Go away, you damn ghost things!

Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away was trippy, dude. Far out. I know I'm going to be blasted as "racist" for this, but as far as I have seen, 99% of Japanese things are completely crazy and make about one atom of sense. Commercials, movies, game shows, you name it. It's all crazy and looking at it for more than a second or so would give nearly anyone a siezure. Spirited away was no different.

Basically, a girl, Chihiro, on a car trip with her parents, randomly finds an abandoned theme park and is transported to a very... interesting spirit world bathhouse thing. She then has to go on a quest to bring back her parents who were (of course) turned into pigs. There are chicken people, frog people, rolling decapitated heads, a cannibalistic blob who can spawn gold, and a skeleton who barfs up a junkyard and can fly. What else? Anyway, Chihiro outsmarts the evil witch who runs the bathhouse and is randomly transported back where she started.

Hayao Miyazaki obviously has a very "unique" style. Spirited Away is a great movie, I'll grant it that, but the setting was nothing less than a psychedelic wonderland and frankly it made no sense. I could easily sit here for several hours and tear the movie apart for that, but that was the purpose of the movie methinks. It's just an escape from having to have everything make sense.

On IMDB, Spirited Away got an 8.5 out of 10 and is the 56th best movie on there according to viewers. I'd say they agree with me that it's a damn good movie.

Do the Right Thing, eh?

Buggin' Out here basically results in the death of one of his comrades because of his incredibly obstinate nature and desire to pick fights in general.

As he showed with a white biker who accidentally ran over his shoes yet apologized or it, Buggin' Out insists on picking fights with all the whites around him.

Buggin' Out also sparks an argument with Sal because there aren't any blacks on his wall of famous Italian-Americans. It's Sal's shop and Sal has the right to do anything he wants in his shop. If I recall correctly, Italian-Americans are almost completely white, as Italy played almost no part in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Telling Sal to have a correct percentage of black people on the wall is telling him to model his wall after the racial makeup of the country, but race is only one aspect of a person. That's like calling Sal discriminatory for not having the correct number of people above 5'10", the correct number of people with chicken pox, or the correct number of people with health insurance. The entire concept is absurd.

The Battle of Algiers

I read this review for The Battle of Algiers.

The author makes a good point in that we are facing the same situation in Iraq as the French faced in Algeria in the 50s. The enemy cannot be beaten if they can't be found with ethical means. That's why resistance groups are so potent despite their lack of resources, skills, or strength. They fight dirty, kill civilians, but are protected by the fact that nations can't make any low blows. That's like a midget with a minigun vs. an 8 foot tall, 500 pound guy with a plastic spoon and both arms tied behind his back by the UN.

My opinion is this. If you're going to fight a war with rubber bullets, you might as well not fight the war at all. Either pull out or do what needs to be done to win. Otherwise, you're just getting people killed and wasting money.

Momento

I really found Momento to be a great movie. Not only was it interesting and gripping, it actually had a good plot. It genuinely had me confused even at the end of the movie but I couldn't help but really want to find out the truth.

Frankly, I think Teddy was telling the truth. He may have been fishy or suspicious, but he was actually Leonard's ally the whole time yet never really betrayed him. He also gave the audience and Leonard an explanation that really tied everything together, however imperfectly. Then again, nothing's perfect.

Kiss Me Deadly, damnit!

What a terrible movie.

Christina, or whatever her name was, was hideous and she sounded like she was sexually aroused during the opening credits. What kind of impression did the director think that was going to give? Certainly not a positive one.

Her roommate was irritating. Her voice was nasal and she was annoying as hell. At least she turned evil in the end and died, but the flame "special effects" were abysmal.

Now, why did they have to kill Nick off? He was the coolest character in the entire movie. When he died, I stopped really paying attention to the movie, because there was no longer any "va va voom!" to keep me interested.

What the hell is up with a nuke in a box? If I recall, it's one explosion and then radioactive decay sets in. There's no way there is a continued source of radioactive energy, and even if there was one, it wouldn't fit inside a small, wood box. The box would be made of lead... and whoever saw it would get severe burns all over their body and get radiation sickness as their bodies slowly but surely shut down from internal damage. They wouldn't start screaming and stand there as a flame is superimposed in front of them. Honestly.

Double Indemnity!?

Double Indemnity wasn't that great of a movie, but it had a decent plot. At least it had murder, sex, and money, but there weren't enough stereotypical thugsters like the one on the left here. Therefore, it can at best be a decent movie.

Although Phyllis was a complete and utter whore, she added spunk to the movie and at least dies at the end, also causing the death of the other scumbag main character, Walter Neff.

Anyway, I can't help but wonder why film noir loves those lined shades. It doesn't really give an effect, it just distracts the viewer from who happens to be getting murdered at any given point in time. Film noir would have far more spunk if people got murdered in pitch-black rooms, so the viewer would have NO idea what the hell's going on until the movie's over. They'd be confused, but movies are usually considered good if the audience is left wondering what the hell just happened.

Groundhog's day was actually a good movie, but it made even less sense than this picture.

How is it physically possible to relive the same day over and over again? Which run-through of the day will other people remember? They would have so many recollections of the day their heads would most likely implode.
Time is linear. There is no way to slow down or speed up time, much less reverse it. There are so many logical fallacies on Groundhog's Day that it really detracts from the movie.
Also, what is preventing Phil from staying up until 6:00 am? If he does, then what? Does the universe collapse into a tiny dot of superheated matter? Does his existence split into two?
Last but not least, even if this was possible, why does he remember the day and no other people do? Memory is a physical thing, a mapped-out set of circuits in the brain. Why don't those get reversed to their previous state? Why are all the other peoples' minds wiped clean but not Phil's? Everyone else would also remember that day and are stuck in it, but Phil is the object of attention.

Case in point: What the hell?