Harry Potter gets Hammered.

Sorry I haven’t had time the last few days to watch movies, plus I had a staff meeting, then Memorial Day.  Today, I am starting off with We are Wizards which is about Harry Potter fans.  Rock on.  Ok, so Harry and the Potters is a “Dragon Rock” band, and they sorta suck, but Draco and the Malfoys rock. :D  I love me some Harry Potter, but I don’t get the people who make it into their life.  This movie is interesting, but they keep cutting in old film clips, and it is distracting and doesn’t make any sense.  I am a little let down by this movie, because it seemed like the filmmakers didn’t really want to go too in depth about anyone, which they should have.   I would have voted for the lady that made the “Is Harry Potter Leading our Children to Witchcraft” movie.  She’s a nutter, and I would love to hear more about her!

Second movie of the day is Beer Wars. So far so good, who knew that there so much competition in the beer world of the United States.  Beer is declining, but only for the major brewers (Coors, Bud, and Miller).  Small breweries are booming, as is imported beer. Makes sense since Coors, Bud and Miller are nasty. This war has been going on since 1970. It is interesting to see the different small brewers who have .0002% of market share, but are running at full capacity in order to keep up with their orders. Budweiser spends $800,000,000 a year in advertising, and $300,000,000 on sponsorships of events, including sponsoring the Presidential debates.   Anhauser Busch bought Rolling Rock and then shut down their brewery and moved it.  Wrong.  They own like 84 different small brands…some they don’t even mark as theirs.   This movie just made me a little sad.  I would love to be doing what I love every day, and to be passionate about building a business.  I was for a while, but that ended, and now I need something else.  Beer isn’t the thing, but I need a purpose.  Grad school should help for a while, but the people in this movie are so passionate, and I would like that back. 

I just watched a commercial for a toilet, a minute and a half of my life wasted on a commercial for a fancy toilet with a remote.  Why the fuck would a toilet need a remote???

Abuse, God, Drugs and more Drugs.

Yesterday I didn’t post anything, I watched two movies, one called Awful Normal about a woman who goes and confronts the friend of her father that sexually abused her.  It was good that the woman and her family were telling the story, but the execution of the movie was only so so.  It felt like a therapy project more than a movie for distribution.  I also thought it was odd that in the end, she hugged him and forgave him, which I just didn’t get.

The second movie yesterday was The God Who Wasn’t There about a man’s journey to find his atheism after growing up a fundamentalist Christian.  Not bad, some interesting interviews, but nothing to write a blog about.

Actually, that’s not fair to either of these movies, they were both pretty good, I was just distracted yesterday.  I am thinking about applying to grad school so I was working on that rather than paying attention to the movies.  Bad me. 

Today however, I can’t seem to get the Amazon to work, and Netflix is blocked, so today may be an all Law and Order day. J

HA! I found a work around, Hulu.  Although they have a SHIT-EYE selection of documentaries, so we are starting off with American Meth narrated by Val Kilmer.  Wow, I learned something new about meth, that some addicts will drink trucker pee they find in bottles on the road thinking that if the trucker does meth, that they can recycle some of the active ingredients.  WTF????  Decent movie for yet another “OMG, Meth is bad” doc.

Since I have limited access today, I have moved on to American Drug War which I am pretty sure I have seen before, but am watching again because I don’t remember it and it wasn’t rated.  Ok, now that I am twenty minutes in, I have totally watched this before.  It is a good one, just another discussion of the drug war.  Man, seems like everyone with a camera wants to make drug war stories. 

Detroit 187 is where I went...booo! It's another bad cop show, but not as entertaining as Law and Order.

Paper, rock climbers and weed

Today begins by searching Amazon Prime for movies they share with Netflix on demand. They do not share as many as I would like, and no National Geographic or Nova, which sucks. 

I found one! Hazzah! Between the Folds a documentary about origami.   The first guy they talk to, Micheal, makes his own paper and seems to have an almost sexual attraction to folding paper.  Wow, Eric is a French artist, and his art is amazing. He folded a pine cone out of one five foot sheet of paper, which is a sentence I just can’t wrap my head around. Seriously, the patience the people who do this is amazing…and all about math.  Hence the reason I don’t do origami. J Ok, so my initial reluctance to this movie was wrong, they managed to make math and paper interesting. Give them an Oscar, stat!

Next, is 180® South about a guy who decides to follow the route two old guys did in the 70’s to get to Patagonia.  Now, here is my problem with this movie.  It’s about rock climbers.  For some reason, this is the specific brand of hipster that I just want to smack in the face.  So, this movie might be good, but it is like nails on a chalk board.  This movie also drags, because they are trying to make it beautiful, and succeeding, but it is like “OK! I got it! You surf and climb mountains! Stop showing me your vacation video!” Why do I hate rock climbers/surfers?  Because they seem to make it sound like it is a calling “I just have to master the wave/rock”, but both sports are pretty much restricted to wealthy folks.  So watching a movie about a white guy who decides to make a movie about his summer vacation, a vacation that he takes for six months is just annoying to me, because at this point in time it is impossible for me to do, just like it pretty much always has been.  Although the idea of just taking off to go live in a cabin in Chile and say fuck it to my credit report does sorta sound nice…let’s go rock climbing!

I bailed on the docs for today, instead I am watching a movie where Ed Norton (he is a boy-crush of mine) plays two parts.  It’s good, funny. About a guy that goes home after his

sadness, happiness, war and conspiracy

First up today on this wonderful Monday morning is A Walk to Beautiful, which is already a bit of a downer.  It is about women who have still birth in Ethiopia and have complications which require surgery. One of the women just asked how you are brought back to life after the surgeon cuts you open, and the other woman answered “They just know how”.  Imagine how scary that would be if you are unaware of the basics of surgery. I understand the medicines, and why and how surgery is done, and it still freaks me out. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I believed that I would be dead and then brought back to life. This is amazing, these poor women get fistulas because of a lack of medical care during child birth, and then are shunned by their families.  They have to walk hours to get to a bus to go to this hospital where they are “repaired” and then allowed to go back to living in the house.  Some of the women who can’t go back to their villages go to work at an orphanage taking care of children whose parents have died from HIV. 

From that, we got to Disney Parks: Undiscovered Disney Park in which a 43 minute advertisement is pretending to be a documentary.  It’s a tough juxtaposition between the sadness and overwhelming poverty of the first movie and the completely insane gratuitous use of money that defines the United States.

Third movie of the day goes back to the downer category.  Body of War is following a young solider who comes back from Iraq paralyzed from the chest down.  It is so sad, and watching clips of George W Bush making fun of not finding weapons makes me sick to my stomach.  This young man came back, and was in the hospital for less than a year, after being paralyzed.  Seems like perhaps we should pay more to take care of the soldiers who go to fight for the United States. I also think the solider, Thomas, looks like Seth Green. Best line of the movie (which was made during W’s presidency) “I apologize if I stammer and stumble a lot over my words; I apologize for being so presidential.” HA!

Now, we move on to 911: In Plane Sight. You know a movie will be good when there is a play on words in the title, and it starts with tons of horrifying camera footage of 9-11. Now there is a guy sitting on a desk talking.  Why do people think this is interesting? It is not, find a way to make your story entertaining without lecture. Thank you. Ok, so I have to say that the conspiracy about the Pentagon on 9/11 I can get behind.  The NYC theories I am still hesitant about. The problem I have with these movies is watching the attacks over and over again.  Also, I don’t believe in the government really being on our side, but I hate the idea that they killed so many people for what? I will just keep on thinking it was terrorism of the non-governmental variety.

Unforgotten: Twenty-five Years After Willowbrook. This movie is about a topic that I have special feelings for. The care and feeding of people who have intellectual disabilities.  Willowbrook was an institution for the mentally retarded that was operating in New York for many years.  Geraldo did an investigative report about it, and it was sad and disgusting.  This movie is going back and talking to some of the people who had family members there, or who themselves were there.  One man, who had CP and no intellectual disabilities, was there for 18 years because he was misdiagnosed.  Most often, I can give people who work in nursing homes and other residential facilities with people who are not in control of their actions a bit of a pass.  Until you have done that job, it is not one that you can judge people who do it.  Willowbrook was a place that the people who allowed that to go on should have been punished.

Christians, Ticks and Farmers

In honor of the rapture tomorrow, I am starting my day with The Original Left Behind, which is about…guess? The Rapture.  It should be fun. So far, this seems to be a mockumentary, because it is fake news.  They are using a bunch of news footage most of it pretty horrific, helicopters blowing up, etc.  Not cool yo. Oh wow, so now it has transitioned from a fake newscast to a man sitting on a desk with a Bible. I like how these guys clearly have no credentials, and yet talk as if they are scholars.  Ok, so apparently, this movie was made for those of us who were left behind.  They keep saying “we don’t know who the Anti-Christ is, but since you are watching this after the rapture, you will know”.  So the Russians are going to invade Israel after 3.5 years, causing the Jews to abandon the country, and the Anti-Christ moves into the temple.  Right on, so once the new world order happens, all I have to do is not take the number of the beast and ask for forgivness and I will be able to go to Heaven, I just have to not get beheaded first. 

Let’s discuss for a minute documentary film makers.  If you are making a documentary, it should be entertaining, engaging and in my mind somewhat non-biased.  You sitting on a desk ranting is not a documentary.  That is you being a douche.

I picked Under Our Skin a documentary about Lyme disease. It’s really sad how many people don’t get diagnosed and suffer for years. They say that 90% of the brains tested in autopsy of people who died from ALS, MS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s had the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.  It seems to me like the medical establishment doesn’t want to treat Lyme, because it is chronic and expensive to treat.  There was a doctor that had great success treating people who had chronic Lyme, and they took away his medical license for a year after someone complained about his treatment…more than likely an insurance company.  Although, dear Lyme folks, sending balloons into the air isn’t a nice thing to do.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John is starting out awesome! “The soil tastes good today”, said after he took a big ole bite of dirt. :D Oh, and now he is dressing up in drag and costumes, and having someone follow his tractor naked! FREAKS! I love them! This movie got sad…it’s amazing to watch these old guys, so much like my grandparents. I can only imagine that my grandfather would be sad to see what has happened to his land.  This farmer John now is running an organic farm, which looks like a pain.  He reminds me a bit of my Uncle Dave.

Cartoons, infants, assholes

Today’s first movie is A Pixar Story about the beginnings of Pixar.  The movie is set up as an underdog story, but it is hard for me to agree that a bunch of rich folks who went and got their PhDs and built a company is an underdog.  They set it up like, “We didn’t know what we were going to do, but then Steve Jobs came in with a $10,000,000 investment”.  Seriously, you make movies not cancer drugs. It’s an interesting movie about how a group of folks working together can achieve amazing things. It drags on a bit though, learn to edit people!

Second today is the Oprah acclaimed doc Babies.  I have heard many many good things about it, so let’s do this! So glad I sit in an enclosed cube where no one can see me.  There is some nakedness in this movie.  Not a ton, but a little. The differences in how we raise babies is amazing.  The African woman’s kid shit, she wiped it on her knee, then wiped it off her knee with a corn cob. Thank you America for wet wipes.  This movie is beautiful, but I would just again like to point out that FILMS NEED NARRATION!!!  So to sum up this movie, it needs a narrator and I think the mothers that sterilize everything should watch this and get over it.

The Smartest Guys in the Room, Enron fun! Man, these guys should rot in hell.  This movie is a little long, but it is so packed with information about how these people made decisions to screw people over and over.  The Pixar movie talked a lot about how they worked to keep a great working environment, and the Enron people would fire 15% of their staff every year.  Crazy.  It seems like you can trace the beginning of the economic fall to them…at least the fall in California.

Dogs, Africans, Wrestlers, Tornados and Dinosaurs.

Netflix has been trying to get me to watch Nova: Dogs Decoded for months.  It is always top on my Suggestions list, so today I decided to give in to Netflix and watch it.  Awwww, I wish I had a big house and yard so I could have an Irish Wolfhound, St. Bernard, Great Dane or other big ole huge dog.  :D  Wow, there are scientists who took wild foxes, and domesticated them by selectively breeding only the most docile.  In eight generations they went from being wild to opening their eyes at birth domesticated. Awesome. It also shows that aggression is partially genetic. There is also a discussion of how dogs have similar facial features to babies, and that is why we are attracted to them. I guess Netflix was right, it was a good movie.

Today I am not choosing movies, but simply just clicking on the next one that is on the list.  This brings us to Beyond the Mat, a WWF movie.  I am not pre-judging that this movie is going to make me insane. We are starting by hearing about how the WWF is promoting a new character named Puke, who can throw up on command. For real? Everything I have learned, read or seen about Mick Foley makes me want to meet him. Lately, his "I will mow your lawn for a donation to stop rape and sexual abuse" really made me think that he is an awesome guy. During one of his big entrances, he walked over to his daughter who was scared he was going to get hurt and hugged her before he walked into the ring.  Sweet. The Rock on the other hand, while I am sure he is a nice enough guy when he is Duane, just looks like a douche bag all the time.  I think the most disturbing part of this movie was watching a match between the Rock and Mick Foley (Mankind) while Foley’s kids sat there. Both of his kids had to leave, because they were both freaking out watching their dad get hit over and over.  Even though it’s all fake, it is their dad.  Decent movie, kept me entertained.

God Grew Tired of Us is about Sudan, so we are having an upper day today again.  I have already learned that English and Arabic are the official languages of Sudan.  I had no idea.  Can I just say that I am aware of how awesome it is to not have been born in the Sudan? 27,000 boys had to walk over miles and miles to survive and only 11,000 survived.  I am a wuss. It is so fascinating to watch these men who have just arrived in America and are having to learn things like “don’t throw your garbage out the window” and “these are already cooked potatoes”(when looking at a bag of chips).  They are so excited that they don’t have to share beds.   They spent so much time looking at the grocery store, asking if things were edible or not.  It surprises me that the US Government makes refugees pay for their airfare. One of these kids is talking about what a shame it is that Americans have so much and yet don’t spend any time with their family. It’s an amazing story of how moving to America isn’t always the most amazing thing, and how much we take for granted here.  Watching one of the men being reunited with his mother after 17 years brought me to tears, and then it made me sad, because as she was vocalizing her excitement in singing and dancing in the airport, you could see that he was somewhat embarrassed. These men are inspiring, coming from so little and doing so much.

National Geographic: Tornado Intercept Another NG movie about silly people doing silly things in the middle of the country. I don’t understand why guys spend so much time with no shirts on. Or why anyone would spend thousands of dollars to get a picture of the inside of a tornado when he has a wife at home who is about to give birth. Sigh. Fifty-three minutes of them doing nothing really…just chasing tornadoes but never being successful.

National Geographic: Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure. So far I like this movie because of it’s amazing use of colons in the title. Damn, there was a dinosaur that looks like a very toothy brontosaurus with fins that lived underwater. It was up to 35 feet long and half of that length is neck. There were also weird looking octopi with shells.That is what I learned.

War, Kurt Cobain, Viet Nam and LA.

Today’s movies.  The first was Blue Gold, World Water Wars.  It was interesting enough but slow.  Another movie about how corporations are screwing the little people.  The problem with watching all these movies is that I am like, right right, corporations are screwing us, what’s next?

Kurt Cobain: About a Son.  I don’t know why it is called about a son.  It is just pictures of things over his voice.  It’s a little boring as there is no narration.  It does make me wistful for the West side of the country…I miss the little logging towns, and Olympia.  It is so funny to me to hear Kurt Cobain talking about how all he ever wanted to do was move to Seattle, which is exactly how I felt for most of my growing up years. It’s so sad to hear his voice, he references wanting to kill himself so many times, “blowing my head off”.  It’s so sad to think that he did.  Cobain was our Lennon…those of us that hung on the edges of the punk rock universe on the West Coast.  I remember the day he died; so many people in Seattle were so upset.  Anyway this movie is not very good, it needs narration because just listening to half of an interview while seeing pictures of Washington is nice, but not entertaining.  Although, the pictures of Broadway are making me want to quit my job and run, as they pan past a place that I have memories of.  Sigh, it’s funny how a picture of a stairwell can bring me back.

As the Call, So the Echo is about a doctor who donates a bunch of ENT equipment to a hospital in Viet Nam, and then goes to help out for a period of time.  It is sad to see how many people in VN are really only ill because they don’t have maintenance care.  One man has a giant tumor on his eye, and if he would have gotten it looked at early it wouldn’t have caused him so much pain.  There is also a woman who has a tumor in her skull that is so huge that it has caused her to have paralysis in her face.  So many people do not have a place to find drinking water, or homes with a fan to keep the smoke out.  So many of these docs showcase sad places in the world that tomorrow I am looking for fun docs.  I could so not be a doctor; I am not patient or careful enough.   So now we know no medical school for me.

The last of the day is Law and Order LA.  It’s a great doc, very realistic.  I only had 50 min left and so starting a new movie didn’t sound great, but starting a L&O is wonderful! Bomp bomp

Tolerate our differences

Watching a movie called National Geographic: Moment of Death.  They are discussing how to decide if someone is dead, and how death could be defined as the loss of personality. I know that many people would not think that is appropriate, but I do.  This really is a thought provoking doc about how the medical establishment has to make decisions regarding brain death and the criteria used to make those decisions. 

Next up was Chautauqua: An American Narrative about the town/resort of Chautauqua, which started out as a resort and Sunday school teachers vacation and teaching spot, and has now become a vacation spot for people who are interested in learning.  I kinda want to go visit. They have "the 10:30 lecture" every day, which is quite an honor to be asked to speak at.  It is a super white place, but they discuss how they wish for more diversity, and that it is getting better. I was impressed they even thought of it.

Office Tigers is about a company that provides office support, technical and administrative to large companies from India.  It was very interesting to see how the company trains their workers to be more American. They are incredibly successful in teaching their employees to be successful and once they leave Office Tiger, they are easily able to get jobs outside in other outsourcing companies. It was not very good, and the man who was the President of the company kept asking people where their ties were. It seemed like it was a public relations piece about the good side of outsourcing, and it was pretty clear that the filmmakers were in the pockets of the company.

Family Values: An American Tragedy was a lesbian woman making a doc about trying to get back to having a relationship with her father who is a very strong right winger.  The movie was made in 1996, which brought me back to some truly horrible fashion, but it also showed me how much work has been done to change the lives of gay people.  The most interesting thing about this movie was how the father’s entire career was about family, but he had completely ignored his first family. This movie brought up a whole issue to me about the word tolerance when it is used to discuss anyone who is different.  We should learn "tolerance" of gays, but I don't want to be tolerated. I would rather you didn't tolerate me and was honest about your uncomfortableness.

Classified X, is a anthropological look at how black people are portrayed in film, starting in the very beginning of the film industry and the immense racism that is inherent.  It is really disturbing when you see how black people are not allowed to be talented, or sexual, or up front.  It’s sad.  There were even some black roles that were being played by white actors…sad. The whole movie was depressing. It pointed out that for many many years, black people were kept in the back of films, or made to play specific characters that played into white stereotypes of blacks.  Oh wait, that still happens.  Guess we aren't so enlightened.

Bangkok Girl, this movie talks about the bar girls, following one girl named Pla, as she goes about her day to day.  This young girl, who started working in a bar at age 13 and was part of the booming sex tourism industry in Bangkok.  It is depressing and makes me hate the western men, who think that it is their right to go and take advantage of these women who have no other options.  I wonder how they would feel if we took one of their teen daughters and started running her to the strip clubs so she could work in the VIP room sucking off people.  ARGGG this is so fucking depressing.

Street life is tough yo.

Today was busy! Lots of work to be done!

I only had the chance to watch one movie today: "National Geographic; World's Most Dangerous Gang".  MS13 is the gang, and it is interesting to me because it was the the F-13's that were big in Pasco when I was a kid.  Maybe it was MS-13.  I don't remember, but I just know that some gang with a 13 was big when I was a kid...

This movie is pretty good.  They like to repeat over and over  how dangerous the gang is...murder and mayhem.  I wish these shows would stop with the overblown scare tactics and actually talk to the gang members about why they choose this life and what it means to them.  Another movie about scary gang people, who just cause rich white folks to be afraid of people with tattoos and brown skin.  Let's find out why they do this and what is important to them.

No, that wouldn't work.  We like to sensationalize things waaaay too much!

repost

The first, but not really

A friend of mine the other day said that she missed my pictures on my old blog, and it made me realize that I need to get back to that.  So I need a place to document the documentaries I am watching everyday.  So here it is.  The new blog.  The year I turned 35 blog is gonna get shut down, because, well, I am 36 now, and am going to move to a new blog for my life, and the movies go here.  They are starting with the ones I watched today, because I can. :)

Today I finished the last few minutes of Client 9, then started Nova ScienceNow; How Smart are Animals? But realized I had seen it not to long ago, so moving on to the next one!

                       

Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie had a couple of effects on me.  First, it made me homesick.  Something about atomic energy and my home town…any movie about atomic anything and I am missing home.  Second, it made me remember to always keep my mouth shut about classified information, and to not be careless, because Marilyn Monroe says she doesn’t like a careless man…It’s weird to me that they put parachutes on bombs. Seriously, the US just likes to detonate nuclear weapons and destroying mountains and islands. YIKES!

Oceans is a Disney produced movie about…any guesses? Yes, if you guessed Oceans, you are right! It is just like every other nature movie, very pretty, some education, a lot of things getting eaten, lots of creepy looking sea creatures.  Yep, it’s a movie about Oceans.

I need to come up with an exercise program that I can do from a desk without bothering anyone if they were sitting next to me.  Or something.