Irresistible (2020) - Movie Review

2020 has not been a good year for political satire, at least when it comes to feature-length efforts. Admittedly, this genre has a higher degree of difficulty than most, and COVID fucking up the release schedule is likely delaying most of the good stuff while the disposable shit rises to the top, but there’s also the collective mood to account for as well. It has been a highly turbulent four years, and alongside the rising hostility across party lines, there has also been a rise in the need to vent about such things. A lot of the political cinema this year has had a heavy air of needing to get something off the filmmakers’ chests, but without the clarity needed to make it resonate when describing it to someone else. It is in this mode that Jon Stewart returns to the director’s chair with… well, I hesitate to call it the worst so far, but it is definitely the tamest, which in its own way is even worse.

BlacKkKlansman (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Freshly-minted detective Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the first black officer the Colorado Springs police department ever hired, sees an opportunity for some real investigative work when he spots an ad in the local paper for the Ku Klux Klan. Passing himself off as a white man over the phone, and teaming up with fellow detective Flip (Adam Driver) to act as his physical surrogate, he infiltrates the Klan and gets a close look at how the enemy operates.

War Machine (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: With the U.S. government really wanting to put an end to their military campaign in Afghanistan, they send in renowned general Glen McMahon (Brad Pitt) to lead the charge and, more importantly, prepare an assessment on how to resolve the matter. However, it seems that McMahon doesn’t want the troops to leave before the job is done, and so sets out to “win” the War On Terror. Everyone outside of his main platoon look at him aghast that a single person can get so much wrong in so little time.

Truth (2015) - Movie Review

 

The world loves an underdog. Except for some very rare exceptions, cinema tends to focus on the David of a given story rather than the Goliath. As a result of centuries of conditioning to unconditionally question authority, and to hate the faceless figureheads that run everything, we have grown quite accustomed to shaking our fists at the big guys. It is because of this, among other things, that so many conspiracy theories involving the Illuminati exist, despite a society that’s purportedly that secretive wouldn’t be known by name by pretty much everyone on Earth. However, this stance isn’t as easy to take when the minority was categorically shown to be wrong. Not to say it hasn’t been done; 300 became a pop culture cornerstone and it told that very story. Just that, when we’ve all become so comfortable with one side being in the wrong, it’s not so easy to show them in a positive light; it’s why barely any sports movies follow the team with the several year-long winning streak. As such, today’s film shines a spotlight on one of the more notorious live-to-air TV news blunders in recent memory. And no, this isn’t a blooper-worthy story; this is a bit more serious than that.