Quickie Review - Lone Survivor

I'll preface by saying that I am not a fan of highly stylized, music video type war pics. I don't find war glamorous and I'm bothered by senseless killing. I also have personal reasons to not want to see this violence, yet I gave it a try. The movie is excellent. The story is thrilling, but you know from the title it won't be pretty. The soldiers ate respected as are the people who helped. War is deadly and we're not allowed to forget that. It's important. Much better than Zero Dark Thirty or the more similar Blackhawk Down. Much better!

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White Privilege

This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo...

Quickie Review - Finding Vivian Maier

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially the first 15-20 minutes, I was a little bothered by the way the film played out. The interviews with the clearly disturbed brother, sister and the mother, who obviously, was in for a cut, didn't need to be in the film. Then the woman who suggested abuse, yet seemed to have her life defined by Maier, as she tried to muster every ounce of emotion and fake guilt. Her friend, more than happy to be party of the charade. People who talk about abuse for the first time, usually don't do so on camera. The fact these scenes were so prominent, shows that they felt wronged that they were not rewarded. Maloof on the other hand, seems to disappear from the documentary during this part, almost hiding away from the fact, he went from complete praise, to even making money off of her, to destroying her personal legacy. He almost mentions the family of boys taking care of her rent, as an afterthought. Her burial spot, never shown, yet a video of her...

If You Listen To One Speech - Lana Wachowski

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/videos/lana-wachowski-opens-up-about-difficult-past-and-attempted-suicide-20121024 Today I saw a link to a video for a speech by Lana Wachowski. The last name rung a bell, but I could't put my finger on it. Lana, used to be Larry, one of the writer, director, producers of the Matrix trilogy, V for Vendetta and the upcoming Cloud Atlas. Lana is transgendered and has "come out" as a woman. She was being honored by the Human Rights Campaign. I didn't know what to expect when this broad woman with crazy hair and a raspy voice began to speak. She began with the usual pleasantries and told of her hair dresser. She then tells of her desire to be a quiet person and how hard the success of the Matrix movies made this. The first ten minutes is telling of how she's not quite ready to be this spokesperson. Then she speaks about the new movie Cloud Atlas and reveals the heart of the movie and this speech. She states,"The resp...

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