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Reviews
Plane (2023)
Entertaining, great acting - warning, flying spoilers !
Good film, good acting, and good cinematography.
My favourite part was seeing Butler in a great role once again,
A couple of suspect parts got me annoyed, they are simple things to avoid:
1. "back then all the sexy assignments went to the English blokes" is a load of nonsense, many fighter pilots are/were Scottish, especially in the 1980s and 90s.
2. Sitting at the end of the runway for takeoff, the displays show the aircraft doing 250 knots. Obviously they are doing 0 knots TAS, as they are stationary.
3. The displays also show ILS is engaged, which is only used during landing, not takeoff.
4. There is also no flightplan on the screen, shich would be pretty silly if you were planning to take off on a long flight like that. Youe would, at minimum, have your departure programmed in.
There are a couple of other issues like these, one with the display n the flightbag (the tablet) swhoing them at 8000 feet, and another where they are showing at 40,000 and then apparently decide to climb to 40,000.
The captain leaving the cockpit? What? Very unlikely. It's probably a sackable offence on every airline I know of.
Now we move on to the blackout. "we're on battery" ... I don't think so lol. You would have to switch off the generators and ignore the APU. The APU is a generator in the back which provides another source of power, then there's the RAT, a generator with a propeller that sitcls out of the plane and generates emergency power.
The engines are still running, which means the fuel pumps are, which means they have electrical power. He then says "no ADI", but tells the copilot to "keep your eyes on the gyro", which is what the ADI is, the gyro - which also needs electrical power to spin.
Engines throttle back, but levers are at full power. Still no attempt to deploy the RAT, the APU, or to fix the electrical issues. The engines seem to fail, with no explanation of why. Cabin crew then open the door, but it should be locked. I guess it might unlock in an electrical outage.
Now, approaching land, the engines are on ... so why not climb !!
Nice landing !! (of course that road was VERY straight after seing it bend all over the place lol.
Still, the film is great as a whole, and I would have given 10/10 if not for the above silliness.
Ad Astra (2019)
Apocalypse Now in space
It really is Apocalypse now in space.
Whether an homage, or just made without realising how close it is to AN, this film really does do justice to the "psycopath takes over mission and goes rogue, younger man sent to take him out" and his descent into the world of the madman (who happens to be his father).
I'm only 2/3 of the way through the film, so I hope it gets a twist at the end better than AN had.
Deputy (2020)
Great to see an honest guy trying to do an honest days work
Not so much action, as there are several tiers of storyline per episode, the fight on the ground, the fight for retaining the morals and standing of the Sherriffs department, the fight for the sherriff to remain true to himself and the office he holds, the fight for those suffering in positions they feel they cannot be themselves, the fight for equailty and truth and justice ... They are all done pretty well though.
It does seem a little too much setting the scene for character development, but if a show is going to reflect society, it has to show allsides, and I think this does that quite well.
The real issue here is the reviews. So many negative reviews, mostly just from people who cannot accept that the times, they are a changing.
One even says "I didn't think I could find a show worse than NCIS LA, but I did"
Wow, rest assured, this is NOT worse than NCIS LA, nor better, it is just different. Another laments their expectations of a "Longmire type cowboy" ... so sad that they want that - maybe a reimagining of Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Laramie or The Virginian would get them to watch.
The most often commented is "too political", and "PC", with a smatterng of "genders". Well, guess what, that's what society is doing right now. Dealing with the fact that there are some people who see themselves between the genders or rising above gender barriers. I am not one of them, but I know people who are, many of whom will not speak out for fear of exactly this repressive reaction.
Am I surprised that there are SOOOOOOOOO many 1 stars? No.
Why? Because people who accept society is changing do not need to rant on here about it. People who do NOT want change came here, whined about how terrible it is, how they "couldn't stand more than ten minutes", and "how poltitcal it is", and "off to read a good book" says sooo much - I just know that book is NOT going to be a good one!!
Taiheiyou no kiseki: Fokkusu to yobareta otoko (2011)
The struggle between Honour and Reason
This is a film which tries to find balance between both stories, Japanese and American. It shows the brutality of war, and that there is good and bad on both sides. The film strives to portray the story of a man, Captain Sakae Oba, caught between honour and reason and his battle to find a course which satisfies both.
The film is superbly shot, especially the wide-angle panoramas and action. As with most movies the guns fire with too much flame, the explosions are too small to be accurate, and people die too easily and without the screams and gore that accompanies true war. If it's action you seek, then another movie would probably suit you better.
If you are an intelligent unbiased person who wishes to know about one of the more surprising stories of the Pacific war, then this film is a must. It glosses over some of the more salient points of the real story of Oba and his actions, such as time frame, but is a good account of the framework.
On the whole it is a very good watch, and a fine film.