sarastro7 Reviews

The Retirement Plan (2023)

Vintage Nic Cage! Really don't understand the negative reviews.

[7/10 · 23 April 2024]

I find it deeply weird that this movie has so many 2-3-4-5 star reviews. This is an action comedy with a difference. It starts out weakly, but gets progressively funnier as it moves on, and is a great set of roles for Ron Perlman and Nic Cage. Even the ending ("Good thing we're the good guys, isn't it?") is hilarious!

It's filmed in beautiful tropical locations, it's light-hearted, it's got Shakespeare references... I don't understand what's not to like here! This is a 7-star movie. Anyone who rates it less must be having a pretty bad day for entirely unrelated reasons!

One bad thing I will comment on, though, which is in really poor cinematic taste, and which I think might have made many viewers rate this movie a star less than they otherwise might have, is the way each character is introduced with their name on the screen and a loud slapping sound. That is such a toe-cringing cliché that no good movie would be caught dead doing it. But in the end the movie transcends this cosmetic flaw. :-) Watch it. It's fun.

Civil War (2024)

From a non-Garland fan: this is Garland's best.

[9/10 · 8 April 2024]

I attended the premiere of author/director Alex Garland's latest film, CIVIL WAR. I have always had a strained relationship with his writing skills; I generally don't think he is very good (to put it mildly). So far, I have not given anything he has written or directed a higher rating than 6 stars out of 10 - some things significantly less. However, CIVIL WAR ends up at 8/10 - even though it still ends up being somewhat disappointing in a couple of ways.

Calling the film CIVIL WAR (in a US context) is a bit of a misnomer. The film is about a small team of war photographers who go on a risky road trip to Washington to "interview" the president, while a civil war is going on in the background. The film's focus is primarily on the ethics of war photography and the personal costs for the photographers. There is almost no political content in the film, so it is a quite different film than most people would probably expect.

The ongoing civil war in the film is completely unclear and undescribed. California and Texas are allied with each other - probably exclusively so that the film - kind of cowardly! - wouldn't favor either the predominantly Democratic Californians or the predominantly Republican Texans. The New People's Army (which appears on a promotional map graphic for the movie) is not mentioned in the film, and we don't hear who Florida is supposed to be siding with either. The photographers seem to be following soldier teams from several of the warring parties, which further adds to the confusion.

However, if you see the film as a film about war photographers and their traumatic experiences, then it is actually a good film. Plenty of action and shocking (and loud!) excitement - photographers can now rejoice that there is an action movie specifically aimed at them!

As I sat in the cinema at the end of the movie, I felt like it wouldn't have great re-watch value; that it was a movie I'd probably only see once. But I must admit that upon reflection and further analysis, I do want to watch it again. Some of those black and white photo shots are like forbidden porn - very cinematically sexy. I stress, "cinematically"!

I sat on row 7 in a large showroom; quite close to the screen. If I go again, I'll hang back to the furthest back-row (row 24) and get a bit of distance to the screen (and the loudness); a bit less in-my-face.

8/10.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Deathly dull

[4/10 · 20 February 2024]

I am pretty stunned at all the positive reviews here. They must have been sent in by mindless action movie fans and not by people who like Star Trek. Because this ridiculous action fest is just dull in absolutely every way that matters to a Trek fan. The storyline is beyond imbecilic. Nothing interesting happens. And, no, Kirk riding a motocross cycle for a long stretch is not remotely interesting. This entire movie is just idiotic, and commits the cardinal sin of being super-mega-DULL and in every way unfunny and illogical. Is Spock even in it? Nothing he says or does in this movie is memorable in the slightest. Nothing makes sense. Every idea is just regurgitated from the two previous movies, in a Hollywood call-back fest. This is the third-worst Trek movie, after Final Frontier and Nemesis. It's just empty of any real substance. Terrible writing. Awful creative decisions, awful conception of what Trek should be.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

The audience becomes members of the jury

[9/10 · 3 February 2024]

This is a brilliant movie for many reasons, and a shame that some people don't even begin to understand it. It's less about the characters than about justice and legal and moral principles. The audience is along for the trial, taking part in the journey of the limits of the "how" and the importance of the "why" when a crime without sufficient evidence is considered. The legal system is very often a monster, waiting to clasp its jaws around defenseless people, passing verdicts on them without proper and sufficient evidence. Can such a system truly serve justice? Yes and no, but it's the only and best system we have, and we must strive to make it work. Do we, the viewers, agree with the final verdict in the movie, despite not knowing for sure? The movie expects us to make the same choice that the jury members made. We haven't got all the facts, but we must make a decision based on what we've got. If we feel good about that decision, then the closest approximation to justice has been done. And for me, that's satisfying. With the jury, I am satisfied that Sandra is innocent. In this sense, the legal system is just like science: there is a model of how things probably are, and it's an approximation that will most likely never be ironclad, provable fact. But at some point we have to accept it and move on with that premise in the bag.

Stockholm Bloodbath (2023)

An odd and ill-advised beast of a movie

[5/10 · 20 January 2024]

Well, this movie was... not great, but a bit of a peculiar (using the word "funny" here would give a wrong impression, since the movie is not half as funny as it thinks it is) experience.

Historically, the Stockholm blood-bath was an infamous event where the Danish army and royalty executed a big group of Swedish aristocrats, so (the saying goes) the street were flowing with blood. Mostly, the legacy of this event has been that it is shameful for Denmark to have perpetrated it, and a good reason for Sweden to hate us (I am Danish, you see). However, seen in a modern and progressive light, was it all that bad to kill off a portion of the oppressive elite? Was it really such a slight to the common people of Sweden?

Anyway, when I went into this movie I hadn't read anything about it, other than that it had some Danish actors in it - so I suffered from the misimpression (is that a word?) that it was actually a Danish-produced movie! And since the Danes in it are presented as cartoonishly evil, I thought it was kind of a funny self-satire on the "Danish" film-makers' part. Even though I didn't like the immature vulgarities of it, I thought it was a redeeming feature of the movie. In my defense, I believed the movie to be Danish-produced because this exact style of humor is (sadly) extremely wide-spread in Danish movies.

But then, as the end credits rolled I realized it was a Swedish-produced movie - meaning that the oh-so-good Swedish characters and the oh-so-evil Danish characters were just the usual bunch of clichés found whenever some country makes a movie about their (past or present) enemies. No self-satire; just caricatured and unnuanced finger-pointing at the easy targets. [EDIT: It actually turns out that the movie is a Swedish/Danish co-production, so I guess the self-satire is there after all. Except that the screenwriters are Norwegian, which is kind of hilarious.]

To be honest, whether the movie were Danish or Swedish-produced doesn't change my rating of it. The attempted comedy fell flat in any case (you see, all the Swedish characters were dead serious), and the movie didn't know whether to be a comedy or a historical movie. It was also surprising to me that it was in English, since it concerns Danish and Swedish events, and starring (mostly) Nordic actors. The movie indeed feels made for international streaming; it has many of those hallmarks of sloppy, rushed and mediocre streaming service content.

There are two reasons I'm not rating this movie even lower. The first is the female actors, which were very good and admirable. It's a great shame that they are being disrespected by being forced to be part of a movie more dominated by immature and misogynist male "humor". The Freja character reminded enormously of Miranda Otto's character from Lord of the Rings (Eowyn? Was that her name?), and was a strong character, if perhaps not super-realistic in the historical setting.

The other redeeming feature of the movie is that it does start some thoughts about what happened in the in/famous event, and does make us check it out on Wikipedia, at least. As they say at the beginning of the movie, some of this actually happened.

The Zone of Interest (2023)

The Zone of Zero Interest

[3/10 · 20 January 2024]

Disagree with me if you want, but this movie was a complete and utter snore-fest. It had absolutely zero entertainment or engagement value. It was super-slow and undramatic to the point of being sleep-inducing. Sure, I got most of the little hints, but they were not interesting. A movie like this may have been edgy and thought-provoking if it had been made in the 1950s, '60s or '70s, but in recent decades? Big nope! This movie is the very definition of "too little, too late!" This director should wake up and realize that time is a'wasting! This kind of movie is not taking the audience's time seriously! And life is too short for this hooey!

I can give this movie only 3 stars out of 10 - and that's being generous.

Saltburn (2023)

A rich people's movie

[6/10 · 24 December 2023]

Watched this movie on Prime Video - it sounded interesting from the description, but it was definitely nothing like what I'd expected. I thought it would be about dark manipulative dealings of the rich aristocrats, but the movie goes on and on and on for over an hour, weird and occasionally dull, with no real dramatic conflict showing up (a few times you think it's a gay themed movie), and after that it turns out that the poor (well, middle-class) guy is the evil one, manipulating the wealthy aristocrats out of their money.

So, the writer/director coming from wealth herself, this is a movie for rich folks, confirming their paranoid fear that absolutely everyone (who isn't rich like them) are out to get their money, and that none of them can be trusted, because they only want one thing from you: MONAAAYY!! A story that will just make rich people even more paranoid and unwilling to share their obscene wealth. I mean, what else can this movie be saying? There were some weird elements to Promising Young Woman as well, and they are certainly here, too. The underlying logic (assuming there is one) is hard to parse. In Saltburn, it is never clear whether Oliver or the aristocrats are the bad guys. We can only assume that Oliver, murdering the aristocrats, is the bad guy, yet how do we know he isn't a rebelling oppressed worker who's just casting off the yoke of the corrupt rich elite? But we don't. The movie isn't clear on this. Is Oliver just a gold-digger, or is he a revolutionary? Does the writer/director even know? That's what I'd like to know!

Falkehjerte (1999)

Very nice children's movie

[6/10 · 14 December 2023]

I watched Falkehjerte to see if it would be appropriate for my 11-year-old niece. After a slightly dull start, the movie began drawing me into its airy and light-hearted narrative. The Falcon aspect is sort of just a frame for a story of how a different culture is more stimulating to this kind of nerdy girl than her home life, where both of her parents are too busy to take care of her. It's sort of a fantasy movie, a dreamlike journey of boarding a parked truck in Denmark to seek shelter for the rain, and then waking up the next morning in a coastal town in Italy. Here, Katja is caught up in the local kids' gangs (incl. Some young mafioso!), and grow to have a life of friendship with them, until she has to get home to her parents, who after all miss her. The movie is a meditation on dreaming of belonging, in more exciting surroundings than a mind-numbingly boring modern suburban one with parents that are far too busy to stop and smell the flowers. It's well-made in every way, and the only reason I'm not giving it a higher rating is because I'm not exactly the target audience.

Don't listen to the other review here, from 2007 - it's clearly written by the kind of person who only rates movies 1 or 10 and doesn't see the nuance in between.

Before I Fall (2017)

Didn't make sense

[6/10 · 29 November 2023]

Fairly well-produced movie, and nice performances. Kudos for featuring an almost exclusively female cast with my male self not even noticing until someone else's user review pointed it out after the fact! Clichéd but engaging movie.

Unfortunately, it made very little sense. My main objection while watching it was that Sam kept prioritizing her boyfriends over attending to Juliet at the party. How could she relive that day over and over without ever addressing the Juliet suicide until many weeks later?! It's seriously daft. My main objection after having finished the movie was: why was SAM the one who had to sacrifice herself? What did she have to pay for? It should have been Lindsey giving her life! And the whole wetting the bed thing was never brought up for Lindsey to deal with and apologize for. In fact, Lindsey should have been the main character. Someone messed up who finally realized she had to atone. But nah. Let's heap it all on poor, innocent Sam! So you just sit there at the end going WTF?? Not exactly a wholesome and well-rounded story.

Zero Tolerance (I) (2015)

But WHO blew up the coffee maker???

[4/10 · 19 November 2023]

Well. Hardly any Scott Adkins, hardly any Gary Daniels, as good as no martial arts, and a plot that makes virtually no sense. A girl is murdered, and several people who know how but won't say are killed by her angry father. Turns out at the end that she wasn't murdered, but just OD'ed. So WHY did those who knew about it choose to die rather than just tell her dad that she OD'ed? Makes NO sense at all!

What bothered me the most, though, was that the people who were with her when she OD'ed got blown up by a bomb-rigged coffee machine (I kid you not!) long before we knew what their part in the girl's death was. And the movie NEVER tells us who rigged that coffee machine!!! Jesus H. Christ! I suppose it could have been either Sammy, Steven or the noodle girl, but we don't hear anything about it! Gah.

Otherwise I thought it was a fairly decent movie with fairly decent acting, but, man, the story needed a LOT of work to pass muster. I doubt I'll ever watch it again unless it's to show people how bad it is.

9 1/2 Ninjas! (1991)

Why do people not understand intentional comedy?

[6/10 · 18 November 2023]

Really, a rating of 2.5...?! That's absurd. This is not a BAD movie; this is a fully self-aware martial arts spoof of the exact kind that I've actually been looking for for a long time! The first two thirds of this movie had me chuckling throughout, quite thoroughly enjoying it. I'd have given it a clean 7 star rating if it weren't because the humor wore thin in the last third of the movie, becoming strained and annoying. A shame, but still fantastic fun if you love martial arts movies and can see how easy they are to parody. A polka dot "Wonder Ninja"? A ninja pillow fight? This is hilarious! Milking a number of cliches for all they're worth, and hamming it up in the execution. Overall, this was NOT BAD! As I was looking at this movie in the second-hand shop, weighing whether I should get it or not, I thought it would probably be really bad, but it was a very positive surprise and I'm glad I got the DVD. I'll never part with it; it is a small gem. No joke, folks. If you love kung fu movies, this is a real pearl.

The Royal Hotel (2023)

Guess this movie only found a rotten audience...

[7/10 · 31 October 2023]

Someone said recently that audiences were more appreciative of good movies 50 years ago, and (by implication) that current audiences don't know quality when they see it. Jesus H. Christ, when seeing the user reviews here that is really and starkly borne out!

This is a perfectly well-made and often chilling drama about toxic masculinity; a realistic portrayal of how things can veer off-track for anybody; a well-acted and believable depiction of culture shock and the psychological problems of isolation and weltschmerz.

Yet most of the reviewers here clearly weren't prepared for this type of movie, and clearly wanted something very different. Well, why did you watch this, you bleedin' nincompoops? Why didn't you turn it off after half an hour? Why did you even bother to write a review? That's on you, peeps. Get better at picking your content.

Hamlet (2018 TV Movie)

Not great

[6/10 · 31 October 2023]

Kudos to the BBC for attempting an almost full-text version of Hamlet, but... it's a shame they don't follow through on it. There are various textual changes and additions which only serve to undermine the quality of the play. Stick to Shakespeare, for Pete's sake.

The production has good things (most notably the always professional Juliet Stephenson); a few scenes are well-done, and overall it's certainly watchable. But its greatest weakness is Andrew Scott. He is a very weird Hamlet. Hamlet must, generally, seem intelligent, assertive, confident, except in certain scenes - but Scott's way of playing him is flailing, chaotic, confused and strangely soft and quiet, which is not in character for Hamlet. The worst is all the soliloquies, which sound slow and clueless, spoken in an inconsequential low style that robs them of all sophistication and fascination. Scott doesn't seem to know what he is doing/saying. Which is disastrous; an actor should be able to at least pretend to know what his character is about. Maybe this is just Andrew Scott's acting style, but... it didn't work for me.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

Ridiculously underrated

[10/10 · 12 July 2023]

I'm surprised there seems to be nobody but me who consider this movie a totally top-notch, off-the-scale, sci-fi, comic book blow-out!! This is a big budget ultra-crazy action comedy which is EXACTLY like a proper James Bond movie is supposed to be (but never was!), and far, far better than the G. I. Joe comics ever were! This is one of the greatest action epics and brilliant blockbuster achievements of the 21st century so far, and apparently almost nobody can see it!! Insane!!

P. S. I know my tone can sound like I'm actually being ironic - But. I. Am. Not. Not one bit. I love this movie; it's a definite favorite. I was totally disappointed by its sequel, and I can't imagine any upcoming G. I. Joe movie will reach the same level of excellence. That mediocre Snake Eyes movie certainly failed hard to do so.

You People (2023)

Not great, not bad - but pretty good

[7/10 · 28 January 2023]

I'm pretty amazed to see so many down-putting reviews here, almost none of them above a 5. Wow. Several people say that this is trying to be a remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, but it's not. It's more of a remake of The Jerk. Racial co-existence is a touchy subject, and I challenge anybody to do a better job of it than this movie - in this cultural climate. Be honest, that would be extremely hard.

I am actually not a fan of Jonah Hill; his style of comedy is far too vulgar for me, but while this movie started out not being very good, I felt it got funnier and funnier as it progressed, and I liked the climax, which was more than just your usual "cold feet at the last minute" thing; it was actually saying something about how families really matter to two people's relationship, as well as about the cultural conflicts in the world today.

Sure, the movie also had clichés and stupid things; that's why it only gets as high as a 7. But I do feel it deserves a 7.

I don't get the thing with the red hoodie, though. Is it offensive to wear a red hoodie among black people? Guess I'll have to google it.

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

Triangle of sadness: slow, heavy-handed and with a botched ending

[6/10 · 2 October 2022]

Ten days after its opening here in Denmark, this movie is still playing to packed theatres, so apparently many people like it. It also has a pretty high rating, but I fear it will go down.

I am an anti-capitalist myself, so I appreciated what this movie was trying to do, which is to use ham-fisted symbolism to problematize and criticize capitalism. There were some good scenes, mainly during the captain's dinner scene, but unfortunately I just don't think Östlund is much of an accomplished writer or director. Throughout this movie I was bored - esp. By the slowness, which is really unforgivable. Very little really happened in this movie in terms of plot, and it took forever to get to the meatier parts. For a comedy, it also wasn't much fun. 2-3 laughs, tops. Comic timing wasn't good. The political message of the movie was also so heavy-handed that it can hardly be called art; it's more of a didactic tract. At 2 hours and 30 minutes, the movie is far, far, faaar too long - an entire hour could easily be cut.

The length is a particular sin because of the movie's infuriatingly terrible ending, which is sudden and nonsensical, making the audience feel like we've only gotten half of the story. That ending, which cut off the plot, leaving it unresolved, cost this movie a whole star in my rating. Endings are hard, granted - but this is the ending of a writer/director who really doesn't know how to structure a story. As a result, the movie only gets a slightly above average rating - 6 stars out of 10 - from me. A disappointment.

Death Defying Acts (2007)

Well, I was amazed!

[9/10 · 15 August 2022]

This movie is another example of how IMDb ratings can't be trusted (this currently has a 5.8/10). It is fantastic! Low-key, but with absolutely marvelous performances from the four leads. Strong and engaging story, based on real events; appealing characters; just a great and captivating story. I particularly loved the way the movie showed the impact of the events on Benji as much as on her mother. Great screenplay, wonderfully realized. I will definitely look for the other work of this director.

Guy Pearce didn't have to BE Harry Houdini; he just had to be a charismatic version of himself, and that he was. This is what a good actor can do and should be appreciated for.

The Worst Person in the World (2021)

The worst person in the world is YOU, you judgmental bastards!

[5/10 · 16 June 2022]

I have to laugh about many of the reviews here. But let me clarify my own impression of the movie before explaining why.

I thought it was dull as dishwater. The audience is a fly on the wall in the lives of some completely ordinary, everyday people. Who do normal things we've all seen before; things that in many ways are clichés. I generally prefer genre movies, sci-fi and that sort of thing, and rarely watch social-realism or straight drama, because it doesn't do anything for me. Realism is not progressive; almost all other genres actually are. They show you something new and extraordinary; something that forces you to think outside the establishment box.

Anyway, I wanted to see this movie because of the title, which is quite dramatic. What deranged acts might the worst person in the world think of?! But to me, off-hand, the title is a joke. Based off a throw-away comment by the Eivind character. It's interesting and surprising to me that many audiences apparently deeply dislike Julie, and consider her to be the person referred to in the title. To me, she was a perfectly normal person, like the others a product of postmodern bourgeois society: confused and rootless, but also free and playful, intoxicated with the privilege of a thousand different possible life choices. Where others apparently see her as intensely selfish, I see her as trying to find herself; to be her own person, not just defined by her men or her society. The movie doesn't judge her. But clearly, many in the audience do! Maybe this movie is really about making the viewers examine their own morals and mores?

So, frankly, people - you should consider whether the title of the movie actually refers to the over-judgmental members of the audience! Women who find Julie selfish, I would think, are women who are very traditional and give enormously of themselves to their life partner(s), having internalized the idea that this is the normal and proper thing. You know, commitment!! And in many cases it is - but not in all cases. Can a woman not be allowed some autonomy just because she isn't as traditional as you?! I find that reaction quite shocking. As in shockingly conservative and judgmental. Maybe the intention of this movie is to make the audience take a long hard look at themselves?

Deux heures moins le quart avant Jésus-Christ (1982)

Entertaining, but unfunny

[6/10 · 15 January 2022]

Yikes! Well. When I discovered that there was a kind of French parallel to "Life of Brian" (and quite big-budget!), I wildly wanted to see it and ordered the Blu-ray straightaway (it has English subtitles). One of the many things that work against this movie (at least for those of us who aren't French) is its title, which is long, very hard to remember, and just as hard to spell.

Another thing is that this is not a religious satire at all, but just a comedy spoof of the old "Cleopatra" movie, mixed in with a lot of elements from Asterix. Quite possibly, this is funny for a French audience, but to anyone else, its extreme Frenchness works against it. Back in Roman days (or was it the Renaissance?), gay themes were ridiculed as "Greek love", but today, based on this and other movies, gay themes are very, very French. After seeing this, I suddenly understand all the references to French gayness in the Blackadder New Year's Special: Back and Forth. This cringiness is another reason that this movie has been buried by the collective memory of the international community, although it has to be said that it could get a renaissance in the post-metoo world. But to heteros, this is not the kind of movie you show to your male friends!

The sad fact of the matter is that, while it held my attention, this movie just wasn't very funny. I laughed maybe two or three times in it. And I watch a lot of foreign movies and am very open to them. So in that sense it was a disappointment, but, on the other hand, it is very bizarre and relatively big-budget, and as such I was fascinated by the fact that it exists in the world. It was thought-provoking in terms of cinematic history, and in terms of cinematic weirdness.

The Power of the Dog (2021)

Hilariously low-key

[5/10 · 12 January 2022]

The British have a term that applies well here, in my opinion: "A bit rubbish." This movie was "a bit" a lot, or rather, a lot of "a bit"! Here's what happened: This guy, Phil, is a bit too dependent on his brother. So when the brother finds a wife, Phil behaves a little bit nasty towards her. But then he gets a little bit nice towards her young son, and then the son, who was a bit along in his medical studies, kills Phil in a clever way and gets away with it - because Phil was a bit nasty to his mother.

And, um, that's it. I found this movie incredibly dull. Well-acted, sure, but the story and the reactions were just... petty. Insubstantial, undramatic, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, nothing major of any kind. Super-damn-DULL! And oh how it would have benefitted from being 30 min. Shorter!! Gah.

It's not that the story didn't have potential. With a more dramatic way of presenting things, so it felt like it mattered, it could have been okay.

Frozen II (2019)

Fascinating beauty and great story

[9/10 · 29 December 2021]

Wow, I am amazed at all the people who dislike this movie, even rating it a 1/10! That's hilariously idiotic and ridiculous. Frozen II is actually better than the first. There is so much substance in this story. Besides being about growing up, it actually has a radical political and post-colonial subtext that's fairly rare in Disney movies: the need to set the past right and atone for the sins of the previous generations. Destroying the dam to threaten Arendelle symbolizes the destruction of systemic racism, exploitation, patricarchy, etc., and Arendelle is only saved in the end by the magic of the indigenous world (embodied in Elsa), representing a forgiveness and union that will preserve a Western society that truly repents. Sure, this is wokeness, but for those who are still slumbering, that's a good thing. A great and right thing. The next right thing to do. Disney really impressed me here, and I'm sure this movie will go down in history as pretty darn great.

The Red Pill (2016)

A bit overrated and misleading...

[7/10 · 8 November 2021]

This is a quite good documentary - I was totally absorbed by it throughout its running time. It seems to go into some subjects in rather more nuance than we on the progressive left usually do. No, not all women are perfect, and yes, feminists sometimes don't do their homework about the events they protest about (or they apply their own logic to explain a situation they haven't looked properly into, but just react to on their own prejudiced premise). And yes, there is a problem with some men's issues that are not being addressed because society is still too toxically masculine to acknowledge such problems, and because the feminist agenda makes for more dramatic and outrageous news stories.

But, what is presented in this documentary, while somewhat shocking, is just not altogether true. The statistics about domestic violence are wildly disputed by various researchers - all you have to do is read up on it on Wikipedia! Although some male violence happens in disproportionately forceful (sometimes lethal) response to female-initiated violence, the vast majority of victims worldwide are certainly women, while the vast majority of perpetrators are men. Some statistics muddle the issue by not giving a proper picture of different social groups and different cultures, and by and large it is still women who are overwhelmingly the victims. So, as others have said in these user comments, trying to equate men's rights with women's rights, and how such rights are violated, is just not in the same ballpark at all, and just two completely different subjects.

One way of illustrating this is to reference Eleanor Roosevelt's interesting quote: "Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas." Personally, I have found this quote to be enormously true and helpful. The men's rights activists in this documentary are not motivated by social justice but by their own, unfortunate personal history. They've had some really bad luck, and yes, they deserve compassion and perhaps some degree of redress, BUT, they are talking about their own situations and not truly something systemic. Because of their personal experiences, they THINK that their problems are systemic, but that is not the case. They're just a few people who've had very bad luck. Their situation is not at all comparable to the issues involved in women's rights, which truly ARE systemic. The MRAs are small minds discussing people, while feminists in general are greater minds discussing ideas (and trying to do something about real injustices). Feminists are motivated by the great scopes of history, and by the universal plights of women across the world, who are still oppressed and silenced in so many ways. Women's rights is a real and global issue - men's "rights" really isn't. The MRAs, ultimately, are just jealous that women's rights are getting a lot of attention, and they seem to be blaming women for the lack of attention to these men's plight. The film portrays feminism as the side that won't meet the MRAs on common ground, but it's very much both. What the MRAs completely fail to grasp is that the cause of their problems are societal, and created entirely by the ruling elite. Instead of blaming women, or just comparing "men's right" with women's rights as if both were equally worthy, these men should resist their capitalist overlords. By choosing to focus on an alleged over-emphasis on women's rights, the MRAs are just being useful idiots to the people who created their problems. Which is the usual problem with ignorant Americans; they are so brainwashed against the left that they can't or won't blame the real and perpetual cause of their misfortune: the extreme right.

So when this director, in the course of making the film, moved from being a feminist to being, well, NOT a feminist, she moved in an anti-progressive direction. She moved from a rational, well-evidenced perspective to an emotional one based on the personal experiences of a very few ideologically and intellectually naive men. Sure, they have some interesting and thought-provoking points, also the Honey Badgers about Boko Haram (which are a bunch of murderers, but actually often spare women, putting the lie to the "misogynist" way the narrative was spun by the media). And from the way things are presented in the documentary, the director's change of heart is understandable. But it is way out of proportion with reality and hence with reality-oriented morals, and it is ignorant and misguided, based on a few emotional exceptions to the real and extant rule. Don't be fooled, folks.

Foundation: Death and the Maiden (2021) Season 1, Episode 6

Most of this has nothing to do with the Foundation. It's a horrible adaptation.

[4/10 · 22 October 2021]

So now Demerzel the robot is RELIGIOUS?! D'oh! There goes one of the major messages of the books, that the robots represent the progressive power of science and technology. There's really nothing left in this show of any of Asimov's points, plot or characters. It's a nice-looking show, but as a Foundation adaptation, it's the worst kind of corrupt crap! Filled with totally un-Asimovian ideas, which the writers obviously think, highly erroneously, are better than Asimov's. It's the very definition of a travesty.

Intergalactic: Episode #1.1 (2021) Season 1, Episode 1

Lovely production values; a shame about the story

[5/10 · 5 May 2021]

Good-looking show with really nice effects. However, the story sounds like it's written by teenagers. There is an almost complete lack of character depth and interesting, meaningful plot. Even for people like myself, who devour any and all sci-fi they can get their hands on, the story here is disappointingly dull and unimpressive. It makes a similar mistake that Star Trek: Discovery also makes: it thinks that politically correct and woke elements can somehow replace actual plot content and ideas. I don't usually complain about this, because I consider myself reasonably woke and progressive, and support people of color and better representation - but if there's no actual good ideas in the story, then all that's left is a bit of too-obvious preaching. Wokeness in itself isn't quality storytelling. It's incredible to me that so many TV producers are making this sort of mistake. Why don't they employ proper writers and editors? It's not that hard.

Disconnect (I) (2012)

Unwatchably sordid

[1/10 · 13 April 2021]

TWICE I've tried to watch this movie, as I like a lot of the actors in it. Twice I've had to turn it off after a few minutes because it's all about the lowest forms of vulgarity. Haha, let's make a stranger drink urine. Haha, would you sleep with a stinking homeless person for a million dollars? Such things are so tasteless and disgusting that it makes this movie offensively bad and completely unwatchable. Is this an attempt at realism or it s it a screenwriter wallowing in the worst kinds of immature sleaze? Gives the term "low culture" a whole new meaning... Jeez.

7.5 stars on IMDb? People's taste is abysmal.