Reviews

I'm an Atheist, but I found Richard Dawkin's behavior around religious people in this series to be disrespectful. He visited an evangelical church in the US, similar to the type in my city, and he was just rude. The pastor has 3 sins against an elitist like Dawkins: 1) He has a southern accent 2) He was religious 3) He was positive and outgoing. I noticed Dawkins lip trembling through the conversation in apparent anger, and he did *not* approach the conversation coolly as he should have. It is possible to remain friendly and have a debate, something the minister realized but Dawkins seemed oblivious to.

I also noticed he seemed to favor bashing Islam and Christianity, but when he visits Jerusalem he is extremely sympathetic to the Jews, even though they behave like the Third Reich when it comes to Palestinians.

When he meets with a New York Jew who converted to Islam and now lives in Palestine, he seems curiously relaxed at first, then when he realizes the fundamentalist is hard core he loses his temperament again. The fundamentalist raises good issues - in our lands (the Western world) we are seeing more and more human degradation on TV, on the Internet, and in our daily lives. He argues that our women are dressing and acting like whores, and Dawkins doesn't seem to have an answer to this and doesn't seem concerned about this, saying women are deciding to do it themselves. The truth is these young girls are being fed these messages from TV and society - it isn't coming from within these young girls. The culture is becoming bankrupt, and the people foisting these values on the Western world certainly are not Islamic, and they are not devout Christian. Why isn't Dawkins concerned about what Atheists are doing? Overall, I was not impressed with his supposed free thinking. He seems very leftist establishment oriented to me.

Your first shock will be realizing Adam West aka Batman stars in the film. Your second shock will be that some guy who should probably be an extra has the lead role, and West is a secondary player.

All these meteors are flying all around Mars making loud whooshing sounds. To avoid one the ship goes into low orbit for some reason. The copilot warns Batman they won't have any fuel left, but he says "We can deal with that later". Can they really? How do you deal with no fuel when you are in space? It's like watching NASA if it belonged to a banana republic. There are apparently no procedures at all. The astronaut lands one of the modules on the edge of a crater and it tips over into some flames shooting out of the ground. He gets out with his monkey (don't ask) but forgets to close the hatch and a huge fireball makes a B-line for the door and his ship blows up. Damn the luck! Then he opens his visor and starts choking on sulfur air. Then he goes to the edge of a cliff, doesn't notice it, and falls off. You can tell right away that this dude has the right stuff.

He finally makes it through the fire to a cave, and his first survival instinct is to light a fire. On a searing hot planet with flames all over. Nice instincts. Apparently NASA equipped him with top of the line Kailoa Klub matches. Like I guess a lighter would have been too expensive for the budget. He also pulls out a gun from his pack and it's an old .44 magnum that looks like it was from the Wild West. What kind of people at NASA are packing his supplies anyway? Insane for fire, he tries using a diamond crystal for a magnifying lens and eventually gets his fire going. At that point, he realizes lighting a fire on a fire planet is probably not going to help him survive after all. These NASA types are pretty smart.

Commander Draper then stows his O2 tanks in a very hard to reach spot in the cave and falls asleep. When he wakes up he's gasping for oxygen and barely makes it to the O2 he so conveniently stowed.

At this point in the movie it looked hopeless for Draper and his monkey, but then he sees his pilot is also landing. Why they land miles from each other is a mystery. Unfortunately, compared to Draper, Batman does not have the right stuff. He crashes and burns, leaving only charred long pig behind. Soon, with only Mona the monkey and Draper left, the tension becomes so thick you could cut it with a knife.

It's a crazy movie where you aren't sure why the characters do really stupid stuff for no reason. Like why are they there in the first place? But it's really quite enjoyable.

You would have to be cynical not to receive enjoyment from a film like this. It's done before they really knew a lot about Mars, so there is some funny stuff, like the astronaut can breath the Mars air for long periods (only needs to suck oxygen every hour or so). In addition, there is water in caves and some underground plants that are edible. Oh yeah and there are aliens on the surface. Obviously those do not exist in real life but it makes the movie that much more funny.

Jared Diamond made a point in the first episode that other peoples of the world didn't have animals to domesticate but Europeans did, and that accounts for why we were able to make steel and invent complex machines.

But then in the third episode he says that when the Europeans in South Africa got too far north they ran into Zulu people and other tribes that *herded cattle and planted crops*. So what explains their lack of technological, economic, and artistic achievement if they had the key things the author claims are needed for success?

Diamond also claims germs in the form of smallpox (brought to North America by black slaves) were our biggest weapon. Well, if 150 Europeans can defeat 20,000 native warriors and 400 non-military South Africans can defeat 10,000 Zulus *without a single casualty* in either case, then I think you have to conclude that germs are irrelevant. With or without germs, we were going to succeed.

He says Malaria stopped Europeans from colonizing further North, killing "thousands" of Europeans while not affecting Africans. (I'd like to know real numbers but he doesn't say.) Then at the end he says today Malaria is killing thousands of Africans and that is why they can't catch up with us. So which is it, Jared? Did Malaria help the Africans by halting Eurpeans or hurt them? And how come Europe did okay despite massive plagues throughout our history?

He also seems far too eager to say that the reasons Europeans succeeded was because of dumb luck. At times when the evidence threatens to overwhelm his rickety theories he's reluctant to admit that maybe Europeans were successful because they worked for it. It's sad watch this obvious neo-Marxist contort reality to try to prove his point.

To me, this is the type of film Hollywood should make more often. It's a fairly realistic portrayal of the difficulties of trying to have a family life while trying to support a family. Dennis Quaid is perfect as the father with one more on the way who has the respect of all his coworkers, but is unknown by the conglomerate that takes over the company. As a result, people are arbitrarily fired or demoted by the "new guys" that come in to manage the place.

The movie seems like it was written by someone who has actually been in the business world, rather than some ignorant Hollywood hack who feels it's his duty to demonize business. The writer truly respects business, yet also addresses some of the lesser aspects of todays business world without condemning it. Quaid represents someone who loves business and does it well, and also loves his family.

Topher Grace is the new guy who comes in to save the day when the advertising department gets into the red. In a very funny scene he addresses his workers and starts talking about the dreaded Synergy. I hate the word Synergy and people who use it, but he somehow manages to turn it into a rousing speech that gets everyone behind him, which was pretty clever.

It is generally a movie you can feel good about, with a few seedy exceptions. Topher's wife cheats on him and leaves him. The cheating part was overkill given the scenario because she was just fed up with his over the top work ethic. She could have just walked out and it would be just as painful. Seems like Hollywood can't help but push that image of the cheating wife for some reason. Why do they keep forcing that image? It's like they are on a mission to undermine the confidence of todays working man. Also, the character played by Scarlette Johanson sleeps with Topher on pretty much the first date. Again, it's like Hollywood is pushing for a slutty image for women in almost all their films. According to study after study, women have a natural, biological impulse to take it slow, but it's like the media wants to pressure women into being slutty. Aside from those two negative images of women, it's a gripping, quirky, and uplifting movie from start to end. That's pretty rare these days.

I've had an easier time figuring out German films without subtitles than understanding this film, which is in English. The plot is pretty simple - an Egyptian God has to mate three times with a special human.

Here's the problem: he mates with her three times and has his offspring. Nothing stands in his way. He mates, and that's it. No problems. Smooth as gold. But where is the conflict?! There is no tension at all because he just does it and succeeds without anything getting in his way. The movie ends and you realize nothing of consequence really happened.

The visuals are spectacular as is the imagination of the director/writer. So many scenes, like the abandoned rusty bridge, and the thawing out cryo-patients are very cool. Everyone who sees the film will comment on the dumb computer generated characters - I swear, they look the same in Doom III. Why the director decided to ruin his film by inserting fake characters is beyond me. I really didn't even see why the senator was necessary, since he seems to have almost nothing to do with Horus or the human.

Anyway, it's an interesting experiment. This type of film making is probably going to hit it big some day. I've seen Sky Captain, Kasshern, and now this and the potential for greatness is definitely there. Now if only they could get the scripts right.

Oh dreary, it's another one of those movies where a young girl is living at home but her life is some sort of "prison". Blabedy blabedy blah. You've seen it all before. It's not a bad story. There's an interesting plot about a family of immortals jealously guarding their secret to eternal life from others. For some reason, even though they don't share their discovery, they are presented as the good guys. Unfortunately, there are many jabs at Western culture that grow tiring.

She goes to town and before you know it she's having a game of baseball while he mother goes into a shop and, never having played baseball before, she hits a home run. Mom is aghast. Blah-blah-blah. Disney has an urgent message for our girls today - in the age of 'Girls Gone Wild' - they are trying to tell us about oppressed girls.

The usual view on Victorian age is shown with women being 'oppressed' by wearing corsets. Another opportunity for Disney to run down our culture. Probably never occurs to these Hollywood writers that some of the fashions of today, like tattooing your skin or getting piercings, are even worse. The movie keeps hammering and hammering, over and over, about the corsets and how Winifred is oppressed. It becomes so tedious.

Meanwhile the poor, downtrodden Tuck family is just so damn happy they are always out of breath, hugging each other, blabbedy blah.

Then its time for Winifred to go to a school. Of course, our educational systems back then must also be presented in the most despicable light, and Winifred even says, "It's like a jail!" Then she meets the poor Tuck family and the rich people are evil thing starts. The Tucks tell Winifred her father is evil because I guess he has a lumber business. (Of course, houses are made out of lumber, including the Tuck's house, but that doesn't matter to the screenwriter.)

Another point they try to make is that immortality is not something you should want. What?! Who wouldn't take a drink of immortality if they had the chance - and you should! What is wrong with wanting to extend your life?! The ideas of Hollywood types are idiotic. I swear to God, at the end of the film the message is it is better to be a rotting corpse in the ground (which they show) rather than live eternally, being able to accomplish everything you wanted. In perfect health. WTF?

How many movies does Disney have to put out that tell us our Western culture was some kind of horror show? We get it Disney! You have made your point repeatedly, as have thousands of other Hollywood movies. Our ancestors, our grandparents, our legacy apparently isn't worth crap. The democracy they started, the freedoms, the inventions and the enlightenment they developed apparently don't count for crap. Yes, Disney, you want to revise our history and make it look like the people who came before us were all oppressive tyrants. We get it! But when is enough going to be enough?