| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dead Ringers - R | April 22, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Sid & Nancy - R | April 22, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Miyamoto Musashi Kanketsuhen: Kettô Ganryûjima (Samurai III: Duel on Ganryu Island) (Bushido) - Unrated | April 22, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Zoku Miyamoto Musashi: Ichijôji no Kettô (Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple) (Swords of Doom) - Unrated | April 22, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Deception - R | April 21, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Baby Mama - PG-13 | April 21, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay - R | April 21, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Diabolique - R | April 18, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Twilight - PG-13 | At first I wanted to see this, because the vampire mythology fascinate me. On an intellectual level. But given it's rising popularity made me think twice. This series seems to be the next Harry Potter. So it has lost some of it's attraction to me, because if something has that much appeal to so many, there's got to be something wrong with it. And the way everyone drools over 'Edward Cullen' I'm afraid I might fall in love with him too! I'm sorry, that joke was in very poor taste. But really, in this day and age they're probably going to focus on the sexualizing of this movie (and probably did in the books) to appeal to young adults, and that's something I can do without. *sigh* I guess I'll just go read Stephen King's Salem's Lot for the dozenth time. | April 18, 2008 | N/A | |||
| Saw V - R | April 16, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Them (Ils) - R | April 15, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Them - Unrated | April 15, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Stop Loss - R |
Like other recent films that explore fallout from the Iraq war, Stop-Loss presents some major philosophical dilemmas for audiences to examine: How do you fight a war in which it's impossible to tell combatant from civilian? How do you defeat an enemy who doesn't value his own life? How do you live with yourself after leading your friends to their deaths? All of these are very real questions. And our country is currently engaged in a conflict that demands they be answered, as impossible as the answers may seem.
Unfortunately, Stop-Loss also concocts some false dilemmas and presents them in tandem with those above: What do you do with a military that targets individual soldiers returning from war, nabs them with a "back-door draft," turns them around and sends them right back into combat? And what about the Army's dubious "standard operating procedure" of ordering soldiers to pursue terrorist attackers, even when it's clear they're headed straight into an ambush? These policies sound irresponsible at best, unethical at worst. And they would be, if they were actually happening. Which is what Stop-Loss seems to want its audience to believe. But in both cases, filmmakers are preying on the military ignorance of most moviegoers to create a moral predicament where none exists. To set the record straight: stop-loss is a real military policy that allows the armed forces to extend soldiers' service times beyond their original active-duty contracts. However, it's not the bait-and-switch tactic that this film makes it out to be. Every soldier knows it's a possibility from the moment he signs his contract. And rarely does it result in someone being deployed on two back-to-back combat assignments. The same goes for the orders that send Brandon and his men directly into an ambush. While soldiers are expected to pursue terrorists who attack a checkpoint, they're expressly trained not to continue the pursuit into a danger zone like the one portrayed here. Technicalities, certainly. But if you don't already know these things, you're not at all likely to glean them from watching this film. So you're left with the impression that the military (and particularly its commander in chief) is suffering from a serious moral shortfall. Maddening. Who needs made-up problems when war presents more than enough real ones? For families, of course, all this two-edged sword philosophy is something of a moot point, since violence, drunkenness and over-the-top profanity makes Stop-Loss more of an all-out loss. ~ Lindy Keffer ~ |
April 14, 2008 | N/A | |||
| Forgetting Sarah Marshall - R | April 14, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| 88 Minutes - R | April 14, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Knight Rider 2010 - Unrated | April 13, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| The Green Hornet - Unrated | April 13, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - PG-13 | April 13, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - PG-13 | April 13, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Wonder Woman - Unrated | April 13, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Halo - PG-13 | April 13, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| All the Boys Love Mandy Lane - R | April 13, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| The Hobbit - Unrated | April 13, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Run Fatboy Run - PG-13 | April 10, 2008 | N/A | ||||
| Royal Wedding - Unrated | April 10, 2008 | N/A |
3182 ratings
144 reviews
