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Reviews
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
Unbelievable perspective and access
I am amazed at the level of access the HBO filmmakers were granted in pursuing this documentary and its sequel. It is an extraordinary film, though some of the crime scene footage is not for the squeamish.
I grew up in Memphis and was 13 when this grizzly triple homicide hit the news. My only perspective at the time was from the TV news and local paper, the Commercial Appeal. The media failed miserably to report the other side of this story. I was led to believe that these 3 teenagers were devil worshipers who ritualistically slaughtered 3 8-year-olds. In retrospect, that assertion was simply absurd. The people of Jonesboro became angry and confused and just wanted to lash out at someone. They were hungry for justice, even if it came at the price of prosecuting the innocent. Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were the victims of misdirected revenge, convicted primarily on the hearsay of people who had long ostracized them for how they dressed. Rumor became hard evidence.
After seeing this film, I am truly ashamed of the behavior of the police, the prosecution and the media. Three children were brutally murdered in 1993, and three more children were murdered by a system out for closure at any cost. I thought we'd left the Salem Witch Trials behind us.
Why We Fight (2005)
thought provoking
The negative reviews of this film seem to center around "those arrogant, hypocritical Europeans." If any of these reviewers had done their research, they would know that Jarecki is a New Yorker. Just because the film takes a firm stance against America's militarism does not mean that Mr. Jarecki is European.
Why We Fight is a superb complement to Errol Morris' Oscar-winning Fog of War. Morris took indirect shots at George Bush II by showing a Lyndon Johnson speech referring to Vietnam as "a war against tyranny and aggression." In that speech, Johnson also reiterated, "We won't leave until the job is finished." Sound familiar?
Jarecki picks up where Morris left off, more directly highlighting the similarities between Vietnam and the present conflict in Iraq. There are most certainly differences, but the parallels cannot and MUST NOT be ignored if the American people are to have any hope of learning from our government's past and present missteps. Most significantly, Jarecki shows how each conflict was escalated through a lie (Gulf of Tonkin/WMD) and nonsensical pro-freedom rhetoric from the government and the media.
Unlike Michael Moore's poorly constructed Farenheit 9/11, Jarecki does not limit the scope of the film to simplistic Bush team bashing. That's not to say this is absent from the film; Jarecki is obviously anti-Bush and left-leaning. However, he successfully illustrates how all of our elected representatives, Republicans and Democrats, are influenced by the Industrial-Military Complex.
You cannot fight a war against an abstraction (i.e. War on Terror, War on Communism, War on Drugs, War on Crime, et al). People are the true targets of wars. Declaring war without officially declaring it and abusing words like freedom and liberty are just ways of dehumanizing the conflict, and if we dehumanize war, we will never stop fighting.
This is a film that everyone in America should see, and if it is truly so enraging to the right-wingers, I would challenge them to make a comparable documentary defending the Iraq War. I would gladly watch it to see their side of the coin.
"We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison
"The Department of Defense is a behemoth...With an annual budget larger than the gross domestic product of Russia, it is an empire." - The 9/11 Commission Report
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
authenticity? yeah, right
The one thing about Passion of the Christ that I really liked was the language. Finally, a director has forced mainstream audiences to watch a movie with subtitles. Gibson's aim here is commendable; by telling the story in its original language, we are given a new perspective. The Christ story in Aramaic feels more authentic, and more real.
Unfortunately, beyond this spark of originality in the dialogue, the images are superficial, and Gibson quickly falls into clichés. Jesus on the cross is your classic crucifix pose: skinny bearded white guy on a plus-sign shaped cross with nails through the palms of his hands.
Jesus wasn't white; he was a Jew who spent his days outside, so he probably had a dark olive complexion. The Europeans were the first ones to make him white, and they added the beard as a symbol of power. Also, the cross was not shaped like a plus-sign. More likely, it was shaped like an upper-case T, since the latter design doesn't waste as much wood and is easier to construct. There are several other Jesus movies that got this detail right (Spartacus, Last Temptation of Christ [where Jesus demonstrates proper cross-building early in the film], and Jesus of Montreal).
The worst oversight is the nail wounds. For a movie that tries so hard to be authentic, how could Mel miss this? The overwhelming majority of biblical historians agree that crucifixion wounds went through the wrists, not the hands. The hands could never support that much weight; the nail would tear right through.
The Passion is over-hyped. Skip this one and see Last Temptation.
4/10
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
a effective movie because it sparks discussion
Whether you agree with Michael Moore or not, he's certainly created conversations. Everywhere I go, I hear people talking about Farenheit 9/11, and it's undeniably a good thing that people are discussing these issues. There are elements of Moore's film that I agree with and there are other sections that go a little overboard.
At his best, Moore is a brilliant activist. The scene where he reads the Patriot Act to members of Congress from an ice cream truck is hilarious and raises an excellent point about the ignorance of our elected officials. Moore has always had a knack for using humor to get serious points across, and Farenheit is no exception. There the clip of the Bush team as the cast of bonanza, an info-graphic about our coalition of the willing, and those priceless Bush video clips ("I call upon all nations...now watch me hit this drive."). In another clip, Moore uses a single guitar riff from Eric Clapton's song Cocaine behind a graphic of Bush's censored National Guard record. About half the people in the theater I was in caught the reference.
At his worst, Moore is a liberal equivalent to Rush Limbuagh, egotistical and obnoxious. Many of his ideas are far-fetched and poorly supported, like the section on the Afghani natural gas pipeline. Fuel is certainly not the only reason that America has gone to war twice in the last three years, though it is more of a factor than the right would have us believe. It's hard to imagine Bush and his cronies caring about Iraq if it wasn't situated above an ocean of black gold. However, I would reject that the failed natural gas pipeline in Afghanistan had anything to do with the decision to go to war. Another poorly executed point is Moore's attempt to discredit Bush's initial reaction to the second plane hitting the trade center. Bush can hardly be blamed for having a blank expression on his face for 7 minutes. I was a little confused that morning, too.
Another point that Moore could've explored further is the Saudi connection. Saudi Arabia seems to be the home to most of these Al Qaida operatives, yet we give their government a free pass. What happened to going after "countries that harbor terrorists?" The official US stance on Saudi Arabia is that they are a friendly government that simply cannot control the terrorists within their own borders. Since when is this an excuse? We refuse to recognize Palestine for that exact reason! I was shocked to see that the Saudi embassy is protected by Bush's secret service.
American ignorance and blind support of Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict is largely at the root of Muslim anger toward us, yet Bush has NEVER mentioned this as a motive. The current Israeli government is as frighteningly right wing and war-mongering as our own, but the American right will blindly support Israel no matter how many innocent people they slaughter because the religious right has a psychotic Christian Zionist end-of-the-world fantasy. This is perhaps too complex (and too controversial) a topic for Moore to tackle, but it is definitely an important link that MUST be discussed. Our military bases in Saudi Arabia were also a motive for the hijackers, but Bush has never mentioned those either. Instead, he claims that we were attacked on 9/11 only because the terrorists "hate freedom." Think rationally for a minute. When has any human ever killed another human for "hating freedom?" It just doesn't make sense. Al Qaida is fighting a Jihad against us. Nowhere in the Quran does it direct Jihadists to "attack free people."
Another point that Moore never makes is the inherent absurdity of the phrase "War on Terror." We are about as likely to defeat terror as we are to defeat "fear" or "jealousy." The correct move would have been to specifically declare war against Al Qaida back in September of 2001. We were attacked by Al Qaida. They are the enemy, and it's too bad that BOTH presidential candidates insist on fighting a broader, unwinnable battle against "terror." I don't believe that anyone in Washington even knows the correct definition of "terrorist" anymore. The insurgents in Iraq, for instance, are not terrorists; they are guerrillas. Big difference. Unfortunately, Bush insists on painting his war with broad strokes, because that way he can fit just about anyone under the banner of "terrorist." They might as well just call it the "War on Bad Guys."
Go see Farenheit 9/11. Laugh. Cry. Get p***ed. Argue about it afterwords. It's healthy for Americans to be engaging in political discussion.
I give Moore a 10/10 just for having the guts to make this movie. Despite what other viewers are writing, he definitely doesn't hate America; his hate is reserved for the Bush administration, and criticizing the president is quite different from hating America. Despite what right-wingers say about Moore, he is passionate about bringing change to his country. It is both ignorant and stupid to suggest that anyone who dislikes the president hates his country. On the contrary, we're showing how much we love America by exercising free speech and trying to cure the neoconservative Mad Cowboy Disease that has infected Washington.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Last Temptation of Donnie
Donnie Darko will make much more sense to anyone who's seen the Last Temptation of Christ. Some similarities (spoilers)
-The film takes place in 1987, which is the year Last Temptation was released in the theater. -The other movie playing at the movie theater where Donnie sees the Evil Dead is Last Temptation of Christ. -Like Last Temptation, the ending of Donnie Darko negates most of the narrative. In Last Temptation, Jesus (Willem Dafoe) is rescued from crucifixion by an angel, and he goes on to live a quiet life with Mary Magdellen. However, Jesus decides in the end that the world would be better off if he had died on the cross. Donnie ultimately makes this same decision. -In the structural sense, both films are "It's a Wonderful Life," only backwards.
Donnie Darko gives a nod to another Jimmy Stewart film, Harvey, in its use of the invisible 6-foot rabbit.
I gave Donnie Darko a 9/10 mainly for the outstanding acting performances. Noah Wyle and Drew Barrymore's small roles as are overshadowed by Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell, Patrick Swayze (his best role ever), Beth Grant, and Jena Malone.