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Reviews
The Matthew Shepard Story: An American Hate Crime (2023)
A Documentary Derailed
Unfortunately the makers of this documentary have chosen to allot only a portion of the documentary to Matthew Shepard and his story; the second half of this documentary is spent on talking about trans issues, current politics in Florida and Texas, and bringing on a host of random people who have no relation whatsoever to Matthew Shepard's story or life to talk about current political events like how upset they were when Trump was elected, moves to prevent children from taking puberty blockers, and basically everything under the sun that has nothing to do with Matthew Shepard; it's a tragic waste of bandwidth that should have belonged to Matthew.
Matthew wasn't trans. Matthew wasn't politically involved. What happened to him was a travesty, and the whole story deserved more attention than it was given - about thirty minutes. Why the documentary makers didn't let people get to know Matthew as a human being, didn't discuss the perpetrators of this murder, and didn't even try to interview the perpetrators, their friends and family, or the people of Laramie is a strange and negligent decision.
Matthew still deserves his documentary.
Squid Game: The Challenge (2023)
Netflix Ruins Something Else
I don't know what is going on at Netflix, but it seems like their development team loses every narrative thread of what makes things good and opts for producing, over and over again, the junk food equivalent of entertainment. It's not even the 'guilty pleasure' kind of junk food, it's the absolute garbage 10-for-a-dollar completely inedible fruit pies with essence of real fruit (tm) that could withstand an apocalypse, are indigestible by the human body, and contain no nutritional value whatsoever. That's what Squid Game: The Nonsense is about.
It's a reality TV show/contest, and it's stupid. They have recreated the Squid Game games, only (of course) nobody actually dies, which some might see as a shame considering how difficult it is to connect with or care about any of the contestants. What made the real Squid Game special was the characters and the permanence of their being taken out of the game; Red Light Green Light is a shock because we realise that it's real; the most devastating episode - Gganbu - is so powerful because we see these fully-developed characters at their best, worst, and most human. Squid Parody: The Challenge fails in every possible sense because the games are not original, the characters are not developed and frankly difficult to care about, and this isn't for real in the narrative sense of the Squid Game world.
It's just another contest, another reality TV show; without the original Squid Game, it would ass unnoticed and probably wouldn't have even existed in the first place. Netflix has tried to capitalise on the success of Squid Game without actually bothering to figure out why Squid Game was such a success, and has failed to produce anything of value.
Painkiller (2023)
Baby With The Bathwater
Being familiar with the subject matter, this is a one-sided, overly political article of agitprop. The fact is that as a result of the hysteria surrounding opiate medication, there are currently legitimate pain patients who are being actively denied medication and as a result suffer tremendous suffering and an abysmal QoL. They can learn to live with their pain, humiliate themselves by begging for medication that gets meted out a few pills at a time, or turn to street drugs - not to get high, but to live a normal life with dignity. This 'opioid epidemic' is overblown. Those who condone the needless suffering of legitimate chronic pain patients are inhuman monsters who don't deserve the quality of life they enjoy.
Did you know that when a heroin addict overdoses - something that has been occurring since the discovery of heroin - that it's listed officially as a death attributed to opiates? Overdosing on street drugs is NOT THE SAME as taking a controlled substance under a physician's supervision for a legitimate medical reason. All the sheeple who unquestioningly bleat 'opiates BAAAAAD' and upvote agitprop like this should have to go live with a senior citizen who was injured on the job thirty years ago and today can't get enough pain medication to reliably prepare food in their home to eat, who have to call for help with standing up from the toilet, and who have to endure many other humiliating, demeaning, dehumanising situations EVERY SINGLE DAY because their regular physicians no longer prescribe opiates because the government has made it too risky, and their pain management physicians either refuse to prescribe also or dole out ridiculous amounts like only ten pills at a time.
If it hasn't occurred to you that even patients who are able to recover from their injuries fare better on opiates that allow them to gradually increase their physical activity and fully participate in rehab/physical therapy, well...it should have. You should have thought about that before supporting something that doesn't even affect your life. Managed pain results in lower blood pressure, better sleep, a faster recovery, and better overall wellbeing.
Instead of targeting legitimate pain patients, why don't we address the responsibilities surrounding taking opiates? The patients who were taking them to get high are the problem, not seniors, and not people who have been critically injured and for whom no further treatment is available. If you weren't aware that knee replacement surgery and hip replacement surgery have some of the highest dissatisfaction rates, it's high time you were made aware; for a patient in chronic pain from their hips and/or knees, the only person who should have the right to decide that they MUST have knee or hip replacement surgery is the patient themselves; they should not be forced into surgery because they're being denied pain management. How would you feel if you were told that you had to have surgery for something? This is an issue of a human's right to self-determination and self-governance.
Netflix, please stop jumping on The Current Thing and preaching at us. We get it; you're all young, healthy, ripe with disposable income, and the whole world is your oyster. You don't have to get help to get out of bed every morning, and you don't have to make the decision about what you're going to use your limited strength, energy, and pain tolerance for every day. Most of the world doesn't have it as good as you do. While we're happy for you, we don't want or need the television equivalent of a know-it-all twenty year old chirping and squirping at us about how they think we should be living our lives. It's getting old. Please just shut up.
Triangle (2009)
This Is Not About Time Travel.
Triangle is, simply put, one of the more remarkable and complete movies ever made. It is not about time travel; if you think it is about time travel, you need to sit and watch this movie on loop until the little light bulb above your head comes on. Hopefully it'll happen for you sooner than it's going to take for Jess. That's a hint; a really obvious one.
The performances, all of them, are really magnificent; The characters who are supposed to be grating on your nerves are: the characters who are supposed to be clueless, ineffectual, and malevolent all do their jobs well. Jess starts out as a sympathetic figure, but we soon realise that isn't the only facet of Jess' character that is on display. By your fourth or fifth rewatch, you might struggle to muster the same sympathies as at the outset of your first watch...maybe that light bulb is about to come on...
Easily a 10/10; this is one of the few movies I can honestly say I wouldn't change a thing on.