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JoeKulik
"Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered." - Jean Cocteau
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts - William Shakespeare
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
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Alfred Hitchcock films I have viewed.
American Films That Give Me Something To Think About !!
"Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered." - Jean Cocteau
American films that "feed my head" in some way. This list isn't in any order of preference or quality. I just add "thought provoking" American films as they come to mind.
I Just LOVE Ingrid Bergman !!!
"Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered." - Jean Cocteau
I just NEVER get tired of watching Ingrid Bergman perform. My opinion is that she 1 of the top 5 best actors of all time. It is my mission to view EVERY available film in which Ingrid Bergman has a role. This doesn't mean that I'll give a 10 star rating to EVERY film that she was in, but whatever film she's in, even a lousy film, it's worth viewing for me just so that I can see Ingrid do her thing.
Every film on this list has noted the LEAST EXPENSIVE option for viewing that film through online streaming. Some of the titles at Archive.org & YouTube.com are rare, just not being available anywhere else, either as an online streaming purchase or even as a DVD purchase.
The Best Films Of All Time !!!
"Hollywood has melted everyone's brains. In the old days you had one murder and that was enough for a story. Now you have to kill 300,000 people just to get the audience's attention." - Aki Kaurismaki
This list is NOT in any order of preference or ranking.
All foreign films have English subtitles.
I Love European Films !!! (Vol. 03)
"Hollywood has melted everyone's brains. In the old days you had one murder and that was enough for a story. Now you have to kill 300,000 people just to get the audience's attention" - Aki Kaurismaki
This list is NOT in any order of preference or ranking. All these films have English subtitles.
Japanese Films that I have viewed.
"Hollywood has melted everyone's brains. In the old days you had one murder and that was enough for a story. Now you have to kill 300,000 people just to get the audience's attention" - Aki Kaurismaki
This list is NOT in any order of preference or ranking. All these films have English subtitles.
I Love Ingmar Bergman Films !!
"Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered." - Jean Cocteau
All these films have English subtitles.
Reviews
L.A. Confidential (1997)
A Classic Detective Movie
The ONLY Reason that I didn't rate this movie a "10" is because it had too much gratuitous violence for me, so much so that it distracted me from the Excellent story line.
Indeed, the story line is quite imaginative and intricate. And the methodical unfolding of this story line over the course of the film was well planned and well thought out before pen ever even touched paper. The sets and the props provided a very realistic feeling of the gritty side of early 1950's Los Angeles. The acting by ALL the cast members was outstanding and the actors and their roles were well matched.
I only wish that this had been more of a "drama" than an "action" film. Aside from that "fly in the soup", I think that this is an Excellent movie that is well worth watching. In fact, I think that I'll watch it again,
Enemies of the State (2020)
Their Lawyers Were Correct !!!
I think that it's entirely possible that all the "evidence" against Matt was fabricated by the Govt just to step on him hard as a potential whistle blower. However, Matt's parents went completely off the rails when they chose to pursue the National Security angle over the $ex Charges against him. What turned off both Nashville lawyers is that they wanted to directly focus on the Fed Charges at hand, while the parents were trying to make an end run around them.
Had the parents allowed those lawyers to do their job, they may have uncovered that all the "evidence" against Matt was fabricated by analyzing the relevant metadata and Internet transmission logs. The father suggested at some point that such metadata analysis was possible, yet their Grandiose National Security Plan failed and Matt was left with not enough time to do such basic homework and ended up in prison.
I am in NO Way saying that the Fed Govt fabricated all that "evidence". I'm only saying that the opportunity to actually prove that was lost with the parents' wrong headed strategy and their obedient son's willingness to go along.
Murdered for Millions (2022)
Spoiled Self Entitled People !!!
The son Dana in this tragic tale wasn't "born evil" as some have suggested. The way that Dana turned out can easily be explained by his affluent upbringing.
I graduated from Univ of San Francisco in 1973. It's a Catholic Univ much like its Catholic counterpart down the peninsula, the Univ of Santa Clara, where Dana attended some 20 years later. I met MANY children of Rich Families while at USF, and most of them were quite like Dana. They were all spoiled self entitled kids who were all brought up to believe that they deserved even a better life than Fate had so generously dealt them. They lacked any gratitude and humility whatsoever. In fact, a poor kid at USF I supplemented my income by writing term papers for those Rich Kids, those Rich Kids who thought that they were even above doing any real work to earn their college degree.
I completely blame Dana's parents, the ones he murdered, for the "evil" way that he turned out. They saw their Golden Sonny Boy as a kid who could do no wrong. "What ? Not my son ! He could NEVER Do something like that !"
What Dana lacked were parents who kicked his butt on a regular basis, and put his nose to the grindstone sweeping the floor and cleaning the toilets at the Family Business that gave him such a wonderful affluent life. Whatever they tried to do for their son, the one thing they never did was to instill an attitude of Gratitude within him. They somehow failed to teach Dana that true happiness comes from being Grateful to God for what you already got, rather than futilely searching for happiness by acquiring more and more and more money and materials possessions.
Not Going Quietly (2021)
A VERY Selfish Man !!!
I'm an American who certainly wants Medicare-For-All, but for me this film is about a VERY Selfish Man who wasted the last good years of his life fighting for a public cause instead of being with his family instead. Throughout the movie, you see this man get weaker and more deteriorated as he runs around the nation, wasting what potential he had left on strangers who he didn't even know, while denying his family of the Quality Time that he could've spent with them. On some level, this man suffered from Delusions of Grandeur, seeing himself as literally a "Hero", rather than the Family Man who he really was. No doubt his quixotic journey was aided by his Air Head College Professor Wife, who inspired him to go on making speeches and traveling around, instead of putting her foot down to force him to be with his family instead, as ANY decent mother and wife would have done. Ady Barkhan is a FOOL, and his wife is even a Bigger FOOL to let him get away with ignoring his family responsibilities while he still had the ability to effectively interact with his family. Aside from this Sob Story about this man's life, notice that all the causes that he fought for never came to fruition anyway. In other words, all his activism yielded NOTHING anyway. It was a Waste of Time that could've been better spent with his family during the deterioration of his body. I've never been a fan of Soap Operas, and THAT is All this story is.
Wormwood (2017)
A Horrible Excuse For A Documentary !!!
There is NO Way that I was going to sit through all the episodes of this Cinematic MESS !!! Half way through Episode 2 I just gave up and went to he last episode to try to get to the meat of the matter. The confusing montage of images jumping back and forth in the timeline suggests to me that this story is REALLY About Eric Olsens's need for professional psychiatric services that he never received during his whole troubled lifetime. Frankly, as a True Crime fan, I REALLY Do Not Give A Damn about the Forever Grieving family members of a murder victim. That's the stuff of Soap Opera, and NOT True Crime. Even 2 episodes would've been TOO Long for what this poor excuse for a documentary had to offer. It's no wonder that Netflix is losing a million subscribers per month when all they can come up with is CRAP Like This !!!
My Daughter's Killer (2022)
Grief or Mental Illness ???
Andre Bamberski is much like most of the grieving relatives of murder victims who I have encountered during years as a True Crime fan, and what sickens me most is the public adulation and public support that such OBVIOUSLY Mentally Ill People receive.
Do some research on "Stages of Grief" and you'll find plenty of evidence to support the contention that people who grieve more than even a few years for their departed "loved one" are VERY Rare indeed. Yet, the Huge Percentage of family members of murder victims who NEVER Get Over Their Grief would seem quite normal from the perch of any uninformed and naive True Crime fan.
"Forever grieving" relatives of murder victims, however, go FAR Beyond what statistical norms of grieving relatives in general reveal. That their grief goes that far to the extremes of the "Bell Shaped Curve" technically qualifies them as Mentally Ill even without any further considerations.
More to the point, however, is that the more time that has passed after any personal tragedy, the less adaptive it is to a person's present point in life to continue devoting time and resources to somehow remedy the past. What Sob Stories like this one never reveal is the personal costs to truly unfortunate people like Mr Bamberski Who Simply Can't Free Themselves from the past.
What really irks me about stories like this one is that they reinforce the belief of those around the grieving relative, and in the general public that it is quite normal, nay even Noble for someone to waste the rest of their life being fixated on the ever more distant past. I submit that if the News Media and True Crime producers REALLY Cared about the grieving families of murder victims they would advocate for getting these poor unfortunate people professional psychiatric services to help them stop living in the Past, and to start once again to look to the Future.
However, it seems obvious to me that it is much more financially lucrative for both the News Business and the Entertainment Business to exploit these poor people and their grief on camera, and in narratives, rather than to get them the help that so many of them desperately need. I further submit that "The FOREVER Grieving Relative of a Murder Victim" is greatly a Media Fabrication that would not have existed had it not been financially profitable, one way or another, for Big Business Interests.
My personal belief is that no matter how great the injustice you have suffered in the past, it's just not worth throwing away your whole future because of it. There is no telling now what personal accomplishments our Mr Bamberski might have achieved, if he could have Just Let Go Of The Past.
{ Miss Havisham, where are you ??? }
D.B. Cooper: Where Are You?! (2022)
"DB Cooper" is a Mass Media Fabrication !!!
This series goes on and on about how popular DB Cooper still is with the American Public even after all these years, but the truth is that this "enduring popularity" is simply a product of the News Media itself. Although this was a very peculiar and well planned skyjacking, it was by no means the first, and only involved regional flights in the Northwest. The ONLY Reason that this skyjacking hasn't slipped into oblivion as have the rest of the skyjackings 50 years ago is because the News Media refuses to let this story die.
The National News Media knew a winner when they saw one, and has succeeded into turning just another skyjacking into a Money Maker for half a Century, which apparently includes 30 books and a handful of Hollywood movies as well.
Of course, the Naive and Gullible Public made it easy for the News Media. When PT Barnum predicted that: "There's a SUCKER born every minute", he surely must have been thinking of those Suckers in the American Public who will take an already inflated news story like DB Cooper and make it EVEN Grander and EVEN MORE Mysterious !!! Suddenly, "witnesses" crawl out of the woodwork with unsubstantiated hearsay that now takes on Stupendous Importance, thereby even accelerating the "DB Cooper Psychosis" overtaking America !!!
And the Biggest Sucker of them all was journalist Tom Colbert, who spent 10 years and $200K on a case that was a Dead End from the beginning because of the lack of hard evidence that connected ANYONE to this crime. Although Colbert keeps talking about Facts, these Facts themselves lead to Nothing But MORE Speculation without Hard Evidence that connects anyone to the crime.
I find it to be both Sad and Pathetic that this Media Fabrication was even given new life with the advent of the Internet. The idea of a "Cooper Con" would be Utterly Laughable if it weren't so Terribly Tragic that so many people have wasted time, resources, and money on pointless BS like this when it could've all been applied to make the World a better place somehow. How Empty and Meaningless must one's life be to find meaning in wasting hours on Social Media hashing over a 50 year old Cold Case ???
I've been a hardcore True Crime fan for over 25 years, but I have more important things to do than wasting my life on an Unsolvable Cold Case, like clipping my toe nails or picking the lint out of my navel.
All that I can say to DB Cooper arm chair detectives is: "Get A Life !!!"
All that I can say to Netflix is: "With Crap like this, it's no wonder that you're losing a million subscribers a month !!!"
Monk (2002)
Being disabled doesn't need to mean giving up on Life !!!
For me, Adrien Monk is a VERY Brave Man who was determined to make a life for himself in spite of his apparently permanent disability. Not ALL Disabled People are like Monk. Whether disabled from birth, or at a later time, there are far too many disabled people "who just roll over and play dead". They give up on Life and are content with cashing a monthly disability check which enables them to sit in front of a TV set all day. The story of Adrien Monk is a direct antithesis of such an empty and meaningless life. NO One would have blamed Monk if he had NEVER returned to work from disability. NO One !!! EVERYONE in the story line accepts that the death of his wife injured him mentally beyond repair. Yet Monk was that rare individual who would not let Life defeat him. He came back as a very quirky detective who many ridiculed. But this weird little man projects courage in every episode by simply doing his job. The World needs MORE Adrien Monk's, people who are willing to Fight the Good Fight, even after the World serves you a lethal blow.
It's a shame that most people only view this series only as a Comedy. I see it as a source of inspiration whenever I start feeling sorry for myself !!!
Meltdown: Three Mile Island (2022)
Sweetheart Regulators !!!
Previous reviewers have complained how inaccurate the technical details in this documentary were, but even if true that's a minor part of the whole story for me. The core of this story is how PHONY the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was in its role to protect the Public. The NRC is just another Sweetheart Federal Regulator who was and still is "in bed" with the very Industry that they are presumably tasked with regulating. They were much more concerned with the sustained reputation and profitability of the Nuclear Industry than with Public Safety. Consider the FAA. It is the Federal Regulator for the Airline Industry, yet its charter tasks it not only with regulating Airline Companies but to promote Air Travel as well. Anyone can see that a Conflict of Interest is thusly incorporated into the fabric of the FAA itself. Ditto for all other Fed Government Regulators over Big Business. TRUTH is that Wall Street, NYC is the real Capital of America, while Washington DC is just a Puppet Show with Wall Street pulling ALL The Strings. To witness just one scenario from this Puppet Show, watch this very bold and very brave revelation of what happened at Three Mile Island and its aftermath.
Making a Murderer (2015)
What A Clueless Family !!!
After viewing both Parts 1 & 2, I see the Avery family as basically honest hard working people, but they seem Incredibly Naive as well. I would even call them Clueless. When I first heard of this case in 2005, my immediate reaction was how Dumb poor Steven Avery was to continue living in the same county where he was wrongfully convicted, and the fact that he was pursuing a $33 Million lawsuit against the county at the same time made it seem Even More Dumb. The man obviously made himself a target for a police agency who he already knew to be corrupt.
Now after viewing this excellent documentary, my conviction that Steven wasn't a very wise man is even reinforced. The same can be said for the whole Dumb Avery family. How could they have allowed Brendan or any family member be interviewed by police after Steven's second wrongful arrest in that county ??? No one in the Avery family was obligated to speak with police, yet they all kept blabbing themselves into trouble.
I just can't believe that this honest hard working family didn't have someone close by who could've Smartened Them Up at some point.
Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King (2022)
An incoherent narrative that ends NOWHERE !!!
This film bounces around between people, and groups of people who seem to be sharing new information about this Scam Artist, yet there is no tangible link between these various sleuths to say how they all shared their own piece of research.
Then you have a key character who wears a bizarre helmet/mask throughout who is never clearly identified. WTF ???
But the killer is that NO One, not even the Ontario Security Cops, demands an exhumation of the body in India, not only to confirm whose body it is but also the cause of death. If the Scam Artist is truly dead, then the circumstances of a otherwise healthy 30 year old man suddenly getting sick and dying within a 24 hour period certainly deserves investigation. It sounds to me like he was poisoned, but by whom ??? Perhaps it wasn't the wife but another partner in this Scam.
From what I know about Bitcoin, losing your money this way can only happen if you keep your money in a in a "community wallet" administered by a "Crypto-Bank" of sorts, which is what this Scam Company was. But NO One but YOU can access a "personal wallet" over which you have 100% control.
This film has less to do with Bitcoin, and more to do with Stupid People who happily invest their life savings into an investment that they've never researched beforehand. I don't care if the person who I give my money to is even my own brother or sister, because I would STILL Be A Fool if I didn't research the investment thoroughly BEFORE I handed over my money. Yet this film, like all others about Scam Artists of all types, seems to make the investors look like 100% Victims, but as in all such Fraud Cases the investors are victims primarily of there own Naivete and Gullibility, and they all got what they deserve IMO.
I have NO Doubt that the Scam Artist's body will be eventually exhumed for an autopsy, and NetFlix should've waited for that to happen before they produced this VERY Unsatisfying film.
Mulholland Falls (1996)
The Whole World Is A Rotten Place !!!
Back in 1966, when I was a Junior in High School, I read a Commentary on Plato's "Republic" that said Plato advocated banning all "story tellers" from his Ideal Republic because "they corrupt the morals of the youth". I was shocked when my young naive eyes read those words, and I wondered how a supposedly wise man like Plato could have suggested such a terrible thing. However, over years and decades of viewing Hollywood films, I find myself agreeing more and more with Plato, almost in spite of myself.
However, Mulholland Falls tops them all in that respect. The US Supreme Court once defined Pornography as having "no redeeming social value". If so, then this film definitely qualifies as Pornography, but as Social Pornography rather than Sexual Pornography.
The message that I got from this film is "The Whole World Is A Rotten Place !!!" There are NO Good Guys in this film. Everyone is a Bad Guy in their own way. I certainly don't expect a Morality Play from Hollywood, but I don't expect something that is Diametrically Opposed to being a Morality Play either.
IMO, Mulholland Drive is Morally Corrosive and a Socially Corrosive film. It's certainly not a film that is fit for children, or even young adults whose view of the World is still developing. That fact that in some ways the film has an ambiguous ending even extends the theme of this film to "The Whole World Is A Rotten Place and That's Just The Way It Is !!!" Indeed, "c'est la vie" seems to be this film makers message to us. The Whole World is Rotten, But SO What ??? The Whole World Is Rotten But Nothing Can Be Done About It !!! I certainly don't share this view of Life, and my Prayer is that NO Other Human Being EVER Does !!! If this is the True State of Society, then the Human Race is Surely Doomed.
Screwball (2018)
A Low Life Documentary about Low Life People !!!
I find the whole premise of this documentary to be Morally Repulsive. It's definitely NOT a video that I would allow a person under 18 to view because it is SO Morally Corrosive. EVERYONE in this story, including the "investigators", are portrayed as Low Class, Low Life People. There are NO Real Good Guys in this story, except perhaps for the Clueless Guy who inadvertently started the avalanche of publicity that revealed how everyone, including MLB officials themselves are Morally Reprehensible People. What makes this video even worse is the film maker's attempt to make light of it all by inserting kid actors to pantomime scenes in the story. That's clearly ironic because none of the characters portrayed in this Sick Tale should be any kid's idea of a Hero. Instead of making an Appropriate Moral Judgment about the behavior of the people involved, the film maker takes a. "c'est la vie" attitude toward the whole affair. This film maker had an excellent opportunity to make a strong moral statement about not only how Morally Phony MLB is, but all of American Society that deifies these Moral Miscreants in baseball uniforms. Instead this film delivers a Morally Ambiguous Message that even seems to leave open the question of the Morality of using steroids as an athlete. Plato said that he would ban all story tellers from his Republic because story tellers "corrupt the morals of the youth". Plato was no doubt thinking about Morally Corrosive Stories like the one offered in this Sick Excuse for a documentary.
The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman (2022)
He Wasn't As Great A Con Man As He Was Portrayed !!!
This film sorely lacks background information about this Con Man. The obvious reason for me is that this Con Man wasn't as efficient as this film maker wants us to believe. I have an MA in Social Psychology and I studied the scientific literature about "attitude change" ( aka "persuasive communication" ) very deeply as a grad student. Based on what I've learned, I can assure you that this guy approached MANY people before he found the ones who were most susceptible to his charms. I'll bet my Soc Sec pension check that this guy had less than a 10% success rate in terms of all the people he approached. Of course, the film maker doesn't want to reveal that because it would make this Con Man look less persuasive, as well as making his "victims" look like the most Naive and Gullible people in Society (which, in Reality, they were !!!). The unspoken premise of the film is that the people that this man "hooked" were the ONLY Ones he tried to "hook". However, such a premise is Unsustainable and Absurd. I can assure you that this man's victims were well outside the Bell shaped curve of Gullibility, and even a skilled Con Man needs to look long and hard for such unfortunate Super Suckers.
City of Angels, City of Death (2021)
City of Angels ???
There was supposedly 20 serial killers active in LA between 1975 & 1985, yet this series wants us to believe that LA was a 100% GREAT Place To Live back then were it not for all these serial killers ??? What an insult to my intelligence !!! There is definitely something wrong with a city itself that has such a concentration of serial killers. These serial killings didn't happen in spite of Los Angeles but because of LA. A truly honest consideration of this topic would've asked : "What is wrong with a city for so much serial killing to happen there in just one decade ???? Sick People are a product of a Sick Society, and LA was apparently a VERY Sick Society back then. THAT was the REAL Story that this series neglected.
Trial 4 (2020)
Arrogant Bostonians !!!
Just one time in this excellent docuseries I saw the word "Hub" in a news headline that flashed across the screen. I grew up in Springfield MA in the 1950's and 1960's until I moved to CA in 1969. As a MA resident from a city 90 miles west of Boston, I'm well aware of the word "Hub" as a moniker for the city of Boston. A "hub" is literally the center of a wheel and arrogant Bostonians have always thought of themselves as the center of the Universe with the whole World revolving around them. They even thought of those of us living at the other end of the state as being "hicks in the sticks". A few years ago, I got back in touch with my hometown news outlets, and heard a real estate agent hawking Western MA properties to Bostonians because Boston real estate has gotten so expensive. His entire presentation seemed to sound like it was a "sacrifice" of some type to live in Western MA, with really little to recommend it. All of this Bostonian arrogance kept hitting me in the face as I watched this captivating and compelling documentary. Aside from the boiler plate issues found in most wrongful conviction cases such as race and corruption, for me this documentary also reeked the arrogant self entitlement of Bostonians that I knew well while growing up back there. The Bostonians see them selves as being the first established American colony, and the site of the beginning of the American Revolution. That seems to make Bostonians in general assume that they have a god-like status, and I saw that operating here in the Boston PD and the Boston prosecutor's office too. I admit that my opinion is biased, but that's the mood that this revealing documentary reawakened in me.
Snowden (2016)
A fitting tribute for a true hero of our times !!!
I truly admired Edward Snowden from the first time I heard of what he did for the people of the world at great cost to himself. Oliver Stone's cinematic genius created a worthy tribute to this great human being. It is an important brick in the immortal historical record of this man, and he did it in a compelling and convincing way by jumping back and forth in the timeline of the story in a manner that brought out both the drama, as well as the technical side of Mr Snowden's.
The Irishman (2019)
Just another Mob Movie !!!
I'm really getting tired of Mob movies, particularly when we see 3 of the same old (and I do mean OLD) actors that I've seen in so many other such movies. Trying to make these old men look like young men during the first part of the movies was just pathetic and unconvincing. Haven't Deniro, Pesci, Pacino, and Scorcese saved enough money for their retirement to avoid a cinematic embarrassment like this ? Both the casting and the storyline show me how starved for Creativity Hollywood must be to come up with this poor excuse of a movie. REALLY !!! Hollywood must be in decline if it can't do better than this !!!
Abducted in Plain Sight (2017)
Clearly Unfit Parents !!!
I definitely see these Unfit Parents as being more at fault than this pedophile. Even before he first kidnapped her, they let him take their daughter alone on trips and activities ? Even the pedophile's neighbor said that he cut off contact with him after he saw the pedophile alone with the daughter at a pedophile family outing, yet these parents were Clueless ? Then they let him sleep in bed with their daughter 4 nights per week in her bed at home ? Then after the 1st kidnapping the parents dropped charges against him because they were afraid of the "dirt" he had on them ? Etc, Etc, Etc ....
My question is: "Don't they have CPS in Pocatello ID ?" If they do then CPS dropped the ball here because parents with such badly flawed judgment should've had all their children taken into foster care. All the talk about what "wonderful" parents they were goes down the drain when I see how far they let this pedophile go even before the 1st kidnapping. There is a difference between being Naive and having Flawed Judgment, and everyone concerned should've seen that these parents were just Unfit. Shame on this filmmaker to validate and even glorify these Obviously Poor Parents !!!
Elize Matsunaga: Era uma Vez um Crime (2021)
So Sad, But Too Bad !!!
It's difficult not to fell empathy for Elize, but she's a very flawed person in several ways. It may be due to the sexual abuse that she suffered as a child, and that the only way that she she could get an education and get out of poverty was to be a high class escort, and other factors, But sadly she gave away the values that her family rural background tried to instill in her simply for money and a life of luxury. That she was was willing to be a mistress of a married man for 4 years, and then married him shows a great departure from her hometown roots. Basically, she put a price tag on her morality and Marcos was able to more than match her price tag. That's sad because she was on the way to becoming an independent. Educated professional woman who really didn't need a man at at all.
However, by the time she murdered Marcos her judgment was flawed, even in the way she committed the crime and the aftermath, which is surprising given that she was a law student at the time. Since it seems that her in-laws very much accepted her, she should have gone directly to them with the videos of Marcos cheating on her. There's a good chance that her in-laws would've supported her and condemned their own son.
A Face in the Crowd (1957)
The Naive and Gullible American Public.
This is without question an excellent film, but I got a bit "turned off" by the ending. Lonesome Rhodes is portrayed at the end as a "villain" of sorts but I see all the people around him, including his audience, as the REAL Villains. Rhodes never tried to be anyone different than who he was. It's all the Naive and Gullible people around him who turn him into a villain by creating an ever more fantastic public image of him, a fantastic image that Rhodes himself bought, showing how Naive and Gullible he was too. It's Common Sense that putting anyone on a pedestal is just lining yourself up for disappointment. Yet 99.9% of the American public still do it, and still blame the object of their unrealistic adoration in the end when he reveals himself to be just a fallible ordinary person like them. ...
Wag the Dog (1997)
Fiction or a Prophecy of 9/11 ???
Posters relate this film to Clinton's Lewinsky problems, but why doesn't anyone see this film as a prophecy of how the truth about what happened on 9/11 might have been thwarted by a similar "theatrical production" ? This is especially so since 9/11 happened just a few years after this film appeared. I am not saying that what happened on 9/11 was in fact a "theatrical production", but there are plenty of others who do. If these so called "conspiracy theorists" are correct, isn't this film a blueprint of how that might have happened on 09/11/2001 ? Just saying ....
The Wrong Man (1956)
This film is about Rose, not Manny !!!
Of the 15 Hitchcock films that I've viewed, this one is the best because it has the strongest, most compelling screenplay. Overall, I don't think much of Hitchcock's films. He seems to have been a director who had screenplays chosen for him that he didn't choose for himself. However, one way or another, this film hits the target for me.
Yet, for me, this film isn't about Manny at all but about his wife Rose. I have an MA in Psychology and I hate the inaccurate way that mental illness is generally portrayed in films. But this film, as well as Hitchcock's "Marnie" couldn't have portrayed mental illness more accurately.
It is Rose who undergoes a true character transformation during the film, not Manny. Sure, the arrest did mess up his life but in the end he was the same old Manny. But this wasn't the case for Rose at all. The trauma that enveloped her lasted much longer than Manny's legal problems. What happened to her husband really disconnected this poor woman from reality all together. It rattled the very foundations of what she thought life was about. I was happy to see at the end that the real Rose finally left that hospital and went on to have a happy life. But if this film portrays the real Rose accurately at all, then I am quite certain that she never truly recovered. At least she never recovered her naive belief that the world is a "nice place".
This film shows us how fragile, how ephemeral life can be. Life isn't just about tangible things like your family, your job, and your material possessions. Life is also about how your arrange these tangible things in your psyche to construct either a happy or even a tragic story of the world and your place in it. Rose didn't substantially lose any of the tangible things in her life even after Manny was arrested. What she lost was that quasi-logical construct in her mind of how all the things in her life fit together to make a happy story for her. She was unable to immediately reconstruct that old belief system that she had about the world when Manny's legal problems ended, and she probably never recovered it fully. Hopefully, the trauma she suffered led her into a more realistic conception of what the world is really all about.
The Office (2005)
Celebrating The Idiocy Of Corporate America !!!
"The Office" celebrates the idiocy of corporate middle management.
All of the Scranton staff of "The Office" are more more or less "normal" people, but the manager, Michael Scott, and aspiring manager Dwight Schrute are portrayed as blatant fools. In the real world, any office staff wouldn't show such a fool manager any respect, much less his lackey Dwight.
Yet, the personalities of Michael and Dwight mirror, in a way, my own experience in the corporate world. Middle level managers like Michael are what was once called "straw bosses". That is, middle level managers have the responsibility for everything, but the power to do nothing. Anyone put in that type of position is going to appear to line employees as at least a "phony" or, in the extreme case of Michael Scott, a complete fool.
The character of Dwight Schrute is just pathetic. He sees the fool Michael Scott as an actual role model.
I see "The Office" as a slam on corporate America, where those most incompetent rise up the corporate ladder.
I watched this series on NetFlix from the first episode to the middle of the third season, but then I just couldn't take it anymore. It got to be too painful for me.
As entertainment, I consider viewing "The Office" as a low level form of emotional masturbation. The scripts are "canned", predictable, and essentially one dimensional. I would put it one step above watching a fly on the wall.
I would wholeheartedly recommend this series to anyone who likes turning his brain off while viewing TV.
It is because of pathetic shows like "The Office" that I no longer have a TV set in my home.
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L.A. Law (1986)
A Gross Misrepresentation Of Reality !!!
Although LA Law is entertaining enough, the more episodes that I view the more nauseated that I get.
REALITY is that all lawyers are Whores. They are just Whores who sell their Mouths as opposed to selling some other part of their anatomy. But LA Law would have us believe that not only are lawyers "Whores with a Heart", but that they are "Whores with a Heart" who happen to be "Beautiful People" as well. That this whole charade is set in a high powered, "top tier" law firm is truly an insult to my intelligence.
I certainly am glad that these Whores existed when I needed their services in the past, but you can be certain that I vicariously held my nose every moment that I was forced to deal with them.
The portrayal of lawyers in LA Law would be Utterly Hilarious, were it not for the fact that naive and inexperienced viewers are led to believe that lawyers are actually Good Guys who really care about their clients. The thought of the possible sorry consequences for any viewer who might actually believe that immediately drains the humor of the situation from me.
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
-- William Shakespeare, Henry the Sixth ll (1623)