Reviews

One of the most "human", life-affirming films I've ever seen. I can't believe it was shown in so many horror and sci-fi film fests and seems to have resonated with so many genre fans. I even read one interview where the guy suggested the film would have been a great "beginning" for a longer film. HUH???

Maybe I just interpreted it the wrong way, but I viewed it as a comment about human nature...and that at our deepest core we're social creatures who have a need to connect with one another. The whole plot: searching for other people, taking photos of the deceased and looking through their things, and especially the ending. The entire point was that life is nothing if we don't have someone to share it with.

That anyone would refer to this film as being about biological warfare (or anything along those lines) needs to go back to school and take a Lit class. It's just a wonderful, amazingly well-crafted, powerful metaphor about what it is to be human.

All that and not a single line of dialogue until the very end. Tag 26 should have won an Oscar.

I thought the whole movie was pretty silly, and I guess it's supposed to be because ultimately the entire thing is his dream about what California is like (plus, we all know that "it was only a dream" is the single lamest premise in all of film history).

However, when he does finally get to California at the end, we see him on this ugly stretch of beach on a gray, drizzly day with industrial buildings in the background (it could be Manhattan Beach, Long Beach, or even Huntington Beach) and he mutters, "This looks like New Jersey." That one scene almost makes the whole movie worth it because rarely does the California beach myth ever get called out. I've lived here my whole life, and while there are Baywatch days for sure, there are twice as many gray, windy days with tourists from the East Coast pretending to have fun in trash-filled, 64 degree water.

The irony is that New Jersey actually has some incredibly beautiful beaches. I'll trade Huntington Beach for Loveladies Beach any day.

I'm almost amazed they continued to make horror movies after this film came out.

Not even the sickest, bloodiest, most twisted horror flick ever made comes within light years of the pure deranged awfulness of the scene in which "the choice" is forced upon Sophie. It is, hands down, the most disturbing, upsetting, horrific scene in movie history...and it will rattle you to your core.

The first time I saw was during a college Philosophy class. Afterwards I was furious...furious at the professor for showing it, furious at the filmmakers for making it, and furious at the Nazis for, well, everything. I was even furious at Sohpie for choosing.

Now, years later, I'm not angry anymore. I have children of my own - a boy and a girl - and I feel sick anytime I think about this film. My heart aches for Sophie and anyone who might have really been through that at the hands of the Nazis.

If you want true, bone-chilling horror, then look no further. And quite honestly, you might just want to skip it altogether. If you have kids, it's almost too much to handle.

I really wanted to like this movie and, in the right hands, it could have been great.

The concept is one of my favorites - a large dysfunctional family has one of those "crazy gatherings", where all the baggage is brought out, fights ensue, hilarious lines are offered up, and, ultimately, old grudges are resolved, and the family comes together, providing hope for the future.

Unfortunately, I think this one missed the mark in a big way. It was miscast - the actors are all too pretty and polished (should have gone lower budge). The comedy borders on slapstick, followed up by one too many "serious" moments (bad combination). Plus, it's about 30 minutes too long (it's like a slasher flick - every time you think it's building to a resolution, it starts over again).

Most importantly, the characters felt contrived and none of them are terribly likable. So ultimately, after suffering through this crazy night of fights and yelling and all around twisted zaniness, you really don't care that they all love each other at the end.

In a nutshell - Contrived, miscast, poorly edited, and too darn long. Come to think of it, it was just very dysfunctional, just like the Stuckmans themselves.

I've seen just about every documentary on the Iraq war (Gunner Palace, The Control Room, etc.), every episode of Off To War, and just about every news program that sticks a cameraman in a kevlar vest, be it Nightline or Frontline. And for the most part, they're all very good.

Occupation: Dreamland, however, blows them all away.

At first glance it looks like all the others. Identical talking heads in some makeshift basecamp, green nightvision raids, and lots of shaky cameras taking cover to the sounds of far-off gunfire and confused voices.

But there's something very different about this one.

The most obvious difference is the total freedom with which the soldiers appear to be speaking. At only a couple of times to you ever get the feeling that they're mending their speech. The speak openly, crudely, and exactly the way you always thought a 21 year-old infantry soldier in Iraq might talk when the Frontline cameras turn away.

"What the f--k are you looking at?" a soldier asks one of a handful of Iraqi men standing on the side of the road as he patrols the streets in Falluja. "Quit f--king staring at me like that. F--king a--hole."

The really amazing thing though is just how well-spoken and honest they all are. They talk of dropping out of high school, joining the army, hating the army, hating the war, and hating the Iraqi people who clearly hate them back. Most jaw-droppingly though is how just about every soldier, to a man, follows up their dislike of the Iraqi people with, "You know what? If I was in their shoes, I'd be doing the exact same thing." It's such an amazing insight into the men who are actually dealing first hand with the mess we all talk and complain about.

Another key difference between Dreamland and all the other documentaries, is the way it really makes you feel the frustrations of an unwinnable occupation. You watch as they raid house after house, looking for insurgents, coming to the same conclusions they're coming to: that no one knows what's really going on, that our intelligence is a joke, everyone seems to be lying AND telling the truth, and that just about anyone could be a "bad guy".

And that's when they're NOT being shot at. Their frustration while on patrol, or acting as "security", is just painful to watch. They patrol, in essence, in order to be shot at or blown up. Early in the film everyone drops to the ground as an ungodly barrage of fire erupts a few blocks away. After taking cover, gathering their wits, getting some sort of insight as to the location of the attack, they make their way to the suspected source of the gunfire, conceding immediately that, "Even with a fairly quick reaction time, the insurgents had plenty of time to hide behind another building, hop in a car and drive away, or simply walk back in their house."

And in a moment that seemed almost Hollywood-ized in its summarized perfection, the cameraman catches an IED as it blows up alongside their convoy. The freaked out soldiers then immediately open fire on an Iraqi man who happens to be the closest person to the location of the bomb, who himself was almost blown up. Proving that panic makes a crappy gun sight, they miss the guy completely, and watching him run from the explosion into a barrage of gunfire is both hilarious and gut-wrenching, as your heart breaks for everyone involved.

Even a minute or two after the explosion, as the soldiers stand around helplessly, their desperation to fight back is palpable.

"Sarge, I see a guy running over there," one of the grunts says. "You want me to shoot him?" And at the same time you realize, "Geez, isn't that what people do when a bomb goes off - run?" The soldier being interviewed that same day says the exact same thing.

Like David Bowie said, "And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds, are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through."

See this film. It is, by far, the best documentary of the Iraq War, and one of the best war documentaries ever.

One of the other commenters mentioned that they almost walked out. If I hadn't been with my wife, who wanted to stay, I would have left. It's a shame, too, because I think it could have been a good movie. But this is easily one of the worst adapted screenplays I've ever seen. It starts out nowhere and it goes nowhere (I would say it goes nowhere fast, but it really goes nowhere slow...painfully slow). From time to time there are hints that something interesting might happen, or that there is potentially some depth underneath one of the characters, but that's all we get - hints. There is not a single payoff or revelation in the entire movie. Not that I need a slick plot to be entertained...I love a good meandering character study as much as the next indie buff. But these characters add up to nothing. For the entire duration of the film you don't care what happens to a single one of them. As a matter of fact, you almost start hoping they die, because at least a death might be more interesting than watching their inexplicable behavior, which is so strange and unpredictable that you'd think it in itself would be compelling, but it's not. Instead of quirky, noir-esquire characters acting in hard-boiled fashion, you simply recognize it immediately for what it is: a bunch of talented but miscast actors, brooding and raising their eyebrows while reading bizarre dialogue without a hint of relevant context. All this for two plodding, painfully slow hours. Awful.