Category: Film Review

Moxie: Flawed But Worthy

7/4/2021

Dang, I meant to re-post this sorta review here about a month ago.

In a nutshell, I don't particularly care for the what the Amy Poehler and the Hollywood Movie Machine did with Jennifer Mathieu's YA novel Moxie. The more I think about it, especially after I've reread the book, the more quibbles I find with the film adaptation. Nevertheless, it's worth watching, especially if it raises the consciousness of girls and young women in the US and elsewhere and encourages them to read the far superior source material.

Here's my January 2018 review of the book itself.

InterReflections: Woker Than Thou but...Fun?

19/11/2020

Arianna diMatteo as "23" in The Zeitgeist Movement's "interReflections"

Since last month's post about epic docudrama from The Zeitgeist Movement, entitled InterReflections, a post in which I expressed the hope that I would soon post a full review...well, how soon is now? Things got a little hectic as we moved full steam ahead on a collision course with Election Day. I just got around to watching the rest of the flick yesterday.

If one word describes TZM, it's woke. This is not the wokeness of identity politics and Black Lives Matter; TZM scoffs at identity politics, viewing it as just another way to divide people. This wokeness is one of understanding that the systems created by an elite few are inherently oppressive toward the masses; that the sooner we recognize our common humanity, with many of the same basic needs, and that infinite consumption is unsustainable, the sooner we will create a world of peace and plenty that works for us all.

Peter Joseph & company have assembled something far from perfect but marvelous nonetheless. I really should watch the whole film again to absorb some details I may have missed; however, for that purpose, I would prefer to watch it in one sitting, which is difficult when one cannot carve out a three-hour block of time and the Zeitgeisters throw a lot of information at you that is hard to digest all at once.

I use the word assembled with a purpose: InterReflections is three movies stitched together into one. That stitchwork feels, well, forced and artificial, reminding me painfully of the final episode of Lost. The viewer can almost forgive this because, as the three movies merge, the dialog alludes to the hokiness and semi-desperation of how it all comes together. As a novelist of a sort, I can attest that endings are the most difficult parts to write unless you begin the writing process from the ending.

"Fahrenheit 11/9" Depresses, Motivates

20/9/2018

@MMFlint's "Fahrenheit 11/9" is the punch in the gut that US liberals have needed for 25 years. Clintons & Obamas are not your saviors, folks, & they are in large part responsible for Der Drumpfenführer.
— David Bruce Collins (@dbcgreentx) September 20, 2018

"...take away our Playstations
And we are a third world nation..."
—Ani DiFranco, "Self Evident"

Hope, Emily Dickinson's "thing with feathers," is what remains perched in the soul when faith has departed. I hope that I may live to see an America that no longer needs Michael Moore.

Yes, Michael Moore disappointed Progressives everywhere two years ago by actively campaigning for Clinton/Kaine, after the DNC dissed & dismissed Bernie Sanders and alienated his delegates.

Yes, Michael Moore, as a documentarian with a political agenda, is adept at manipulating and juxtaposing images to tell stories that promote said agenda, so the results often look like a victory of style over substance.

And yes, every feature-length documentary that Michael Moore turns in gets lauded as his most important movie yet! thanks partly to the hype machine of which he is an integral part.

Moore has been producing these movies for nearly 30 years now, and I'm tired of them—not because they lack quality or because Moore himself is obnoxious or because he keeps recycling the same shtick, but because they continue to be so damn necessary. Despite the laughs at the expense of politicians and celebrities, his films are difficult to watch because, despite his decades of effort, the Real America that he depicts in them has grown steadily worse since Roger & Me. The situation in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, certainly has degraded, and it was already reaching Third World status in 1990.

By the end of last night's special screening of Fahrenheit 11/9 at the Edwards 24 Greenway, I felt literally sick to my stomach. So did Kayleen: She had to leave the room twice during the screening to vomit. Our nausea may have resulted from the "dodgy Thai food" (her words) that we ate before the show, but the images on the screen certainly didn't help.

Moxie: Flawed But Worthy

InterReflections: Woker Than Thou but...Fun?

"Fahrenheit 11/9" Depresses, Motivates

DBC Sez...

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