Force Watch: Star Wars Episode 3 vs Episode 6

Kmac:

A long time ago, in the galaxy we live in, a young girl watched the ending to a trilogy that would become a huge part of her life. I might as well dive right in and lay my nerd cards on the table because for me Star Wars will always be the version that came out in the 70’s. For this week's Force Watch Jmac got the pleasure of watching the last episode of the true trilogy, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. I however got to watch the last episode of the prequels, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I have no intention of eviscerating this movie, as it is part of my nerd lineage, but I have several issues with the movie that have intensified over time as the newness of the movie wore off. This feels like a place for bullet points so I will dive right in.

The Good Side of the Force:

* Any Star Wars is better than no Star Wars, Phantom Menace excepted, and being around other fans will always make the experience better. I waited around the theater for the midnight showing when this came out and you could feel the energy from the crowd as the theme started. That community spirit was even evidence on my own couch as Jmac and I both smiled and sat up straighter as the opening rolled. We proceeded to debate the movie, point out callbacks to the original, and get excited for our favorite scenes. Watching Star Wars with a new comer requires a slow dolling out of your geekiness, grab a veteran and you can let your nerd flag fly.

* The callbacks to the original films is my favorite part of this movie. They recreated the set of Princess Leia’s ship and added a tangible element I find most of the movie lacks. I enjoy seeing how the Emperor turns into the scar ridden, gravely voiced villain that always scared me more than Darth Vader. The movie was full of little tie ins, such as the introduction of the Emperor's red guard that would go unnoticed to the unobsessed. There is also a scene at the end on Tatooine looking out at the two suns and playing the Tatooine theme music that provides a perfect bridge to A New Hope.  I almost wish this was the only prequel made just for the purpose of filling in back story. Shove the Boba Fett storyline in at the beginning. Have Anakin just meet up with Padme and skip the part where she meets him as a child, because that always bugged me, and volia you skip so much of the hate lovers of the true Star Wars have thrown towards the new movie.

* The battle on the lava planet, yes Jmac I know it has a name and no I don’t care to learn it, between Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi was genuinely exciting. This was the battle between good and evil that I was looking for the rest of the movies. While I like tush kicking Yoda, I still miss the puppet, and it’s great to see the Wookies, this is the battle of the new series.

* As always I have nothing bad to say about a John Williams score. It makes the movie so much that by the end when I hear strains of the old score I get emotional. That score is tied to my childhood when my Daddy first introduced me to these movies that were so special to him. It was the first movie I ever saw by myself in theaters. Jmac and I cuddled up to watch Star Wars on our first at home date. I get misty when I talk about Star Wars because it has meant so much to me, and music is the trigger thats starts the water works.

* The aliens from the Trade Federation die in this one. I know this is supposed to be about positives but it really is a good thing. The constant yammering on in the first two movies about trade federation politics turned Star Wars into Cspan. I go to the movies to see duels, heros, and romance, not to see NAFTA negotiations. It felt good to watch a drain on the series go down, may they rest in alien trade federation heaven.

The Dark Side:

* I don’t feel like I can touch anything in this movie. Jmac likes to point out the advances in technology since then but the fact remains that when they did build sets in this movie I was interested and when it was clearly nothing but CGI I checked out. I’m not saying that everyone has to love the filmed scaled models of the original, though to be fair Jmac didn’t realize they were models so point original trilogy, but there needs to be some balance to the force, I mean CGI. To harp on a well established point I feel the director at the helm of another trilogy, Peter Jackson, captures the balance well in building sets when he can and when he can’t using sets for the close ups and leaving the background to CGI. It is why I was so upset with the remastered versions of the original trilogy, besides losing the ewok song at the end of Jedi, is that they took cities that were built sets and set CGI on top of them, thus failing the can I touch it test.

* I feel like taking a swipe at the dialogue is almost cliche at this point but fair is fair and this was pretty bad. I’m not going to argue the original trilogy was any better, you should really do a reading of it sometime as it is hilarious, but this dialogue coupled with the characterization makes it feel ten times worse. My Daddy and I were trying to put our finger on exactly why in the aftermath of this movies release we had been excited in the theater but didn’t love the movie. He settled on the lack of heart and I think that is exactly why this movie fails for me. This trilogy didn’t make me care about any of the characters. It was like we were supposed to import our feelings for the characters in the original series over to these movies and it got lost. Sure this was a dark tale and not a hero’s journey but I never cared enough about Anakin to be sad about his downfall. Acting, writing, and staging all went into creating a world that felt sterile. It wanted you to care about the fancy visuals and expansive worlds at the expense of the characters that inhabited them. These are not characters that stick with you when you leave the theater. I saw it, was excited, and then left.

I’m glad we picked Star Wars for this week's Force Watch. This is not a bad movie to sit through and we got some fun debates out of it. Ultimately though when I tell you I’m a Star Wars nerd don’t talk pod races to me. To win my heart is to know that when I say I love you, the correct response is “I know.”

I give Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 3.5 out of 5 Jedi’s left in the universe.

For the record my order from greatest to least is: Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, the one where they date on Naboo, and the one that shall not be named.  

Jmac: So I picked Revenge of the Sith because I feel that it not only binds the two, soon to be three trilogies together, but it shows why Darth Vader is such a jerk right off the bat in episode 4. I mean we really have no back story to show why hes a dick... we just have to trust that he is really an evil guy, who actually turns out to be a very complex character with emotions all over the place (especially with Hayden Christensen’s whinny acting). From there we also see why Darth Vader turns on the emperor in Episode 6, and its not because the emperor is force lighting the crap out of Luke, its because he was betrayed by the emperor back in Episode 3 when he couldn't save Padme like the emperor said he would teach him to do. Why would Darth Vader care about his long lost son that he has only met a few times, and who is actively trying to mess up everything that Darth Vader has been working on pretty much all his life.

Ok so about Episode 6:

* I have no idea why anyone finds Carrie Fisher good looking, Adriana Lima in the same slave bikini looks good, but not Carrie Fisher.

* What is the matter with Lucas, who knows about them being siblings, and still making Luke and Leia kiss.... the guy is messed up.

* Why is it that force choke and force lighting are only Sith tricks, but Jedis use force mind tricks, I mean which one is really the more sinister thing, knowing someone is coming at you and who is doing it, or having your brain messed with and you don't know its happening or who is doing it... the Jedis are the evil on that particular bit.... its not honorable

* If you have the majority of you resources put into a huge planet or moon sized base, why in hell would you only have one shield generator on a planet full of little bears that hate you... also with what seems like infinite resources there should have been a whole lot more troops loitering about on Endor, its just stupid. If you Emperor is supposed to be this super smart conniving guy then he should have thought of that, or at the very least his admirals should have so they don't get force choked out

* So they blow up the death star and there's this massive celebration, now what.... there's like a thousand Star Destroyers still hanging out throughout the galaxy, it doesn't make sense. Also its not like force powers was the thing building the Death Star, clones were, and if they built it twice, they can build it again.

So as much as I loved my Ewok village play-set from childhood, Episode 6 always felt like a cop-out to me, its essentially the same big ending. If they blew up the Death Star Mark 1 in Episode 4, why was there not a huge party like in the end of Episode 6, its not like all those different worlds knew the Emperor was actually dead, its not like the Sith are not cunning folks.

I give Episode 6: Return of the Jedi 2.6 poorly planned military strategies out of 5.

My breakdown of best to worst episodes is: 3, 6, 5, 2, 4, 1.... no one likes Jar Jar binks (and its just plain racist..... super racist..... {whispered} super racist) 

PS this is the best thing in the entire Star Wars Universe.

Force Watch: The Baby Sitter's Club/Lethal Weapon 1

Jmac:

So we watched The Baby Sitter’s Club from the 90s because Kmac wanted to hear my smart ass comments about it while we were watching it. She is supposed to post my funniest impressions in her post.

The Baby Sitter’s Club was silly, just plain silly. I feel bad for all the dads that had to sit through it back in the day. The only thing that made it bearable was playing the ‘hey what's that chick’s name, I've seen her in something?’ and the ‘will they be hot when they grow up’ game. Answer 60% of them are, and coincidentally the bad guy girl in the Baby Sitter’s Club is the bad guy girl in Sugar and Spice from last week’s Force Watch. I hope this is not becoming a trend.... I can't take much more.

Anyway the movie follows a group of girls, that laugh, then cry, then argue, then cry some more, then supposedly learn something meaningful about life, then laugh, and then cry again.... all while rearing the next generation in the same shenanigans. Silly silly girls. I really had a hard time finding the nugget of the story, or what was the driving force.... I still don't know. Some chick who tucks her shirts into her boxers.... that’s right into her boxers, because she is suuuccchhh a Tomboy and has to prove it to everyone, has her deadbeat dad show back up and this causes stress between her and everyone she knows, because he doesn't want her to tell people he's back. This while the girls are trying to fix up a greenhouse for a new office, which I guess is the driving force of the movie... I don't know. Of course in the end everything works out for everyone, because this is America Dammit!! and everything always works out in ‘Merica.

I was soooo bored, and please God don't let me have girls.... I don't understand them at all.

I give it 2.3 girls yelling at others while crying when its their fault out of 5.

Kmac:

Regardless of what Jmac kept telling me, I had seen Lethal Weapon. I didn’t care for it because it is one of the quintessential 80’s action movies...and I just do not do action movies. This movie has the good cop, who is too old for these shenanigans, and the bad cop, who is just straight unhinged. They fight various crimes while solving a bigger mystery and because it is the 80’s there is cocaine and boobs everywhere. Hmmm... I wonder why I didn’t like this movie.

I’ll give the movie this in that it has its funny moments. Mel Gibson’s brand of crazy has always been funny to me in movies. His real life crazy is a whole other ball of wax. In one scene Mel Gibson calmly walks through a hail of bullets with a cigarette dangling from his lips as if it was a regular day. He catches the bad guy and we all have a laugh at the crazy man defying the laws of probability.

I wish I had more to say about this movie but is a genre that has been redone over and over. If you like the modern buddy cop movie you will like its ancestor. If you don’t like the buddy cop movie then you may want to rent The Breakfast Club and enjoy a true 80’s classic.

I give this movie 2 out of 5 criminals who are terrible shots.

*** I will be gathering up Jmac’s witticisms for their own post later tonight. When he gets ranting, he just goes on and on. 

Force Watch: Simpsons: Much Apu About Nothing/ Halo Legends Origins Part I and II

Jmac:

So since we have had a lot going on lately we decided to make the Force Watch around 30 minutes. I picked Halo Legends Origins and Kmac picked a random episode from the Simpson’s early seasons. ‘Much Apu About Nothing’ just so happens to tie into the newest 4th of July release on the ‘Simpsons Tapped out’ game that we both play on our phones.

Much Apu About Nothing is about Apu gaining his citizenship after sensationalized news stories and usual Simpsons rabble rousing causes immigrants to be blamed for increased taxes...... hey that sounds exactly like what's happening right now in America with the whole “No Amnesty” “We hate any immigrants...(even though we won't pick our own fruit, and the ones that get in legally are generally much more intelligent than the bigots)”

Anyway I digress, Homer attempts to teach Apu about America so he will pass his citizenship test, and Homer like many simpletons in America completely has no idea about real US history.

Its a pretty funny episode, but the Right is more the brunt of the jokes, so its a more liberal Simpsons episode.

I give it 4.6 star spangled Ganeshas out of 5.

Kmac:

I used to watch Jmac play Halo after Geology class in college, or rather I used to nap while he played Halo after Geology class in college. Either way I was familiar enough with the game to know the main character, Master Chief, and that he communicated with a hologram. Oh, and there are aliens. Jmac has tried to get me to watch the Halo Origins before and now that he had a captive audience, he wanted me to  appreciate the backstory of his game.

I can’t say that I care more about the game now, but the two part cartoon series was not terrible. I enjoy history stories even if they are fake and I didn’t find knowledge about any other part of the series was at all necessary. The Halo Origins story speaks to the cyclical nature of history. In this universe many different races are threatened by an outside force and create super weapons, Halos, to destroy the evil and repopulate the planets. Because the weapons wipe out the intelligent beings, the different races are left to rebuild the knowledge base that made the weapons possible in the first place. I could care less about the other alien races but I thought the idea of man’s journey was interesting.

The origins story compares war to a virus that we are never able to shake. That we fight each other until there is a bigger threat and that once the bigger threat is gone we resume what we were doing. I kept trying to get Jmac to talk about these ideas with our own history. The story also speaks to man’s desire to explore first our world and then the stars. Again I wanted to talk about our own history. So I enjoyed the story by being a history nerd but I can’t say that it made me want to play the game.

I would say this is worth the twenty minute watch on youtube for the ideas it presents in relation to our actual history. The animation is well done and the voice acting is good. You don’t have to care about the game to enjoy this short.

I give Halo Origins 3 out of 5 existential questions.

Force Watch: The Pacific/Sugar and Spice

Kmac:  

This little experiment of ours in reviewing movies has brought out some repeating themes. I knew I had a type when it came to movies and things I watched out for but as I write these I realise some themes come back time and again. A big one is my general distaste for violence in movies. When I find a movie that is so good I look past the violence it is the exception and not the rule. I majored in History and so historical movies can either be done well or not but they hold few surprises. I knew that the Pacific was a horrifically violent theater of war in World War II. I knew that if the historical footage was hard for me to watch a more vivid recreation would be just as hard. I also knew I should watch it anyways, at least once.

My take on historical war dramas is usually the watch it once approach. I almost feel I owe it to the people who gave their lives not to turn away from the horrors they faced but be appreciative that they faced them. When Band of Brothers came out about the Eastern theatre in World War II I took this approach and to my surprise have watched it over and over again. The violence was no easier to watch, and granted I watch the non fighting episodes more than the others, but it was so well written and filmed that I keep coming back to it when I need to feel good about my country. The Pacific was produced by Steven Spielberg as well and while I’m glad I watched it I do not think I will be coming back to it the same way.

The Pacific was always going to have a different feel in that the war in the Pacific was different than the one in Europe fundamentally. The war in Europe was more what we expect when we envision war, two armies marching from opposite sides, exchanging fire, fortifying positions. The war in the Pacific is almost claustrophobic. Tiny islands of great value, men entrenched not in trenches but in caves and holes. It also was deadlier and these casualties are concentrated in small areas. The men’s eyes are more hollow, as it should be, but is incredibly difficult to watch.

The acting in this movie is great. The action follows three main characters so it is easier to get to know each one individually and see how the war changes them as it progresses. By the end of the series when the fighting stops you can breath again but you can still see the weight these men will continue to carry around. The actors do an excellent job of showing this to you.

Just watch this series. Force yourself if you have to. Don’t try and compare it to Band of Brothers because it is like apples and oranges. You will be glad you watched  in the end. I give The Pacific 4.5 out of 5 VJ Day celebrations.  

Jmac:

Ok so Kmac said she wanted to watch ‘Sugar and Spice’, and I really didn't want to and had given her the choice between ‘Generation Kill’ or ‘The Pacific’. So then she gave me the option of ‘Sugar and Spice’ or ‘Sister Act 1’, which we then started watching. About thirty minutes into it I could not take Whoopi Goldberg’s crappy acting, which I remembered was a big part of what I hated about Nickelodeon, I don't know why anyone ever though she could be a role model for children. So then we put in ‘Sugar and Spice’.

Sugar and Spice was actually much better than I had recalled it being. It has several actors that should be easily recognized if you have seen any 90s movie.

The plot centers around a squad of cheerleaders that decide to rob a bank for one reason or another, and all the hijinks that go into getting ready for the heist. One girl is knocked up, another needs to pay for Harvard, and another not in the squad just wants to be included, and serves as the narrator of the movie.

I give it 3.9 double twisting back flip dismounts out of 5.

Force Watch: Hostel Part 1 and The Secret Garden

Kmac:

So part of why Force Watch is late this week is that I was really dragging my feet about watching Hostel. I have had a non negotiable ban on horror movies since a particularly traumatizing run during my Middle School years at slumber parties. I figured that Hostel would be nothing but gratuitous nudity, gratuitous violence, and that I wouldn’t sleep for a week. Two out of Three.

The nudity in this movie is insane. For the first hour or so there is no violence. I’m not prudish but the amount of boobs were senseless. And they were always there lurking in the background even if not the focus of the scene. That is the real stalker of this movie. I’m surprised I didn’t have nightmare about two double D’s following me everywhere. I imagine even teenage boys have to be like, “ehh it’s a little much.”

The violence actually didn’t bother me. Maybe it seems faker as an adult. Possibly it lacks the scream actor of a room full of thirteen year old girls. Or maybe I am just getting desensitized to movie violence. The action takes place inside a Hostel in Bratislava that caters to business men wanting a “The Most Dangerous Game” experience without the hunt. I guess the draw is that you get to watch how people chose to torture each other. I don’t get it. This did help add fuel to my Eastern Europe will definitely kill you argument. If you like gore with no substance then this might be for you. But if you are expecting legitimate scares this will leave you cold.

I give this movie 1 out of 5 for the escape sequence that made me care about the movie for about five minutes.

**Here is a tip: If you want a movie about crazy kids backpacking across the pond rent Eurotrip. It is a comedy and a vastly superior movie.  

Jmac:

The Secret Garden was ok I guess... I felt it was entirely too slow to hold modern child audiences... maybe that says something about our times. That being said, while I had seen it before as a kid, it was not the utter bore that I thought it would be as an adult... at least until the end.. it tends to slow down a bit.

The true star of the movie is the garden itself with its seemingly magical ability to bring together would be enemies and reunite torn families. I was far more interested in the plants and animals in the garden than the characters themselves... though the girl grows up to be pretty good looking... not that big of an acting career thought.

The movie in typical 90’s fashion tries to teach the viewer about things such as whick.. which I was always told was quick (the green in a plant's stem or branch to show that although it appears dead it is still alive, waiting to bloom).

The story follows that of a little now semi aristocratic girl who is forced to move to her uncle’s estate in England after her parent’s die in India... from what seems like an elephant stampede.. its not really clear. From her uncle’s estate she starts work on her dead aunt’s secret garden and in so doing she mends her relationship to the outside world and the relationship between her uncle and her cousin.

If not for the bits of boredom and the length of the movie I give it 3.1 bunnies somehow playing with deer out of 5.

PS: The kids should really enjoy this one if only they have the ability to sit through it.

Sorry its late.... had a lot of work for the real job.

Force Watch: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Training Day

Jmac:

Well Silly Silly Bang Bang was not as bad a I thought it would be... if you watch it like we did and fast forwarded through all the atrocious singing numbers. Man do I loath musicals.

While I know that it is written by Ian Fleming (creator of 007) and produced by Albert Broccoli (producer of the 007 movies, which is family took over after his death), I still don't care for song and dance movies, even if they are associated with this pair that brought my favorite series to the big screen. Another issue I have with it is Dick Van Dyke, man does he just have one of those faces that you know you want to smack, and you can just tell he's really the smuggest person you would ever run into. We thought about entitling this Force Watch the smackable faces Force Watch because Ethan Hawke in Training Day has one of those faces as well.

The movie supposedly follows this magical car, called Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, named because its constantly back firing, and the family of the man (Dick Van Dyke) that retooled it. They have some Benny Hill esque adventures of running around and falling down, which makes sense as Benny Hill is the Toymaker in the movie. The main driving action of the movie is in a dream or story sequence when Van Dyke tells a story about an evil Baron of Vulgaria, because they are vulgar... get it, who wants the flying car contraption. The Baron (who is the same actor as Gold Finger in the 007 movie) plays the evil, but very inept and childish Baron, who has outlawed children in his kingdom, because presumably they cause trouble... but I think it has more to do with the notion that he is the biggest child of them all and wants all the attention for himself. Well Grandpa is captured in his outhouse by the Baron and flown back to Vulgaria to create another flying car, which is the reason Van Dyke, kids, and new beau go after the Baron. When they get their they have to hide from the exteme pedofile of the Child Catcher, that probably should have been put down at the end, but the movie doesn't address it, as once Grandpa and the children (having been captured by the Child Catcher) are rescued, they all fly home...... typical British imperial attitude, once you stir up some trouble and gather you people, the new country that has just gone through major upheaval is left on its own.

One thing I could help but notice is that the car is only in about 10% of the movie, even though it is the name of the movie, and while Fleming was a British agent fighting the Nazis, the film has an extremely xenophobia towards Germanic peoples.

I give it 2.2 pedofillia acts out of 5..... Kmac who suggested the movie, even wanted to fast forward through several sections! **Kmac: In my defense I may have fudged the length of the movie to get it under the two hour Force Watch limit. When I got caught I had to trim the fat somewhere. Plus any lover of musicals know there is at least one song per film that drags. Truly Scrumptious has a lovely voice but her solo is not essential. The fair scene and the Old Bamboo has some spectacular dancing but would be lost on Jmac. I also cut the physical comedy section that is the police chase, it was time for that car to fly. I was ready to get to Vulgaria.

Kmac:

So far Jmac is giving me movies to watch that I know going in I probably won’t tear apart in my review. I knew Denzel won an Oscar for this role and while cop drama isn’t my go to genre, I can usually watch, if half heartedly. That ended up being my ultimate take on this movie. If you are a fan of the genre it is certainly good but if not the movie is not so captivating as to suck you in. For an example of a cop drama that did make you watch it  you can find my End of Watch review a few entries down.

This movie follows a day in the life of a cop, Ethan Hawke, as he seeks to join the LAPD’s narcotics unit. He is shown around by the head of the unit, Denzel Washington, who spends the day trying to show him what life is like in this unit and on the streets. The contrast between the rookie eager to do good and the veteran who embraced the gray areas of life provides the central contrast. I did enjoy Hawke’s struggle as his character dealt repeatedly with just how far he was willing to go in the line of duty and where the moral line is that if you cross it you go from one of the good guys to one of the bad. Denzel also does a good job of showing the charm and charisma of his character while slowly revealing the egotism and entitlement that has created by the end a very unlikable character. It makes you wonder when he crossed that moral line.

    Violence is almost always my first concern when Jmac picks a movie. I usually want to know on a scale of just a little eye squint to the full hands on face eye cover how gratuitous the violence will be. Thankfully this movie relies more on talking than violence to establish the story. Maybe we are too desensitized to gun violence in movies but I can handle a few shotgun blasts. The violence was necessary to the story and not just there to appease trigger happy viewers. As the movie is set in LA, where a lack of violence would have rang false, I think it was deployed well and effectively when they chose to use it.

   

    The suspense in the movie was well played. I was never sure exactly what was coming and it wasn’t as formulaic as some cop dramas. On to the negatives. I just wasn’t that engrossed by the story. Maybe it was the subject matter, maybe it was that I was still humming Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but I found myself checking the internet, checking my phone, and in general checking out of this movie. If you like this genre you will like this movie, though there is lots of cursing so heads up if that bothers you, and if your date wants to watch it the movie is pleasant enough.

I give this movie 3 out 5 rookie mistakes.

Force Watch: Dawsons Creek/Atomic Bomb Movie

So for our first installment of ‘Force Watch’ Kmac made me watch the first and last episodes of the first season of “Dawson’s Creek”….

Jmac:

So my overall impression of “Dawson’s Creek” was pretty much the same before and after watching it. That being said I guess I could see myself watching it on a boring rainy day, with a head cold, and as long as the majority of my other sources of entertainment had been burned in effigy the day before…

Like I thought, it was chock full of good ole teen angst, and enough hormones to make your cycle sync up to every episode. This type of thing I obviously don’t like. The kids go on and on about movies… which in the first episode Dawson says something like “why do always think about sex, Spielberg has never made a movie with a sex scene in it”. He says this while standing in front of a “Schindler’s List” poster which had not one but two sex scenes, maybe three I can remember, and only one of those was non-consensual. If you’re going to base a lot of character around loving movies from one director, at least get the little things right.

The show is supposed to be about teens in Connecticut, but is filmed in North Carolina, which is fine, but the social issues they try to cram into the first episode don’t match one locale or the other. So Joey lives with her sister and black husband/baby daddy, I didn’t really figure that one out in two episodes. This may work in NC, but would never work in a rich white CT beach community. The other main female lead Jen comes out as an atheist in pilot, which might work in CT but not in NC. It’s the over stuffing of social issues that killed this pilot half way through for me, just like the fat guy in Se7en.

The two main male leads Dawson and Pacey, are really the only enjoyable part, and maybe then only Pacey, even though his smugness and acting similar to the pothead kid on “Dazed and Confused”, are difficult to overlook. The two start out working at a VHS movie rental store, which really made me feel bad about the economy more than anything, because there really are no more movie rental stores like there used to be, and definitely nothing as awesome as my home town’s old YoYo’s Pizza and Video. That place was the best…. damn corporate chain stores.

One thing that I that was mildly amusing and infuriating at the same time, was the Joey eye roll counter I was keeping as I watched. You would think since she hit 14 huge eye rolls in the first episode it would difficult for her to get her eyes back down out of her head.

So I guess this series is okay, but I don’t really ever want to see it again. Its good for teens, as in not actually good for them like drinking a glass of milk every day, but good in that they would enjoy all the hormones and somehow thinking teens are super smart for contemplating the wonders of the universe in a juvenile way. While I know we all went through those stages of wonderment and all the talk of love like we actually knew what it was, it doesn’t need to be re-watched as an adult. I wish we could have just taken a pill to stop all those hormones or at least curb them back until reaching some level of maturity, but alas….

I give it 2.5 crying jags out of 5.

Kmac:

The Atomic Bomb Movie was one I knew I would never fully be able to rip into as long as it was well made. And this documentary, about the development of the atomic bomb, was very well made. My reasoning for avoiding this particular documentary for so long was the subject matter. My issue with historical war documentaries is that to show the horrors of war...they unfortunately need to show the horrors of war. This movie was not that bad in that respect. A small view of a burning body, some skeletons, and a few dead animals. Disturbing but limited. I get the importance of having these images but I don't’ want to see it. A few thoughts on the film...

The score to this movie was very good. It had the effect of creating a very unsettling Fantasia. The images of the bombs exploding set to music created a ballet of destruction.  An underwater explosion in particular had a destructive beauty. There was a real push pull to watching these scenes. On the one hand I appreciated the beauty but it was always followed with the knowledge that these weapons killed people. It made me feel guilty for getting sucked in watching the display. Which may have been a comment on the bomb itself.

As for the historic facts presented, it was more focused on imagery than explanation. I don’t believe I learned anything new from the film that I had not already picked up in other ways. However, if you know nothing of the bombs development this film may be perfect as an introduction. Enough history to teach, enough footage you don’t get bored.

The hook I was actually excited about was the inclusion of a special 3D feature. Our copy of the movie came with little glasses, the old kind with a red and blue side, that were made of cardboard and made me nostalgic in a way that had nothing to do with the movies time period. I grew up in the nineties, where for a time cartoons and television shows would hold promotions by having the nights programing in 3D. We would save up our cereal boxes to get enough pairs of the giveaway glasses and then we would all sit down as a family to watch. Now, not being a kid any more, the glasses made me kind of dizzy. Still for a few minutes these clips at the start of the nuclear age made me think about my nuclear family. It was nice.

Overall this is not a bad movie, even for people with an aversion to war documentaries. It’s well edited and scored. Someone went back and added sound effects, such as hearing the hammer if that is what a worker is doing on screen, that helped the footage feel lest detached. Unless you buy the movie it will not have the 3D feature but that is more of a novelty than any real must watch anyway. So if you have a spouse who loves war movies this may be a good selection for the both of you. Protection from nightmares not guaranteed.

   

I give this 3 out of 5 duck and covers.