Change Your Image
ldrafey
Reviews
Leave the World Behind (2023)
Realistic and Well Worth The Watch
Alienation, self-centeredness, greed and paranoia owing to a festering distrust between nations and fear of one-another so prevalent in the 21st century ( that from the viewpoint of one who was born at the end of WWII) are on parade in this film. I have witnessed this issue grow as it is unrelentingly fostered by an endless stream of toxic social media and highly paid "influencers" who are wholly ignorant of the subject matter which they claim to understand and political maneuvering for power by would be "profits" with a reckless disregard for long term outcomes and so-called "survivalists" who appear to misunderstand that survival means being able to rely on one-another.
On display are two generations who are portrayed as being rendered entirely incapable without being able to resort to technology or out of fear being able to rely on one-another - what is often referred to as "shared humanity" - for survival in an environment where children obtain their "knowledge" in the form of video games and TV "values" about family and friends protecting each other while in reality, life is no longer valued on any level and the devaluation of a traditional concern for our neighbors has diminished to the level of resorting to storing countless weapons, supposedly for "protection."
Meanwhile, their vague understanding of the technology that has become the core of their lives and livelihoods in conjunction with an even vaguer knowledge of the traditional basics leads to absurd guesses and a catastrophic series of poor decision making as well as the depiction of the ultra-wealthy resorting to the construction of bunkers which, in the end, are unlikely to save lives, being few will actually be nearby when catastrophe strikes.
The film ends on a hovering question mark, leaving the answer to the viewer ... will they survive and will life return to normal or will they all perish from their inability to comprehend what led to the catastrophe in the first place.
I believe the question is left to force the viewer to consider their individual plight in this world of that we have made for ourselves and how they might respond or perhaps even begin to take action to prevent this kind of eventuality.
Retribution (2016)
Great to have another Excellent Series!
If you have run out of series options ... viewed all the Longmire, Bloodline, The Killing, etc., etc. then this is for you! I won't spoil it by telling on the series. Just to say that the acting and scripting is superb, the first episode wastes little time getting into the action and then ... yeah ... you're hooked ! Big Time. Great cliff hangers as well. This is what to watch if you're desperate to get past the animated stuff and so forth. It only just began so I can't say how it will play out but I am also using some discipline to prevent binging ... or overbinging if that's a word.
Dirty Money (2018)
Soooo Revealing !
Among the best documentaries I've seen over the past decade! Still have only viewed the first few but they are any example, I won't be viewing elsewhere until I have completed the series.
I odn't think it will spoil potential viewer's interest to say that the documentary series details inside stories, deep background, documents and interviews of participants on all sides of issues, including the VW scandal, the Payday Loan lenders and so forth. The actual mechanisms that occurred to create the scandalous activities and the enormous energy, complexity and serious funding of the subsequent cover ups are extraordinary and reveal far more than was publicly rendered at the time. How the Payday Loans enabled their CEOs to trample over and utterly destroy the lives of literally thousands of innocent people, all of whom had paid off their loans, only to discover that the payments were being diverted elsewhere and the loans were being continued at ever higher interest rates. I was unable to shed tears when the CEO in charge made virtually the same complaints as his thousands of victims but blamed the government for his ensuing legal and personal problems.
The interesting point that I have been forced to consider so far is the denial factor. Denial seems to act like some kind of impenetrable force field, disabling the culprit's (as well as their co-workers, friend's and family member's) ability to comprehend the extraordinary damage they caused, using the weakest and most skewed form of reasoning to form excuses and to say things like "it was just business" ... like "just following orders". We were all so sickened as we witnessed the horrors and ravages perpetrated by the Pay Day folks that we ended up staying up all night trying to make sense of how anyone could possibly defend such actions. I can't say enough how truly fascinating it is to learn the details behind these scandals as well as their ultimate effect on political retaliation taken in 2017 against the same government regulations that had been put into place to successfully stem these activities and had ultimately protected so many citizens not to mention the reaction of the current administration favoring the kind of sick activities perpetrated by these monsters, once more unleashing the horrors that our society had finally managed to rid itself of.
The Docs are entirely unbiased and professionally executed, leaving nothing to the imagination other than, perhaps, a consideration of how it is that perfectly ordinary people with otherwise good intentions managed to end up lying to themselves and to create a kind of universal state of deception cloaked in a kind of self-congratulatory goodness and how the ignorance of the masses enabled them to fool so many people, desperate for products that really work, that function as they ought; that don't risk the lives of the users; for a bit of good will to help them out during desperate times, for policies that enable citizens to get on with their productive llives without having to fear the predatory politician or the neighbor next door. This series is education on steroids! A must see for all age groups whose lives are primarily about treading water in this world controlled by wholesale greed, ignorance and insensitivity.