Planetarion Forums - View Single Post - A brief review of movies I have seen lately

Nodrog · 8 Jul 2006, 15:43

Lord of War was ok, but I felt it's message was a bit confused - it's hard to work out what it was actually trying to say (or if it was really saying anything at all, rather than just throwing a lot of emotions at the viewer). I think films like that are quite dangerous, based on the 'a little knowledge is a bad thing' principle. How many people who watch the film are going to bother going away and researching what was actually involved in (eg) the countries which the US armed, or the history of the specific African nations mentioned, and so on? And how many are just going to walk away with a vague anti-America feeling as a result of seeing some very carefully selected semi-historical events which are presented in a highly emotionalist manner? If you want history and politics then you should read/watch a book/documentary that actually deals with these issues in a non-superficial way - Hollywood films that blur fragments of knowledge with entertainment are essentially just manipulation pieces.

Similar criticisms obviously apply to the Da Vinci Code, and other related works.

8 Jul 2006, 15:43	#2
Nodrog Registered User Join Date: Jun 2000 Posts: 8,476	Re: A brief review of movies I have seen lately Lord of War was ok, but I felt it's message was a bit confused - it's hard to work out what it was actually trying to say (or if it was really saying anything at all, rather than just throwing a lot of emotions at the viewer). I think films like that are quite dangerous, based on the 'a little knowledge is a bad thing' principle. How many people who watch the film are going to bother going away and researching what was actually involved in (eg) the countries which the US armed, or the history of the specific African nations mentioned, and so on? And how many are just going to walk away with a vague anti-America feeling as a result of seeing some very carefully selected semi-historical events which are presented in a highly emotionalist manner? If you want history and politics then you should read/watch a book/documentary that actually deals with these issues in a non-superficial way - Hollywood films that blur fragments of knowledge with entertainment are essentially just manipulation pieces. Similar criticisms obviously apply to the Da Vinci Code, and other related works.