Friveday Oct 03, 2008

National Treasure 2
National Treasure 2 is a direct continuation from the first movie. Thomas Gates, Ben's great-grandfather, sacrifices his life to destroy a piece of John Wilkes-Booth's diary. The Gates family claims that this prevented the Confederates from finding a city of gold that would have funded them to victory. Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) claims to have a piece of evidence that proves Thomas Gates to be the mastermind behind the assassination of President Lincoln. And so, the wild goose chase for clues begins.

End of Suburbia
In the 50s, the American dream involved owning a house with a backyard and driveway. How could such a dream come true for a large urban population? Well, this dream lead to the formation of the suburbs. With the booming economic growth and a cheap supply of oil, people moved out of the city. End of Suburbia recounts the formation of the suburbs and explores the problem that the suburban lifestyle is running into.

Music and Lyrics
Alex Fletcher was a part of a 80's pop band that disbanded when the lead singer decided to go solo. Now, nearly 20 years later, Alex Fletcher lives a simple life that rides on his prior success. Poised with an opportunity to become a relevant force in the music industry again, he's forced to do something he admits he's never been good at ... write lyrics. Step in Sophie Fisher, a former literary student who has a questionably good but humorous ability to rhyme. The two try write a pop song with a week's deadline and learn a thing or two about each other along the way.

Loose Change: The Final Cut
Loose Change can be simply described by two words, conspiracy theory. 9/11 was a tragic event and received massive public attention. The public wanted answers for what happened and the governments tried to explain. The explanations that the government gives have serious inconsistencies. Loose Change explores those inconsistencies.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
The movie begins with King Arthur trying to find knights to join him at the round table. As King Arthur gathers the classic cast to join him, God sets forth a mission for him to find the Holy Grail. The movie follows the journey of King Arthur and his knights as they search for the magical relic.

And the winner is ...
Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I know, it was a surprise to me as well. This is actually the second time I've seen the movie. The first time I saw it, I expected a comedic masterpiece but I was presented with a smashing of dumb skits. Well, this second time I was presented with the same dumb skits but not expecting a comedic masterpiece made all the difference. From the very beginning with the misplayed movie and the credits about moose I began to giggle. I knew that I was going to enjoy it much more than the first time I saw it.

National Treasure 2 is very reminiscent of the first one. The movie retains its goose chase philosophy but looses the intricacies of the first one. Where it seemed like the writers spent quite a bit of time creating the puzzle that were solved in NT1, there are significantly less pieces in NT2. It seemed like they relied on the dysfunctional Gates family to fill in all the spare time. Watch this movie if you're looking for some dumb fun.

Music and Lyrics is another movie if you're just looking for stupid fun. You know the movie is ridiculous from the opening music video. Let me state that "Pop Goes My Heart" is the worst music video ever created. The story is predictable and, though they are innocent, the characters are unlikable. From the quick one line remarks to his uncompromising observations, Fletcher's wit was the only redeeming factor of the movie.

As I stated before, Loose Change is simply a conspiracy theory. The movie does a good job at pointing out the inconsistencies of the reports provided by the government. It does not directly state what was the root cause of all these discrepancies are but the tone of the documentary is clearly pointing towards a war room of individuals who sit in the shadows. Personally, I believe that there can be more reasonable explanations than governments planning our deaths to promote their own agenda. Watch this if your curiosity is in sixth gear but don't expect to find the truth. Also, even though this documentary has been through three revisions, it feels like it was horribly produced. It's divided into acts and scenes but they aren't held together well. Once a topic is introduced it'll jump off on a tangent at random times.

I was really hoping End of Suburbia was the winner this week. It aligns perfectly with my beliefs at the moment but it didn't quite meet my expectations. Though the topic is interesting to me, I didn't find the content provided as captivating as I thought it would be. To make matters worse, the "specialists" in this field are not charismatic individuals. I was also hoping the movie would present solutions but it didn't but that's what sequels are for.

One thing I gained from the movie was the introduction of the oil production curve. As you can already intuitively understand, the production of oil from an oil well follows a bell curve. At the beginning it won't be producing much oil but as investments are made the production increases. At some point you'll reach peak production and then it'll fall. Well then, it's also intuitive that the world's oil production follows roughly the same curve. It was pointed out in the documentary that the world has past peaked production. From here on out, it's downhill. The idea is chilling to me. Our lifestyles will have to evolve if we wish to continue to live something that resembles it tomorrow.

Next week:

1. Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
2. Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
3. Find Me Guilty
4. Kite Runner
5. Fiddler On The Roof