Electoral Dysfunction

Review: Electoral Dysfunction

Participants: Drew, Sean, Bobby, Shane, Bryan, Jon

Initiator: Drew

Drew

Well, how was that first documentary?  If all else fails, most of us can agree it is better than Only God Forgives.

Anyway, when I first heard of this, I could hardly wait to see it.  It had nothing to do with Mo Rocca or that Indiana was involved in it.  Rather, it had everything to do with the topic.  The discussion of the Electoral College (E.C.) is important and interesting yet incredibly frustrating because adults know very little about it or what it does.  With that being stated, Electoral Dysfunction did a fairly good job of illustrating its working.

I particularly liked how Rocca used an elementary class to simulate the workings of the E.C.  That was creative, effective, and accurate.  The result was convenient where most of the students picked one and the "electoral college" chose the winner, which was the other option.  I say it was convenient because it illustrated what Rocca and the film wanted - the E.C. misrepresents the will of the people.  Well, that is not entirely true.  More on that later.

Another informational aspect of the film is the ease of someone becoming an elector.  Like the film suggested, it is incredibly easy for anyone to become a state elector.  The only thing that is required is party identification and paper work.  That is all.  If more people knew that, more people would want to be an elector, which could lead to faithless electors - people who claim to vote for a candidate but votes for the other guy.

Any time Indiana is mentioned in any kind of media, my initial reaction is to cringe.  I am paranoid Hollywood or any independent filmmaker will poke fun of my beloved home state.  When I saw Rocca going to Indiana, I feared for the worst.  Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised.  I was happy to see something meaningful from Indiana as opposed to Rocca pulling a Bill Maher in Religulous. 

Now, Electoral Dysfunction is biased against the E.C., toward the popular vote, and against voter ID laws.  Essentially, it chronicles the politicization of voting.  Indiana is chosen not because it was a "swing state" in 2008 but because at the time it had stringent voter ID laws.  Rocca wanted to see how the McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden people handled the situation.  What Rocca found was exactly for what he looked; the right to vote turned to a political viewpoint.  The issue of Mike Marshall highlights that.

I disagree with the film's thesis on the E.C.  There have only been four instances in American history where the E.C. winner and the popular vote winner did not match up. That was in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000.  Since 1824 - the first election where the popular vote was recorded - it had four hiccups.  That is a stable system.

Also, the popular vote will not be as representative as Electoral Dysfunction claimed.  It makes it sound like participation will skyrocket and will be pure.  That is incorrect.  The focus will no longer be on states but the most populated cities.  Furthermore if people want less money in politics, the popular vote method is not the way to go.  That method will make people more sick of politics than they are currently.

I will write more in my second round but all in all, Electoral Dysfunction was pretty good.  It is not an "A" movie but a "B/B-" is fairly accurate.  Grade: B-

Sara, what did you think?

Only God Forgives

Review: Only God Forgives

Participants: Jon, Drew, Sara, Sean, Bobby, Joe, Shane, Bryan

Initiator: Jon

Jon

So, that was…something?

Cool is in the ballpark with funny.  If I think something’s cool, it’s difficult to communicate why I think so.  I thought Drive, Nicholas Winding-Refn’s movie before Only God Forgives, was incredibly cool.  Ryan Gosling’s gloves and jacket, Albert Brooks’s razor collection, the soundtrack; if 16-year-old me saw it, it would’ve easily displaced Face-Off as my all-time favorite movie at the time.  Drive turned me on to Refn’s other work and after getting through Bronson (impossibly weird) and the Pusher trilogy (varies from good to great), I was sufficiently excited for Only God Forgives.

Excitement pretty quickly melted into disappointment.  This is pretty oppressive throughout.  Gosling’s character has nothing going on upstairs.  His Drive character was all resolute, ultra-competent action.  He’s a passive, wet fart here, and therefore, completely uninteresting.  His mother, who was clearly a molester, has more going on, but it’s one note compared to no notes; be consistently awful.  She’s a cartoon villain and the movie’s not interested in developing her past a c-bomb dropping psychopath who compares her sons’ dick sizes.  The Thai detective was a welcome contrast, such that he deserved the win and he had the Driver’s cool, but he was still subject to Refn’s insane directing choices.

If Only God Forgives was filmed at normal speed, it would be shorter than an episode of Game of Thrones.  So many long hallways to walk down.  The color palette was so extreme that it had to mean something, though I couldn’t figure it out.  I tried keeping track of who was shot with a red filter versus a blue filter but I lost track.  I also lost the thread for any thematic connection.  Something this superficially arty has to have more on its mind than just revenge.  Maybe it was about women that shouldn’t be mothers?  Maybe the key was the statue the camera kept cutting to during the fight between Gosling and the detective?  Am I over-thinking it and giving Refn too much credit?  I also really disliked the ending scene in the detective’s home.  The detective’s daughter was put in danger only to manipulate the viewer.  Was there any doubt Gosling was going to kill his accomplice before the daughter was killed?  The nanny and the police guard can go fuck themselves, but a dramatic split-second decision to save a child?  Clearly, Gosling’s turned the corner!

There were enough things I liked to get it into the three-star, C range.  While not as uniformly strong a soundtrack as Drive, there were some strong tracks, particularly in the scene where the detective practices his swordplay.  The aforementioned fight had strong choreography, and the right people got their comeuppance/had their insides groped by their son for some reason.  I’ll be going into the next Refn film with more caution.  This had its handful of moments, but was a complete misstep.

What did everyone else thing?  Clearly, you loved it…

Warm Bodies

Review: Warm Bodies

Participants: Bobby, Bryan, Jon, Sean, Drew, Joe, Shane

Initiator: Bryan

Bryan:

An “A” of any kind is out because I’ll never own it. B+ movies for me are really intriguing and I want to see them again. I waivered between B- and B for Warm Bodies, but settled on a B- because it was a pretty good movie, but was missing enough comedy or intrigue to get a B.

I went into Warm Bodies thinking it was going to be a spoof of some sorts. I’m still not sure if it was. The big selling points for me were the main character’s dialogue, the soundtrack, and some of the silly humor. The music was enjoyable and definitely filled in for the lack of dialogue well. The main character’s description of events and dry take on being a zombie was pretty funny - I chuckled a couple times. I can’t help but laugh at the easy stuff like playing catch with a zombie and the ball simply drills him or the two zombies grunting at each other at the bar.

I could have watched 90 minutes of over the top zombie comedy and come away more pleased. I think the film lost it’s way about 20 minutes in.

My biggest gripes with Warm Bodies are the following:

1) John Malcovich’s character is boring. Why did he even take that role?

2) I’m not sure if the chase scenes were trying to be intense or funny, but they seemed like filler to me.

3) The scene 2/3 of the way through where she stops in the burbs after being chased by zombies was terrible. Another one of those things were it’s like a zombie spoof, but not really because nothing bad happened. She was making relatively rational decisions (besides dating a zombie) until then.

Maybe I missed something or forgot some scene I really liked, but after this review I’m sticking with a B-.