, even in situations that are a lot less dangerous than the ones before.
- Everybody has insanely low IQ, hearing impairment and viewing impairment. Sneaking means walking quietly and talking with lowered voice in distances as small as 10 meters and works.
- Supposed trained professionals never act the way and can be overcome by average joe.
So, this is definitely not a war movie. It is an action movie.
Add to that, that it claims to be "Inspired by True Events" and all of those events are just depicted completely wrong. Great job for understanding history... Why in the world would people like the ones that made the movie, even make a war movie?
They obviously have no clue about the history, the behavior of people at the time, war, military.
All the things that you need to make an actual war movie. They didn't even hire extras that had military training. Everything is off in every scene. And that is before one would start with the "plot".
This movie will and has made a lot of people upset.
The movie makers don't seem to have understood that the relatives of people that have been there still actually live. You can only like this movie, if you have very little understanding of warfare and of how people actually think and interact with each other. That goes for the drama parts, too. All persons in the movie behave like they have an IQ of 75 and no training in anything.
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
Easily the worst mover ever around Nazi time, WW II and holocaust
As my very extensive review did not make it here, I am just going to say very briefly this:
This movie does nothing, but create sympathy for extreme ideologies. Every main character is essentially doing really bad things (like teaching children warfare or hurting someone with a knife out of hate), but they are portrayed as good persons.
It is a fantasy movie, essentially, a really dangerous one as it pretends to touch a very important subject and does not do it in the slightest.
The author has not grasped the mentality and realities of people in that time or of people generally.
That is why his supposed satire does not work. It would have to be based in reality for that to happen, but there is no connection whatsoever to reality.
If viewers come out of this movie feeling sad for the little boy or for the captain who are they feeling sad for?
Two people that actually did very bad things. And the excuses shown for their behavior are (this is the only part that might be considerede resembling reality) the excuses that people of the time would have used.
So, it is a pledge to be understanding with Nazis really, for anyone who does not understand there is nothing real about it. And that seem to be a lot of people considering the ratings and critical acclaim by the seeming majority. German movie critics btw were not so nice about this movie. They criticized it very subtly, but it is obvious for people that understand Nazi history that this movie is really bad in many, many ways.
De vijanden (1968)
A WW II, battle of the bulge, road trip movie
I am not going to differentiate between my opinion and facts. Please take this from the context.
First off, the acting is mostly terrible and many scenes seem very amateurish for what we are used to.
Secondly, you need to watch the movie with its original audio otherwise you are missing the point of the movie.
Thirdly, some scenes are very realistic, because they are real. For the making of the movie they had assistance from the military and I know for a fact that they actually did shoot the tanks that are shown being shot. I do not have information on scenes not including tanks, but some of them look real to me as well.
Here are the things that make this movie good:
The scenery: Everything shown is a good depiction of the time period.
The characters: The characters are complex, all characters. The movie manages to make that clear in the very short time that some characters are involved.
The conflicts and challenges: Conflicts, challenges and tensions between and for the characters are authentic, typical for the time and situations and they occur at a realistic frequency. There are no superficial elements to create extra drama. This movie works with what could have been real.
Here is what would have made this movie great:
Language and culture and its effect on the characters:
As mentioned above, you have to watch this movie with the original audio. I wrote this review only, because this is so remarkable and I cannot remember this being used so well in a movie.
The characters all have different native languages and very different language skills in foreign languages. They also encounter characters from other cultures with other languages. And this is very realistic for the situation that they are in and any persons in real life would have had exactly that to deal with on top of the other problems that they were facing.
What this movie actually does is lead the main characters through scene after scene that are sometimes very different. That is why I wrote "road trip movie" in the headline, because it is really a group traveling and encountering other people, as in typical road trip movies. And each scene or encounter is very different due to cultural backgrounds and language skills. They will speak English, French, German, (Belgian?), get talked to in a not understandable language and it does not only change how they interact with the other characters, but it also changes the dynamics within their group, which then changes the whole encounter. There are huge and sudden shifts in the group dynamics many times and they are all very realistic. I find the authors have very well understood the culture and manner of the main characters and how this would express itself and resonate within the group or towards characters they encounter.
As a viewer you could decide to watch this with sub-titles in your language and then your language will not have sub-tittles, if it is spoken. Or, if you have similar language skills to one of the main characters, you watch it without subtitles and can experience the scenes as that character would have.
Side note:
The German is weird. The actor is definitely capable of sounding 100% native (must have insanely gifted musical ear and voice control) and does so for as long as 3 or 4 sentences at a stretch. Also, he is yelling in German in one scene and he sounds spot on, when he is yelling as well. There would be no way to tell that he is not German. Then, it is completely different suddenly and he has a heavy accent. This changes back and forth throughout the movie. I wonder how that happened. (It does not seem dubbed.)
Point deductions:
The plot:
I deduct one point for the plot. Overall, it is a good plot. It is mostly realistic and personally I need that in this kind of movie. There were one or two times though, where I was thinking that they should have definitely done it differently and could have, also.
Acting:
I was thinking of deducting a point for this or not.
Not certain about this, but I believe that they cast veterans.
I see good movement and very efficient handling of equipment in the movie and it is something that actors just cannot do.
It takes actual soldiers to look like soldiers.
While I greatly appreciate this, I still deducted a point for it, because of how horrible the acting is in some scenes.
In summary, with original audio this movie is really good in showing the effects of language and culture for situations. There are some very realistic scenes of fighting, moving in hostile environment and encounters between soldiers and civilians. Deductions for partly very bad acting and the one or two slip-ups in script and props.
Facing the Giants (2006)
Fantasy and why?
IMDb has tagged this "Fantasy", which I find to be very descriptive.
Pray harder, get better in everything.
Works every time for no person ever.
But, if you want to make people believe that is what faith does, do so.
More people losing faith will be the certain result.
Of course, as the main plot for a movie and NO boy-girl interaction at all at a high-school, it is setting the standards on how to not make a high-school football movie.