20161116: Documentary Review--Zero Days

Name: Zero Days (2016)
IMDb: link to Zero Days page

Genres: Documentary   Country of origin: USA.

Principal Speakers:
David Sanger wrote a full-fledged article on Stuxnet for the NYT, and the book, Confront and Conceal (2012).
Eric Chien and Liam O'Murchu at Symantec discuss finding the Stuxnet infection, deciding to investigate it thoroughly, then unpeeling many layers.
General Michael Hayden was the director of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) from May 2006 to February 2009, and director of NSA (National Security Agency) from March 1999 to April 2005.  The general could only say so much, but what he did say was insightful.
Colonel Gary Brown is the staff judge advocate for US Cyber Command, Fort Meade.
Emad Kiyaei is the Executive Director or the American Iranian Counsel.
Gary Samore is the Executive Director for Research of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Eugene Kaspersky is a Russian cybersecurity expert and the CEO of Kaspersky Lab.
Ralph Langner is the director of Langner Communications, an independent cybersecurity consulting firm that he founded in 1988.

Directed by: Alex Gibney.  Written by: Alex Gibney.

One of way too many code graphics

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
The Middle East, Europe, Israel, and the USA have a long history together: disagreements, wars, negotiations.

Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear program out of existence.  In more current times, Israel's bombing Iran's nuclear program out of existence seems infeasible.

Delineation of conflicts:
The USA, UK, and Israel hatch a secret program for ending Iran's nuclear program, or at least slowing it considerably.  The film details how this secret program was brought to light through journalistic inquiry, geopolitical competition, and investigation.

Israel and the USA have a serious disagreement about how to use Stuxnet, or Olympic Games, its internal name.  Because of this, the effort does not stay secret, and the mission fails.

What to do in light of this is open to a lot of discussion, especially after it becomes partially public.

Resolution: All the issues are ongoing.  Iran survived Stuxnet, and its nuclear program is doing better than ever.  Our Cyber Command arm of NSA is little known but well funded.  Iran's cyber warfare program is also well-funded and quite energized.  Other nations have joined the race to cyber warfare leadership; for instance, North Korea and mainland China.

One line summary: Stuxnet: origins, consequences

Statistics:

Cinematography: 7/10 The filming of the interviews with experts were professionally done.

The computer graphics were overly repetitive.  For instance, the 3-D code representations were interesting to look at but were only of use three times: showing the expiration date for Stuxnet in the code, showing the PLC model number in the code, and illustrating the Israeli overwrite that fouled up so many things.  However, the code animations were shown a couple of dozen times; most of these showed no purpose other than to move away from talking heads.

The spread of virus maps were shown again and again and again.  The only times they meant much was when the isolation of the target to Iran was shown, and when the Iranian revenge instances hit America.

Sound: 7/10 I could hear the dialog.  The music used tended to be ominous to the point of seeming manipulative.

Acting: z/10 Not applicable here.

Screenplay: 10/10 Nicely assembled.  The solving of the original mystery was nicely done, and the analysis of the consequences of Israeli overwrites was well-presented.  The exposition of the future of cyber warfare was the scariest of them all.  The block of interview time devoted to Homeland Security's wasted efforts was so discouraging.  So many person-hours were lost due to secrecy (right hand does not know what the left hand is doing), along with the taxpayer dollars wasted.

Final Rating: 8/10

20141007: Documentary Review--Galapagos Affair

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 120 minutes, documentary, crime.
2. IMDB: 6.8/10.0 from 259 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 82% on the meter; 72% liked it from 1,112 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.5/5.0 from 57,905 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine.
6. Starring: (voice actors all) Cate Blanchett as Dore Strauch, Sebastian Koch as Heinz Wittmer, Thomas Kretschmann as Friedrich Ritter, Diane Krueger as Margret Wittmer, Connie Nielsen as Baroness Von Wagner, Josh Radnor as John Garth.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Set in the 1930s, a small group of well-to-do Germans decide to forsake Europe and start out fresh in the Galapagos Islands to the west of South America.  The film is presented by voice actors reading the journals and letters of the individuals involved, by interviewing scholars of the islands, and by interviewing descendents of the few settlers in the early 1930s.


2. Dr. Ritter and Dore Strauch arrived in 1929, and settled on the island of Floreana, which was not populated at the time.  They were followed by the Wittmers, and later by the Baroness and her two sycophants.  There was a bit of jostling at first.  By the time the Wittmers had a new baby borne on the island, there was at least some recognition and gift-giving to mark the occasion.


3. However, by January 1933, problems had arisen.  The second visit of the Valero, a ship carrying researchers and wealthy members, brought gifts for the Ritters.  Dissension followed.  The Baroness wanted her share of the gifts, and she wanted a movie made of her outpost during the next visit of the Valero.  The Baroness had set up a sign at the dock proclaiming her 'hotel' inland, the Hacienda Paradiso.  Representatives of the Valero trekked up to see it on general principles and because a Norwegian visitor to the island had fled from the Baroness and taken refuge with Dr. Ritter.  The representatives were appalled by the lack of concern for sanitation at the Baroness' place, but did not see the problems the Norwegian described.


4. The curious rich started to come more frequently to Floreana, and more so to the larger islands of Santa Cruz and San Cristobal.  Competition for gifts from the travelers and time spent on their yachts increased.  Dr. Ritter's dream of living in an unspoiled paradise fell away with each gift he accepted.  The film makes the point that this was common.


5. Dr. Ritter and the Norwegian filed charges for the Norwegian's treatment at the Hacienda Paradiso.  However, the governor of the islands was overly impressed by a person with a European title.  Instead of penalizing her, the governor gave her title to four square miles of land, while giving title to 50 acres each for the Wittmers.  So that's 2560 acres for the Baroness, 200 for the Wittmers.  He also declared the spring near the Wittmers' original settlement to be a common resource.  Toward the end of 1933, and during the beginning of 1934, a drought was steady.  Visitation almost completely dried up.  The unwelcoming environment of the island became closer to hostile with gardens not producing and animals dying.


6. So, the stage was set for bad things to happen.  In March of 1934, the Baroness said she was leaving for Tahiti, so as to better her chances with the hotel.  The Baroness and one of her paramours was gone, but no one saw her leave.  What happened?  Dr. Ritter died that November, but the accounts of it were quite dissimilar.


7. Will these competing stories ever be resolved?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Contradictory accounts of deaths in Galapagos in 1934.
2. Eight of ten.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 This was a mixed bag, which is always the case for historical documentaries.  The media pieces from the 1930s were fine for the time but terrible by current standards. The visuals and sound for the modern interviews was solid.


2. Sound: 6/10 Sometimes effective, sometimes curious.


3. Voice Acting: 9/10 This was rather good; the actors voiced writings by the long dead principals while stills or archival film was shown.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 The composition of elements was fine.

20150515: Documentary Review--Thievery Corporation: Live at 9:30

Thievery Corporation: Live at 9:30

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 97 minutes, documentary, music.
2. IMDB: 8.8/10.0 from 12 audience ratings. Twelve ratings is not much of a sample.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet...' and 100% wanted to see it from 1 audience ratings.  Yes, that is ONE audience rating.
4. I watched this on Crackle, complete with commercials.  The commercials, at least, were done by professionals.
5. Directed by: Jolyon Hoff.
6. Starring: Thievery Corporation.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film consists of concert footage interwoven with documentary interviews.


2. The camerawork on the concert footage is truly poor.  The sound recording and playback is rather good, but the visuals are amateurish in comparison.


3. Perhaps most unfortunate about this uninspired effort is that the interviews (beautifully shot, but impoverished in content) seem to have less than nothing to do with the concert footage.


4. I have recently watched and reviewed Metallica: Through the Never, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, and Muscle Shoals.  Compared to those majestic accomplishments, this film is amateurishly directed, visually ugly, and musically listless.


3. Conclusions
1. For better 'world music' try Afro-Celt.
2. I would not recommend this to anyone.  The best parts were the commercials.
3. One line summary: If you enjoy lens flare and smoke, you'll love this.
4. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 0/10 If you enjoy lens flare and smoke, you'll love this.  The film is beyond belief ugly.  The multiple overlay method fails badly; the background videos seem irrelevant.


2. Sound: 10/10 Just fine.  That is why I gave the film 2/5 instead of a (first ever) 0/5.


3. Acting: z/10 Supposedly not applicable here, but some numbers were clearly lip-synced, and done so quite poorly.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Documentary clips: relentlessly boring, incomplete, and self-important.  Concert footage: musicians were competent, but poorly presented visually.  Fusion: complete failure.  With eyes closed, the film is a bit better.

20140514: Documentary Review--Muscle Shoals

Muscle Shoals

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 111 minutes, music, documentary.
2. IMDB: 7.5/10.0 from 865 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 96% on the meter; 88% liked it from 2,937 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 4.43/5.0 from 23,960 audience ratings.
5. Directed by:  Greg 'Freddie' Camalier.
6. Starring:  Rick Hall, Jimmy Johnson, Bono, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge (When a Man Loves a Woman), Allman Brothers, Lynard Skynard, Jerry Wexler.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The recording house Fame Recording Studios began in the small town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, seemingly out of nowhere.  The film fills in a lot of back story, commentary from well-known music figures, and a great deal of local colour.  The early perspective was with Rick Hall, who led a group of local musicians who became his session crew for recordings with big names such as Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin.


2. The story of how Wilson Pickett and Duane Allman conspired to make a cover of the Beatles' Hey Jude was touching, magical, and hilarious, as was the short story given of the beginning of the Allman Brothers Band.


3. At one point, Rick Hall got a contract with Capital Records.  When he announces that, his early crew has an announcement of their own.  They broke off and went with Jerry Wexler (Atlantic Records) to form Muscle Shoals Recording Studios in the same town.  At first the new studio did not do well, but then the Stones recorded You've Got to Move, Wild Horses, and Brown Sugar, three of their best blues tunes, at MSRS.


4. Rick Hall was in a feud with Jerry Wexler, and recruited a new session crew using the leverage of Capital Records.  He formed a new rhythm section called the Fame Gang.  This worked well for him.  He cut records with Lou Rawls, Bobbie Gentry, Candi Staton, King Curtis, Little Richard, Mac Davis, Joe Tex, and plenty more.  In 1971, Rick became Producer of the Year, which he did not achieve with his original session group.


5. Jimmy Johnson's MSRS was also doing interesting things.  They signed Lynard Skynard, and recorded a number of great cuts with them.  However, the band ended up leaving Johnson when he could not sell a nine minute single to any record company.  After a plane crash took the lives of three band members, two of the survivors came back to Johnson and asked that 11 of the 17 cuts they did at MSRS become the next album.


6. The stories about Jimmy Cliff (early reggae) and Steve Winwood (Traffic) recording with MSRS and going on the road with them were just delicious. Bob Seger, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Glenn Fry, and a host of others recorded at MSRS.


3. Conclusions
1. This one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.
2. If you like modern music (last 50 years or so), catch this film: for the musical history, for the cultural references, for the magic and the misfires.
3. From Sweet Home Alabama: '...now Muscle Shoals has the Swampers...'; this film gives a complete explanation.
4. This film really does deserve the 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
5. One line summary: Beautiful portrait of two of the greatest recording studios.
6. Five stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 9/10 Beautifully shot; only some of the archival footage was not great looking, but no surprise there.


2. Sound: 10/10 Oh, so good.


3. Acting: z/10 Not relevant here.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 Nicely organised; one gets a feel for the practical magic of the two studios in Muscle Shoals.

20140513: Documentary Review--Coldplay Live 2012

Coldplay Live 2012

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. British live action feature length film, 2012, TV-PG, 59 minutes, music, documentary.
2. IMDB: 8.4/10.0 from 418 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 95% liked it from 109 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 4.1/5.0 from 39,415 audience ratings.  The 59 minute version was offered.
5. Directed by: Paul Dugdale.
6. Starring: Coldplay (Chris Martin, Guy Berryman, Jonny Buckland, Will Champion), Rihanna.


2. Setup and Plot
1. This concert footage film was generally in support of the album Mylo Xyloto.  Cuts from that album (Us Against the World, Paradise) plus some old favourites such as Clocks, Viva La Vida.


2. The footage was shot mainly from Stade de France and from Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage.  The visuals with the thousands of lit wrist bracelets were interesting.


3. There is a little commentary from Chris Martin in voiceover versus some poor footage of band members.  Otherwise, there were no interviews or insights.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Find the 96 minute version if you can.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 Meh.  Disappointing.  Looked like late eighties, early nineties.


2. Sound: 10/10 Quite good.


3. Acting: z/10 Not really applicable in documentary.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 Not interesting.  It only had concatenated concert performance footage, which was not that good.

20140513: Documentary Review--Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2010, NR, 106 minutes, documentary, music.
2. IMDB: 8.4/10.0 from 2,369 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 100% on the meter; 94% liked it from 1,816 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 4.3/5.0 from 89,551 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Sam Dunn, Scot McFadyen.
6. Starring: Rush (Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson), Billy Corgan, Gene Simmons, Jack Black, Les Claypool.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film takes a three-pronged approach.  First, there are interviews done in contemporary time, with the three principals of Rush, and well-known musicians who admire them, or were influenced by them.  Second, there are interviews with family, handlers, and music industry associates.  Third, there are many archival clips of live performances of Rush.


2. Their growth from getting their first radio play in Cleveland to being well-known was quite engaging; the first hour slipped by quickly, going from nowhere to the album Moving Pictures.  Then the issue of dealing with fame started to come in.  Fan interaction rose strongly.  Alex and Geddy were fine with that, but Neil was more of a private person and avoids interactions.


3. The band's character and their fans' characteristics are compared in lots of detail.  Neil was the principal lyricist, and his special talent seems to be reflecting his deep literacy in terms that just about anyone can understand.  Further, their music tends to be complex, yet still accessible.


4. In the eighties, the group switched producer and instruments toward synthesizers, electronic drumsets, and keyboards.  They trended toward shorter songs with less complexity, less bass, and more keyboard.  Some of their fans drifted away, many others did not.


5. As one of their industry admirers put it, there were different periods of Rush, and that is one of the things that makes them interesting.  Toward the end of the eighties, they switched producers again, and went back into being a 'power trio' again, but in the current context.


6. Around 1997, Neil's daughter died in an accident, and his wife passed from illness not too long after.  He embarked on a long trip on motorcycle (55k miles).  The band shutdown while Neil healed.


7. When Neil returned, there was a period of getting his chops back.  They recorded a new album; they went on the road again.  The band was rejuvenated, and traveled to places where they had ever been before, to large audiences.  In the 21st century, some of their fans from the seventies celebrate them: the makers of South Park and Steven Colbert, for instance.


8. Up to the time the documentary was made, the band was going strong.  As Geddy said at one point, Rush is the world's most popular cult band.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Finely crafted documentary of the legendary Canadian rock group Rush.
2. Five stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 9/10 Nicely done.  The archival footage clips look like the eras they came from, but the current interviews looks sharp and well-produced.


2. Sound: 10/10 Seldom disappoints.  I wish there had been more concert footage, but the exposition was too good to be omitted.


3. Acting: z/10 Not really applicable here.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 Well-organised, well-presented, and rich in the level of information that it presents.

20140513: Documentary Review--Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 85 minutes, music, documentary.
2. IMDB: 7.0/10.0 from 626 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 50% on the meter; 73% liked it from 273 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.8/5.0 from 35,485 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Stephen C. Mitchell.
6. Starring: Caleb, Jared, Nathan, Matthew Followill.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The Followills are family: deeply religious, poor, with musical traditions in the church.  Their relatives are interviewed.  There are extensive snapshots of the band on its way up, coupled with footage of the reactions from within the family during that process.


2. Segments of the film compare and contrast: the family's poverty versus the successful band's enormous wealth; the stern religion of many of the family versus the drug use, sexual freedom, and foul language of the band; the political conservatism of the family versus the relatively PC outlook of the band.


3. These disparities have all sorts of fallout, as one sees throughout the film.  Many of the family are happy for the band; some worry for their welfare.  Much of the white hot energy of the band's music and lyrics come from these harsh differences.  Some of the band members deal with these issues consciously, and the process seems not to be over.


4. In the long run, how well will the band's members keep dealing with the family issues?  If they reach resolution, will the band still have the same level of fire and creativity?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Documentary of the roots of Kings of Leon.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 Varies quite a bit.  Most of it is fairly bad.  It was nice to see some of Oklahoma again.


2. Sound: 6/10 I expect hugely wonderful sound on a movie about a successful rock group.  Compared to the sound in Metallica: Through the Never, this is just week-old porridge.  In addition, there is very little music actually played from the Kings of Leon: two partial songs at the end, which was only a little redemption.


3. Acting: z/10 Documentary; this does not apply.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 To my mind, there were too many cuts and joins.  The same points could have been made with three examples instead of twenty. On the whole, though, the exposition was still effective, just redundant.

20140512: Music Review--Black Keys 2008

The Black Keys Live at the Crystal Ballroom

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2008, NR, 64 minutes, music, documentary.
2. IMDB: 5.1/10.0 from 30 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet' and 100% liked it from 15 audience ratings.
4. I watched this on Crackle.  The commercials were quite an improvement over the sub-amateur concert content.
5. Directed by: Lance Bangs.
6. Starring: Daniel Auerbach (guitar, vocals, keyboard) and Patrick J. Carney (drums) as themselves.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The Black Keys was a two man group in this 2008 effort: Daniel on guitar, keyboard, and vocals, Patrick on drums.


2. The pair was recorded during a set at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon, USA.


3. The visuals are between poor and worse.  The audio is not that good. 


4. One can make out some of the sound that would later mature into something good.  The musical style for which the group achieved fame was definitely not present yet.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Might be interesting for die-hard fans.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 1/10 Sub-VHS quality.  Bad focus, lens flare, so-so framing, contrast flattening.  Looks like the worst-ever camcorder product from the eighties.


2. Sound: 4/10 Not very good.  I've heard far better quality from Black Keys cuts on the FM radio in my car.  Their expanded group for post 2010 efforts has a much better sound.


3. Acting: z/10 Not really relevant.  This is musical performance only, with no further aspirations.


4. Screenplay: 3/10 Straight-up concert recording, with no particular frills, or acting, or story line.  This was about the longest 64 minutes I can remember.

20140509: Documentary Review--Metallica Through the Never

Metallica Through the Never

Rob Trujillo

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 92 minutes, documentary, music, heavy metal.
2. IMDB: 7.3/10.0 from 8,349 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 78% on the meter; 78% liked it from 11,871 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.9/5.0 from 12,828 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Nimrod Antal.  Written by: Nimrod Antal, Kirk Hammett, and Lars Ulrich.
6. Starring: Dane DeHaan as Trip; as themselves: James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, Robert Trujillo; Kyle Thomsen as The Rider.


2. Setup and Plot
1. This is a two-layered film.  There is the live action concert footage, then there is a fictional layer about Trip the roadie.


2. The camera work was crisply shot with excellent equipment and was brilliantly edited.  The sound was seamlessly joined to it.


3. Some of the most powerful moments for me were when the thousands of audience members sang the choruses in unison, while the band listened and encouraged.  I wished I had been there.


3. Conclusions
1. If you like heavy metal in general, or Metallica in particular, see this one.
2. One line summary: The live action concert footage was great; the contrived side-plot, not so much.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Inventive and of professional quality; excellent camera crew and film editing.


2. Sound: 10/10 The sound quality and editing were great.


3. Acting: 7/10 Loved the live action concert performances. James Hetfield is quite the showman. The icing from the Trip video did not add anything.  Fortunately, the sound editing moved across those parts without a hitch.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 Fortunately, the live action concert footage was dominant.  I liked the lasers and pyrotechnics, plus the way the props crew constructed huge pieces while the band continued.  The so-so fictional sub-plot about the roadie, Trip, was less interesting.

20140411: Documentary Review--War on Whistleblowers

War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 66 minutes, documentary.
2. IMDB: 7.9/10.0 from 34 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 60% on the meter; 75% liked it from 13 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.8/5.0 from 10,300 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Robert Greenwald.
6. Starring: Steven Aftergood, Danielle Brian, Michael Dekort, David Carr, Lucy Dalglish, Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Isikoff as themselves.


2. Setup and Plot
1. This documentary follows a small but interesting set of case studies of real whistleblowers who have been punished by the system in recent years.


2. Daniel Ellsberg was a whistle blower from the 1970s who provides perspective throughout the film.


3. In Iraq in 2006, our soldiers were dying due to the lack of armour on Humvees.  An IED could take one out, and the military inside often died or were badly injured.  Franz Gayl, Science and Technology Advisor to the Marine Corps in the Pentagon, became aware of this and brought it to the attention of his superiors.  He championed the replacement of the Humvee by the safer MRAP, but was greeted with roadblocks. He went to USA Today to get leverage on the problem.  He faced reprisals at work; his journalist contacts were threatened with lack of access.  The Humvees were replaced, but Gayl was put on administrative leave for quite some time.


4. Thomas Drake: (former) Senior Executive at the (US) National Security Agency was the second whistle blower profiled.  'We do not spy on Americans,' was a phrase Drake heard at work.  However, he started his job on 2001/09/11; thereafter, however, he noted huge breaches of this key charter element of the NSA.  Massive amounts of information were being collected on US citizens living inside the USA.  Drake exposed portions of this process.  His life was massively invaded in response by the FBI.  The Justice Department threatened him with the Espionage Act, and specific charges that could potentially land him in jail for the rest of his life.


5. Michael DeKort: (former) Lead Systems Engineer: The Deepwater Program, for the US Coast Guard was the third to be profiled.  DeKort brought to the light of day two major problems with the Coast Guard fleet's upgrade: radios with non-waterproof circuitry, and hulls that were overly susceptible to buckling.  DeKort used YouTube to spread the story, and it eventually found its way to 60 Minutes.  DeKort stayed out of jail.


6. Thomas Tamm: (former) Attorney in the Justice Department was the fourth to be profiled.  He was in the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review within Justice.  He talked to victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  His group applied for judicial warrants to listen in on persons in the United States who were thought to be connected to terrorists.  His group worked with the FBI which had developed the 'probable cause' for these warrants.  Some cases were treated differently, however.


7. All of these whistle blowers suffered in their professional lives.  All of them tried to go through official channels, where they were largely blocked.  I specifically liked the point made that the recent administrations leak secret information as a matter of policy, and none of those leakers go to jail.


8. How did these stories pan out?  What are the implications for other potential whistle blowers?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Well made documentary about federal whistle blowers after 20010911.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Fine for a documentary.


2. Sound: 8/10 Voices and words were clear enough. Incidental music was not overbearing.


3. Acting: z/10 Not applicable.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 The telling of the four stories were well packaged.

20131226: Documentary Review--Talhotblond

Talhotblond

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2009, NR, 75 minutes, documentary, crime.
2. IMDB: 6.9/10.0 from 1,041 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 75,000 USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 64% liked it from 436 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.6/5.0 from 24,520 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Barbara Schroeder.
6. Starring: As themselves: Thomas Montgomery (murderer), Ken Case (former prosecutor), Rex Beaber (clinical psychologist), Steve Clement (narrator).


2. Setup and Plot
1. Thomas Montgomery is a middle aged father of two who lives and works in Western New York, near Buffalo.  He is in a job where he has hit the advancement ceiling.  His middle aged body trends into impotence, and he starts looking for satisfaction elsewhere than with his wife.


2. He meets in a chat room a girl named Jessi, from West Virginia, whose online handle is talhotblond.  Montgomery's handle is marinesniper.  Montgomery was a Marine, but not one who saw combat.  Still, he makes up all sorts of nonsensical lies for his online encounters with Jessi.


3. Montgomery's wife catches wind of what he is doing; she confronts him and writes Jessi a letter, telling her a number of pertinent truths.  A co-worker Brian also learns of Montgomery's foolishness, and enters the fray.  Jessi and Brian flame Montgomery and get him suspended from the online chats.  Montgomery stays away from it a while, but later he comes back in.  Montgomery manipulates things to get Brian (handle beefcake), off the game; he quits associating with Brian in the real world, and online.


4. That does not last forever, and Jessi pulls Montgomery back in again.   She convinces Montgomery that she is back together with Brian.


5. In a small surprise, 'Jessi' is not 18; she also is a deep liar like Montgomery.  Also, she is Mary, the real Jessi's mother.  So two middle aged, unattractive adults keep this storm of lies going via their totally false online characters.  How does this play out in real life?  Very badly, as it turns out.  Who gets to walk away from this?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Man plays out in real life what his online persona would do.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Mostly good.


2. Sound: 10/10 OK.


3. Screenplay: 8/10 Tells the real-life and online stories fairly well.  Some of the character studies are good for depth.

20131122: Documentary Review--Vivan Las Antipodas

Vivan Las Antipodas

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. German live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 108 minutes, documentary.
2. IMDB: 7.0/10.0 from 319 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 1.5 million euros.
3. Rotten Tomatoes:  100% on the meter; 86% from 114 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.2/5.0 for 1,233 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Victor Kossakovsky.
6. Starring: no one.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film has four parts, one for each pair of antipodal points examined.


2. One: Entre Rios, Argentina and Shanghai, China.


3. Argentina alternated between great beauty and straight out boring; Shanghai was both beautifully shot and repellent.


4. Two: Chilean Patagonia and Lake Baikal in Russia


5. Prosaic lives versus prosaic lives; in both cases, set against majestic landscapes almost devoid of human life.  Great camera work.


6. Three: Big Island, Hawaii and Kubu, Botswana


7. Both dreadfully ugly.


8. Four: Miraflores, Spain and Castle Point, New Zealand


9. Thank God, there is an end to this.  The upside down video has my teeth on edge by this point.  More of the same, only less interesting.  Sawing up the dead whale was not a plus, nor was the footage of digging a hole and pushing the corpse in.


3. Conclusions
1. The director is a bit behind the times; check Smithsonian channel for more current and engaging approaches to similar material.
2. One line summary: Well-shot, but boring.
3. Three stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent.  Watch this in high definition if at all possible.


2. Sound: 8/10 Sparse, but well done.


3. Acting: z/10 Not applicable.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 The transition from one point to its antipodal point given by sky down ground up was amusing the first time, but immediately lost its charm thereafter.  Some of the juxtapositions were amusing, others were just boring.

20131001: Documentary Review: China's Mega Dam

China's Mega Dam

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action made for television special, 2006, Discovery Channel, documentary, 87 minutes.
2. IMDB: no entries
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and no audience ratings.
4. Narrator: Michael Carroll.
5. Director: Justin Albert.


2. Setup
1. The third longest river in the world is the Yangtze, in China.  It floods regularly, causing a great deal of damage.  The Chinese built a huge dam in the Three Gorges region to allow containment and control.


2. Backing up a bit, the film described diverting the river by digging an alternate route for most of the water, then forming a huge dry area across the original river bed where the dam's foundation will be laid.  This undertaking took considerable time.  Once the dry area was in place, the river was flowing through the new channel, and construction of the dam itself could start.  Construction started around 1994.


3. Progress depended on there not being any flash flooding occurring during the pouring and drying of the dam's cement.  It seems the Chinese got lucky on that score.


4. The created reservoir will be up to 500 feet above the original level, and will extend back from Three Gorges some 400 miles.  The number of people to be moved was expected to be 1.3 million.  Later estimates were around 2 million.  Two major cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages, 100,000 acres of farmland are to be lost to this project, which will start in 2003, and be fully loaded around 2009.  In 2004, the reservoir was already longer than the Grand Canyon.


5. The social fallout of this bludgeoning policy was thorough.  Independent villages become segments in government constructed slums.  Villages, towns, connecting bridges, and farmland were swallowed up.


6. April 2002: engineers discover cracks in the main wall of the dam.  They are diagnosed as surficial and not a safety hazard.


7. The stories of Fengdu and Dachang were rather sad, especially for the family that had stayed in the same house in Dachang for 400 years.  This thread of the documentary showed the highest level of government censorship.


8. After the dam was solid the diversion channel was closed.  Ships now had to travel through huge locks that allow passage through the dam.


9. The river became navigable, due to its much greater depth, for hundreds of miles further upstream.


10. Temples: a few were saved; many were lost.


11. The weight of the dam is enormous, and there are concerns about earthquakes in the areas near the dam.


12. Bedload flow: the dam slowed the overall speed of the river, and the river started depositing upstream for that reason. Fortunately, the engineers built low-level sluice gates in the dam, so that the silt problem could be addressed.  Unfortunately, this was only near the dam.  Upstream there are still problems.  The river is more of a lake now.


13. Some villages are moved to the other side of the river.  Others are moved hundreds of miles away.


14. The electric generators in the dam are supposed to supply 10% of all China's needs.


15. There are almost too many superlatives in this film.  The largest turbines in the world.  The largest dam in the world.  The biggest reservoir in the world.  The largest construction cranes in the world (several types).  China is the biggest producer of coal in the world.  China is the largest consumer of coal in the world.  China is the biggest polluter in the world.  The dam's locks are the biggest in the world.  Part of the dam complex is a ship elevator, of course the largest in the world.


16. The dam is hoped to eliminate a good deal of coal burning, at least in the heavily populated areas near it, like Shanghai and Chongqing.  Chongqing has about 30 million people, a huge and growing auto/motorcycle construction industry, and competes with Shanghai as the center of capitalism.


17. Jungbu island was excavated starting in 1993, and remnants of the Ba people were discovered as well as many layers of habitation over centuries.  In all, the film claimed some 1,200 archaeological sites were covered by water in 2004.  Another 8,000 were identified as potential dig sites, but not started.


18. Looting: no surprise there.  Antiquities were dug up in many places and bought up by savvy gangs with good intelligence and cash on hand.  Burglaries from museums also rose considerably.


19. The lake behind the dam was estimated to grow to 36,000 square miles a bit larger than the Great Lakes in USA/Canada.  Hundreds of thousands of grave sites were submerged in this lake.  Buddhists are very upset with this huge loss.


20. Fuling: demolished a third of the city; built huge seawalls. Kept most of the city, but lost the eighth century carvings of fish below.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: The completion of the dam is a huge achievement with huge implications.
2. Four stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 There are too many minutes of soft focus.


2. Sound: 8/10 OK, no real problems.


3. Screenplay: 8/10 Repetitive; too much geared around the commercial breaks.  On Netflix I did not have to endure those, but still, they affected the pacing in a bad way.

20130927: Documentary Review--Afterlife Investigations

The Afterlife Investigations

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action documentary, 2008, NR, 72 minutes.
2. IMDB: 7.8/10.0 from 5 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: no website entries.
4. Directed, produced, and written by: Tim Coleman
5. Narration: Donal MacIntyre.
6. Watched on Hulu+; to add insult to injury, there were commercials with this piece of nonsense.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Absolute bovine scatology.


2. Mediums in Scotland, the Scole group.  Physical mediumship...knocking on tables, disappearances.  All the usual lies.  Always in near darkness, often in some foreign language.  What a crock.  The 'actual video' and photographs were ridiculously poor and meaningless.


3. Time spent in Italy with Marcello Bacci, a guy who has a vacuum-tube radio through which the spirits speak.  The Scole group get a few answers in English.  Supposedly Italian scientists have verified that, in a particular case, the voice heard over the radio match the same voice recorded before the spirit's death.  So, they tried this with the radio in a Faraday cage (no signals coming in), with the radio turned off, with the vacuum tubes removed.  Still the voices came through.  That makes the show all the less convincing.


4. Return to the Scole Hole.  Some 'actual video and audio' looks and sounds just terrible.  The SPR (Society for Psychical Research) vetted the phenomena in the Scole Hole.  Of course they did; that is why they were brought in.  Nothing new.


5. Apports--goodness; material objects just teleport in from other places and times, and bang on tables.  Cliche.


6. Italy again--low light, out of focus, levitation.  Sure, cliche.  Apported objects showed in Italy as well.


7. Scole--floating, disembodied hand.  Cliche.  Again.


8. The 'incredible' images shown were blurs for the most part.  Another group of images consisted of writing in languages the mediums supposedly did not know.  The assurance that the films were not tampered with were totally unconvincing.


9. Next came video recordings.  Ah, nice, new material for the spiritualists.  However, the old enabling rules are still there...swap out film, swap out memory chips, whatever.  The spirit video was just nonsense again.


10. Audio--the evidence is right up there with 'Paul is dead.'


11. 25 minutes left; the Scole Report came out in 1999, whitewashing the efforts.


12. Jump to 2006; the The Skeptic magazine's editor Chris French (PhD in psychology) was unconvinced.


13. Visits to the US: tried to repeat the Scole phenomena.  Levitating table with crystals on top that do not fall off during various rotations.  The light show was quite a bit like the one in Scotland.  Well, this was done near Hollywood.  'Voices were projected from high up in the room' and no one could do that.  Oh, really?


14. One of the SPR investigators, Montague Kean, died before 2010.  They asked the real life Alison DuBois to contact Kean via his widow, Veronica.  Supposedly Kean is interested in talking to the living to help bridge the gap.


3. Conclusions
1. The point of the film seems to be to accept all the old cliches, plus a few new lies--this is the mark of a mockumentary.
2. This is not to be confused with 'Investigating the Afterlife' from 2008, which looked marginally better.
3. One line summary: Another disgusting fake.
4. One star of five; four blackholes for sound, acting, screenplay, and SFX.
5. The Scole experiment ended in 1998.  Bacci still entertains a small audience in Italy.  What was the point in dredging all this nonsense up again in 2010?


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 3/10 Where do I begin?  Bad focus, poor lighting, unrecognizable images.  Bad SFX passed off as real events.


2. Sound: 2/10 Terrible.  Lots of undecipherable noise purported to be messages from beyond the grave.  Also, we have voices and lips being out of sync.  The narrator lisps.  Stupid incidental music.


3. Acting: 0/10 Supposed to be a documentary; instead, is a totally unbelievable mockumentary.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 This feels like spiritualism 101.  The frauds are reported as facts one after another.  Nice.  I suppose a total newcomer to the subject would think of all this as interesting.  The overall effect is, "let's screw over all the next ignorant generation," with many of the same tricks and tomfoolery as used since 1890.  "Can't be explained by physical laws" gets used over and over again.  I'm not a professional skeptic, but I could explain a few of these.  I've seen the lies and the explanations before.  Hardcore skeptics could wipe out every lie in this charade.


5. SFX: 0/10 Absolutely terrible. Dull, repetitive (some images 15 times or so), unconvincing, often ridiculous.

20130926: Documentary Review--Counterfeit Culture

Counterfeit Culture

1. Fundamentals
1. Canadian live action television episode length film, 43 minutes, 2013, NR, documentary.
2. IMDB: 7.8/10.0 from 12 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and no ratings my audience members.
4. Directed by: Geoff D'Eon and Jay Dahl; written by Geoff D'Eon.
5. Narrated by Ann-Marie MacDonald.  Todd Gilmore, RCMP; Tim Phillips, British journalist on counterfeiting;
6. Viewed on Hulu+


2. Setup and Plot
1. 'Theft on a colossal scale,'  'affects people in every country.'


2. The theft is bait-and-switch on a grand scale.  Goods are sold as one brand, but in fact are not made by the company who owns the brand.


3. This includes: medicines, car parts such as brake pads, clothing, accessories, telephones, other electronics, commercial jet parts, military avionics.


4. Part of the enabling processes would be that we use the Internet for mostly anonymous transactions: buy something from a website, never see who is selling it or the store they are selling it out of.


5. Cognitive polyphasia--holding two very different opinions simultaneously about the same issue.  Example: thinking it is morally reprehensible to steal something, but at the same time wanting items that we cannot afford, or wanting things we can afford, but only purchase at much cheaper prices.


6. Counterfeit goods are now about 10% of the world's total economy, about 700 billion USD.  Putting an end to it?  Unlikely.  Counterfeiting is like the game 'Whack a mole', but with far too many moles and far too few whackers.


7. Examples: fake copper top batteries that explode, fake OTC drugs, fake guns, fake toothpaste, sunglasses (fake Ray Bans 40 dollars, real ones 200 dollars; real ones have UV protection); fake car parts, like brake pads (takes +40 yards to stop at 80 mph was the example).


8. Purchasing counterfeits leads to easy money, which leads to more easy money, which leads to organized crime, which leads to injection of the counterfeit goods all over the globe.


9. Canada Goose Jackets.  These cost about 225 dollars for the genuine article, half that much for the Chinese knockoff.  The knockoffs are loaded with health risks in the filler: feces, beaks, feet, unclean feathers, and other bird parts.


10. China is the largest manufacturing nation.  They have the ability (revered culturally) to copy anything (!) precisely.  This leads to China being the source of 75% of all counterfeit goods marketed in the world.


11. There's a village in southern China where the only industry is copying artwork.  Copies of any great (or not so great) artwork can be copied for about 50 dollars.  Part of what engenders this is the reverence for exact copying in Chinese calligraphy, which is not easy to learn, and takes much time even after one masters it.


12. One city in China had a complete fake Ikea store and a fake Apple store.  The Chinese government shut down the Ikea store at least.


13. Copies of luxury goods are big in Shenzen China, as one segment explored.  Rolex watches, DVDs of any movie that has been released, high end purses, and the like.  One example was high end headphones, 300 dollars in NA or in EU, 40 dollars in Shenzen.


14. Fake drugs--about 15% of all drug sales are fake.  In Africa, it is more like 50%.  In China, about 300,000 die every year from use of fake drugs.


15. Canadian case: a woman used OTC drugs bought over the Internet for cost savings.  At her autopsy, several elements were found that were very bad: strontium (the radioactive isotope), chromium, manganese, cobalt, arsenic, selenium, uranium (!).  At the end of the road, there was a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in India near a rare earth mine; it was thought that the pharmaceutical plant helped themselves to some free waste to cut costs.


16. Mary Schiavo (aviation attorney): fake parts are in the supply chains for commercial airplanes.  Her team traced fake parts to Marine One (the president's plane).  A crash in Columbia of an American Airlines plane proved that scavengers showed up first, cut out and took hundreds of parts, and these parts were being offered within the week.  The Concorde disaster in 2000 started with a bogus part being attached to the plane.  To make things worse, commercial airlines fly planes to foreign countries to be serviced.  Bogus parts often find their way on to the planes, and inspectors are out of the loop.


17. Counterfeit parts also find their way onto the avionics of US military airplanes.  In 2012, 1800 cases were published by the Senate investigatory committee.  In the 1990s, the US military changed from buying directly from manufacturers to buying from parts brokers.  The investigation of the chips led back to Shenzen, the same city mentioned above.


18. The bogus chips are often recovered from e-waste circuit boards.  The method of recovery includes holding the circuit board over a fire until the component's solder melts.  This much heat may just as well fry the chip.


19. 'This situation will never change until consumer habits change.'   The money from the thirst for cheap fakes fuels the whole cycle.  "We've got to grow a conscience.'


3. Conclusions
1. This is a must see.
2. One sentence summary: Fake products can be harmful to your health and your economic welfare.
3. Five stars of five


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 9/10 Clear and sharp.


2. Sound: 9/10 Rather good.


3. Acting: N/A


4. Screenplay: 9/10 Good logical development.

20130917: Documentary Review--Life 2.0

Life 2.0

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action and animated feature length film, 2010, NR, 100 minutes, documentary.
2. IMDB: 5.9/10.0 from 202 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 89% on the meter; 48% liked it from 171 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Jason Spingarn-Koff.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The discrepancy between the critics and the ticket buyers on Rotten Tomatoes was rather large.  This does not bode well.


2. Life 2.0 refers to Second Life, an animated, shared, massively multi-user application.  Real life companies have meetings in board rooms in buildings in SL.  People buy islands, land parcels, and buildings in SL.  People run businesses in SL.  It has its own economy, currency, geography, and a host of sub-cultures.


3. One equivalence stated was 1000 lindens (SL currency) was exchangeable for 3.50 USD.  There is an in-game bank that enables exchanges of USD to lindens and back.  During 2009, an estimated 500 million USD were exchanged between SL and real life.  Those who learn how to build in SL can sell services, houses, vehicles, clothes, and the like in SL and get USD in return. Conversely, those with disposable USD, can have a luxurious time in Second Life.


4. The film largely follows the four avatars, Asri Falcone, Amie Goode, Bluntly Berblinger, and Ayya Aabye.   Asri builds and sells clothing in the game and makes money.  Amie and Bluntly are bonded in the game, and somewhat outside the game.  They experience things together in SL; she's married to someone else in real life.  Ayya is an 11-year old girl, whose creator is an engaged man in his thirties.


5. Creepy moments: Ayya's creator discusses what he gets out of portraying a young girl avatar.  His wife is not positively impressed.  His over-spending of time in SL has endangered his job, his marriage, and his health.  Sounds like addiction: users saying sleep was only done out of necessity.


6. The slick, sleek, entrepreneurial type, Asri Falcone, in Second Life turns out to be a person who spends most of her time in a basement in a so-so part of Detroit.  On the other hand, Asri's efforts in SL more than pay for the monthly fees for playing the game.  In fact, for at least one year before the film's release, she was making over 100,000 USD per year from SL, and helped support her elderly parents.


7. Real life and Second Life are sometimes at odds: budding romance in Second Life is confounded by Real life mates, children, real property and other commitments. 


8. It is illegal for real life children to operate in Second Life, at all, period.  Despite this, there are many child avatars, child schools, friendships that involve exploration in SL with other child friends. As well as schools, there are adoption centers where child avatars get matched with pairs of adult avatars.


9. Ayya's creator got himself kicked out of SL by having the avatar do a suicide bombing run.  Linden Labs considered this a denial of service attack, and suspended his account.  That seemed the only way Ayya's creator could get out of the game, given his psychology.  The first time he got suspended for 24 hours; he was hoping for more.  That was a wake-up, and he decides to delete Ayya on the six months anniversary of his joining SL.


10. Gaming the game: when the servers underlying SL would crash, on reboot they sometimes created extra copies of objects, including merchant inventory.  So, some hackers were able to produce many such crashes, which resulted in numerous copies being made, which they snapped up and sold at reduced prices.  The merchants adversely affected by this, including Asri, went to court to get this fixed. This hit about the same time as the real life Great Recession, so the SL economy went into a slower mode as well.  Asri's ability to make money in SL went down severely, and her savings eventually ran out.


11. Steven (Bluntly) and Amie (Amie) live in Alberta, CA and New York, USA.  They started meeting for short times.  Both of them separated from their spouses, and are trying to find a feasible plan for being together in real life.


12. Down the tubes: Ayya and his finance break up after he cuts himself out of SL.  He goes back to SL, but realizes what a mess he is.  Steven and Amie tried to be together, and find that it does not work.  They do not work together for day-to-day real tasks as they did with their time exploring in SL.  Asri does not recover the same income she once had in SL. The successful lawsuit against the virtual perpetrator only yielded about 525 USD for six plaintiffs.  Still, she makes a whole new set of businesses, does a lot more to protect her copyrights and brands in the game, and again makes significant money.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: Things can go wrong in the virtual worlds too.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 4/10 Streamed in HD from Netflix.  This was a total waste, since SL does not have a high enough polygon density to warrant this.  It looks grainy, second rate, poor, all the way through the film.  The 'real' life photography is iffy, showing quite a number of zooming, framing, and focus mistakes.  Jumpy hand-held look. Some of the second half 'real' life camera work was reasonably good.  Toward the very end of the film, much later versions of SL show vastly improved animation. This is only for about 1 minute. Most of the SL footage is just terrible.


2. Sound: 6/10 OK, but sometimes indifferent to fuzzy.


3. Screenplay: 6/10 The stories to be told were told well.  However, it seems a bit lopsided.  The three main stories were about a couple who left their former spouses then failed romantically in real life; a childhood abuse victim using SL instead of a shrink; one of the exceptional few who actually made money off of SL.  Companies that use SL for business meetings?  Not represented.  People who just have a good time?  I did not see much of that.  So many common cases were not represented at all.

20130911: Documentary Review--Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, 1982, rated UR, 86 minutes, documentary, music.
2. IMDB: 8.3/10.0 from 24,271 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 89% on the meter; 91% liked it from 14,778 audience ratings.
4. Directed by Godfrey Reggio.
5. Starring: no one.
6. Music by Phillip Glass.
7. Viewed from streaming video from Hulu+


2. Setup and Plot
1. Videos strung together, coordinated with Phillip Glass' music.
2. Nature (clouds, waves, mountains, shores) is described as beautiful, enduring, good.
3. Humanity is ambushed as ugly, stupid, wasteful, enslaved, impoverished, ant-like, and injurious to the landscape.


3. Conclusions
1. One sentence summary: The video was as subtle as a sledgehammer opening an English walnut; the music as finely discriminating as a bulldozer in a rose garden.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 I saw this in the late 1980s, and remember being quite impressed by the visuals.  On the Hulu version I saw in 2013, I was not impressed at all.  The focus was soft, the colors washed out, the contrast low.


2. Incidental music: 5/10 Beyond irritating.  When associated with humans in video, the music had the sort of manic activity one might associate with the Keystone Cops, but with oppressive overtones.


3. Screenplay: 2/10 The point of view is 'nature is great, humanity is the opposite.'

20130910: Documentary Review--Samsara

Samsara

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length documentary, 2011, rated PG-13, 102 minutes.
2. IMDB: 8.2/10.0 from 8,384 users; estimated budget of 4 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 77% on the meter; 86% from 10,673 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Ron Fricke; screenplay by Mark Magidson and Ron Fricke.
5. Starring: no one in particular.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Human subjects are urged to look at the camera and not speak and not smile.
2. Taped subjects such as landscapes are sometimes shown at altered speeds.
3. Cool images: pharaoh's head; castle on a peak; Tibetan images; active sand dunes; high ceilings and stained glass in cathedrals; orange dunes in stark light; dead tree stumps against the rotation of the stars in the night skies; aerial videos of cities at night.
4. Uncool images: ugly old statues with massive time lapse; unused buildings filling up with sand; ruined, abandoned strip malls, stores, school rooms; automobiles and small houses interacting unnaturally; man covering his head with clay since it looks like a cheap, gimmicky horror film; chicken, bovine, pork processing; plastic surgery pre-processing; humans doing garbage recycling by hand for a living.
5. Indifferent images: oh, so many, such as the indoor skiing.
6. After watching the whole film twice, I'd say that all the images became indifferent.  This is just concatenation in void context; all significance has been driven down to zero by the silent treatment.
7. If you've got a story to tell, tell it.  Use language and planning.


3. Conclusions
1. It's awesomely beautiful in stretches, and downright ugly in others, but who cares?
2. One sentence summary: There were many images and videos, but little cohesion.
3. Three stars of five.  Here I'm giving more weight to the quality of the images, and less to the lack of connections.
4. After watching the film the first time, I read well over 50 reviews of it.  In almost all cases, the review consisted of interpretations from experiences and axes to grind from outside the film.  Frankly, it looked like stretching in every case.  Watching the film again reinforced this opinion.  Documentary films, by and large, have issues to raise and things to say about those issues.  This film has images to present, but no point of view.  The reviewers I read loaded in their own POV, whereas I'd say this film is just "I've collected a number of high quality images."


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Stellar.


2. Sound: 8/10 Incidental music, almost no dialog.


3. Acting: N/A


4. Screenplay: 0/10 There were no points made.

20130910: Documentary Review--Carthage the Roman Holocaust

Carthage: the Roman Holocaust

1. Fundamentals
1. British live action film for television, 2004, NR, 100 minutes, documentary.
2. IMDB: 6.5/10.0 from 25 users.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: no result.  Seems it's a tv movie
4. Director: Joseph Maxwell; writer: Richard Miles.
5. Presenter: Dr. Richard Miles.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Re-enactments (?) using modern people; so many anachronisms!
2. Lots of footage of ruins, mostly the ruins of Carthage in what is now Tunisia.
3. The thesis of the piece is that the ancient world was not just created by Egypt, Greece, and Rome; Carthage, a former Phoenician colony, had a big influence.
4. Around 500 BC, Carthage was the richest city-state in the Mediterranean.  The Carthaginians pioneered the navigation of the western Mediterranean, and had mapped the entire sea.
5. In 500 BC, Rome was made of wood, not the later towering marble monuments.  Sardinia, Sicily, and Corsica were Carthaginian at the time, and the Romans were a bit claustrophobic about it.  The western Mediterranean was African (well, Carthaginian), not European.


6. Carthage built ships by kit (wood pre-cut to exact sizes with instructions on the wood; somewhat like Ikea today), so that any journeyman carpenter could build a Carthaginian warship.
7. The First Punic War started in 264 BC, and lasted 25 years.  Rome became a sea power, partly by capturing, then reverse engineering, a Carthaginian warship.  Carthage gave up Sicily in 241 BC.  Rome annexed Sardinia and Corsica the following year, and unilaterally amended the peace treaty.
8. Carthage expanded in Spain, and the silver mined there helped Carthage recoup its position.  After this, Hannibal rose as the leader of Carthage.  In 216 BC, Hannibal was at the gates of Rome in the Second Punic War.  Roman generals diverted Hannibal long enough for Roman forces to attack Carthage itself.  Hannibal returned to Carthage, but was soundly defeated there.
9. All Carthaginian colonies were seized.  All Carthaginian warships were sunk.  Carthage had 50 years to pay off a huge sum of money to Rome.


10. Cato was a young veteran of the Second Punic War.  In the Senate in his older years, Cato ended most speeches with Delenda est Carthago! (Carthage must be destroyed!).
11. Meanwhile, Carthage paid off its debt in 10 years, not 50, and became wealthy again.
12. Carthage rebuilt its navy (in defiance of the treaty) by having the shipyards inland and disguised.
13. A new Carthaginian leader rattled swords, and the Third Punic War was on.  Rome sent 85,000 troops and the general Scipio to end the city.
14. The savagery continued, and the Romans reduced Carthage to nothing.
15. In the same year, 146 BC, Rome also annihilated the Greek city of Corinth.
16. The aristocracy in Rome had the habit of seizing the lands of soldiers while the soldiers were away fighting Carthage.  So the soldiers came back to landless poverty.
17. Carthage stayed down for a good century.


18. Rome rehabilitated it in order to eliminate it even more.  They scraped away the rubble of the old Punic city Carthage, and created a new Roman city, Concordia, which became the second largest city in the Mediterranean.
19. The presenter discusses the content of the Aeneid, which describes the founding of Carthage by Dido, and Rome by Aeneas.  This was one of the earlier forms of propaganda.
20. The presenter makes a good case against the 'child sacrifice' mantra repeated by Roman commentators and by later writers such as Flaubert.
21. The film finishes by discussing what Rome inherited from Carthage, such as shipbuilding, olive agriculture, some laws, and bath house design.  One of the areas where Rome far surpassed Carthage was in its ability to win the loyalties of its allies.  The allies had the sense that they were Roman citizens.  Don't kill your enemies; assimilate them.


3. Conclusions
1. The film makes its points about history being written by the winners; in this case, the Romans and not the Carthaginians.
2. One line summary: Carthago delenda est!
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Good enough.


2. Sound: 10/10 No problems.


3. Re-enactments: 2/10 Fire effects layered above paintings: absurdly bad. Discussing Carthage's 'superb ports' by showing 21st century ports is irrelevant.  There were few diagrams indicated the ebb and flow of the three Punic wars.  Discussing foundations of cities as if one could visualize what used to be there is unconvincing.


4. Screenplay: 8/10 There is little new here, but the exposition is reasonable enough.  The central theme would was that Carthage was Rome's forerunner and teacher.

20130909: Documentary Review--Thirty Thousand

Thirty Thousand: A Surfing Odyssey

1. Australian live action feature film, 2011, 50 minutes, NR, documentary, surfing.
2. IMDB: no search results
3. Rotten Tomatoes: no search results.
4. Watched this on Hulu+
5. Written, directed, and produced by Richard and Andrew James.
6. Cinematography and editing by Richard James.
7. ----------------------Setup and activities.
8. Two Australian men surf off the coast of Morocco, then proceed southward, surfing the local coasts, until reaching South Africa.
9. Lots of surfing music, Australian style.
10. Western Morocco: still under military dispute; this is kept in check somewhat by UN peacekeepers.
11. Next step, Senegal.  Big changes: many people, lush vegetation.  Very few surfers.
12. The two stars of the show are more adept at staying on their boards than many I've seen in surf films.
13. Third step, Liberia: extended civil war was in the recent past.  Their foreign currency was well received.  Bigger waves here.
14. Fourth step, Angola.  This was the most difficult to travel through: check points, bad roads, language barriers, grouchy military.
15. Fifth step, Namibia, crossing the Kalahari Desert to the ocean.
16. Sixth, continue south to the ocean off South Africa.
17. Eh, home.
18. ----------------------Conclusions
19. One line summary: Two Australians surf African coasts from Morocco to South Africa.
20. Three stars of five.
21. ----------------------Scores.
22. Camera work: not as good as the top surfing documentaries. Graininess and soft focus is much more common in their work.  Lose one star.  There was more inland footage than I expected.
23. Sound: The volume of the spoken word is way too many decibels below the injected music. Lose another star.  Jockeying the volume for each segment is a pain.
24. Screenplay: organization is fine for a surfing film.
25. Pluses: these are two of the most skilled surfers I've seen on film.  Some of their techniques were new to me, as well as clever and low-tech.  They could stay up on their boards in quite turbulent waves.  Many of the locales were new, so that was good, but the darkness of their images took some of that virtue away.