Month: December 2013

More Movie Reviews: The Purge and Pacific Rim

by Stefani

What a horrible day for movies! Both of these were movies that either hubby or I wanted to see in theaters but it just didn’t happen for one reason or another. I am pretty glad we waited for Red Box because honestly they were a waste of $1.20 too! Let’s get down to it then. WARNING: SPOILERS ABOUND FROM HERE ON OUT!

 

pacific rim

Pacific Rim, a movie about……Transformers. No wait, that’s not it. It’s about…….Iron Man. No wait that isn’t it either. It’s about…..Godzilla. No that’s not right either. It’s the sequel to…..Cloverfield. No, but that is getting closer I think. Actually it’s something of a combination of all of these. And I still have no idea what the whole point of the movie was supposed to be about! I think at the beginning of the movie they talked about dropping a bomb into the portal between dimensions, and ultimately I think that’s how it ended so that must be it. Anyway, alien creatures are attacking our world and so humans created Jaegers to combat them. Apparently they want to colonize our world and they first tried to millions of years ago, we know them as dinosaurs. But the climate was not hospitable at the time. But now with all the global warming and awful things we’ve done to the planet it’s perfect for a take over.

This movie was just soooooooo cliche. Star pilot loses his partner and falls off the map to become an average Joe guy. The young ambitious newbie who struggles with horrors from the past. The general whose program is about to get shut down and has to go seek out the seasoned drop out. When combined with the ambitious newbie they form an unstoppable team who will singlehandedly defeat the evil thing! Yeah, I know. That sounds like every other action movie on earth, and it is exactly like this one too.

Don’t get me wrong, not everything about this movie was bad. The effects were very good. The monsters looked awesome. The color scheme of the movie was very engaging. But that was about all it had going for it. It was so boring! I have never been more bored in my life. The characters were bad, the story was bad, the ending was bad, it was just bad! I feel like I wasted 132 minutes of my life that I can’t get back.

the purgeThis movie just pissed me off, it made me so angry. The first reason that it made me angry is that it has such a great premise. And that premise was squandered so thoroughly. In fact, I am pretty sure that I came up with a better idea to execute this premise for a novel than this movie was. Normally I would be concerned about Ethan Hawke because he is just not a very good actor. But I had no problem with him in this movie. Here are my issues:

1. The socialist propaganda in this movie was constant. And I do mean from beginning to end. One of the characters actually says at one point, “You know that this filth is only here in order for our pleasure and purpose.” He was speaking of poor people and homeless people, who of course are only around for the rich people to exploit. That was just one of dozens upon dozens of examples I could come up with.

2. There were HUGE logic fails in this movie. Such as, The Purge was instituted because the poverty and crime problems in the country were so rampant that this was seen as an alternative. But, the rich people don’t seem to be affected by the purge much, they can just get a security system and it all mostly stays in in poor areas of town…which is what they were trying to fix right? Fail.

3. Massive world building problems. According to this movie in 2022 the US has gotten a brand new overhaul in which was decided that for one 12 hour period a year all crime is now legal and people have just accepted this as part of life. That’s only 9 years in the future. The movie gives us no information about why this change took place, how it took place, who was involved, or anything about what happened! Either you need to set this 100 years in the future or give me some damned details about how this happens less than a decade from now.

4. This movie has zero knowledge about recurrent criminals or basic human nature. This movie assumes that all humans inherently have a desire to commit violent acts and murder people. So they decide to give this a socially acceptable outlet and then the violent urges have been purged from everyone’s system for another year. First, most humans don’t secret want to murder people if only it weren’t illegal. And second, criminals who do want to murder people are not going to restrict themselves to once a year.

5. Why was all the crime that took place during this purge murder? No one was interested in robbery, arson, rape, nothing else besides killing? Um, okay. Personally I think I’d head to the nearest bank and get myself some cash. But then I must not be one of these humans that inherently wants to kill I guess.

6. More logic fail. Has anyone considered that after all this pillaging and murdering that the emergency services is going to be overloaded? Is that really a good idea? Guess everyone in law enforcement and emergency services is going to be working overtime.

7. Now for some character fail. The characters in this were idiots. The boyfriend of the girl sneaks into her house before the lockdown for the purge, he says that he’s there to talk to her dad when he can’t run away. Um, listen dude, the guy hates you. Have you really thought through this plan? He can KILL YOU and suffer no repercussions, so why exactly did this seem like a good plan? Oh wait, that’s right because you were going to kill him. Because killing your girlfriend’s father is such a great way to endear her to you forever!

8. More logic fail. If thousands of people are being murdered in every town in the US every year, how exactly is the population sustaining itself. One character actually said that just one street was like “a sea of bodies”. Right, and again I say, how is the population faring well at all?

9. More character fail. Idiot son lets a stranger into the house and they become targets of the people who wish to kill that stranger. Dad originally decides, yeah let’s turn over the stranger to these guys and they’ll leave us alone. They hunt down the stranger (who is black by the way, being hunted by white kids from the prep school and is constantly referred to as “filth”, “homeless swine” and other insulting terms) and get into a tussle. At one point he is screaming at his wife to stick her finger in his wounds to distract him and make him stop fighting. Then the guy finally gives in and says “alright, I get it. Save your family and give me to them.” And all of a sudden he thinks, “no I don’t want to do that! We’re going to save this man and fight until the purge ends!” YOU WERE JUST STICKING FINGERS IN HIS WOUND TO STOP HIS STRUGGLING TWO SECONDS AGO!

10. More logic fail. If all these people are getting killed, who is handling the inevitably large number of orphans? Do they go into a government system? Are they left to fend for themselves? How is the government handling the influx of bodies on one hand, the declining population with another, and an exponential number of orphans with a third hand?

11. Final logic fail. I am expected to believe that for one night everyone can run around killing each other and then the very next day go back to normal and socialize as if nothing happened. It wouldn’t work that way. People would be scared and suspicious of everyone, because they might be coming to kill you on the next purge night if you trust them too much.

11. Okay, I thought of another logic fail that I just can’t let go. Why does this movie assume that most violence is stranger violence? Last time I checked, if you are going to be murdered the vast majority of the time it will be someone who is close to you. So is locking yourself behind steel doors and walls with your family for 12 hours really a good idea? Seems more likely they’d be the ones to kill you than some stranger outside.

I just can’t get over this movie. It made me so angry! I am going to write my better idea right now to make me feel better.

Advertisement

What You Don’t Know About Religion (But Should) by Ryan T. Cragun

by Stefani

religionWhat You Don’t Know About Religion (But Should) by Ryan T. Cragun

Published March 15th 2013 by Pitchstone Publishing

Buy this book at: Book Depository / Amazon / B&N

Synopsis:

What is a religion? Why are people religious? Are religious people more educated than nonreligious people? Are religious people more moral, more humble, or happier? Are religious people more or less prejudiced than nonreligious people? Is religion good for your health? Are people becoming more or less religious? Studying religion as a social phenomenon, Ryan T. Cragun follows the scientific data to provide answers to these and other questions. At times irreverent, but always engaging and illuminating, What You Don’t Know About Religion (but Should) is for all those who have ever wondered whether religion helps or hurts society—or questioned what the future holds for religion.

Rating: 1 star

Review:

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

There are really only a few things you need to know about this book:

“I could have approached this book that way (highly scientific and detailed), But had I done that my audience would have dropped considerable. So I did simplify things.”

No, I swear to God that particular misspelling actually is in the book. But just remember, this book was written for dummies, that will be important later.

“Our new world needs tolerance.”

“When I was religious, I was very arrogant.”

“If you’re on the fundamentalist bandwagon, it’s time to get off……We nonreligious will inhereit the earth, but we won’t share it with fundamentalists.”

“What I hope to have done with this book, however, is undermine and destroy the appeal of religious fundamentalism.”

“To my mind the scientific research suggested to me a logical path – to reject religion. You need not do that. You could choose the best religious alternative to that: liberal religion. I can respect that choice.”

“After people read this book, they should view religious fundamentalists with sympathy and a bit of scorn.”

“Religious fundamentalists are detriments to society and they should be treated as such. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we round them up and lock them away – that would be awful and is unethical. I’m suggesting that you should think about religious fundamentalists as though they are misogynistic, racist, homophobic Luddites, because they are.”

“…but you can pity then, and frankly, I think it is perfectly fine to tell then that you do. Tell them that you feel sorry for their choice to oppose the qualities of a progressive, modernized, advanced, democratic society. It’s time that religious fundamentalists were considered socially deviant.”

So, am I the only disturbed by these quotes? Tolerance huh? Yes, this is a very tolerant book! It will tell you for 250 pages that the highly religious are dumber, less well off, less educated, more prejudiced, more violent, misogynistic, homophobic, hypocritical, arrogant racists. I wanted to give this book a fair shot, I really did. The author is a former Mormon, and so am I. I was a fourth generation Mormon, born into the faith and I stayed long past the time I started to have doubts. I finally left the religion and frankly it left a bad taste in my mouth. So I wanted to agree with this author! And I couldn’t! Because I have never read a more prejudiced and hateful book by a more arrogant author in all my life.

This book was purported to be about the social science of how and why people are religious, and whether or not religion is really such a benefit to people’s lives as it claims to be. This intrigued me. But what I got was “look at this graph, this is what that graph tells us. now look at this graph, this is what it tells us. shit, religious people suck!” And rinse and repeat for 200 something pages. I learned nothing about religion and everything I ever needed to know about the author’s character.

Now, by this point the author will probably tell you one of two things about me (and he admits it in his book). If I don’t agree with his points then:

A. I am a religious fundamentalist who just is socially deviant and can’t understand simple logic, even though the book was written for dummies. Everyone should point and laugh at the idiot with a God.

B. I didn’t read the book all the way through and so therefore I failed to grasp it.

Let’s address this. First, I did read this pile of garbage until the very last sentence. And I learned nothing and have thoroughly wasted my time. Also I am one of the people who would be classed as “non religious” in his book. I am now a Pagan and have been since a few years after I left the Mormon church. I have faith in many things and I practice my faith in private, but I do not participate in a religion with others.

Save yourself the time and find an actual book about the science of religion, because this one is just thinly veiled hateful spew about religious people and religion in general. Oh, who am I kidding, there is no veil!