forumhound Reviews

American Meth (2008 Video)

Interesting topic, rambling production...

[6/10 · 7 September 2008]

I am not a big fan of traditional documentaries; they need something unique besides content to keep my interest. American Meth has little of that in it's rambling production from users to law enforcement officials to politicians to an intimate inside look at an American Meth family. But that that said, the locations are not what u expect - small town working class America where one would expect a rosy Palin story instead of one of ex-Christians hooked and trying to raise kids. The inside story of the trailer park family is touching, and seems real and telling of a society crumbling, without saying it's crumbling. But as mentioned in another review, the trailer park sequence is just too long...you forget the rest of the drama while stuck in the inside drama of trailer trash.

Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Story of my father...we are all sons of war.

[3 September 2008]

One of Clint's and Spiel's best. But maybe 'cause it's personal. Old faded medals and photos of from the Philippines campaign in the attic found after dad died. He never spoke much of it, just a warning before I joined the Army in 1974: "Don't." Funny they don't do War Bonds anymore. They just raise taxes and raid savings accounts if u don't pay. I guess that's more direct, and does not require the manufacture and then parade of Heroes that don't want to be named so. Like dad. Faded brown photos of brown people on an island, buddies in arms, smiling on the outside, wounded inside. Bit's of metal, faded ribbon - shrapnel tied up in a flag.

For generations we have been sons of war, and our sons will be fathers of sons of war. Will it end? Perhaps not. Will there be stories like this one told in film or whatever media is next for all generations yet to come, just as there has been for all past? It's a very sad testament to the human condition, but I'll be paying my respect the next time I am in DC with a better understanding of the statue in question.

Lions for Lambs (2007)

Wow, what a telling film, and what's up with the Russian reprint?

[10/10 · 27 August 2008]

As someone outside of it all (but once a Washington insider...well, resident inside the beltway) I found this film fascinating on so many levels, personal, political, and social. Personally I had a professor from S. Chicago who reminded so much of Professor Stephen Malley...wanting us to be our best and go out and do something useful, to the point of picking out potential and at least trying there. Are there any Malleys' left? And the Todd Hayes character...how many of those do you run into on campus these days! Considering this movie must have been scripted before Mr. Obama suggested an Afghan revival in the war on terror, it's like fiction becoming fact.

But what was REALLY fascinating about this movie is the print. Does yours have all the signboards, term papers, door signs all printed in Russian? We get all our dvds in the market of downtown Kathmandu, and of course they are all bootleg and about 1usd. Don't rag on me, it's "legal" here and the only way to purchase a movie in this country. But someone in Russia took the time to REMIX the movie in addition to adding subtitles and dub. Or was this movie officially released in Russia? This is the first time I've seen this ever in a film...original English soundtrack but all the important visuals in another language, and done so it looks like it was originally mixed that way.

Interesting no? I wonder why someone went to all this trouble.