james-325-474821
Joined Mar 2012
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Reviews4
james-325-474821's rating
The film sets out to accomplish an ambitious number of things from its beginning.
Themes of death, justice, recovery and liberation from trauma underlie the film through its narration and the visual language chosen to express the transformative journey by the author in facing their trauma and traumatizer in the course of a criminal trial.
You will be moved by where she begins the story and how she ends it. We do see a transformation that is expertly supported by the director and editor's choices. Despite its shortcomings it is a film that should be seen by as many in America as possible.
There was a lost opportunity to explore what justice means to the author. We are presented with juxtapositions of the present day with images from Nuremberg, for example, and it is hard to ignore the feeling that there is no real delineation between justice and revenge for the author. The film does not dwell upon the death penalty explicitly, but the visual equivocations presented to us outweigh that fact enough to mention.
To be clear, the criticism here is not that one political opinion or another is held; if anything it is that this element has been held back, and minimized. This comes at the cost of allowing an audience to more fully understand where Ms. Fuentes is in her life. After all, this is a documentary crafted around crime and punishment. It stands to reason this should loom larger in the film. It is understandable that the danger of making it seem like a pro-death penalty propaganda film is a legitimate concern, but then that's why we call documentary filmmaking an art.
It should be kept in mind that this film is very much a visceral, and personal statement. The author is still in college, and it's clear there are a lot of things they have yet to confront about this event in their life.
We do not see this movie from the perspective of someone in their 30s with the benefit of a little more psychosocial development and therapy. That's okay. We must take the author as they are, and this film does a very admirable job at allowing us to look at what she was ready to show the world about herself, and about the repeated tragedy that is school shootings in America.
It is done poetically, dangerously, and with great courage. As such, I give it 8 stars.
Themes of death, justice, recovery and liberation from trauma underlie the film through its narration and the visual language chosen to express the transformative journey by the author in facing their trauma and traumatizer in the course of a criminal trial.
You will be moved by where she begins the story and how she ends it. We do see a transformation that is expertly supported by the director and editor's choices. Despite its shortcomings it is a film that should be seen by as many in America as possible.
There was a lost opportunity to explore what justice means to the author. We are presented with juxtapositions of the present day with images from Nuremberg, for example, and it is hard to ignore the feeling that there is no real delineation between justice and revenge for the author. The film does not dwell upon the death penalty explicitly, but the visual equivocations presented to us outweigh that fact enough to mention.
To be clear, the criticism here is not that one political opinion or another is held; if anything it is that this element has been held back, and minimized. This comes at the cost of allowing an audience to more fully understand where Ms. Fuentes is in her life. After all, this is a documentary crafted around crime and punishment. It stands to reason this should loom larger in the film. It is understandable that the danger of making it seem like a pro-death penalty propaganda film is a legitimate concern, but then that's why we call documentary filmmaking an art.
It should be kept in mind that this film is very much a visceral, and personal statement. The author is still in college, and it's clear there are a lot of things they have yet to confront about this event in their life.
We do not see this movie from the perspective of someone in their 30s with the benefit of a little more psychosocial development and therapy. That's okay. We must take the author as they are, and this film does a very admirable job at allowing us to look at what she was ready to show the world about herself, and about the repeated tragedy that is school shootings in America.
It is done poetically, dangerously, and with great courage. As such, I give it 8 stars.
Season 1 involves a premise using F-18/Es to take out an installation in Iran.
Israel has had F-35s since 2016, even though this show was produced in 2020.
Additionally what keeps the plot moving forward are the stupid decisions by some of the dumbest people written for TV.
Unless it's comedy you're going for, writing your characters this dumb in order to propel the action just doesn't work. The only character that doesn't seem to suffer from this problem is the show's main antagonist. I almost wonder if the show's creators intended him to be some kind of anti-hero, although that would be odd considering the character is a hard-line Iranian and the show is an Israeli production.
The first season's pacing is slow and glacial, as well.
It's watchable if you have nothing else, but it does the genre a great disservice.
Israel has had F-35s since 2016, even though this show was produced in 2020.
Additionally what keeps the plot moving forward are the stupid decisions by some of the dumbest people written for TV.
Unless it's comedy you're going for, writing your characters this dumb in order to propel the action just doesn't work. The only character that doesn't seem to suffer from this problem is the show's main antagonist. I almost wonder if the show's creators intended him to be some kind of anti-hero, although that would be odd considering the character is a hard-line Iranian and the show is an Israeli production.
The first season's pacing is slow and glacial, as well.
It's watchable if you have nothing else, but it does the genre a great disservice.
This will be very straight to the point. The lead female protagonist is played by a very wooden actress. The lead male protagonist isn't exactly the most exciting actor either but he shines by comparison.
Robert Patrick and Hong Chau give weight to an otherwise unsteady cast.
Each episode's screenplay, such as they are, aren't probably treated by the director to make the dialogue at least try to work in a number of moments. Nonetheless these are issues that could also have been fixed in the editing room. The mistakes are as baffling as scenes where the dialogue is clearly written for the action to be fast, but what transpires on screen before us is mind numbingly slow - or vice versa.
So to are there a lot of odd jumps that are either shoddy writing, shoddy editing, or shoddy direction.
Is this show watchable? Sure. But only an idiot doesn't know what happens next.
Robert Patrick and Hong Chau give weight to an otherwise unsteady cast.
Each episode's screenplay, such as they are, aren't probably treated by the director to make the dialogue at least try to work in a number of moments. Nonetheless these are issues that could also have been fixed in the editing room. The mistakes are as baffling as scenes where the dialogue is clearly written for the action to be fast, but what transpires on screen before us is mind numbingly slow - or vice versa.
So to are there a lot of odd jumps that are either shoddy writing, shoddy editing, or shoddy direction.
Is this show watchable? Sure. But only an idiot doesn't know what happens next.