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Ghosts of Afghanistan (2021)
A Thoroughly Evenhanded Documentary
Julian Sher and Graeme Smith present a documentary that is at once personal and fair in its portrayal of the continuing turmoil in Afghanistan. The filmmakers manage to report objectively without taking sides or relying on talking points.
The film presents interviews with a wide swath of Afghans from government leaders to people providing health services for the poor to college students to Taliban leaders to women living in Taliban controlled areas. No punches are pulled. No agenda is force fed. Worth a watch.
Hillbilly Elegy (2020)
Honest Portrayal
Hillbilly Elegy had me nodding my head throughout as the characters were all people I knew intimately from my own chilhood as I grew up in the deep South. This honest portrayal displays authenticity despite what some critics say.
Often the most personal story is the most universal, and that is certainly true with this film.
The Purge (2013)
Simplistic, Unsubtle Moralizing
The Purge as a movie is mediocre at best, as social commentary it is ludicrous. My son and I laughed out loud a number of times when the movie attempted profundity.
The social commentary is as subtle as a sledgehammer. It takes the most simplistic and mean-spirited caricatures of the NRA, the TEA Party, 1%- ers, and the religious right, rolls them into one dehumanized lot, and tries to sell the audience on an ultra-violent dystopian 2022 where twelve hours of state-sanctioned anything-goes mayhem is legal.
One always enters a film with a willing suspension of disbelief, but this film offers up such thin caricatures and obvious moralizing that the spell is almost immediately broken.
The only people who could enjoy this film would be those who believe the caricatures fair. Members of the aforementioned groups will find little recognizable in the situations, characters, or their motivations except the oft repeated stereotypes.
The film reveals more about the simplistic thinking of the filmmaker than it does the groups he targets.
It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it certainly is near the bottom.
To End All Wars (2001)
An Unconventional War Film
To End All Wars is a rather anti-Hollywood movie as it avoids many of the conventional clichés so often found in Hollywood films. Instead of glorifying egotism, violence, and revenge, the film thoughtfully presents motifs on the nature of suffering, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption. These elements alone make this film worth viewing.
The film also deals directly with the cruelty inflicted upon prisoners of war by the Japanese during WW II-a topic that Hollywood, with good reason, usually avoids. This subject matter could easily devolve into racism; however, the filmmakers effectively present the cruelty inflicted upon these POW's while avoiding racist caricatures of the Japanese who imprisoned them.
Both the Japanese and Western prisoners are presented with depth and complexity.
This is a well-made film worth the two-hour investment of watching it.