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.