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ddstretch
Reviews
Fantastic Fungi (2019)
Deeply unsatisfying infomercially dominated ephemera
I thought this would start out well, and it did show promise. However, it quickly degenerated into a kind of superficial wowee style of the worst kind of YouTube infomercial masquerading as a kind of documentary where a lot of the graphics were repetitive, the music sounded like a desperate attempt to give uplifting value to what meagre content there was, and there was a superficial yet completely dominating substantial section dealing with psychedelics. Very disappointing. I guess to people brought up in an information-meagre environment where presentation counts for more than content it might have been impressive, but to me it really wasn't.
Dragon Day (2013)
Paranoid anti-Chinese hogwash
This film was so bad even it could not achieve the greatness of, say, Plan 9 from Outer Space. The acting was wooden, the storyline was ridiculously unrealistic and yet it did show the extent to which America relies on the country it currently vilifies. This is a film that, consciously or not, will contribute to intensified international tensions because it appeals against rationality in favour of scapegoats identified via a naive and childish prejudice. Watch it, but pay no attention to it.
Outbreak (1995)
Tired conspiracy subplot and wrong and stereotypical scientist portrayal
I may be outfitted step with many reviews here, but I tire of the same old conspiracy type subplots which see parts of an administration seem to actively conspire against other parts of an administration. Perhaps this is how things are done in real life in the USA but it seems so overused now in films.
Similarly, the actions of the scientists as portrayed, although very roughly in line with how they could behave is actually a very poor caricature and stereotype of how real scientists behave. I just wonder how many scientists would say, as the Dustin Hoffman character says at one point "I don't need evidence. I just have a feeling" (that he was right). It's just so out of step with what any good scientist would do. Similarly, throwing a cup of coffee at a whiteboard in anger as the character does at another point just doesn't read true.
The pulls between being medical professionals (not necessarily scientists) and members of the armed services also seemed to be made so little of to be unrealistically unemphasized. On the whole there was a unrealistic blurring between the roles of scientists, medics, brought about by adopting caricatures abd stereotypes of the two.
I speak as a scientist of over 40 years, although working in a different area and in the U.K.
I guess it could be interesting, but it became simply annoying to anyone, certainly anyone outside the USA who is a scientist to see the same old tropes trotted out again.