Change Your Image
jkenner
Reviews
Bully (2011)
Could have and should have done more
I left the theater thinking that although "Bully" tackles a very serious problem among young people in our society, it didn't tackle it as completely as it could and should have. The film did a good job of identifying the problem of schoolyard bullying and bring it to national attention, but at no point did it offer any suggestions about how the problem might be solved, and at no point did it show examples of the many school districts that are actively working to solve the problem. In that sense, "Bully" is a prime example of what's wrong with our society in general - it's very good at identifying problems, pointing fingers and assigning blame, but it's not at all good at proposing solutions.
There is also a not so subtle political message - the film implies that bullying only occurs in Republican "Red" states such as Georgia, Oklahoma, Iowa and Mississippi. No examples of bullying are shown in San Francisco, New York or New England, although bullying undoubtedly occurs in those areas as well (as the Phoebe Prince incident in Massachusetts proves).
In short, to use a cliché, the film "asks more questions than it answers" and is therefore not likely to bring about any real change.
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
It's all about the violence
This movie is everything the critics say it is...gory, violent, anti-Semitic and hollow. Other viewers were squirming in their seats, wincing and gasping, and a good third of the viewers walked out before the end. The film's intimation that the Jews were directly responsible for the gruesome death of Christ is...well...less than subtle. Osama bin Laden and Yasser Arafat would love this movie, and Mel Gibson should be ashamed of himself for having the chutzpah to push his virulent anti-Semitism on moviegoers worldwide. At the end of the day, however, the horrific gratuitous violence takes over the film and completely masks any artistic or cultural value the film may have. This film should have received an NC-17 rating.