Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest 8/25/12, Visual Effects 2006
I’m a believer that if a movie is going to be longer than 2 hours, it should be the next Spartacus or Exodus or My Fair Lady….this is not the case. It has been a long time since I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and even then, I’m not sure I really paid attention, so I didn’t remember a lot of things that carried over into Dead Man’s Chest. But, the movie won for Visual Effects, and those were really well done. Bill Nighy as Davy Jones was super, and the crew of the Flying Dutchman was computer-generated and they were fun to watch. I enjoyed the pirate who had the head of a hermit crab, which was occasionally dislodged from his body, and had a mind of its own. I think the first 40 minutes could have been cut out, and it would not have hurt a thing, because once the action started, I enjoyed the movie. But still – at 2 ½ hours, it was way too long.
Taxi to the Dark Side, 8/26/12, Best Documentary Feature 2007
There are documentaries that reinforce your belief in human nature, there are documentaries that make you laugh, and there are documentaries that make you angry. For me, Taxi to the Dark Side is the latter. Dilawar was an Afghan taxi driver who was taken into custody to Bagram prison and died from the beatings he suffered while in captivity. Alex Gibney interviews the men responsible for interrogating Dilawar and takes a broader look at US policies around using torture to get information. Many people are interviewed, including attorneys for the Army and Navy, journalists, politicians, and other footage of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and President Bush. It was infuriating watching interviews advocating the torture of men who had not been convicted of anything, who may have been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and then to hear that the men on the ground, carrying out the orders were given very little guidance, but received the brunt of the punishment and seem to carry the most guilt. The men at the top, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush appear to feel no guilt and constructed some kind of policy, rule of law that prevents them from ever being charged with war crimes. This is a documentary well-worth viewing, because to ignore it is unconscionable. Alex Gibney also directed The Smartest Men in the Room about the Enron debacle, also worth watching.
