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jerdwyer
Reviews
Ancient Top 10 (2016)
Score is sensationalism 10, history 3
This is the monster truck rally of history shows complete with a "MONDAY! MONDAY! MONDAY!" style announcer and a lot of over the top dramatic sound bites. There is some real history, along with a lot of conjecture and "_some_ historians believe..." Given a choice between the most accepted history and the most sensational, the show goes with the most sensational.
On a regular station it would rate a 5. On the History channel it gets a 3 for being barely passable as history.
Two of the ships on the top 10 probably never even existed. They even made the ludicrous claim that one was so big it could possibly smash down stone coastal walls.
De tre musketerer (2005)
Kids movie - and not a good one
Stop motion puppetry is known to most people (in the US at least) from the TV Christmas specials about Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. This film doesn't add much to the field. Stop motion puppetry is poorly suited to action sequences of sword fighting, the dialogue is average and I found some of the voices annoying, and the plot has been stripped down to the bare essentials, which leaves adult viewers wondering about the motivation of all of the characters.
Lest you get them confused, stop motion puppetry does not mean the expressive claymation of Wallace and Grommit. The only facial motion these puppets are capable of is moving their mouths up and down.
What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? (2004)
Not about physics, not about much at all actually
If you are decently well read in physics, biology and new age philosophy there will probably be nothing new for you in this movie. The movie is more concerned with making cool CG effects and channeling Ramtha than teaching us anything. As a movie about quantum mechanics it's *&#$*& (pun intended) - it uses a veneer of science to make you think the philosophy has a scientific basis when in fact the two are unrelated. Numerous comments on this board from physics people attest to that.
Some of the ideas on biology are good reminders and the part about the water studies is interesting. So there's perhaps 20 minutes of good idea in the 90 minute movie. Oh yeah, and the wedding scene is funny.
My advice, don't waste your time, google Schrodinger's cat to learn about quantum mechanics and find an article somewhere explaining that the more we have a though or emotion the more that thought or emotion becomes self-reinforcing through bio-chemical changes in the body.
Mon oncle (1958)
Very slow
If you want to spend a long, slow, drawn out evening watching a movie - grab a glass of wine and put in Mon Oncle. If you're accustomed to movies with plot and character - you better have more than one glass of wine. The group I was watching it with was halfway through when someone spilled their glass of wine (perhaps they fell asleep and dropped it) and after cleaning the mess no one much cared if we finished the movie.
There are some funny sight gags, but mostly I think this movie deserves kudos as a historical marker - a movie that was bold and inventive for it's time but which has been improved on many times in the nearly 50 years since it was made. If you want to see a French film with little dialogue and good sight gags rent Triplets of Belleville. It far outshines Mon Oncle.