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Reviews
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
Star Wars lite
For some people, every Star Wars product after the golden age of ROTJ is an outrage.
For others, Revenge Of The Sith was the best Star Wars ever, and the expanded universe of Star Wars stories and products puts the early 80s to shame.
So which kind of fan are you? If Jar Jar didn't make you want to puke, and you think todays Star Wars video games are really cool, then you'll probably enjoy The Clone Wars.
If you are a purist, you'll squirm as the familiar opening screen is suddenly very different. You'll want to cry when John William's original score is changed for no apparent reason. You'll complain that the characters don't just act wooden -- but actually LOOK like carved figures.
But for non-purists, you may just recognize that the story is actually quite entertaining, the visuals are often impressive, and some of the humor will actually make you laugh.
My only real complaint with this movie is that it is the only Star Wars film that adds absolutely nothing to the story arc stretching from Episodes 1 thru 6. But taken as a side story, it was well worth a visit to the cinema.
Recount (2008)
Well made docu-drama, with a heavy anti-Bush bias
Way back, just after Election 2000, the recount was the big political story, and remained so right up until 9/11, when everything changed.
I remember reading all the books as soon as they came out. The early books focused on all the personal stories, such as voting irregularities in Black neighborhoods, recount shenanigans, Gore votes lost from butterfly ballots, and Bush votes lost in the Florida pan-handle.
Later books discussed the legal arguments. Posner gave a strong defense of the US Supreme Court's decision, while Dershowitz attacked the decision as intellectually dishonest. Not surprisingly, no one bothered to defend the Florida Supreme Court's decisions.
Both campaigns appealed to high ideals: Bush wanted to follow clear rules and procedures to the letter, and avoid fuzzy rules that could turn an orderly process into chaos; Gore wanted to count all the votes and determine as near as possible who the voters intended to vote for.
The point I'm trying to make is that Election 2000 was not those sneaky Republicans against those righteous Democrats, or vice versa . Both sides engaged in less-than-pure actions, and both sides had legitimate legal arguments. The district court judges in Florida, although all appointed by Democrats, agreed with the legal arguments of Bush. The Florida Supreme Court sided with Gore, but ultimately was very divided. The US Supreme Court sided with Bush, but was also very divided.
These facts are very poorly presented in the HBO movie, which is clearly attempting to revise history, now that so many memories have faded, and now that Bush's popularity has declined. Mostly the movie gets it's facts straight, but selects and frames those facts to favor the Democrats. When dealing with back-room politics, the movie often simply makes up facts to portray Republicans in a bad light.
Recount is surprisingly well made, with excellent acting, and pretty decent writing. Unfortunately this movie decided on a clear political agenda, rather than attempting a fair presentation of the facts.
Watch CNN's Election 2000 video instead, which is much more fair, and is too early to be considered revisionist.
Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus (2006)
Interesting companion piece to Expelled
Watch either "Dodos" or "Expelled" if you do NOT want to learn much about Evolution or Intelligent Design.
Both movies are more about attitudes towards their respective theories rather than the merits of the theories themselves. "Expelled" argues that scientific communities act with the same partisan and even repressive behavior seen in almost every kind of community, and "Dodos" argues that anyone who questions Evolutionary theory is an idiot or a quack (albeit likable idiots and quacks).
And this utter lack of respect for it's opposing position is why I give this movie a low grade. It doesn't even pose provocative ideas (like Expelled), or a sense of humor (like a Michael Moore film).
Instead Dodos offers criticisms of ID that would easily be destroyed if posed to one of the various ID representatives the movie interviews. The scientists offered as friendly witnesses on the side of Darwin rarely if ever pose a scientific argument, and instead offer ad hominem attacks, and other examples of logical terrorism that should make any scientist ashamed.
But perhaps worst of all is the recommendation the movie makes to scientists in the following statement: "The bigger issue in this whole thing is who will be the voice not just of evolution, but of science in general. Is it going to be scientists who are handicapped by their blind obsession with the truth? Or will it be public relations firms that know the importance of a good story but feel no constraints by the truth?" This is not the kind of statement made by people assured of the merits of their argument; no, this kind of statement is made by one with blind faith who lacks confidence in their ability to persuade by reason.
Dodos argues that ID succeeds in the public arena because it tells a simple story, while the truth is much more complex. I would argue that the opposite is true. Evolution succeeds because it is such a simple explanation; ID succeeds when the simplicity of Evolutionary theory fails to account for the evidence. IDs biggest problem is that it's central argument (that there is a designer to life) opens up so many more questions that sticking to the simple "selection via random mutation" is often more attractive intellectually.
Dodos claims that scientists have good answers to the questions posed by ID, but those answers require time and a depth of knowledge to understand. Personally, I've tried to find those answers, but such responses will rarely convince anyone not already converted, and often are rebuttals to arguments no one is even making.
I will agree with Dodos about one thing: if champions of Neo-Darwinism hope to squash the "pseudoscience" of ID, they need to have a more compelling presence in the media. But when they lose the veneer of a "blind obsession with the truth", scientists lose all credibility.
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (2003)
pointless conspiracy theory
I'm not sure who this movie is targeting. There are interesting tidbits concerning the history of the challenge to make a chess machine. These might intrigue both chess fans and non-fans alike, though much more could be made of this, as the history is richer than even this film implies. More could also be made of the history between Kasparov and his arch-rival Karpov (two almost perfectly matched players, though you'd never guess from this movie). More could be made about the connection between chess champions and paranoia, or between chess and politics in the USSR (a connection which makes one understand better why chess players are so paranoid).
Instead, the makers of this film push the silly idea that IBM's Deep Blue beat Kasparov in '97 because of human intervention (ie, IBM cheated). The film bases this on one piece of evidence: Kasparov believes his loss in game two of the match was the result of a move that no computer would ever make. This is made all the sillier because a typical home chess program (Fritz 7) makes the very same move as Deep Blue after only a moment's thought. The film also claims that IBM never released the logs of Deep Blue's analysis after the game (just go to IBM's historical site concerning this match, and you will see this is not accurate).
Are documentaries getting lazier with their facts, or am I just finally wising up after years of taking them at their word?