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RodMartinJr
As Carl Martin, he has done background art for the Saul and Elaine Bass production of a Ray Bradbury short story, "Quest," and has had many one-person shows of his space-related art at Allegra Design, Bonaventure Hotel, and at Griffith Observatory.
As Carl Martin, he has written numerous books of science fiction, including,
* Touch the Stars: Emergence (with John Dalmas)
* Touch the Stars: Diaspora
* Entropy's Children (anthology of short fiction)
* Gods and Dragons (Edge of Remembrance book 1)
* Tales of Atlantis Lost (Edge of Remembrance book 2)
As Rod Martin, Jr., he has written several non-fiction books, including,
* Favorable Incompetence: Shining a Light on 9/11
* Dirt Ordinary: Shining a Light on Conspiracies
* Thermophobia: Shining a Light on Global Warming
* Red Line -- Carbon Dioxide
* Climate Basics
* Taking Charge
* The Spark of Creativity
* The Art of Forgiveness
* The Science of Miracles
* Proof of God
* The Bible's Hidden Wisdom: God's Reason for Noah's Flood
* Watered Down Christianity
Martin has also created 3D astronomy space software, Stars in the NeighborHood, available online.
In college, Martin studied computer science, earning a degree summa cum laude. He has also taught information technology courses, critical thinking, mathematics and professional ethics at a local college.
He currently lives in the Philippines with his wife, Juvy.
His IMDB entry can be found at,
https://imdb.com/name/nm1973813/
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Black Adam (2022)
Supremely stupid
This movie had such wonderful potential, but about 40 minutes in became so completely idiotic I couldn't watch any more.
Hawkman says he's there to restore order and that two soldiers of a tyrannical regime should be given due process. All this after the fictional nation of Kahndaq had suffered decades of oppression WITHOUT DUE PROCESS.
Restore order? Does that mean hold the status quo on tyrannical oppression? If people try to overthrow their tyrannical government, as America's Founding Fathers did in 1776, the Justice Society of 'Merica is going to stop them? Dumb, dumb, dumb!
Due process? For brutal soldiers who do not believe in due process? Where was the Justice Society of 'Merica, in this movie universe, when the tyrannical oppressors IGNORED due process every hour of the day? Dumb, dumb, dumb!
This movie seems to have been written by someone with a split personality or an Orwellian dementia full of Doublethink -- War is Peace, Oppression is Happiness, Poverty is Bliss and other such nonsense! With this script, they threw logic out the window!
Sorry, but if Hollyweird gets any more Globalist-Leftist Woke, it's going to go totally broke. But hey! The owners of the Big Corporations no longer need a consumer economy. They have their own plan for tyranny. And it's no longer a secret.
Whoever wrote this crappy script I'm putting on my anti-watch list. If I had been forced to write this script (say under contract), I would have demanded to use a pseudonym.
John Carter (2012)
More, more, more! Great movie in need of a great sequel!
Marketing should have used the full title shown at the end -- "John Carter of Mars."
Great acting, great special F/X, great story. Romance, adventure, mystery, powerful conspiracies, super-high-tech, and decor and dress vaguely reminiscent of Ancient Rome.
John Carter is a heroes hero. At the start, he carried a heavy burden of guilt and sadness, but by the end he had earned renewed happiness. This is a movie desperately in need of a sequel.
I've seen this one almost as much as Star Wars (the original), and about half as much as my all-time favorite, German film, Das Boot. Finely crafted story telling.
Wrong Place (2022)
Almost good enough to watch
I like to give most films the benefit of the doubt, watching them to the end. The movies from which I bailed midway through I could likely count on one hand, if I cared to remember them.
This is the only film with Bruce Willis where ALL of the other actors do a better job of acting than Willis. It seemed Willis was distracted in most of the scenes. A few of his scenes were almost moderately good acting on his part.
Some of Bruce's other recent films had worse acting by him, but there were a few actors in them who were worse. In this film, Willis improved slightly, but was still outdone by everyone else onscreen, including the doctor, the deputy and the young victim. In places, the police chief was actually excellent in his performance.
Cinematography was good in places, but other places were a distraction for bad lighting or bad framing.
The dialogue was okay, but the writing was poor. Some scenes were unbelievably bad (poor character motivation, for instance).
Last Seen Alive (2022)
All the elements of a Classic
Artfully produced suspense. Riveting dialog. Effectively awkward tension engaging the viewer on a visceral level.
In a way, this is Top Gun (for its emotion), High Noon (for its heroic challenges) and Taken (for its undeserved misfortune) rolled into a thriller which keeps you guessing about the husband, the wife, the detective and the frightened perpetrator.
Thoroughly satisfying. THIS is how Hollywood needs to make movies. Naturally, not all "suspense" or "thrillers," but done to this attention to detail -- directing, cinematography, dialogue, writing, acting, pacing and the appropriate effect on the viewer.
Rip in Time (2022)
Great story, Democracy bunk!
This is a time travel love story of the best kind. The writing was superb, except for one horrible slip-up.
The 18th century time traveler called America a "democracy." That's a modern delusion. Even later, the early 19th century Americans knew better than to make this mistake. One visiting Frenchman found the citizens of these United States to be quite well educated about the philosophy behind the American Constitution, and contrary to modern confusion, it was decidedly anti-democratic. The Founding Fathers distrusted ALL forms of power, including power of the people. They chose to defuse the ALL centers of power by diffusing power amongst many different parties -- citizens, states and a purposefully TINY federal government, constrained in size by the largely ignored 9th and 10th Amendments.
The film felt wonderfully authentic up until that faux pas. The chemistry, the dialog and the wonderful imagination all worked to charm this old writer. I recommend this film to everyone who has a love of hope, honor and romance, but caution to disregard the mistake in dialog which puts unnatural words in the mouth of that true, though fictional patriot.
Preserving Democracy: Pursuing a More Perfect Union (2022)
The title is faulty enough!
America's Founding Fathers knew from the very start that democracy was toxic, so they didn't even use the word in their Declaration of Independence, their Constitution, or any of the founding amendments.
And for those who haven't yet developed good critical thinking skills to recognize the slippery purpose of sneaky rhetoric, America is not even a "representative democracy." A century after America's founding, British historian, Lord Acton told us exactly why democracy is so problematic -- "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely..." This includes "people power," too. Remember, the French Revolution was all about people power, and that led to the Reign of Terror with the Guillotine become the national sport!
Democracy is 3 Wolves and 1 Sheep voting on the Lunch menu. Naturally, the Sheep loses. But the Sheep should have wished for a Constitutional Republic, because it PROTECTS the smallest minority -- the individual.
So, this film starts out by pushing an anti-American and anti-Freedom narrative. Because when the Globalist-Leftists own the media, the Big Corporations, and the Marketing firms, they can sway the MOB to do whatever they want them to do.
Zeros and Ones (2021)
Disjointed snippets
This film struggled to say something profound in the same way that a drunk tries to make a point, switching midstream -- several times -- to find a new subject. A distracting mess. Well acted, what there was of it, but little more than colorful garbage.
Entangled (2019)
Tired story, though well acted...
One thing I don't like about most "modern art" is the lack of connection with reality. Communication depends on being real, and this was too disconnected and illogical. Acting was great, but a colorful pile of garbage is still garbage. I've always admired Marlee Matlin, and her acting in this was good, as always, but it wasn't enough to rescue this tragic failure at the art of storytelling.
I think someone is too enamored with the "multiverse" idea, but had too little imagination to make the story work. Tired old themes were used to bolster a severely sagging story. Too many assumptions accepted at face value as if they were "obvious." As Loretta (Paloma Kwiatkowski) tells her friends, "It's a mathematical certainty!" Yeah, and how many of those infinite multiverses have Mother Goose talking to children?
The Dr. Strange movie a few years ago worked really well, even though they got it backwards with the "timeless realm is evil" nonsense; the action-reaction realm (ego, karma, time, desire, suffering) is the evil realm; timelessness is the pure, untainted half of reality. This movie didn't begin to make the concept interesting. Such strong belief in a multiverse to avoid the Artist and Owner of this one. LOL!
13 Minutes (2021)
Not bad... and a coming rarity with global warming
Rich with complex characters based on believable motives. This is a tornado movie with character development and multiple story arcs from both before and after the big event. (The current "top review" bragged that they couldn't watch more than 13 minutes and claims it wasn't a tornado movie. Go figure. Anyone making claims about 12% of a movie, who also gets critical facts wrong, cannot be taken seriously.)
The film is dedicated, "In honor of those whose lives and communities have been affected by extreme weather."
Ironically, such extreme weather becomes increasingly rare with more global warming, contrary to the "climate change" hysteria being hyped by the media (including movies like this one). In America, strong tornadoes (EF3-EF5) have been on a 60+ year downtrend, ever since records were first kept. In fact, the strongest 2 categories (EF4-EF5) hit a count of ZERO for the first time in 2018. The reasoning why nature behaves this way is rather simple: wind only blows because of temperature differences, and a warmer world produces poles that are lukewarm and tropics that are only marginally warmer than today. Thus, events like that portrayed in this movie are becoming -- with global warming -- increasingly rare. Gotta love that calmer weather we get from global warming. Fewer and fewer tragedies like this one.
Ref: Climate Basics.
War of the Worlds (2019)
Great beginning, lame continuation...
Great acting, lovely cinematography, riveting dialogue,... but there are places where character motivation seems heavily flawed.
Season 1 seemed largely good, though not perfect.
But Season 2 reveals one huge flaw. I'm currently at episode 2. And the obvious flaw is the ignoring of the path of peace. Why are the human aliens so bent on destroying fellow humans. Why the discussions amongst Earthlings that we are violent and destructive, without the ameliorating wisdom that destroys such Collectivist, 1-Dimensional, identity thinking GENERALITIES? Psychopaths tend to rise to the top in governments, but they DO NOT define MOST of humanity. Why kill when we can share? This seems like a page taken right out of the Psychopath's Manual for Manufactured Scarcity. Civilization was built by adding value. When you focus on scarcity, you ignore the truth of man's ingenuity and creativity. Leftists love to lump people together; they are Collectivists. Individuals ARE NOT collectives.
I would give Season 1 a 6 of 10; so far, Season 2 earns a 2 of 10. Averaged to 4. (Adjustments to follow, if required.)
I might watch the remainder of Season 2 in hopes that it can pull out of its nosedive, but I'm not holding my breath.
Finding Callaro (2021)
Infantile, anti-science fantasy
I'm a big kid at heart. I love stories for kids as well as adults. This one started with nonsense -- a planet that was lush with life, but suddenly became empty desert. The water suddenly disappeared! But the story completely ignored this vital ingredient.
This ignores the very idea for how land ever gets water.
While the graphics is colorful and the blockish characters well animated, the character motivation was frequently off kilter and poorly founded.
This could have been enjoyable with the right foundation, but basing a story on nonsense without reason can only be tragic.
The end of the movie is equally ridiculous, but no spoilers, here. Simply one big let-down. As a writer and former Hollywood artist, I'm very disappointed.
War of the Worlds (2019)
Great beginning, lame continuation...
Great acting, lovely cinematography, riveting dialogue,... but there are places where character motivation seems heavily flawed.
Season 1 seemed largely good, though not perfect.
But Season 2 reveals one huge flaw. I'm currently at episode 2. And the obvious flaw is the ignoring of the path of peace. Why are the human aliens so bent on destroying fellow humans. Why the discussions amongst Earthlings that we are violent and destructive, without the ameliorating wisdom that destroys such Collectivist, 1-Dimensional, identity thinking GENERALITIES? Psychopaths tend to rise to the top in governments, but they DO NOT define MOST of humanity. Why kill when we can share? This seems like a page taken right out of the Psychopath's Manual for Manufactured Scarcity. Civilization was built by adding value. When you focus on scarcity, you ignore the truth of man's ingenuity and creativity. Leftists love to lump people together; they are Collectivists. Individuals ARE NOT collectives.
I would give Season 1 a 6 of 10; so far, Season 2 earns a 2 of 10. Averaged to 4. (Adjustments to follow, if required.)
I might watch the remainder of Season 2 in hopes that it can pull out of its nosedive, but I'm not holding my breath.
Tides (2021)
Missed opportunities and story holes...
Lack of clarity in the story robs this of its potential. Some questions are never resolved. One big plot hole involves the immense distance to the extrasolar colony in the Kepler 209 system. At 587 pc (1,914 light years), they would have to have FTL technology. And if they had FTL technology, they would likely have chosen something far, far closer to Earth. Better than that, with the right use of FTL tech, they could have terraformed Mars in a few decades.
Great acting, nice cinematography, but pacing seemed too slow in places. A movie like Das Boot could make boredom seem interesting. That time of deep creativity was missing, here.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Impeccable storytelling, but where are the damned plot holes?
Great acting, deliciously designed monsters, and incredible story logic. Every potential flaw I imagined during the movie was cleared up by the end. Great character development and growth and some interesting, if not entirely lovable characters.
This is one of the rare movies worth seeing multiple times -- the type which keeps getting better no matter how many times you see it. Art works on numerous levels and this was a most skillfully woven story. Kudos to the writers, actors, director and everyone else on this project.
I hope you keep creating more like this. Heroic, positive and inspiring.
ADDENDUM:
After reading other reviews, I wondered what were the "huge plot holes" that others saw? I consider myself a relatively intelligent guy. I've written a few screenplays. I know of many of the difficulties. I've studied computer science, so I understand logic, even earning a degree, summa cum laude. So, where are the damned "plot holes?"
I'm beginning to think that either the reviewers lack sufficient smarts to understand a really sexy science fiction story, or have ulterior motives for trashing what is a writer's inspiration. And after writing nearly 100 books (mostly for paying clients), but one #1 Weather Bestseller of my own, I think I can tell a good story from a bad one.
Case in point: When on the mission to capture a live female whitespike, Muri tells her Dad that the aliens have no use for technology. That's a potential plot hole. How in heck did they get to Earth if they are aliens who don't even use technology? And the writer solves this beautifully. One of my favorite lines is in the alien ship where Chris Pratt's character (the lead) says that the whitespike cargo are ready to breed like "planet-clearing weapons." And that's exactly the effect they had on Earth's Tomorrow War.
Kudos to Zach Dean for tying up this and other really thorny plot elements very nicely.
The Misfits (2021)
Cheesy, mostly slow, dull and too PC
Scientists these days put the words "climate change" in their grant proposals, despite having nothing to do with climate, just to boost their chances for approval. Movies today do the same thing, throwing in male bashing, superhuman females, mindless (over-the-top) environmentalism and other "politically correct" oxymorons.
Don't get me wrong. I love a strong female lead or protecting the world we live in, but not so many logical fallacies carried to the realm of Absurdistan! Puke-worthy.
This film had barely passable acting, with lame, predictable story line, and too many, boringly long development sequences -- like taking forever to recruit "daddy" and long "puke" scenes.
Hollywood's "fruit" contains too many propaganda worms, these days. What a waste.
Princess Leia, yes! This film's Violet, no!
The Rise of Jordan Peterson (2019)
Compelling look at a modern hero, and the flaws of his critics...
Jordan Peterson is an inspirational person who has the humility, yet confidence to make a positive difference in the world. Humility to learn and to listen attentively, but confidence in certain core principles which transcend opinion.
An example of the profound disconnect with reality comes from a former friend, Bernard Schiff, who refused to discuss with Mr. Peterson his disagreements, because Mr. Schiff assumed things that were not in evidence. He had a "reality" about Peterson which is not apparent in Peterson's behavior or hisactions. Schiff conflated disagreement with legislated speech with disagreement with cordial agreement on preferred pronouns. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING!!! Yet the activists make it all about the latter, when the former is the real issue.
If the activists and Schiff would wake up from their dream of fake conflict, they would see that Peterson is quite willing to use preferred pronouns if an individual requests their use, but is against the tyranny of governments mandaging speech. I'm sure Schiff would chafe under the yoke of compelled speech if the government declared that he needed to use language with which he was uncomfortable.
Bernie could have asked, "what are you really after?" But he didn't. He assumed, incorrectly, and then refused to dig more deeply.
"So," said Bernard Schiff, "it is true that he called me a number of times since then, many times, and I did not return the calls because he was on a roll. I was watching what he was doing. I thought he was getting nastier, angeier, and I saw that there was no reason to talk because I knew -- because I knew there was no access to Jordan except to say, 'Jordan, you're doing a great thing and I believe what you're doing.'"
Disingenuous! He had multiple opportunities for access, to ask questions to engage on the topics and to discuss more deeply the reasons for Peterson's actions, but CHICKENED OUT, and preferred to live in the DELUSION of his own fake opposition. He could have discussed with Peterson his disagreements, but chose to abdicate that responsibility. Instead, he preferred to judge from a safe distance and to pretend his own status as a benign observer, when in reality he was protecting his own toxic bias.
He had the opportunity to help Peterson see a different viewpoint or to risk himself finding Peterson's viewpoint, but he chose, instead, to protect the source of his outrage from exposure. That is an extreme of dishonesty that no one deserves.
Both Jordan Peterson and the Leftist Media have this huge misconception that the Right can also be tyrannical. This confusion is by design, because the Left is all about deception. The Right is all about individual liberty and responsibility; the Left is all about Big, Centralized power and responsibility. And because people tend to be selfish, the individuals in positions of power tend to abuse those positions for selfish purposes. This notion of an Alt-Right is merely a distraction; a perversion meant to throw off those who are searching for meaning and Truth. If you ask the Neo-Nazi about their beliefs, you will find that those beliefs are very similar to those of the Communist, the Socialist or the Fascist. All started as popular (democratic) uprisings. They clamor for centralized control by the experts who pretend to know better than the rest of us. But as Thomas Sowell said, they are merely the self-proclaimed "anointed" who have an unrestrained vision of man's ability to "fix" everything in the world. Thus, we get the Terrors of the French Revolution, where speaking out meant losing your head -- quite literally. We get the Killing Fields of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.
Here is the essence of Jordan Peterson:
"Life is suffering. Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated. Truth is the handmaiden of love. Dialogue is the pathway to truth, so speach must be untrammeled so that dialogue can take place, so that we can all humbly learn, so the truth can serve love, so that suffering can be ameliorated, so that we can all stumble forward towards the Kingdom of God."
Jordan Peterson is willing to hug a gay man in public and on stage, because they are true friends. But he is not willing for the government to compell him to use specific language. That's at the hear of the controversy.
I dare say that every trans person would be outraged if they were compelled to speak a certain way that did not match that with which they were comfortable. So, in a very real sense -- a sense that they are completely missing -- they are agreeing with Jordan Peterson and should see him as a true friend.
What is missing from this film is digging more deeply into the fallacies used by Peterson's critics. Did they realize that they were misconstruing his message? Did they understand that he was advocating freedom of speech for everyone, INCLUDING THEM?
Above the Shadows (2019)
This is the type of story every writer wishes they had written
This story is pure smiles after heartache. Just the right touch of bliss after frustration and misery.
After seeing this film for the third time, I changed my rating from 9 to 10. I don't usually feel compelled to make such changes. But revisiting this work let me see more than I had the first two times.
How does a girl turn invisible? Does it matter? Really! This story touches the soul. It carries with it lessons for all of us -- to focus outward, not inward. But it delivers this lesson in the most delicious and subtle ways. This work of art expands and teaches more, the more it is seen. And every artist's heart aches to take in such rarefied air.
The acting, dialogue, direction, cinematography, music, set design -- virtually everything about this piece is as close to perfect as it gets. Art is supposed to communicate and to evoke a feeling. This one creates a symphony of feelings that have left this viewer happy to have shared the lives of these characters.
The New Corporation: The Unfortunately Necessary Sequel (2020)
Camouflaged Hypocrisy
This documentary covers some important ground on the inevitable evils of ALL Publicly-Traded corporations, but too easily glosses over the differences between the public and the private varieties. Conflating free market capitalism with toxic, crony capitalism is not only wrong, it's dishonest in the extreme.
This film does the same thing it accuses the big, public corporations of doing -- using Appeals to Emotion to sell ideas that are themselves false.
Take minimum wage, for instance. Thomas Sowell, once a Marxist and a junior employee at the Department of Labor in the federal government, found out the hard way that Big Government, like Big Corporations, DO NOT CARE about the people they serve. Sowell, like some doe-eyed school boy, wanted to test the hypothesis that minimum wage was doing some good for the poor. To his dismay, the government bureaucrats panicked at the idea that their prized cash cow could be jeopardized by this young upstart. They didn't care whether or not minimum wage worked. They only wanted continuity for their cushy jobs.
Minimum wage betrays the basic tenet upon which civilization and prosperity are built: ADDING VALUE. Rewarding value added is the cornerstone of all aspects of civilization and commerce. Rewarding an employee just because they are there, no matter what value they add, is anti-civilization, anti-human and anti-logic.
Bravo, Thomas Sowell! An underrated scholar because the Leftist Media views him as a threat. He speaks on the level of his white counterparts and pokes holes in their faulty logic! The Left prefers the "victim class" to stay being victims.
Caring about the environment is a good thing and needs to be much more than a corporate PR trick. This is one of the good points of this film, elevating it from a "1" to a "2." But what this film entirely missed is that the "climate change" alarm "movement" was created by Biggest Oil Rockefellers and their UN front man, the late Maurice Strong (alumnus of Canadian Big Oil). Oh, the irony! The makes of this film and the movement they cozy up to are being played by the Globalist-Leftist Owners of the Big Corporations. This is 5D Chess at its most Machiavellian.
What the loopy, "we care" crowd completely miss is that Global Warming in an ongoing Ice Age is a good thing; quite the opposite of their narrative. In fact, we currently live in the MOST PROSPEROUS period in human history, partly because of the increased warmth, increased CO2 as well as the technology. The Big Corporate NEWS media is complicit in this false propaganda. That the "we care" crowd distrust Big Corporations is a good thing; but then they get their views, beliefs and science from the very same Big Corporations! Groan!
People need to become aware of the things mentioned in this film, but they need to go further. They need to become critically self-aware (which the makers of this film did NOT do). Thus, this film is more propaganda than illumination. Yet, don't throw out the baby with the foul bath water.
ALL publicly-traded corporations are, by law, egregiously evil. They have to be. That is their nature. They would be breaking the law and their fiduciary duty if they did otherwise. Customers and the environment, as priorities, come in at a distant 6th and 7th place, after shareholders, top execs, real estate and equipment, intellectual properties and employees.
One of the big flaws with this and most other similar documentaries is that they tell half of the story, which acts to polarize society, rather than healing society. By conflating the good with the bad, and glamorizing the False Solutions, they prove one of two things: Either, that they are logically incompetent, or that they are working for the common enemy of humanity -- those who would divide us along opposing half-truths.
No Safe Spaces (2019)
Kids need gravity!
Without gravity, muscles become weaker and bones become dangerously fragile. This is what is happening to America's kids. Too much bubble-wrap protection and not enough freedom to skin a knee or to bump an elbow.
This film shows the immense value of Free Speech, even if it seems dangerous. Learning should always be dangerous. In college, I took creative writing class twice, because I needed the danger of having my writing raked over the coals of harsh criticism. I needed to learn. I was NOT paying tuition to be pampered.
I only wish that every citizen of this world sees this film, especially Americans,... and especially Democrats and other Leftists. They may disagree with the points made, but hopefully a seed is planted so that freedom can be restored.
We need to protect the smallest minority -- the individual -- and this film makes that abundantly clear. When individuals abuse others with the power of a group, they are revealing the Truth that Democracy truly is tyranny -- the tyranny of three wolves and one sheep deciding what to have for lunch.
Endgame 2050 (2020)
Experts in using Logical Fallacies and Misdirection
Like so many alarmist documentaries, this one sprinkles in a few truths and half-truths followed by more half-truths and outright lies. They are experts at appealing to emotion -- a common logical fallacy.
I used to be a fan of Al Gore's "award-winning" alarmist film, but eventually discovered that it is full of lies and misdirection. Same with this film.
Caring about the environment is always a good thing. Promoting agendas that destroy civilization and jeopardize billions of humans and trillions of other species is nothing short of criminal. Much of the world has been "sold" a clunker promoted as "top of the line." A few celebrities have been bought off by fat cats who own the Big Corporations.
Example: The lie that CO2 drives temperature through feedback loops is nowhere to be found in the climate proxy record -- at no time throughout the last 4+ billion years. The coincidence of modern warming with CO2 increases is ironically an ACCIDENTAL CORRELATION -- not a cause-and-effect correlation. The period right before this one showed CO2 and temperature going in OPPOSITE directions, thus thoroughly debunking the "CO2 as driver" hypothesis.
And the strong correlation on the 10s to 100s of thousands of years time scale (shown in Gore's film) gets it backwards! Temperature drives CO2 into and out of the oceans as a dissolved gas. There was no heavy industry 450,000 years ago to produce the spikes in CO2. Oops!
In fact, the amount of contribution from CO2 to warming is so incredibly weak -- NOT showing up in the proxy record, except as accidental correlation -- that scientists are left guessing about the "CO2 climate sensitivity." GUESSES range from +0.3C of warming per doubling of CO2 (Lindzen, 1997), to +13.0C of warming per doubling (Snyder, 2016). Blind guessing! And the empirical evidence does not support either estimate.
One good thing about this documentary, it can be used as a rich source of examples of Logical Fallacies for learning purposes. Upside-down, backwards and inside-out logic at its worst and most pernicious.
G-Loc (2020)
Heavily flawed science and story continuity
Difference in rate of time passage has no basis in fact or science. This flaw is glossed over as if it doesn't defy credulity; but it does. At the very least, they could've mentioned the fact that this anomaly was an unsolved mystery, instead of a fact to be accepted at face value. This could've been woven into the dialogue without making it stick out too much.
One reviewer added "Ice Age" as a flaw in this tiny, modern period of global warming, forgetting that we current live in an Ice Age, and that the scientific climate flaw of the 1970s was that the trend was linear, just like the scientific climate flaw of the 1990s; climate ALWAYS changes and it is never linear. Climate changes in cycles -- up and down. And correlation studies show that CO2 DOES **NOT** DRIVE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE.
The accelerated cooling trend of the last 3,000 years, plus the current Grand Solar Minimum, are both consistent with increased cooling. This cooling problem is potentially made worse by the Warming Alarmists' desire to cool the planet, as former CIA Director John Brennan said, "like volcanoes do." And that's just what psychopath Bill Gates and his fellow nut jobs at Harvard are planning to do; destroy the ability to grow crops with colder oceans! Talk about story flaws; that is a real-life boner of a flaw.
Bottom line on the so-called "Ice Age flaw" is that this is NOT a flaw, at all, but one of the truly accurate parts of this otherwise flawed film.
When fighting an opponent, to knock them down and then simply walk away, without first securing the enemy, is stupidity of the worst kind. The character, Bran (protagonist), did this several times. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Lazy writing!
In navigation, waiting until the last fraction of a second is nonsense. The earlier a course maneuver is taken the less abrupt it has to be; the less energy that is required; and the smaller the angle of deviation needs to be. The dumb script called for waiting until the last moment before jerking at maximum lateral deviation to avoid collision. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!
After a deadly fight with someone truly evil, the main Rhean (Ohsha) forgets to tie up the enemy. That the two main characters did the SAME bone-headed mistake only reflects poorly on the writer. Dumb! More lazy writing. I understand that the enemy is needed for later scenes, but achieving that need with laziness doesn't work.
Main Rhean (Ohsha) makes it clear at first that she hates and does not trust Earthers. But then, she admits that her parents trusted Earthers and attempted to help them. Groan! And then she admits that the government is responsible for poisoning their minds against Earthers. Squishy, slippery foundation for the character's motivation. Dumb!
At G-7, Bran can move around at all? Say he has an Earth body weight of 100 kg, that'd be 700 kg he's lugging around. Not at all likely. Lifting external weight, the Olympic record for 109 kg weight class for clean & jerk is 240 kg. Here, the body's total weight is nearly three times that record. Imagine trying to lift your head which normally weighs, at 1-g, about 5 kg, but at 7-g's, about 35 kg (nearly 80 pounds). I suspect that this would break the person's unsupported neck.
Art continuity in this film sucks. Showing the ringed planet with light coming from the side, but the planet's primary ("sun") in the background is illogical at best. Big artist's mistake! Or, if that orangish star is the system's secondary, the planet does not show any reflection of its light. Cool artwork poorly conceived.
On the plus side, the acting was better than average, and excellent in some places. Dialogue was fair to good. Special effects were not that great, but I'd much rather spend more on getting the story right than fluffing up the movie with empty effects.
Set design was moderately weak. In one scene, a large vent had bright light coming from the other side. I can't imagine why an air vent would be expending so much energy to brighten an air duct which remained beyond view.
A few careful adjustments could have made this far more enjoyable than it was. The additional costs would have been minimal, and could have garnered an extra 3-4 points from that alone, from this not-so-humble critic.
Light Years Away (2008)
Cute story, but heavily flawed
Oh, what a difference good writing makes. But the writing on this film is heavily flawed. There were so many missed opportunities and poorly reasoned motivation. Dialog was good in places, but horrible in others. Example: The hero asks for a moment to explain, but his boss simply shakes his head and says, "Sorry." The antagonist claims a discovery he could not have made, because the protagonist was in control of the ground telescope; not the antagonist. If I were the boss, I'd give the responsible executive time to explain, if he could.
The alien woman did not have physical form, but she had sufficient power to hold back a bully and to turn his big rig on its side, but later, the antagonist said he didn't have any proof she existed. Holes in his memory and holes in the plot.
4 Presidents (2020)
Clears up a great deal of confusion learned in school
Sadly, our schools leave out a lot of the hard facts needed to make sense of history. Memorization of dry facts and dates is NOT what history is about. I finally gained an appreciation of history in 11th grade World History class, where Mrs. Hendry informed her class that history was all about "motivation." I was electrified and enthralled by this new reality.
This film does a deep dive into the history of historical motivation and one of the key motivating factors of all human existence -- greed!
More than half a century after high school, I still love history and this film scratches a very big itch to know more.
Oh, and those small minds who criticize the notion of "conspiracies," likely have no idea what a conspiracy is. It's merely a conversation between 2 or more people for the purpose of doing something unethical. In my research for my book, "Dirt Ordinary," I discovered that there are at least 489 new conspiracies starting every second, on average. And some of those conspiracies involve the starting of wars, and the theft of billions of dollars. A conspiracy is merely part of group selfishness.
2067 (2020)
Lots of potential,... Lousy delivery...
Actually, the acting was pretty good. Loved the lead in "Let Me In." The special effects were good, too. Even the dialogue was good. So, what went wrong?
The most important failure was the poor premise for the story. This feeds the bizarre, unscientific "climate change" hysteria. This acts as brain-dead propaganda for the Big Corporations (Big News, Big Oil, Big War, Big Entertainment). They're all owned by the same Globalist-Leftist psychopaths. Those are the Leftist Capitalists who try to destroy the Free Market Capitalists by creating more Big Government tyranny (pure Leftism).
Enough with the propaganda pieces, please!
Anyone in their right mind wants a clean, healthy biosphere. But lying about it doesn't help! Oxygen scarcity? By 2067? Groan!
Yes, too much of anything is bad, but what the Leftist media does is conflate any change with extreme change. That's just plain dishonest! That's 1-Dimensional, "identity" thinking: climate change = bad = global warming = global cooling = returning to a better climate = Earth bursting into flames = justified violence... Anyone who falls for this junk needs our sympathy, but also a swift kick in the backside. Wake up from your "woke" delusion. Some of the brightest minds have fallen to self-induced blindness, making their Effective IQ sub-par.
This movie could have been so much better with a believable premise.
One-Minute Time Machine (2014)
Finally! A short that's well-written and a complete story!
I've seen lots of science fiction shorts in the last few years and nearly all of them lacked the spark contained in this piece.
Yes, a well-written short. Most of the ones I've seen in the last few years have been empty special f/x exercises, or social justice wuss propaganda. This piece is clever, funny, well-paced and beautifully acted. Great dialog and cinematography -- no sharp or clunky edges to distract. This piece is a refreshing work of art. We need more from these folks.