No End in Sight

If there's anyone left out there (and I doubt there is, outside of Dick Cheney's bedroom) who doesn't think the Iraq invasion and "reconstruction" was the most poorly planned and executed military adventure in modern history, they should watch this film, which lays it out pretty plainly.
It's both maddening and sad, because there's no way to go back and undo all the needless, thoughtless damage done, all the misery that has been caused; we can only try to clean up the mess now as best we can.

Recommended Viewing: Persepolis

We'd been trying to see this movie, about a young girl growing up in and away from Iran in the wake of the revolution and war, since sometime in November, I think, but two advanced showings at two separate theaters were canceled, and then technical difficulties of a sort interrupted us half way through our third attempted viewing. We finally saw it in its entirety last night, and it was actually worth the wait.
Now that it's up for the animation Oscar, it should be around for a while, and I highly recommend it.
Original, sweet, funny, sad, quirky, and genuine. I'm actually going to go buy the graphic novel, too.

Recommended Viewing: "The Prisoner"

This documentary by the directors of "Gunner Palace," is, first of all, simply an order of magnitude better than "Gunner Palace" -- more complex and nuanced, more stylistically innovative (still cartoons used to illustrate flashbacks), and just more substantive. The earlier film was criticized for being a bit too neutral to really say anything, and so maybe what Epperlein and Tucker needed was the strong voice of a single subject to carry the film, and Iraqi journalist and former Abu Ghraib prisoner Yunis Abbas is perfectly suited to this task.
This is a fascinating character study as well as a suspense story where the villains -- Saddam, U.S. military bureaucracy, nameless bullies and callous leadership -- are always shadowy and ill-defined. But this film, with its focus on Abbas' candid but uncynical first-person narrative -- and the names of dead prisoners and undocumented abuses he wrote, through it all the earnest journalist, on the inside of his underwear and on pieces of tin foil smuggled outside the prison in visitors' mouths -- is a testament to what really did happen not so long ago in U.S.-occupied, post-Saddam Iraq.

The Prisoner: or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair

Recommended Viewing: Outfoxed

I just saw this 2004 film, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, which popped out of the Netflix queue just in time to coincide with Murdoch's current bid for the Wall Street Journal, and to freak me out about the future of our society if the Bancroft family does eventually cave.
Be strong, Bancrofts!
One Fox coup I'd almost forgotten about (although it was probably mentioned in Fahrenheit 9/11, and I just have a short memory) was how instrumental they were in the 200o election by prematurely proclaiming Bush the winner at one point in the night, prompting the rest of the networks to desperately follow suit within minutes, not wanting to be scooped (accuracy be damned.) And that's not the only instance of the other networks following Fox's lead, sadly...

Jesus Tomb Update

Apparently, many archaeologists are dismissive of the claims made in the upcoming Discovery Channel film, and are calling it a publicity stunt.
I don't know enough about archaeology to be convinced by this Washington Post article, one way or the other, that it's a fraud. The director's connection with the James Ossuary is a particular red flag. I'll definitely be viewing the film with a skeptical eye. Still curious, though :)

Recommended Viewing: Tomb of Jesus Likely Found

This is fascinating -- in a sense, one of the biggest news stories in the past two millennia.

I'll definitely be watching. (Discovery Channel, March 4 at 9 pm Eastern Time)

Best Dystopian Film...

... I've ever seen:

Children of Men

Chillingly realistic, and just plain chilling.

Has my vote (if I had one) for the few Oscars it's up for, especially Adapted Screenplay.

Highly Recommended: Babel

Best new film I've seen in quite a while: good writing, good acting, good directing. The flaws were so few I could count them on one hand (and did) but I think, despite the thematic similarities to "Crash," this is (or should be, IMO) this year's "Brokeback Mountain" as far as a film to get excited about.

Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

Main Entry: Ba·bel
Pronunciation: 'bA-b&l, 'ba-
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Hebrew BAbhel, from Akkadian bAb-ilu gate of god
1 : a city in Shinar where the building of a tower is held in Genesis to have been halted by the confusion of tongues
2 often not capitalized a : a confusion of sounds or voices b : a scene of noise or confusion

Generation Last?

So these kids believe, in a fairly political take on Christianity...

(I mean, I can empathize; I grew up believing I would leave this earth before age 30, and this even before aspiring toward poetry as a career choice.)
But with kids on the other side of the world believing just as fervently in their own vision of reality, and each side casting each other as the bad guys, what kind of future are we looking at?

Interesting, too, how evangelicals who don't happen to be depicted in this film, "Jesus Camp" are getting just as freaked out as the rest of us (or myself, at least) about how wacky these people look on film.