The Cove

This is a difficult movie if you care about animals at all. The Japanese are one of the only groups of people left that actively hunt and slaughter whales and dolphins. After 1986 it was pretty much agreed upon that no one would hunt and kill these animals anymore. They have found a few loop holes like killing them in the antarctic, about 1000 a year and claiming its for science. The other is much more brutal and that's what this documentary is about.

In the small fishing town of Taijii in Japan there is a disgusting and dark secret. On average they kill 23,000 dolphins and porpoises every year, but only after they sell off the best of them to be trick animals in captivity like at Sea World.

What the Japanese of this town noticed is that every year there were pods of dolphins swimming by on their normal migratory patterns, combine that with the knowledge that dolphins are very sensitive to sound and you have the set up. They use a line of boats that have metal tubs going into the water, they hit the tubes with hammers, scaring the dolphins towards a cove they use, and then put in nets. People come from all over to pick out the dolphins they want to buy, each going for about 150,000, all the rest are corralled into another smaller cove where they disappear.

The fishermen are very careful about who can see the smaller cove and have done a good job about keeping it under wraps so then no one has any proof of what they are doing. By the way a dead dolphins meat goes for about 600 US dollars, not a huge cash cow. The documentary follows a group of activists as they discuss what they know about dolphins, the history of whaling and the trade of meat.

They come up with a plan to record the slaughters with hidden cameras, and spend most of the film setting that up. When you do see the slaughters it will make you sick, my breath was wavering and I was trying very hard not to cry. Its hard enough watching them stab the dolphins with spears, but seeing them try to escape, or seeing the babies being killed is to much.

The film also touches on over fishing the oceans, degradation of the ecosystems and mercury content and poisoning, all real and serious problems. The main activist of this mission is the man who created the show "Flipper" and trained the dolphins to do tricks, now he works to set them free. He feels responsible for their current incarceration and destruction.

The waters literally run red with the blood of the dolphins, and the fishermen seem to have no shame over what they do. Like I said earlier this is a hard thing to watch and harder to swallow. If this appeals to you to learn about then also see the documentary "Sharkwater" which focuses on the destruction of the shark populations of the world, a very big problem if we kill to many of them. The dolphins are cute and have the smile, but the sharks are just as much at risk if not more so since they aren't protected like the dolphins and whales are, as well as being demonized as man killers (which they aren't)

8/10 stars.

Director: Louie Psihoyos

Shadow Company

This is the first documentary that I've watched that was completely and 100% dedicated to discussing mercenaries. They were pretty even handed and fair to all sides, but there were still things I noticed that they dropped the ball on.

They initially go through a history of how these groups came to exist all the way to its current incarnation specifically with how the government is allowing "private military companies" to come into Iraq. They give an interesting look at the history and smartly don't dawdle on it to long because frankly as interesting as that is, I'd rather know more about whats happening today.

The psychology of the people who do this is interesting, they are willing to put their lives on the line for causes they don't necessarily care about for the sake of money. To me it seems they are destined to fail because an Iraqi will fight so much harder than they will since they have an actual stake in the outcome. The men though are trained and well manicured. They really know what they are doing, just like the military, some of them are actually ex-military. But, and they discuss this in the doc. there is a big disconnect between the two, in the military if your told to do something you do it because you have to, as a private contractor you don't have to do a mission if you don't want to.

They show some rather disturbing footage in this, specifically charred and mutilated bodies of mercenaries in Fallujah, Iraq. They are very grisly, so if you watch this be warned. Now the problem I have with there being mercenaries in Iraq is accountability. The mercenaries can't be charged with any laws they break in Iraq, and the military has no power over them. I'm set to believe that a lot of these men are good people, for the most part, but there are certainly people over there right now who are committing legal murder. Shooting women and children, and civilians as a whole.

The company spokesmen that they have interviewed in this as well as the Lobbyists were just making me laugh, they are trying to justify a business based solely on killing and blunt violent force. These men, and women are really snakes in the grass. As much as they say that they only hire the best and they are very careful just further emphasises my point. They hire the best to kill efficiently and they are careful because they want to stay in business. Iraq is the first American war that has used mercenaries like this and it really makes me sick. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the whole lot of them are responsible for this, of course they would find a way to make this war as profitable for private interests as they could.

Another thing they didn't hit on enough, or at all was that these mercenaries are also hired not only for these body guard missions but also for interrogation. Again though, they exist outside the law and the military. The military doesn't "torture" under their definition of it, but these private companies can do whatever they want. So they interrogate some of these detainees to the point that they kill them with their interrogation "tactics" Its sickening.

It was a very well done documentary, I only wish they had not sugar coated some of it as much as they did, or not bury some of the more upsetting facts of the situation over there. They don't idolize these men, but they also don't ask them the hard questions. 7/10 stars.

Directors: Nick Bicanic, Jason Bourque

The House of Sand

Ten minutes into the movie there is spoken maybe six words. Ten whole minutes go by and almost no one speaks. It reminded me of "There Will Be Blood" and if you are a fan of that movie I think you would really like this.

The story is simple, it's 1910 and an older man (Vasco) has moved his young wife (Aurea) and her mother (Dona Maria) out into the middle of the Brazilian desert to start anew. With him he has brought a group of other settlers. No one is really happy there, they are basically living on the only spot that has water and is akin to a marsh in the middle of the desert. The other settlers get scared and leave and Vasco gets angry and makes a mistake while building their "house" and kills himself. Now Aurea and Dona Maria are all alone, and Aurea is pregnant.

The meet up with runaway slaves who have been living in the desert for generations. The one that helps them the most in named Massu. He is quiet and pretty mysterious. In fact all the characters are pretty quiet. Aurea gives birth to Maria and after ten years alone out there is getting very desperate to escape. They can't do it on their own, they tried and the desert would kill them.

The film ends up covering fifty years of time. When they jump forward in time they use the actresses who are the mothers to play their daughters so then they all will look like they are actually family, and as I read online they actually are family. The film is just drenched in desolation, there is nothing out there but each other, their money is worthless, they need water and food. The dunes eventually over take their home, nothing is permanent in this landscape. The desert it self is its own character that they are constantly battling. The story is actually an incredibly simple one, it is just about survival on the surface with all of this pent up desire underneath. A desire for Aurea and eventually Maria to escape that place. As well as both of them have the longing of a man even though they are capable of surviving on their own, the need for human touch and interaction.

There is a scene where Aurea comes across some scientists and the army in the desert doing an experiment, when she meets one of the officers he touches her hair and the look on her face says it all, she hasn't been touched like that in 10 years. When she hears one of the soldiers play the violin she breaks into tears, she hadn't heard music in years. The things we take for granted and don't even think about is what they yearn for so much.

The image is so clean in this, the white of the sand in contrast to the black they wear was so visually stimulating it was driving me crazy. The blacks are rich and velvety, it was just blowing me away. The cinematography in this was stellar, I cant say that enough, I loved this movie for so many reasons not the least of which being the amazing shots, I'm talking about every single shot is brilliantly and beautifully composed. Really something to see.

The acting was along the same lines, stark like the images, contrasted and strong, with a deep well of emotion and reflection. The woman who plays Aurea and then eventually the daughter Maris is beautiful, but not in the American way. If this was made here they would have been wafer "girls" where these were strong and passionate women.

I recommend this film to anyone who might read this, it was that good to me. Shot after shot blew me away, scene after scene I got more involved. It is something that I would hope to make one day. 9/10 stars easy.

Director: Andrucha Waddington

Starring: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Seu Jorge, Ruy Guerra, Enrique Diaz, Stenio Garcia

Body of War

I have of course seen many documentaries that take a stand against the war, and with me they are preaching to the choir. I love learning something new about the war that I didn't know. The back channels that were going on as the country geared up for war, the weak in numbers opposition that fought like dogs in the Senate and Congress to stop the march. This film is different from those, it gives a face, voice and sadly broken body to the vets of the Iraq war.

Tomas Young was shot in Iraq five days into his tour. He was shot below his left collar bone, and as it went through his body it severed his spine. He dropped his M16, and as he reached for it his body went numb, he realized his fingers wouldn't work to pick up his weapon. When he regained consciousness a week later he was in the hospital, and without use of his body below his chest.

The film follows him through his day to day life, his wedding, and the anti-war rallies that he attends. He is visibly bitter, and with good reason, he is injured very badly, is that why he is against the war though? In an interview on 60 minutes with Mike Wallace he's asked that, a fair question although maybe in poor taste. Tomas responds with "Yes, I would still be against the war even if this didn't happen to me, I had friends die over there, my brother is over there now"

When he is at the anti-war rallies there are people yelling that all the protesters are anti-American, there is a shot where he is yelling back, and the other person doesn't seem to care or notice that Tomas has been injured in the line of duty, and that yelling at him for being against the war is a truly shitty thing to do.

He shows all the medication he has to take everyday just to keep him going, just because he is in a wheelchair doesn't mean that that's where it ends. He has pain meds, blood thinners, antidepressants and so on. He was lucky enough to regain use of his hands, but and this is something that is important to most people, he cant easily have sex anymore. That lost intimacy coupled with the fact that he needs to be taken care of to an extent that borders on mother/son dependency at times puts an incredible strain on his marriage. There were a few times in the documentary I felt like I was seeing to much, and it was all the stuff having to do with him and his wife and their marital problems.

Seeing the real life effects of what war means is difficult to watch. A number of dead or wounded, or seeing a picture is easy to ignore, but when you have someone in living color in front of you its a different thing. He is an extremely tough individual, but then at the same time has his break downs. He is embarrassed and apologetic about the fact that he can no longer maintain his body temperature automatically. Whenever he has to put his head down from being dizzy from getting to warm he apologizes profusely.

The ones who should be apologizing are those at the top. Those who gave Bush carte blanche to do whatever he felt like with the war, and that's what happened. The Legislative branch gave Bush the use of the armed forces for as long as he deemed necessary and where ever he deemed necessary. That reminds me of something similar, Ceasar, who refused to give up power. And the other is Hitler becoming chancellor after they burned down the Reichstag. Hitler wouldn't ever give up the power they gave him. Now don't get me wrong, Bush was not Hitler, but when you give someone unlimited power over that kind of force you have given away far to much.

More and more people like Tomas are being injured and killed everyday to bring democracy to a country that never attacked us, and didn't want us there, and still don't. I'm not for people anywhere to suffer, but war was not the answer to bring peace there. Our governments contempt for the U.N. is so angering, the U.N. exists for a reason.

The doc. was very good, but difficult to swallow at times. Tomas uses his injury to push his causes along and I say that's his right to do, so much was taken from him. He came home to be lambasted for being against the war. 8/10stars.

Director: Phil Donahue, Ellen Spiro

Vanaja

Netflix really has got to find someone else to write the little descriptions and blurbs for their movies. This is yet another one that did sort of tell me what the film was about, but really sugar coated a major element of it by calling rape, "shame."

The story is an old classic, the young and beautiful girl falls for the older rich young man, but it cant be, or at least for a while. Our main character is Vanaja, and she seems to have gotten a few problems that are setting her back, her Mom's dead, he father is a drunk, and loses the boat he needs for fishing, and she is really smart. Now it might not seem that being smart is a bad thing, but in this case it is, she is smart enough to know she can do a lot better, and deserves it.

She wants to be a dancer, and it just so happens that the woman who basically acts as slum lord over their little area used to be a great dancer. So when her father forces her out of school, she want to go there to work. The landlady (slum lord) Mrs. Devi takes a liking to her and hires her. Vanaja is able to get Devi to agree to teach her music and how to dance. So for a while things are going well, that is until Devi's son returns. After a little flirting and eyes made between them, innocent enough even though Vanaja is only 15, and he is well into his 20's, he rapes her.

The other maid of the house finds out and keeps it hush-hush. That is until Vanaja turns out to be pregnant, and decides to not get an abortion. Devi and her son will take the baby in exchange for 600,000 rupees and the promise no one will ever know that he's a rapist. Ill leave off the story there to not give much more away.

Needless to say there is no happy ending, in fact its down right tragic, but for that it is probably the most realistic Indian movie Ive ever seen, which is saying a lot. I love watching Indian women in movies, they are so beautiful, I cant take my eyes off of them when I see a really beautiful one.

The film is very colorful, and had some really well composed and interesting shots, as well as lighting. Although there were scenes that were lit so artificially it just made me cringe. The camera moved well, and was very fluid, they even used some hand held which I hadn't really seen in an Indian movie before. Like all Indian movies there are several scenes of just singing and dancing, and they are just gorgeous, so graceful, yet forceful, like ballet mixed with fighting. Even though the story was one that I had seen before I wasn't really bothered or bored with it, the rape certainly took me off guard (not graphic, I just didn't know it was going to happen) A fairly strong film overall, but an young directors attempt. 7/10 stars.

Director: Rajnesh Domalpalli

Starring: Mamatha Bhukya, Urmila Dammannagari, Ramachandriah Marikanti, Krishnamma Gundimalla, Karan Singh, Bhavani Renukunta

Trouble the Water

Katrina was a wake up call to all of us here in the U.S. just how poorly our government is run for the most part. It took over 100 hours after the storm had ended before people started to get food, or even clean water. Thousands died in the hurricane, then even more after because of poor planning.

This documentary covers the lives of a married couple as the storm hits through a year later. Before it begins, just hours before we see some home footage that they shot as the storm approaches, and the cockiness is off the charts. They admit that they don't have enough money to get up and leave, I understand that, but here they are along with others saying "Its just a little water, let it come" This disrespect of the raw power of nature is idiotic, if there was one word I would use to describe all the people in this film (including the government) would be Ignorance...at least before the storm hit.

Now I'm not blaming them, they actually at times turn out to be real heroes of the story, while other times I just wanted to reach through the TV and slap them. As the storm rages on they are forced into their attic, but have not put an ax up there. Most people in the areas that are hit by hurricanes like this keep an ax in the attic so if they are trapped and the waters are rising then they can escape onto the roof. We hear a few 911 calls, one of which the woman on the other end says I cant get out, the 911 operator says, sorry no rescues are being done right now, the desperate woman states, then I'm going to die up here, the operator is silent on the other end.

One of the members of their little group actually stands out in the storm to grab anyone who goes drifting by, and then carries every person from their attic into the one that's across the street since its higher. That's true heroism. They admit that they have at times wasted their lives, and I pity that they feel they have to say that, even if they have that's no reason to be left alone to die by your government.

They view this as a new start, and actually do succeed as the movie goes by, but there was little things that reinforced my anger at them, such as having a gold grill in their mouths, or brand new, and nice clothes when they are making 25 dollars a day, please go to the salvation army and pay a buck for a shirt, two for a pair of pants, and return the FUBU and Ekho clothes.

But like I said they are truly strong people, and its hard to put your self in their position, a good example is the documentarians are talking to some national guard who are sitting around, one says to the camera, civilians don't know how to survive, they trashed this school when they came in here for shelter. Talk about an asshole. Easy for him to say, he has the training and he was sitting safely in Oregon when the storm hit. Even if they did trash the building, lets do the math: No food, No water, No Electricity, No Plumbing, The water is 15 feet high and people are dying everywhere....would you care about keeping an abandoned school clean. Here, let me just sweep up the mess I made here when I was just trying not to die of dehydration.

We also see a Naval base that people were sent to when their homes became to underwater to remain in, they were turned away, and at gun point no less. The Navy officials deny that they had guns, I don't buy it, why would the people who came there make that up?

I'm glad they focused on the micro by following these two people, but I also wanted to see more about the big picture, the blame that went around, why something like this could happen. Ive seen a few docs. already about the effects on the individual with Katrina, I haven't seen an all encompassing one yet.

By the end we see how they are really rebuilding their lives from the dust up, and I have to admire that, they even have jobs that command my respect, they were drug dealers before the storm, now he works in construction. Everyone deserves a second chance, I just wish it didn't have to come in the form of a storm. 7/10 stars.

Directors: Carl Deal, Tia Lessin

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

They don't hesitate in getting to work in this documentary. Right off the bat they show the drowned and sexually mutilated bodies of three, eight year old boys. At first I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was a recreation or the real thing since its cheap looking footage of a few sheriffs deputies pulling the children out of a shallow and muddy creek bed.

The documentary doesn't so much follow the story of the little boys, although it should. No instead it focuses on the media frenzy and trial of three older teens who are accused of committing the crime. The film highlights the vast differences that occur when going from a major metropolitan area such as Chicago to West Memphis TN, a backwards little hick town. Two of the teens who are accused like to wear black and listen to Metallica, so in effect in this town it means they must be Satan worshippers. The Children's murder was motivated by that and that of course they did it, just look how weird they are. In a city, or anywhere that isn't filled with bigots and hillbillies for that matter, wouldn't think twice about the way these kids are dressed.

Before I delve more into the trail I'd like to focus on the parents of the murdered children. They keep saying they are good and caring Christian people, but as soon as they finish saying that they talk about how they are glad these other children are going to get raped in prison, and how they are going to shoot them. There is even a part where a few of the fathers show off the guns they are going to do it with. Now don't get me wrong, I feel for them, they lost their children in a horrible kind of way, but what they are talking about is simple revenge. They admit several times that no matter what happens it wont bring their children back, and then back peddle and wish the worst things on these other children.

Now the case against the teens is weak, in fact its just not strong enough for a trial. They have some fibers found near the boys that match fibers from clothes in the defendants home, not things they were wearing on the day, or even clothes they own. I'm a firm believer in science and this forensics wasn't bad, but they even admit there is a chance that the fibers weren't even from those clothes.

The best evidence they have is the confession of one of the three teens who was there. He has an IQ of 72, and barely understood most of what was asked of him. They interrogated him for 2 hours alone, with no recording, or note taking, and only when they were going to get the confession out of him did they turn on the tape recorder. They could have said so many things to him off the record to coerce a confession from him. Now that's not to say that the confession isn't real and true, but there are many inconsistencies. He claims the murders happened at noon, the children wouldn't even be out of school till 3. When in fact the murders were at night. He claims that they murdered the children at the creek in the woods. There wasn't a drop of blood anywhere, and the children were bled out.

Most of the confession the cops are leading him, and he is simply agreeing with them and repeating what they say. Next is the bull shit motive, and they simply chalk it up to witchcraft. The teens worship Satan and needed to sacrifice the children, makes sense right?

They bring in many experts in the trial to say it was because of Satan that they did this, and the "experts" have less educational background on the subject than I do. The problem comes down to simple physics and forensics. The children were killed somewhere else and brought there and the evidence seems to point more to one of the fathers than a couple of local goths.

Its a terrible miscarriage of justice, and the boys don't even really get to defend themselves all that much, on cross examination they are lambasted for owning a book with a Pinnacle star on the front, and for writing their names in dead alphabets. Now I cant say for sure that they didn't do it, they certainly could have, but they were not the most likely killers in this story. I don't think they did it, not based on that evidence.

It was a strong and gut wrenching documentary, be warned that for a few minutes you do see the children's bodies and its graphic and heart breaking. There is a sequel that I now have to watch to find out what happens after this one ends. Overall 7/10 stars.

Directors: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky

Elegy

The description of this movie claims that its about an older professor who falls in love with an ex student of his, and while that might be true, and a decent short hand explanation of the story it is by no means what the film is actually about.

Ben Kingsley plays David Kepesh a critic of all things culture oriented and artistic. He seems to have the coolest job in the world, read books, go to plays and then go on TV and the radio and talk about if its good or bad. He also teaches a class at some unnamed NYC University, and on the surface seems like a very nice and interesting guy, while in fact his character is genuinely unlikable, not to say you will not like him, I liked him, but he is just such a perfect example of hypocritical behavior.

He falls in love with Consuela played by Penelope Cruz, and would really like to have sex with her. He takes the time to woo her and plays his cards pretty close to the chest. For having 30+ years between them they actually make a nice little couple, not perfect, but I wouldn't bat an eye seeing them out in public. Of course he becomes jealous, and thinks she will leave him. It all plays out in that way like you know it will. The thing that made the film the most interesting is the conversations they have in it about life and ownership that directly corresponds to his love affair with Consuela.

The film opens talking about the "other" colony in the New World, that was sexually free and Paganistic, and how the Puritans wiped them out, and thus Americas fascination with the destruction of sexual freedom began and was set in stone. Another example of the things they discuss in the film is how no one owns art, or I suppose anything of that caliber for that matter, they in fact own us. So if you buy some famous painting, you will eventually die and it will go to a new owner and so on and so forth. We merely get to be there while it owns us, an interesting notion.

The story is a very slow burner, and not really for everyone. Like I said earlier Ben Kingsley plays a characters that's pretty easy to dislike. He is so jealous that she will be with a younger man, but sees no problem with sleeping around. Everything that he worries others will do he does himself, and in that way is so self centered and so full of himself. Its obvious he thinks he's above everyone else because he's smart and cultured and rich, but he is weaker than he appears.

The acting in it was decent enough, there's plenty of mopping around and longing looks, and so the acting didn't really stand out to me. Same goes for the cinematography , it was lit well, but none of it seemed to really push the boundaries, and the shots were composed pretty straight forward.

If you enjoy heavy dramas then this might be up your alley, but its nothing to run out and see. Overall it was a strong drama, with more to it than it initially appears. 7/10 stars.

Director: Isabel Coixet

Starring: Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson, Peter Sarsgaard

America the Beautiful

This was a documentary that came out not to long ago, and I really wanted to see it. There are few docs that I would pay money to see in the theatre, it just doesn't make much sense when I can just wait for it on Dvd. I didn't get a chance to see it in the theatre, which as it turns out was okay, it was better that I waited.

They tackle a very broad issue in this film, and its America's obsession with image and beauty. The thing is, is that it's not an American problem, its world wide. So to try and just focus on America, for the most part in it seemed a little bit to much of a tunnel vision view on the subject. Personally I think if they had looked at it as a human need or want to have a beautiful partner I think it would have been stronger.

That all said it was still a very interesting doc. Even a little unnerving. We are introduced at the beginning of the movie to a runway model named Gerren Taylor, she is tall and very pretty. We see her doing photo shoots and hanging out at parties with industry people that are drinking and mostly naked, and that's when we are told that she is only 12 years old. It stopped me dead, and made me a little sick, I certainly thought she was a pretty girl, but not really my type, even so finding out she was a baby made me feel somehow dirty.

Some of the movie focuses on her, and how she rises to be a very popular model in the community and her ultimate downfall. She is very cocky and a little bit of a bitch, but the thing is I cant and wouldn't blame her for that, she is not even a teenager yet. I blame and look down on her pariah of a mother and the industry leeches that cling onto her like she was made of gold. This poor girl is made into a woman, barley wearing anything in these fashion shows and she isn't even a teenager yet, truly disgusting.

Her story is probably the craziest one that we see within the movie. They delve into cosmetic surgery and its horrors but not nearly enough as they should have, or showing any of the ways it goes to far. People getting nose jobs and boob jobs I get, I think they are unnecessary, but I understand them. When you see a woman drop a Playboy onto a doctors desk and says "Give me her vagina" I become a little confused.

They go into the damage that can be done with magazines showing "perfection" that girls buy, and buy into. They also go into air brushing a little. It was a good documentary, but I wish they would have focused more on the biology of why we want more out of our partners, why we demand such high expectations that almost no one can recreate. This shows how as we pursue beauty we show how ugly we can be. 7/10 stars.

Director: Darryl Roberts

Inheritance

What a burden it must be to know that someone in your family is responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people. A few families not to long ago found out that they are the grand nieces and nephews of Adolf Hitler. None of them had children yet, and all agreed that they never would. To stop the blood line they were willing to sacrifice their right to have children, what guilt they must feel. This film is the same sort of thing, we follow Monika Hertwig who is the daughter of Amon Goeth the Nazi Butcher.

She was born in 1945, and he was hung by the Polish government in 1946, she never knew him. She was told as a child that her father was a war hero and died for his country, the truth was nothing of the sort. If you've ever seen "Schindler's List" then you are familiar with Amon Goeth. Ralph Fiennes plays him and is about as terrifying as anyone could. He was the Commandant of the Plaszow labor camp, he's the one who would act as a sniper from his villa and shoot people as they worked. He was a cold blooded sociopath, words cant even describe the kind of monster that he was.

In that way I feel so much sympathy for his daughter, she has to live with his deeds and even if no one else knows who she really is, it makes no difference since she will know. The documentary focuses on her and on Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, one of the slaves that Amon kept in his house, that he beat everyday. The difficulty of facing the child of your tormentor, or on the other hand the woman whom your father terrorized for years really comes across in the film. They both spend time crying before they ever meet, and when they do Monika cant even face Helen. They meet at a memorial marker at Plaszow. After they talk for a while Helen has to walk away because she cant take it anymore, she still agrees to go with Monika to the villa where she lived as a slave.

This is where Helen fully breaks down, the looks on her face make it appear that she expects Amon to walk around one of the corners and come after her. Walking up the stairs that she was thrown down more times than she can count she doesn't even try and hold back the tears and panic in her voice.

The whole story of these women is about memory, and how its inescapable. We learn about their families and the damage that is encased in stone, they will never escape it except in death. Its surprising to learn about all the Holocaust survivors who later committed suicide, but when you think about what it psychologically did to them, you can understand it a little more.

It was a strong documentary, it was shot very quietly and just let the women pour their emotion out to one another, to the camera, or just to the world so then they could get some of it off their chests and breathe a little easier. 8/10 stars.

Director: James Moll

Innocence

Whew, where to start. Parts of this film, far to many parts in fact bordered on erotica for pedophiles. That's no exaggeration, it made me feel so uncomfortable and embarrassed I was watching this.

Now before I go further let me explain that other parts of it were very good, but before I get to that I need to vent on the other parts of it that bothered me. The film has a slow opening, I think only by minute seven do we actually see any people, for that I tip my hat to them, its a bold step to make the beginning of your movie so boring, and that's a compliment. The beginning was boring, it was water coming towards the camera and black screen with credits. When we actually do see some of the characters it's when it first gets awkward. There is a coffin in a room, a bunch of little girls open it and there is a 6 or 7 year old inside only wearing bottoms, this is Iris and she's the new girl at this "school." Right away upon seeing the little girl I felt uncomfortable, she was nearly naked, but I thought it was just this one scene.

I was wrong, we right away jump to a bunch of little girls getting nearly naked and swimming in a lake. I was close at this point to turning it off, and I would have, but there are very few movies that I have just straight up quit watching, it takes a lot for me to make that choice, so I wanted to give this movie a chance. After the swimming scene is when it starts to get a little more comfortable, it for about half an hour just follows the girls as they eat, play in the woods and do really nothing in particular. There are of course little things we are learning as we go, but nothing really jaw dropping. Mostly at this point I was wondering why this would be considered a school when they don't do anything and there are no adults.

This is when the first real punch in the face happens, we are meeting the teachers who work there Mademoiselle Eva and Mademoiselle Edith. We see how they teach the girls to dance and are pretty mysterious themselves along with the rest of the surroundings. One of the little girls from another group asks Iris if she wants to escape with her, Iris is to afraid so the little girl gets in a row boat on the lake and goes out on her own. The boat starts to fill with water, and she stops rowing, defeated. The camera dips under the water and when it comes up its night and raining, the boat is half submerged and the little girl is gone. What a great shot, it was so well composed and made shivers run down my spine.

The girls are learning to dance, ballet to be specific, and the only other subject I could detect was a form of Biology where they learn about animals, mostly the butterfly and its metamorphosis. Okay, I get it, they are little girls, they are becoming women, they are changing just like the butterflies and the dance is the dance they all have to do as they move into the grace of being a woman, I understand. So why then I ask was it necessary to have the kids naked or nearly naked so much of the time?

As more of the movie goes by we see another little girl named Alice who also wants to get out of the school, the headmistress is supposed to pick a little girl every year to take out with her (the school is located in the woods and the grounds are walled in) Alice tries so hard to be the best dancer of her age group, she doesn't make it, and decides to jump the wall. They just like the other little girl who was "drowned" say she wont be coming back ever.

The women of the school start to talk about the girls escaping amongst themselves and about the outside world, this is when my curiosity began to peak about the outside. What was wrong with it that they had to wall the girls into this place?

Anyway I wont go anymore into the plot (to much to try and explain) but there were a few more moments that were very voyeuristic and pedophilic, including seeing a twelve year old completely naked. It was upsetting to say the least. Whenever the women were on screen it was just so amazing to compare the two, adults to children and see how beautiful the women are, and question how someone could be sexually attracted to children.

The acting by the children and adults alike was very enjoyable, they were roles I'm sure were hard to nail down, there is seemingly so little that happens and we don't really know anything about any of them. Most of the movie is the kids playing, dancing and wondering whats outside the wall (only the French could pull that off)

The Cinematography was gorgeous and chilling, lighting some of these scenes must have been so fun, every shot was composed like a still image, there are plenty of Steadicam shots and cranes used. Its all very floaty, but when it has to be rigid and a little scary its more than a little. It was a good contrast seeing the girls play during the day and laughing and then seeing a single girl walking at night under trees each of which have a light and seeing her appear and then disappear as she heads off to do who knows what (you find out later.)

If it wasn't for the wealth of interesting shots this movie would have gotten a very low rating from me, as well as if the rest of the movie was like the first forty minutes, I don't know if I would have been able to finish it. But it got better as the movie went on, so it redeemed it self at times.

Overall 6/10, please French people, stay away from the kids.

Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic

Starring: Zoe Auclair, Berangere Haubruge, Lea Bridarolli, Marion Cotillard, Helen de Fougerolles

Killer at Large: Why Obesity is America's Greatest Threat

Thank you God I have never been fat! This film starts out telling the story of a 12 year old girl who is getting liposuction, because they claim there is nothing left to do. Now I understand, this girl weighs nearly double what I do, but come on, get her off her ass and walk her around a little, don't let her eat the whole cake.

We learn later what happens to the girl, and by 13 she is starting to look like a cute girl of an average weight, but since she didn't earn that herself she is bound to back peddle, and she does. Don't get me wrong, Ive got compassion, and I understand its not as easy as it might seem, but the responsibility is these peoples alone.

They get scientific in the documentary instead of merely political, which is great, in that way they make themselves have a little more authenticity than someone who just wants to berate America and our eating culture, even if its deserved. They explain that as humans we have thrived based on two things, our want to have sex constantly, and our need to constantly eat. Four million years ago we hunted and gathered for our food, and most of our day was concerned with that. It takes a lot of energy to stalk an animal across the tundra or the fields for sometimes days on end to maybe not even catch it. People were always hungry. As a species we are actually very ill equipped for hunting: No claws, no sharp teeth, we're not fast, we don't blend in with our surroundings, no venom or poison....it just keeps going. So its pretty lucky that our heads contain at least a partially functioning brain.

So as it was hard for us to catch food, when we did we had to eat as much of it as possible because who knows the next time you might eat, and from that also pops up the reason why our bodies turn so much of what we eat into fat. Its stores of energy in case we don't eat for a while. So out of the industrial revolution and the corporatization of agriculture we get a society that can easily and cheaply get food. Throw in the worst foods are the cheapest, thus the poor are the fattest demographic. It is a fact that it costs more to eat healthy, how unnerving is that?

Now that defense for me will only take you so far for me. The film then dives into marketing and the misuse of corn in our diets, and all of the arguments are true and upsetting, but to me it still falls onto the fat parents to stop their fat kids and themselves from eating a whole bucket of fried chicken.

Enough of my opinion on the matter of the obese and more about the movie. It does a really great job giving all the various elements behind why we are fat, and why we continue to be fat, and its all very disgusting really. They even talk about how oil is to blame for some of the food problems, and its actually more than just an idea. Its true that the use of fossil fuels changed how we do everything, and that we are basically consuming the labor of the fossil fuels and not so much the suns energy anymore. Ill explain.

The Sunlight comes to earth = The plants grow from the sunlight = we eat the plants, or animals do and then we eat the animals.

Thank you sun.

Here's how it works now.

The Sunlight comes to earth = the plants wont grow unless they are sprayed with a particular pesticide, and fertilizer, both of which come from petrol. The seeds wont grow because we genetically engineered them not to unless given this enzyme that they put in the fertilizer and pesticide, which they also have patented, so don't even think of adding it yourself because the seed companies will sue you. = Plants grow (once we give them the fertilizer and pesticides) and we drive them on average 1500 miles to where they will be sold.

That's a lot of oil doing the work there.

The documentary does a great job of showing all sides of the subject, from vending machines in schools to running small farmers out of business. Its a strong little doc, and along the same lines as others I've seen on the subject. I think if they had made it longer and really extensive on the subject it could have been like another "The Corporation" except about food, but it was still a good movie. Overall 8/10 stars. Take a jog around the block people.

Director: Steven Greenstreet

My Flesh and Blood

***Be warned, this film is difficult at times to watch (but worth it)***

The world is so full of misery, and that's not being melodramatic, it truly is, and this film is a great example of it. A woman named Susan Tom has and I'm sure will continue to adopt kids with special needs, 11 of them as of when the film was made.

Two of the little girls are missing their legs entirely, others are confined to wheel chairs. One boy has cystic fibrosis, another is mentally challenged, one kid has epidermolysis bullosa that makes his skin fall off his body, a little girl whose whole head was burned in a fire, it goes on and on like this. Some of the kids are terminal and many of them live with pain everyday. Watching this women not only take on one child who needs her help but over ten, and that's not including the ones that died in the past is truly amazing.

I had to work hard not to cry, it wasn't out of pity though. Watching someone in pain has always had that reaction for me, and I'm sure many other people have the same. I thought going into this movie that it would be uplifting, and in many ways it is, but it is also a documentary, and there's no writers here, just the plain truth and reality of the situation, and no ones going to come riding in with the cavalry to save some people. This family is so beautiful though, they all care for one another so much, and I guess in that way love will save them.

I was disturbed to find a villain early in the movie, actually we meet him in the very first scene. His name is Joe and he has cystic fibrosis. Now when I say this don't get me wrong, he certainly does bad things, but he's still a child, but I'm not going to kid the situation, he was dangerous to his sisters, but still a victim himself. For that I felt so bad for him, he's a victim and the only thing he can do is victimize other people, and he is angry and he has every right to be. 15 is to young to be dying.

The truly amazing thing about this family is that they really don't even hint at letting anything hold them back from what they want to do, not that any of their disabilities should hold them back. The story takes place in four parts, they start in the fall and end in the summer with a montage to introduce each new section in the movie, with these montages they showed how truly normal these kids are. In one they are ice skating...all of them are (including the girls who have no legs.) In another they are swimming in a pool. So many times I laughed during it because as kids they are just funny, they just say funny things.

In an unexpected turn, but smart choice the kids don't talk about their disabilities to the camera, only Susan does that, instead they let the kids talk about who they are, what they like to do. In that way we learn who they are, and not what disability they have, that doesn't define them, its of course something they live with everyday but it is not who they are. More often than not you see smiles on their faces and hear them laughing, even with the challenges that Susan has to overcome having to care for so many kids you can see that she is happy to be doing it, and making her life and theirs better. These are kids who were dumped in the system by parents who couldn't or just didn't want to care for them. Here she is doing what they couldn't do times 11.

The title is accurate, we are all of the same flesh, we are all of the same blood. Watching someone being truly humane reminds me that we as humans might not be as bad as it sometimes seems. I recommend this film to everyone, not only to remind yourself of how lucky you are, but more importantly to see some truly strong people, disabled....no, they are stronger than I ever could be. 9/10 stars.

An American Affair

The description of this movie on Netflix was right, and at the same time so wrong. It described it as a kid (Adam) who gets a crush on his neighbor (Catherine) and he really likes her...blah blah blah. All of that is true, but there's so much more to it than that.

Ill start out with the obvious plot point they left out, Catherine is having an affair with President Kennedy and its shortly before he is killed. Huge bombshell there, suddenly the movie went from a coming of age story, which it was, kind of, but then became a political thriller of sorts. But before I go much further I will start from the beginning.

Adam seems to be somewhat of a closed off loner, he sets up his friend to get into a fight in the school yard just so then he can see people hit each other. There's a girl that he likes, but he doesn't know how to handle that whole situation (we never did) When he sees Catherine and what she does with many different men he steals some of her mail to get to know her better, and when snooping around her house is caught and tells her hes looking for some after school work.

She puts him to work in her garden and on the surface it all appears pretty normal, but the sick thing is that she knows what he thinks of her and doesn't mind, in fact she encourages it even to the point of letting him watch her have sex (he's in the closet but she knows he's there) She does drugs and doesn't hide it from him, she even brings him into her world of painting, which in that we learn the most about her. Besides what we learn about her through her art she is mostly a mystery to the audience, and I like that.

As the story goes on and Adam starts to get a little to curious he ends up spying on the wrong kinds of people, and when Kennedy is killed he starts to really get himself into some trouble.

It was a strange little movie, the morals and ethics of the characters were muddled to say the least, and you never really get any of the characters. The acting though is still very good, I think for what the script must have been the actors did the best, but as it was a dark story. I think they needed to shoot it a little darker in both image and tone, or get a different director who could have twisted it a little more.

The end resolution come quick and out of the feeling of the rest of the movie, and that sort of upset me, if they would have made the rest of the movie feel darker and more threatening then the ending would have been a great exclamation point. But since they took on the rest of the film differently it just seemed out of place. I did like how they dealt with the CIA and how as a new agency in the country it was very scary, hell its still scary now.

It didn't really offer anything new, and it was not handled well enough, so for that I give it a 6/10, but a high six. There were some good scenes and some cool shots, but again it wasn't anything new.

Director: William Olsson

Starring: Gretchen Mol, Cameron Bright, James Rebhorn

Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections

This is not the first documentary Ive seen on the subject of our Electoral system, all of which sprouted out of the total fuck up that was/is the election of 2000. We can blame several people and groups for that one, not the least of which is the main stream media who basically called the election before they had all the numbers, thus creating a landslide effect for Bush.

I could easily go off on a political and ethical tangent that has lots to do with the documentary, but would mostly be my opinion and not about the film. So I will do my best to steer away from things not covered by the movie. Am I surprised that the election in 2004 appeared even then to be stolen? No. When you have an electric voting machine that has no paper trail and no way to verify the votes that have been cast then of course someone is going to take advantage of that. Most of the documentary focuses on that, but before I jump into that I will do my best to outline the other plain scary actions that went down during the '04 election.

-Not enough voting machines in poorer areas, or areas with African and Hispanic people.
-Broken Machines.
-People being turned away.
-Lines at times exceeding 12 hours.
-Voter intimidation

The list just keeps going, and then add on top of that that when some of those people voted for Kerry the machine voted for Bush in their name. All of which is a very simple thing to do when writing software. The two companies who make the voting machines contribute money to the Republican Party.

According to exit polls and primaries Kerry was set to win by a 3% margin with him at 51% and Bush at 48%, a pretty good margin. When election results were coming out the numbers flipped, and Bush won by 51%. Doesn't necessarily sound big but that's 3,000,000 people who suddenly changed their votes or lied to the exit pollers. The odds that the exit pollers were wrong is 1:10,000. It seems pretty obvious what happened. They talk about the county that had 600 sum odd voters, and the votes from there tallied to over 4,000 all favoring Bush. There were examples of this in 11 battle ground states all favoring Bush.....accident?

The thing is, at this point why does it even matter, he did his damage with those extra four years he got, and Yay for Obama, but the thing is is that they didn't really fix the problem by 2006, or even by 2008. I remember I voted on a touch screen computer just like they show in the film for the '08 election. I got a paper receipt showing who I voted for, but I got to keep that, thus not doing much to help the computer problem.

The film was very well done, it was understated, they let the people talk and didn't add in any editor or narration commentary. They didn't try to go over board with effects, or little animations but just let the subject speak for itself. It wasn't terribly long, only 81 minutes, so for that I think it could have been longer, its a pretty hefty issue. If we don't have real elections anymore then we don't have freedom, a very cut and dry concept. Overall it gets a 7/10. They could have made it longer, but was still a tough little pill to swallow.

Director: David Earnhardt

Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport

I watch a lot of documentaries on the holocaust....I mean a lot. This one promised to be a little different, by focusing on the children's stories of those who escaped from Germany through the use of the Kindertransport to England.

It certainly delivered on that, but other than that I cant say much more about its qualities, it certainly was very good, but was some how lacking. It clocks in at an hour and fifty five minutes, and honestly I was never bored, but it was all things I had heard before, in a format that was also very familiar. I think the film makers should have taken another approach in letting the people tell their stories, or paced it differently.

The stories are truly heart breaking and all you can do is watch and wonder how you would react to such a situation. Your parents put you on a train to the coast with the promise they would be right behind you, and then never seeing them again. One such story involved a girl who was continually called down to the train station and her name was never on the list, so one day, on her fifth time being called down by the Nazis she simply said that she really wanted to be on the train, the guard asked if she was sure and she said yes, they put her on, but it wasn't headed to the coast...it was going to Auschwitz. She never finishes where that story went, because we all know what happened to her, she later says she came out weighing 58 lbs at the age of 15, truly terrible.

Out of the 1,500,000 children that died in the Holocaust the Britain's took in 10,000. In comparison it doesn't seem like much, but why even try and make sense of it, or throw more blame around.

It was a well made documentary, and won an Oscar for it, but is it one that everyone should run out and see, it doesn't top my list on Holocaust docs to watch, but is powerful none the less. 7/10 stars.

Where the Wild Things Are

If you enjoyed the book, don't expect to find that same thing in the movie. I read a while ago that the author had written the book about dealing with divorce in the family, and to that end it truly stands up and keeps that issue alive in the story. But when dealing with a book that's twenty pages, and trying to turn it into a movie that's an hour and a half you start to run into a lot of problems with filling in the blanks.

Spike Jonze who directed this I think did a phenomenal job with writing it as well, and with keeping the feel of the story through out the film. At times though I felt mostly disturbed by what I was seeing (It's Spike Jonze, why am I surprised?) but for a kids story to be so bothersome makes me feel they took a wrong turn somewhere.

The story is simple, Max a young boy living in middle America is acting out because his parents are divorced, Mom's got money woes, his big sister is sort of a bitch, and Mom's back on the dating scene. After a rather funny confrontation with his Mom he runs away, takes a little sail boat and lands on the place where the wild things are. After lying to them about who he is they make him their king, and he promises he'll make it all better. One of the Wild things, named Carol (a boy) is upset that one of the other wild things named KW (a girl) has left their family and made new friends. This issue is tearing the rest of the family apart (hence the whole divorce thing) Well things get better, and they get worse and he eventually has to go home.

As we walked out of the theatre a friend of mine said there wasn't any resolution to either of the plots, his families or the wild things. I can't say I was surprised though, if the stories about divorce that's something that doesn't end, and something you deal with, at least on some level the rest of your life. So even though at the end of the movie he's better, he will never be able to reconcile the fact that his parents no longer love one another.

At times I found it to be inappropriately violent, in one such instance Carol is chasing Max because he's mad at him and is going to eat him, if you take that and view it through the spectrum of divorce, then here is the father figure chasing the child not to eat him of course but to beat him. At least that's how I viewed it. There is a very specific family dynamic amongst the wild things, a Mom, and Dad, ones that are more like the children, and when the father is upset that the mother left and chases the child for lying....seemed to me pretty obvious.

Also another thing that kind of bothered me was just how sad it was. It has its funny parts and its more up beat parts, but over all it was very depressing, as the kid tries to wrap his mind around the divorce, and how to deal with not having a father figure we see just how sad being a kid really is. It is, being a kid is a sad experience. People like to gloss over how fun it was, and it was, but there is so much sadness to, and this film is just over flowing with it.

Now for all my seeming complaints, I really did like it, plenty. The voice acting was great, I sat there most of the movie trying to figure out who was doing the voices because I had heard them before. The Jim Henson Company made the costumes for the wild things, and they did the faces with CG since the heads weighed to much with all the animatronics in it. So you can clearly see that the kid is there, standing next to these things and not standing alone talking to a tennis ball on a stick. The kid was great, I never got the feeling he was acting, they auditioned thousands of kids, so I would hope they would find the right one.

It was a really touching movie, and like I said before a little disturbing at times, but I think Spike Jonze did a very good job with it, if perhaps he took a few to many artistic licenses with it. I suppose though how upset could I get if the author saw it and said it was great, but then again, that book belongs to us now, not him...really. Its the property of any person who read it as a child and liked or loved it. Its not exactly what I would have done with the story, but was still thrilling.

There was way to much hand held camera shots, it was pissing me off, I don't get a headache from that, or nauseous, but when its over used to this point its just stupid. When you have a budget of 70 million use it, you have the equipment and toys to make it as fluid or as shaky as you want it, but not that shaky!

Overall it was great and everyone should check it out, but not necessarily in the theatre. 7/10 stars.

Director: Spike Jonze

Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forrest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Ruffalo

Thomas in Love

I cant really say that the description of this movie was wrong, but they ignore a huge part of the way they tell the story. Its a strange one to say the least.

It's the story of a man who in the near future has become agoraphobic (fear to go outside) and has remained in his home with out going out and no one coming in for the last eight years. Well his state appointed psychiatrist wants him to try and get out there and meet people, in a way of speaking. He has to talk to people and interact with a form of video phone they call visiophone. The entire movie in fact is told through the visiophone, and all you ever see is what our main character Thomas sees on his video screen.

So he's looking for love, dealing with his insurance company, his poor mother who just wants to talk to him, a call girl service and so on. The story only picks up what we see on the screen, so hours days or even more go by in a second as one call ends and the next begins, very strange. He meets a few women that interest him, and he eventually has to decide if he wants to venture out into the real world once again. The thing is is that all his needs are met, including his...other appetites, he can have virtual relations with a CGI girl though the phone and a suit that allows him to feel it like its real.

It's a cool look into the future, everyone has these tattoos or make up on their face making them look very hippie, but also futuristic. There is, I'm sorry to say very little personal growth from Thomas the entire movie, which makes it hard to really care about him because he doesn't do anything to really help himself. He's sarcastic and mean at times, he doesn't want help, but if something doesn't go his way he complains, a lot. I still cared for him, but not as much as I could have.

It starts out with a bang (literally) as he has sex with this virtual girl....which was....strange to say the least, but for an indie movie the effects were better than I would have thought. It was a different kind of movie and for that I have to give it some respect, but it felt largely underwritten and poorly constructed plot wise, still enjoyable though, but only appeals to a small amount of people, not commercially. 7/10 stars.

Director: Pierre-Paul Renders

Starring: Benoit Verhaert, Aylin Yay, Magali Pingluat

The Tunnel

When I read the description for a movie and it says that its two hours and fifty minutes it makes me a little careful of when I want to start the movie since I would want to see it all in one sitting. Problem with that is other obligations that I have to deal with as well as the possibility I might get....dun dun dun...bored!

That was not the case with this, the time flew by with it, and I liked it a lot. Its the true story of a national athlete from east Berlin who escapes and then with the help of like minded people dig an extensive tunnel under the newly constructed wall in the sixties to get people out. Its slow and played out, there are several "oh shit" moments in it, and the "villains" who are, don't get me wrong very bad people are still just that, just people. One of them even says if we just had the same ideals we wouldn't have to be like this, wise, and obvious, but also self aware enough for me to say "that's enough" but they don't.

The acting was great, with a really amazing cast, no one of which I recognized (maybe the sister) it was German anyway, so it's not like I would. The film and the actors for their part are really good at showing the pure desperation that they must have felt at the time, and the real danger of what would happen to them if caught. People turn on one another, they back stab, but for no other reason than to save themselves.

They did some very cool things with the lighting and certain shots, and they really understood how to fully use the frame to their advantage. They weren't afraid of the dark, they use it in moderation though. The colors were spot on, it was crisp and clear, very impressive all around.

It was a great telling of a story that is, not largely ignored but certainly less played up than other events of the last century. It was very good, and I highly recommend it, if you don't like subtitles then stay away (and you might be an idiot) 8/10 stars.

Director: Roland Suso Richter

Starring: Heino Ferch, Nicolette Krebitz, Sebastian Koch, Allexanda Maria Lara, Claudia Michelson, Felix Eitner

Secrecy

It had been a while since I had the time to sit down and actually watch a movie, so this whether it was good or bad wouldn't really have mattered, just the act of viewing a movie would have been enough to make me a little happier. Even more on the plus side, it was very good.

This documentary takes a pretty simple stance, America has become a very security and secret orientated government, people on all sides of the issue agree on that. Now the question is as follows, is that a good or bad thing? It's good when we have the technology to listen to Osama Bin Laden's satellite phone calls, which that secret was leaked by a news paper and low and behold he stopped making phone calls with it. There's an example where secrecy was a good thing. A place where its not good would be Guantanamo Bay, or the secret prisons we have set up in other countries.

The documentary is smart, it doesn't try and judge what is right and wrong but simply lets the players tell their side of the story. We go from the conception of the Nuclear bomb through the events of 9-11 and the WMD's. A really cool, and sort of scary bit of information was this, when they made the A-bomb they had to keep it secret for five reasons and they are as follows: The Germans, The Japanese, The Russians, All other countries, and last but not least, the American people! The had to keep it secret from us, and congress, most of the rest of the government didn't even know about it. Since its inception was against the law at the time it had to be withheld from the public's knowledge and the other parts of government.

The documentary was very well made, it had parts that reminded me of another great doc. called "The Corporation" It had music that sounded like Phillip Glass from "The Fog of War" It had these little animated sections that tied the movie together, they were black and white and sort of morphed and changed depicting things that the doc. was talking about, it really added to it.

I really enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone who considers themselves an American, it deals with the core principles this country is based on. If a democracy is of the people, then how can we have people in the government deciding what to keep secret from us about our own country? A tough question. 8/10 stars.

Directors: Peter Galison, Robb Moss

American Drug War: The Last White Hope

As far as drug documentaries go this one was in my opinion pretty even handed. It gave the spot light to people on both sides of the argument while still leaving enough room for the film maker to put in their own spin.

Ive seen a few documentaries about weed, and they all seem to take the same stance: Weed is the best thing that's ever been discovered and its the evil corporations of America trying to hold it down. Well I'm in the boat that believes that weed isn't good for you, but neither is drinking alcohol. But even though it isn't good, that doesn't mean that its as bad as heroine or crystal meth. Which in our country it is categorized as being that bad, basically public enemy number one.

Its pretty obvious that its not as dangerous as they make it out to be, and that comparing it to the synthetic drugs of the last 20 years or so is crazy. The documentary focuses a lot on that, how weed isn't as bad as they said. It also spends a good chunk of its time dealing with the new drugs that have come about in the last few decades, the drugs that people can cook up in their own basements that is much more deadly and potent than weed ever will be. There were certain things they said it in though that was just plain wrong and a little naive, such as weed has never killed anyone. That's bullshit, there is no way that no one has ever gotten some form of cancer from smoking weed. If you can get it from inhaling any other type of smoke then that goes for weed as well. And on top of that, when people drive while high and plow into a brick wall, its the weed that impaired them enough to do that. Just like with alcohol.

The doc. points out that when the drug war in the US started they had a federal budget of 2 million dollars a year, now we are well into the tens of billions. If a persons job relies on getting rid of something for good, why would they ever do the job fully? If you do a job the requires getting rid of something then you put your self out of a job that pays well and gives you power over billions of dollars. The drug war as well as claiming lives also is a business.

There are agencies set up only to deal with drugs, there's the DEA, vice squads, and so on. As well as the majority of people who are in prison are there on drug charges, so now you have the companies building the prisons and the people needed to run it, it helps the economy and turns peoples lives into a commodity. Plus this commodity you can make work for you inside the prison, like a slave. Its a business unto itself, and if you shut that down you lose a lot of money.

It was an interesting documentary, seemed a little amateurish at times, but was overall very well done. It wasn't saying drugs are good, and wasn't demonizing all of them either. 7/10 stars.

Director: Kevin Booth

XXY

Human nature is such a disturbing notion. There are many things that upset me, and there is a scene in this that really pushed me to the edge and it deals directly with the way humans react to certain things.

The story is about a 15 year old girl named Alex, well not really a girl, but not really a boy either. She is a true hermaphrodite, which is actually extremely rare. She has both sex organs, there are several different types of hermaphrodites, and this one is the rarest. A world renowned surgeon and his family are coming to visit Alex and her family to determine what the best course should be for their odd situation. Alex is not aware that she is being observed. Her parents made the right choice to not perform any surgeries on her before she knew exactly what she wanted to identify as, but that in itself is causing a new set of problems since she is starting to become very interested in sex, and she wants to be the dominant aggressor, during sex she acts as the man. The surgeon and his wife brought their son Alvaro who is a little older than Alex. He is interested in her, but is sort of stand offish, I think he's gay and that her ambiguity throws him for a loop, hes attracted, but not to her as being a girl.

People outside of this little group start to find out what she is and things turn bad. There is rarely a happy ending for people like this. And it comes down to the difference between a persons individual nature and human nature in general. Men impregnate women, its the simplest thing in the world, and that's what our nature revolves around. Alex's nature doesn't fit that, she is neither the feminine nor the masculine, she is both, so where does she fit in? The answer is simple and rather sad. She doesn't, and never will. Even if someone does accept her for as she is, she will always be untrusting of people, and her behavior will always cause a problem. She appears to be a girl, but acts as a boy, but not in a "Butch lesbian" sort of way. People like this are a gender unto themselves, she isn't even intersexed, she is a perfect combination of the two sexes, and she cant decide her gender.

The sad part is that society will expect her to choose one, or she wont fit in. Alex is beautiful, but she is a different animal than us entirely, she acts by a nature above our own, basic and yet complex, primitive and yet light years ahead of us. She is a perfect marriage of all that is man and woman, and for that people will try and destroy her.

The acting is incredible all around, its all very underplayed and desperate. The two fathers (Alex's and the surgeon) are butting heads, but they only really come head to head once. The same thing goes for the mothers. Their stories are certainly interesting, but Alvaro and Alex are the real show. The whole movie is very wet and gray, cold even. it all seemed very real, with the help of some well placed and executed hand held shots.

It was a very strong movie, and troubling not only because of some rather upsetting scenes but also because it turns the mirror on our own nature when it comes to people who are different, and its not a flattering image. 8/10 stars.

Director: Lucia Puenzo

Starring: Ines Efron, Martin Piroyansky, Ricardo Darin, Valeria Bertuccelli, German Palacios, Carolina Pelleritti

Open Your Eyes

Most remakes tend to be...crap, for the most part. There are times though of course where I am delighted to find that another filmmaker has improved on an already great idea. That's what brings me to the movie I just finished watching which is the original that "Vanilla Sky" was a remake of.

A young rich man (Cesar) throws a party for himself since its his birthday, he is being harassed by a very beautiful, but maybe a little obsessed girl (Nuria) that he had a one night stand with. He tries to escape from her by using Sofia whom his best friend Pelayo brought to the party as his date by pretending to be with her. Cesar ends up spending the night with Sophia, and its obvious that they both really like one another even though they keep it pretty innocent. When Cesar goes to leave the next morning Nuria is waiting for him, he is coaxed into her car, and she purposely drives head first into a brick wall killing herself and disfiguring Cesar's face.

This is the point in the story that things start getting more surreal. Whats real, and whats a dream become very confused and played with. The themes are simple, Reality is bended, and what is real happiness? The acting is great, and Penelope Cruz who plays Sophia reprises her role in "Vanilla Sky" Its certainly visually stunning, but I think that "Vanilla Sky" took it to a whole new level. I think this version spends to much time talking about reality and less time showing the lines blurring.

One thing I loved about both versions is that no matter what anyone says about the end I consider is pretty open to what you think. The last voice you hear is that of Sophia, if you haven't seen either of these then that means nothing to you, but if you have then its a very strong argument for a certain interpretation of the ending. If its the ending that they push the hardest in the film then it saddens me so much. To me this sort of ending is so much harder to watch than a lot of other movies that are supposed to be sad. But I wont say any more about that for people who aren't familiar with the films.

Cameron Crowe I think did a great job remaking this, and I do like his version better, but there is no doubt that this movie isn't incredible. It spawned a lot of other movies like it, obviously "Vanilla Sky" but also movies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" This movie I think is a hard sell but they certainly hit a home run with it. I recommend it to anyone, this version might not be great for kids though. There is nudity (not a problem for kids, I think) but the make-up they use in it is very upsetting to even an adult, so I think a kid might be a little frightened by it.

The more I sit here and think about it the more I think there might have been things I haven't considered about the story that add even more to it, there are several layers to say the least, but easy to follow. Dense but not overbearing. A really great movie, beautiful and sad. 8/10 stars.

Director: Alejandro Amenabar

Starring: Eduardo Noriega, Penelope Cruz, Chete Lera, Fele Martinez, Najwa Nimri

The Bridesmaid

I had been meaning to watch this movie for a while, based on the cover art it looked like something that would be up my alley. It is a pretty simple image, a women is checking her makeup in the bathroom mirror, shes all wet and a man is watching her.

The movie starts very slowly, and on a strange note, we spend around 20 minutes getting to know the characters and watching how they react to their mother dating a man who turns out to be somewhat of a dick. They give him a gift of a statue head, which means a lot to the son, our main character named Philippe. I see why they put this part in because the man that their mother is seeing ends up being important later, but they didn't need to stretch out this part so long. The story moves on that the man stops calling the mother and they get ready for the sister Sophia's wedding. At the wedding Philippe meets "Senta" her real name is Stephanie, she stares at him, but when he speaks to her she is generally cold. He leaves the reception and she shows up at his house soaking wet from the rain, she disrobes and....you get the picture.

So they start this affair, and it is intense, she says she loves him right away, that he is hers and she is his. I'm talking about hours after they've met. He as well like her is pretty smitten and seems to be playing along some what so then she wont feel weird. That's when we start finding out more about her, and after a while she starts to get a little scary, she wants him to kill for her to prove his love. I'll leave it at that.

It was mixing of genres that was both fresh and painfully strange, don't get me wrong, I certainly liked it, but he was just as sick as she is to go along with her insanity and obsessions for as long as he did. The title either refers to Senta, or one other person who you "meet" right towards the end. Either works, the second of which being a little more twisted. If Senta wasn't such a nut it would be a beautiful and romantic love story, and perhaps it still is, but it's doomed.

They mix Romance and Thriller and barely blink an eye, instead of trying to meld the two genres they just shoot it as if this was already a normal genre unto itself. There werent any exceptional shoots, it was mostly just coverage. There are such romantic notions in it, at one point in the middle of the night she says take me to the beach, and they get in the car and drive to the ocean and sit on the beach together, terribly romantic, if only she would have stayed that way.

I enjoyed it, but its not for everyone. If you are looking for a romance you will not like this, but I think if you like understated thrillers this might do it for you. 7/10 stars.

Director: Claude Chabrol

Starring: Benoit Magimel, Laura Smet

At the Death House Door

Can you imagine sitting in a small cell with a person for 13 hours maybe more, knowing that at the end of that time the person you're there with will be killed. Carroll Pickett, the subject of this documentary sat with, and witnessed the execution of around 100 people.

After each execution he would go home and take out his tape recorder and describe the days events and how he felt about what had just happened, he did this for every person he sat with. A tape for each life he ushered into the chair. The documentary looks at how he went from being just a regular minister in his town to being the minister of a prison. During a prison riot a few women were taken hostage who belonged to his church, and they told him over the phone what they wanted for their funerals because they knew they wouldn't survive it. 18 year later he sat with the man who had shot a member of his congregation, one of those women. The man told him that he had confessed to that sin everyday since it happened. When asked if he had any last words he turned to the witnesses and said, "I'm innocent"

Part of the documentary focuses on a young man named Carlos De Luna. He was put to death for a crime that has most of the evidence pointed away from him. Another man even confessed to the crime around their neighborhood. Now was he innocent? Was he guilty? I couldn't say. But on the chance that he was innocent it seems like a mute point to decree his innocence to his family years after hes been killed. Nice as it is to know that he was (maybe) innocent, it seems hurtful to bring that all back.

My views on the death penalty swing and change. After watching this and hearing from those who have seen death, over and over, it makes me think it's the wrong thing. People claim it's a deterrent for crime, utter falsehood. I have reevaluated my stance, and I think capital punishment should only be for the most capital of offenses: genocide. Throw Hitler into the chair and zap him forever. Same with Stalin and Polpott. There are monsters in this world, but they are rare. Have a set procedure above the laws of our country. For someone like Hitler, they should be not only judged by one society, but all. A world court, and If they think to end his/her life, then so be it. Just a thought. I mean how often would we have to use it? I'm hoping not often. Other than that extreme I think I'm less for the death penalty. Truth and fact aren't the same thing. There is no way for us to know for sure someones guilt.

Especially since even if you commit a crime that doesn't make you guilty. The person has to feel the guilt. Guilt is subjective for the person. Pickett describes a few of the people that he watched die, including the mentally retarded who didn't get what was going on, how can you put to death someone who doesn't even know they've done something wrong? For those accused and convicted of these crimes let them sit in solitary for the rest of their lives, so if there is new evidence they can be set free.

Its a very well made documentary, and even for those in favor of the death penalty can't argue that killing isn't wrong, and that sitting at home knowing someone is dying is one thing, being there when it happens is entirely different. 8/10 stars.

Director: Peter Gilbert, Steve James

Encounters at the End of the World

I respect Werner Herzog, the director of this movie. I have seen a few of his other movies, and for the most part I like them. In this documentary he tackles a sort of strange subject: Antarctica.

We follow Herzog through the continent of ice as he meets the people who call it home, even if temporarily. Roughly 1000 people are there at any given time. We follow the history of trying to conquer the harsh extremes of the place from when they first landed there 100 years ago through now. Even though today we can handle it much better with technology our bodies are still the same as they were 100 years ago. It is obviously a very dangerous place, temperatures at times 70 below, or more, pure white out conditions, a very scary scenario.

The people there are very diverse and interesting. The shots are gorgeous, from volcanoes with open magma lakes sitting in them to the ocean frozen 8 feet thick you see how the place is not some stagnant frozen waste land but an organic being just like any other part of earth. Herzog briefly goes on a tangent about insanity down there, specifically among penguins who go the wrong way, away from the ocean, thus committing suicide by being forced into the elements. I wish he would have explored that more. Can you imagine a place where if you fall down and die your body will remain like that....forever? It wont rot.

My only problem with it, and Ive noticed this in other Herzog documentaries is that he seems to have a contempt against people or things that is entirely unfounded. Or he passes judgement on people for no reason. That aside it is a beautiful film, and an interesting and alternative look at the icy mystery of Antarctica. 8/10 stars.

Director/Narrator: Werner Herzog