benjaminlupton

Four journalists (the cautious one, the seasoned one, the cocky one, the newbie one) make their way to the eastern white house to interview the president, while western forces advance as the backdrop for this melodrama.

If you expected Cloverfield style action from the trailer, you will be disappointed; it has even less action, subtext, and drama than The Purge series. Every scene feels like watching actors dry like paint in a tiny confined and contrived set box. There is no larger than life scale, no sense of scale beyond the immediate set where you could walk an inch and notice the crew and their caravans. Even low budget movies like Monsters (2010) a film also about journalists during a war, packs more punch and scale and even subtext than this movie with a fraction of the budget and only a handful of crew.

This is an abysmal remake of Monsters (2010) that lacked everything good, rewritten to sell tickets for American audiences with the only plot points being the tropes of journalists don't have souls, and the West representing the brotherhood of mankind, conquers the East, once again.

One of the best comedies I've ever seen. Every single moment is a face palm. Every character is a quack. The journalist found the goldmine.

We have a black American who thinks her blackness is loneliness while believing every person is lonely and depressed, the irony and offence escapes her. We have a taro reading transgender woman who is obsessed a conservative man, again the irony.

What they all share in common, is that they all identify as "spiritual" people who believe in "energies" and believe that with enough obsession (choosing love) then their idol (twin flame) will reciprocate their obsession and they'll manifest each other as each other's super spiritual soul mates who will complete each other, all by paying a monthly subscription that they can't afford, and delegating their autonomy to some cult leaders, who they worship because the leaders embrace their cashcows, are attentive, and speak the same mumbo jumbo the subjects believe but with conviction instead humility; which for people who only have the facade of confidence, means and is the world to them.

They are moths who are drawn to the flame, and then blame the flame. Don't be a moth, and you won't worship the flame. Don't idolise, and you won't worship false idols. Don't believe everyone is secretly flawed like you, and you'll start becoming someone worth being.