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Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Perfect anti-war satire.
There are no heroes in this movie, as is true for war.
The movie starts out exemplifying young men training to become soldiers. The brutal contrast of the gunnery seargent Hartman, played by Ronald Ermey, to his new recruits, is the makeup of the first half of the film.
Private Pyle, played by Vincent D'onofrio, struggles to meet up to his seargents standards, and is relentlessly hounded for it, with cruel remarks, being made to humiliate himself in dront of his fellows. His fellow trainees show him sympathy, until the seargent decides if they can't help him to improve they'll be punished instead. This is when the movie quickly takes a darker turn.
The recruits, tired of carrying private Pyle, start to punish him for his clumsiness. Despite their best efforts, and his best efforts, he just never improves. This first half shows just how damaging the boot camp training is, how damaging it is when a person can't meet up to the unforgivable standards of another, and how it takes it's toll on Private Pyle, turning the once sympathetic trainees into brutal soldiers.
The dialogue mirrors brainwashing, like there is no identity beyond what is there, with their guns. The harshness of the seargent tears any kindness out of them. It's fitting for how cruel it all is, how one man failing to meet the standards set for him could create so many issues. Poor private Pyle never stood a chance. He improved, like a good soldier, but it took a toll on him mentally, and it cost him and everyone around him. His fellow soldiers trekked on without him. That was only bootcamp.
The rest of the movie shows the actual war. Joker, the new focus for protagonist, shows no sign of wear after his ordeal in boot camp. He brazenly mocks his superiors but acts as if everything is fine and normal, like his actions toward Pyle meant nothing to him. He is hardly a hero. You almost feel as though he is feeling remorse over his actions toward Pyle when he openly uses a symbol of rebellious antagonization with the peace sign pinned to his chest, underpinning the real moral of the entire movie: the duality of man in the nature of war. But his nonchalant mannerisms make it clear this isn't how it is, and he comes off more callous than caring.
He and his fellow soldiers live somewhere walking a fine line between revelry and boredom, almost too eager to fight. When the real action arrives, so does the blatant racism and complete lack of regard for the people around them. Everything shown is to drill in how little the soldiers care and how glorified their violence is and how they genuinely believe they are helping. A man shooting a gun at farmers farming in a field, a soldier referring to a deceased Vietnamese soldier mockingly as the "guest of honor" while disrespecting his body, how even the black people among their soldiers refer to the Vietnamese in racist regard. The main group of heroes aren't any heroes, either, when they pay for Vietnamese girls in a calm moment in the film, it leaves a wrenching feeling in the gut, they're no perfect men, writing to their girlfriends back home, they're callous killers, paying for Vietnamese hookers in a dirty ruin. There are no likable men in this film, it's difficult to see them as anything than the killers they're portrayed as. Even the times they seem to show mercy they are still completely compassionless.
A song about mickey mouse is thrown in so you can really feel just how all the morbid violence really doesn't stop them from living. So you really feel just how messed up it all really is.
This movie is either a badly consistent pro-war movie or a clever satire of the atrocities of not just war, but of the military. The mesmerizng dialogue, clever cinematography, the action, the pacing, really make this one hell of a film. The characters are interesting, relatable in the worst ways, but none of them are good people, and you like them anyways.
The movie could have done without the racism but I do think it helps to drive the point of the main characters unlikability. I can't help but feel like people who like racist jokes and love war movies and violence in movies might miss the point, but maybe not. Maybe they would hate this film, outside of the gratuitous violence.
Don't F**k with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer (2019)
Surprised at the negative reviews.
The gorey parts aren't shown, and as someone who frequently watches crime solving shows I was happy that the man was caught.
It starts out with a horrifying retelling of a person who makes viral cat murder videos. As a cat lover, I was shocked, and a few scenes made me cry. If it's not bad enough the person is doing these sadistic acts, they do them for fame, and toy with the people trying to stop their cruel acts of sadism. The majority of the episodes are people chasing clues trying to piece together enough to catch this person. Surprisingly, the person doesn't seem very bright, but is still leading them on a wild goose chase anyways. It's frustrating how this person flaunts clues in front of them, leading them on. Fortunately there is a happy ending, and the person is caught. I shared with the relief that another cruel person was taken off the streets, I think it's a shame it had to escalate before anyone took their complaints seriously. Maybe they could have saved a life if law enforcement had just listened.
I'm happy that someone cared, in the least. It lead to an arrest and future kittens and people are safe from this specific person's cruelty.
Making a Murderer (2015)
Horrifying depiction of flaws in the legal system.
At first I end up sympathizing with Steven, and just felt a bit skeptical of his innocence, but the documentary really takes a left turn. After being released, he is caught in another investigation for the same crime, only worse. It really had me doubting if he had ever been innocent at all, but the incompetence of police and law enforcement, the sketchy evidence, and a legal case so weak a half-baked defense undid it, it was very clear this man was guilty, but he was still not being proven to be due to the lack of proof and massive mistakes of law enforcement.
It's shocking a person as low intelligence as him could lie and get away with what he did, even with a witness to admit to it all he was still getting away with it. The lack of concrete evidence made me unsure if he really was innocent the first time or if he genuinely did it and was lucky, and my doubts became more confused as the movie progressed.
The evidence was circumstantial, but suspicious enough it was clear he was guilty even without hard facts. It made it very glaringly obvious attorneys mostly do a lot of twisting facts and talking down proof, that court rooms are closer to a circus than a respectable profession, and it made me truly view them as sharks for daring to defend such a person and doing so successfully when he was the strongest suspect. She disappeared on his doorstep. It can't get more obvious than that.
I don't even think it's fully the fault of law enforcement, I think there just wasn't enough hard evidence and they couldn't do anything, and he used their bias against them later. They were convinced it was him from the start and didn't recognize the proof wasn't strong enough.
To me this is a good documentary to watch if you want to see how wrong a case can go, even when the person or people are clearly guilty. Sometimes it's not as simple as it seems to find out whodunnit. Cases like this, and people like this, make me angry. It's completely frustrating to watch a man lie and get away with vicious crimes that he very clearly was guilty of. It's utterly shocking he got away with it.
You (2018)
Another anti-hero dulling up the screen.
As much as I try to be objective about shows I watch, I just can't get behind portraying stalking in a positive way. I don't think it's any different than portraying murder in a positive way, but it's easier for people to recognize that as wrong. Which isn't to say anyone is going to be going out thinking it's not wrong to stalk a person simply because any person likes this show, shows don't cause people to act mentally ill even if they very rarely inspire the exceptional person to get ideas, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth that any person can put a positive spin on it and make a stalker a sympathetic character. I do understand the difference, and I still don't like it.
In the last season they even started advertising it as being glamorous, which is not the image I think they should be putting out.
Dexter, in the least, was portrayed at least partially as evil, bad, and wrong when he killed people. They do get the delusional esque somewhat grandiose thing down well, but it went in the completely wrong direction when they had his character end up falling in love with...Love, and her actually reciprocating because...she's also a murderer. If they had wanted the wrongness of what he was doing to be clear they had to have the reaction be more negative and for everything to have gone in the opposite direction, like him being seen as a creep. Except instead it showed a stalking murderer not living with the consequences of his actions, getting everything he wanted in life, and coming out on top.
Deadpool (2016)
Funny if you like that kind of thing.
I find the character to be insufferably immature. He is an exaggerated version of a common type of person you'll meet in real life and those kinds of people are inconsiderate of others and can't be kind and be serious and behave to save their life. They think it's funny to make jokes of other people and to do immature things and think they're being smart when they're really just annoying and disruptive. They're the smartass type and they think its funny to be rude to authority as long as what they're saying is true and smart. They're arrogant and full of themselves and need a serious reality check. You're not funny, stop acting like an immature child and grow the expletive up. To say the least, I hate Deadpool (the character, not the actor). I'm not shocked his girlfriend in the movie was a paid hooker.
Twin Peaks (1990)
Pretentious drivel.
Why do you need an overly mouthy, overly verbose speech for drinking coffee, of all things? Compared to more down to earth less manic shows like The Wire, Downtown Abbey, and Breaking Bad, which have more simplified and clear precise dialogue without having to think for months about what it all means, and all while still being amazing quality and artistic without being weird and excessively over the top, this show is as "look at me! Respect me i'm artsy!" as they come. The same as Apocalypse Now!, Memento, and 500 days of Summer.
I found the show boring and creepy, and yes I did get what was going on. I've also watched some of David Lynch's short videos, and let me tell you that "Rabbits" is as creepy as they come.
Just because you overuse metaphors and similes and add unecessary visual tricks that have no relevance to the plot doesn't mean it's intelligent. Annoying, maybe. Why make television a chore?