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Oblivious. If I could describe Americans in one word after watching Inside Job, it would be oblivious. And thats putting it kindly. Granted, the general American public should not be inherently blamed for the recession inducing quagmire that befell Wall Street and Main Street in 2007/2008. Who should? The pat-on-the-back cohorts of the American Government and the greedy, scandalous head haunchos of the big Banks and Investment companies. The United States is evidently a Wall Street Government.
As the movie coherently digresses, the recession was an industry induced superbug scam targeting oblivious Americans that pyramided into one giant, bastardized Ponzi Scheme. A scheme that nobody important *cough* the Government *cough* seemed to catch nor stop. A lot of politically accountable people played stupid; a lot of them pretended to be oblivious. Hence, you can understand why I walked out of Inside Job fuming with anger and animosity for our continental neighbors.
Americans should thank God that their motto is In God We Trust rather than In People or In Liberty we trust. Because if God was to be blamed for the financial firestorm that ravaged the United States - where the US may have been the fire starter trigger man influencing the pervasive Global Recessionary Meltdown - then we could have heard terms like Financial Armageddon or Market Apocalypse being thrown around.
Because God CANT be blamed, we can blame the multitude of foreseeable-yet-ignored build ups leading to the implosion and explosion of global financial markets. What impressed me the most about the narrative structure of Inside Job was how it timelines the pre-crash causes; the breaking point and subsequent Goliath fall of world markets; and the country/global meltdown that ensued. Chronicling each stage with insider commentary, the documentary explores such things as the subprime Housing Bubble bust; investment gambling on CDOs and other trash-binned securities; governmental deregulation of everything Wall Street; the kanoodling of Governmental and Financial big wigs for massive profit taking at the expense of the middle and lower classes; the breach of trust and failure of accountability by everyone in a power position - including Economic professors and laureates of Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Stanford
The list of blasphemers is endless.
For the record, the Inside Job is not a Michael Moore-esque sentimental tugn'pull propaganda trip. What it is is a movie that every American should see. For free. A movie to be mandated into the American education system for kids, students and future esteemed political and financial leaders to learn from. Because if Americans dont learn from what happened, God has every right to ignore their pity prayers. And to watch their country crash and burn
Do you remember the days when alien invasion movies were all about the euphoric glory of humans warring mano a mano against extraterrestrial militia? The flashdance of Airforce jets and army-shouldered rocket launchers blasting rotund spaceships and laser-beamy mutants? Remember Independence Day? Predator? War of the Worlds 2005? Well these days the ET invasions are filmed with a gritty sense of perilled realism. Employing handheld cameras (Cloverfield); colours whitewashed in tonal grays (District 9) and sweeping scenes of militaristic survival, planet Earth is now being crucified by a grudge-video band of filmmakers. Battle: Los Angeles is an XBox hybrid of District 9 and Alien. Words of advice? Take the critical pummelling it received with a grain of mindlessly entertaining, leave-at-your-seat intergalatic salt. Yes the special effects are sub par (it appears someone used Photoshop as the CGI generating software); the theme a stewpot of plots pureed from the movies I listed above. Yet what pulled me into Battle: Los Angeles were the performances. I relished Aaron Eckhart in Rabbit Hole. And I was 100% behind him here as retiring Sergeant Michael Nantz, pulled back in for one last hurrah against the infiltrating aliens. Aliens, who look like the aliens from Aliens, trying to steal our H20. As the baddies make waterhole gas-stations out of renowned global cities, the remaining cast of I-dont-know-who-you-are-but- you-look-somewhat-familiar soldiers try to rescue scattered civilians before Los Angeles is blown to smithereens. Whether us humans will win the alien war is appropriatedly and ambiguously left in clouted uncertainty, as choppers fly off towards the sunsetting coast. When the end-credits rolled, I was able to overlook the hokey CGI, the unoriginal aliens and the tepid plot for the empathetic acting, the better-than-expected dialogue, and the devastating sets (kudos, set designers!). Just dont go in expecting the finesse of District 9.
Sucker Punch
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: Zack Snyder & Steve Shibuya
Starring: Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Carla Gugino, Jamie Chung, Jon Hamm, Scott Glenn, Oscar Isaac
If the filmography of Robert Rodriguez were projected onto the wall of Platos cave, the fever dreams of its sorry inhabitants might come out something like this. Sucker Punch is an asylum for every unoriginal impulse that strikes director Zack Snyders attention deficient mind. It is an unmitigated disaster of storytelling thematically diarrheic with visuals to match. This hopeless post-Inception melodrama isnt based on a comic book like either of Snyders previous efforts, but every genre cliché carries over tenfold.
Like a pockmarked teen with an anime fetish, Snyders convoluted revenge flick plays out with a cast of buxom babes who look as though they might bleed mascara when cut. Stuffed into absurdly tight-fitting outfits, gals with names like Rocket, Baby Doll, and Sweet Pea unload thousands of shells from their semi-automatic rifles and leap columns of flames in when-exactly-was-this-cool-ag ain slow motion.
The tiered fantasy worlds of Sucker Punch might be exciting if they corresponded in any way to the next reality over. Probably the most asinine aspect of Snyder and Steve Shibuyas screenplay (I say probably because competition is steep) is that while our protagonist is fighting a 20-foot tall sourpussed samurai or fleeing a castle from an apoplectic dragon, we are meant to believe she is really how should I put this doing a sexy dance. A major structural component of Sucker Punch is Baby Dolls escape from incarceration, a feat that necessitates trinkets such as a map, knife, lighter, and key, all of which are obtained by distracting their male overlords with
exotic dancing.
For every item on the checklist, Baby Doll gyrates though while she cuts loose, she imagines she is annihilating clockwork Nazi soldiers in the trenches of a steampunk World War II, or tearing apart an android army on a futuristic bomb-strapped bullet train. The latter is set to a cover of the Beatles Tomorrow Never Knows, in which John Lennon once sang, Turn off your mind, and Lay down all thought. Snyder seems to have appropriated that message quite literally.
The bigger problem is that Snyder throws dramatic tension out the window by creating a fantasy world where nothing is at stake. The laws of these alternate realities are unclear at best, and the sequences themselves are purely masturbatory given that whatever happens is only loosely tied to the story were supposed to be following. I might be more forgiving of that conceit if Snyder really wowed, but Sucker Punch doesnt bring a single idea to the table that hasnt been done to death in movies or video games. Snyder does so much recycling that he ought to receive special commendation from Greenpeace.
Its equally hard to muster up sympathy for his characters outside of their imaginary adventures. Snyder has a bad habit of using trauma as a binding agent between them and the audience; other than that Baby Doll fell under the shadow of an evil foster-father before imprisonment, there isnt a single reason why we should care about her. She is as devoid of genuine personality as the rest of the cartoon cast.
Sucker Punch might have been a blast if the tone was more in line with Scott Pilgrim or even Kill Bill. Gratuitous action can be fun just dont ask me to take it seriously. The worst of Snyders misconceptions is that he can simultaneously blow shit up and pull our heartstrings. That he directs schlock under the pretense of style is laid bare in this, his first original work. Sucker Punch is not only brain dead, its contagiously stupid. Its a high school sophomores juvenile doodles on an 82 million dollar budget. If Snyders filmography were projected on the wall of Platos cave, I think those poor bastards would welcome the first disorienting rays of sunlight and their freedom with open arms
Rio
Directed by: Carlos Saldanha
Written by: Carlos Saldanha, Earl Richey Jones, Todd Jones (story), Don Rhymer, Joshua Sternin & Jefferey Ventimilia, Sam Harper (screenplay
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