mmrobins

Finally rewatching this, and it's worse than I remember even 15 minutes in. Episode 8 had it's problems for sure, but at least it was trying to do something interesting and new. Episode 9 just gives up on that and tries to appeal to fan service (EP 7 already did enough of that) without paying anything off and being completely idiotic in the process. The emperor?! FFS.

JJ Abrams couldn't finish a plot in a way that makes sense if his life depended on it. Pretty good at setting up intrigue, but obviously has no clue where he's going with anything. Sequels still overall better than the prequels, but what a low bar that is.

The first half of this movie I was kind of bored and wondered why I had heard so many good things. It just seemed like a lot of talking heads going over the same things I already knew: the build up to the Iraq war was a lie, the military industrial complex is too powerful, we're a violent nation, etc.

Then at the end it started to really get my emotions. The storyline that started it off was the New York cop who put the name of his son who was killed in 9/11 on a bomb finding out that Iraq wasn't connected with Al Qaeda. I don't think even the best actors could have duplicated that feeling of betrayal that he exhibited. The movie just gets more powerful from there.

Even having heard most of this film's information before, it turned out to be an extremely worthwhile and well made movie. It reminded me how easy it is to forget about a love of and desire for peace when so many powerful forces are urging war. The movie even does something that I didn't think it would really try to do in the beginning, something that I thought it would leave as just a rhetorical question - try to explain why we fight.

It's a shame more people won't get to see this film. I find that documentaries such as this are increasingly becoming much more entertaining than the rehashed plots that Hollywood dishes out. The themes that even some of the best mainstream movies explore very well are that much more poignant and interesting when they're presented in real life. What's more, the plots in real life are often stranger and more fanciful. The relationship between Mark Bittner and this group of misplaced San Francisco parrots is amazingly deep and will touch your heart. Mark recognizes many of these birds by name and knows their personalities more thoroughly than most people know their friends. It's a wonderful piece of luck for all of us that a documentary film maker took the time to explore the life of a man and flock of animals that most people would never give a second thought. All the way through you care for the animals and Mark, and the ending is wonderful for mark and the film maker in a way that seems like it had to be dreamed up for Hollywood.