christhjian

This is one of those films which didn't have too much cash to splash but tries to counter that with meaningful story and perhaps a little more alternative approach. Stealing Cars focuses around a teenage boy who basically has emotionally fallen apart, but rather than being sad and isolated starts to "rebel" and does some no good.

And the film does quite a few things right, actually. It keeps the viewers guessing what's going on until the very end and has some fine twists there. But it is almost good and really misses hardly making the experience feel logical and gives the overall impression of cutting too many corners.

Let's start with the title - it has almost nothing to do with car stealing, so anyone hoping to see some sort of Gone in 60 Seconds style movie will be vastly disappointed. Sometimes, of course, this kind of title with hidden meaning is completely fine, but on this certain instance, this almost feels like lying. Instead, this is essentially a prison movie, which takes place in the juvy. We see our main character Billy gaining the trust and respect of others thanks to his rather charismatic behavior and finally revealing us the key problem of his mindset.

The problem there is that the writing really doesn't support that. Billy is made so incredibly obnoxious and stupid (in many ways) that it gets almost impossible to take him seriously. He often gives some really weird speeches, disobeys the orders and gets the whole collective in trouble. Still none of his comrades seemed to care and started to look him up, if anything else. The good side of the character was that he really didn't care what would come to him. He was literally fearless and this gave him a little credibility, but all in all was still rather unbelievable.

Even though it seemingly was more of an alternative film, it still contains many clichés - the outcast, the sick kid, who befriends Billy, hot nurse who became a love interest for Billy and finally - surprise, surprise - a rather cruel warden. OK, he wasn't too mean, like wardens in many similar movies, but the sense of this heavily clichéd character was definitely present. And Billy himself was also a good talented kid with exceptional memory gone bad. The film used some non linear storytelling, but it only focused around the key point and could have told us a little more background.

All the supporting characters were somehow dull and didn't have much depth. It was almost as if they just were there and even if they seemed to have a purpose, most of them never really opened up and didn't add much to the plot.

Ultimately Stealing Cars is not a great film. On a positive note this is somewhat psychological trip which dwells into a confused mind, has few nice twists and isn't all that predictable. I understand what the producers wanted to show us, but the way it was constructed wasn't particularly convincing. Main problems are dull side characters and a monotonous plot which is hard to take seriously because of the oddly acting Billy.

And one last time - that title....

Outrageous Acts of Science or You Have Been Warned is one of these shows which lists 20 Youtube videos, but not just - the show focuses more on the experiments or just situations which offer some scientific substance, at least for the most part.

There are a group of scientists explaining things happening in these videos. It is fun to test yourself and trying to figure out what is actually going on before the actual cause of the experiment is revealed. Also this show allows you to relate your own knowledge either from school or actual life to some really spectacular experiments, achievements or just unfortunate or awesome happenings.

Yes, the show has its flaws. Some of the videos don't go with the episode subtitle very well, the subtitles themselves can be a little blurry and not saying much and some videos are really rather obvious, requiring no expert analysis. But in the end of the day, these make up just minority and there really is a lot to enjoy, discover or simply make some connections between the theory and real life. That's why I think this show is really great. Plus the expert team is universally nice as well.

I've seen few of the shows on TV, which feature online videos and they've all been really rather dull. This one however is really enjoyable. In fact, I actually consider this one of the better shows on Discovery channel, so I'd really suggest to give this one a go.

8/10