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jorgefromthefuture
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Tao da liang da xian shen wei (1988)
Dazzling, insane movie.
Magic of Spell defies categorization as there really isn't much to compare it to. I might describe it as a Manichean, Kung Fu version of 1984s 'The Never Ending Story' on mushrooms, except WAY more inventive and unique. After creating Drunken Dragon in 1985 (a unique and fairly insane movie of it's ownw), director Chung-Hsing Chao left ALL inhibitions by the wayside and created this amazing and unique gem of a movie! Clearly made with love, it dazzles and amazes, while never taking itself seriously at all.
Labyrinth (1986)
A magical movie that manages to capture lightning in a bottle.
It's hard to say exactly what makes this movie work so well.
If you lay it's elements out it seems to spell disaster. It has juvenile humor yet a fairly dark plot. It is a kids' movie, yet has a young teen in a romantically oriented relationship with an adult with a large power imbalance. Many rules of it's 'world' are left completely unexplained or understood. It is a sort of a lighthearted musical, yet various characters shine lights on deep psychological topics like narcissism or philosophical topics like judging what is important and solving dilemmas.
Labyrinth skates right past all these issues and works very very well. So well, that it can only be described as a work of genius in my view.
Nearly everything about this movie reads to me as a labor of love.
Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam (1982)
Eye Assault
The Man Who Saved the World, AKA 'Turkish Star Wars' is a truly unique film.
Definitely in the domain and purview of fans of terrible movies, this is easily one of the worst I have ever seen. Think of it as 'Manos, Hands of Fate' is boring, this movie is hyperactive, plus more insane.
I have seen a decent number of B-movies, Troma, and worse, and I am telling you this is absolutely bottom rung, and the only one I would describe plainly as 'an assault on the eyes'. I was not able to watch it through without a 15 minute break in the middle of it.
At several moments it had me doubled over laughing with my stomach hurting.
Trying to follow the story is just was just as much fun as watching agape at it's costumes, effects, and epilepsy inducing editing.
I can't decide whether to rate it 1/10 as the worst possible type of film or 10/10 as a riotous C-movie. Either way, there is no other movie like it that I am aware of. Enjoy.
Mutant Hunt (1987)
I'm a proud owner of Mutant Hunt on VHS
What can I say?
This is one of my favorite 80's sci-fi wrecks (notably, it seems to have been at least partially filmed at the Brooklyn Army Terminal). It is hilariously bad.
Have some friends over, pass out some stiff drinks, and enjoy some laughs at this insane mashup of nonsense, violence, and puerile absurdity. A technical failure in practically every respect, in my opinion it veers completely into the lane of unintentional comedy, which makes it well worth watching to fans of B-movies.
An Inconsistent Truth (2012)
Kind of Embarrassing
First some positives:
1) Before watching, I suspected that Phil Valentine might be on the payroll of some organization or other when creating this film. After watching it, its clear to me that he was attempting to honestly depict the global warming issue as he sees it, and I don't think he is a shill.
A few problems with this film:
1) I was expecting this film to be overflowing with facts, charts, and all kinds of data to convince me that all the climate scientists who think that global warming is real and caused by humans are all wrong. Instead, I was disappointed to find that the film only had a handful of things to say about global warming itself (I'll address it's relevant non-straw man points below) and instead spends about 4/5 of it's time criticizing and making ad hominem attacks against Al Gore. Not that I care for Al Gore, but Gore himself has very little to do with the warming of the Earth. Valentine spent a ton of time in the film trying to prank, harass, and making snarky comments about Gore, "liberals", and what he calls "Dirt People" (environmentalists?). He also spends a lot of time interviewing people on the street and mocking them in a sort of Jay Leno 'street walk' way, or interacting blandly with irrelevant people he found in a book store where Al Gore was doing a book signing, or Al Gore's security guards (not joking). Valentine also spends time showing himself getting kicked out of peoples offices who didn't want to be interviewed. It was simply a waste of time to watch these parts as they added nothing to the issue at hand. Still more of the film was wasted with Valentine talking about himself, and also playing a song that mocks recycling and environmentalism over lengthy shots of glaciers and wintery pine trees. So there went 4/5ths of the film.
2) Some of the interviewees in the movie have conflicts of interests: Dr. Green is a member of the Heartland institute and The American Enterprise Institute (well known conservative and industry lobbying groups for special interests), Dr Singer (the only interviewee to claim that warming will be a good thing for people) has been employed by General Motors, Ford, and has done consulting for Exxon, Shell, Unocal Sun Oil, and ARCO in the past. Valentine is quick to point out Gore's loose conflicts of interests (who is irrelevant to the issue, since any of a plurality of climate scientists could have stood in to defend Gore's position instead), but overlooks conflicts of his own main sources for his own position in his movie.
It is perhaps notable then that Dr Spencer and Dr. Christy (the two remaining impartial scientists) did not deny anthropomorphic climate change, but simply withhold judgement on the issue.
the film boiled down to a handful of relevant or convincing parts:
3) The first (of only 2 or 3) charts shown in the film, showing a huge peak during the medieval warming period is misleading. This chart is result of a single method of measurement (and is the most extreme of all available measurements for this). Charts that show all types of temperature measurement aggregated together do show a medieval warming period but it is not nearly as pronounced as the one shown in the film, and for those wondering, the aggregate chart shows the average global temperature warmer now than in medieval times (unlike the misleading one in the film).
4) Dr. Singer cites "31,000 engineers and scientists" who disagree with the IPCC reports as he holds up a book. I think this scene is particularly misleading for two reasons. First, the book he is holding is a book that he helped write himself (the NIPCC, notably published by the Heartland Institute), not a book coauthored or endorsed or even known by the "31k engineers and scientists". Secondly, the 31k engineers and scientists he is citing are practically anonymous signatories of a petition against government action towards global warming (the Oregon Petition) who self-verified their credentials. Scientific American did a rough random survey to get a sense of how authentic the signers were and found that "Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers - a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community." In my opinion, this scene alone put the film in propaganda territory.
5) The idea that CO2 follows the rise and fall of temperature is false. It follows from a misreading of the ice core evidence. Namely: The core tells you both temperature and CO2 concentration at that position and time, and if read directly CO2 levels do seem to follow rises and falls in temperature. However, these temperatures are of course LOCAL temperatures. When the CO2 rates are compared to average GLOBAL temperatures at the time of their deposit, they instead support the conclusion that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that causes global warming.
6) Valentine and Dr. Singer assert that there is no consensus on anthropomorphic climate change. This is true, but only if you don't consider ~95% of climate scientists to be a consensus. Dr. Spencer himself on his website concedes that he is in the minority in not yet accepting that the climate change is caused by humans. His research involves finding out what might be causing the warming besides humans (and it is the results of this type of research that I was actually hoping to see in the film). Unfortunately for me (and Valentine), Dr. Spencer did not appear to be ready to make any scientific claims to the contrary at the time of filming. You can check his website to see the latest (he is still looking, and if you can sort through the snarky parts of his blog, he also helpfully states why he is still looking).
7) Valentine puts forth the claim that the Earth is not really warming but actually cooling. For this he cites 3 things: An article from "The Register", a quote from a political commentator, namely: "it's the sun, stupid", and shows Dr. Christy basically saying that this could be possible but unverifiable because the data is very noisy year to year and 10 years is too small a sample to draw any conclusion. For those who already believe this, I suppose you might just bob your head in agreement. However if you don't already believe this, this is a paper thin veneer of evidence at best, and at worst a laughable attempt at propaganda. Further, both Dr. Spencer and Dr. Singer agree that the Earth is warming (they simply don't commit to the idea that it is caused by humans) and therefore in this sense the film contradicts itself but succeeds in muddying the water (which I presume is one of the goals of the film?).
I am a bit hesitant to call this film outright propaganda because the word carries the connotation of a willful intent to mislead or deceive and I don't think Valentine set out to do this. However I do think Valentine wholly lacks scientific critical thinking skills and ended up creating a right-wing version of a 9/11 truther inside-job film.
I was, at a minimum, hoping that I could point to this movie as the definitive argument for denying anthropomorphic climate change and perhaps have a debate with someone about it's points. Instead, I will simply recommend Phil Valentine and supporters to closely study and internalize the wikipedia entry for "List of logical fallacies" so in the future they can better sort out information from irrelevant or incorrect nonsense.
A Certain Kind of Death (2003)
Could not take my eyes off of it.
This documentary is unique in its rawness.
It follows the deaths of 3 people, and captures the raw facts of how the state processes what remained after they died when no family or friends came to speak for them: their body, their money, their things.
Through the process and the work of different state employees, some details of the decedents' lives emerge, showing that these were real human beings with life stories - who died alone.
The film is almost like a stoic parent matter-of-factly and plainly illuminating the facts and realities of death to a child who has asked.
A Certain Kind of Death is well worth watching and eye opening. Its' only uncompromising principle being a dedication to sharing the unblinking brute facts and reality of how a state manages the deaths of it's citizens.
For me, the film left a lasting impression, forcing the viewer to ask themselves the obvious question: how do I want my own death to be handled?