Summary: Alita is fun and beautifully done, and well worth seeing. Feminists’ reviews were savage. Their attacks reveal much about them and the new puritanism (ideological, not religious) sweeping America.
Commentaries
Spielberg Saved Private Ryan and Killed Patriotism
Synopsis: The classic 1998 gory D-Day movie Saving Private Ryan is a triumph of war cinema that lesser filmmakers have attempted to imitate countless times in the following decades up to the present day. Saving Private Ryan practically defined the entire genre of American war films, but also helped destroy it, perhaps irreversibly.
War Games
Synopsis: A group of archeologists discovers the rambling diary of a tortured soul slowly going mad. There’s no consistent logic, coherent meaning, or even an apparent chronological order to the bizarre episodes scrawled across the tattered book’s pages. But nonetheless, the adventurers can’t help but digest the entire manifesto cover to cover. In The Man in a White Corolla, our unhinged protagonist was in uniform, sent away to a faraway war zone.
Now he’s back home, but still in uniform. This time around, he managed to cobble together a chapter that was close to lucid from beginning to end, quite an accomplishment for him. It’s a brief reflection on leadership, humility, and staying grounded in what’s in front of you. Is this really a reliable source for “staying grounded”…? Don’t lose the battle before you even leave the drawing board, as the old saying goes.
The Man In a White Corolla
A group of archeologists discovers the rambling diary of a tortured soul slowly going mad. There’s no consistent logic, coherent meaning, or even an apparent chronological order to the bizarre episodes scrawled across the tattered book’s pages. But nonetheless, the adventures can’t help but digest the entire manifesto cover to cover. Now the unhinged protagonist is in uniform, sent away to a faraway war zone. Where this war happened, assuming it happened at all, the madman doesn’t say. But he does describe at length what had started as a boring overnight watch.
Super Women In the Trenches!
Synopsis: One boring night on Amazon Prime, I stumbled across the 2015 Russian WWI flick Battalion. Woman warriors march to the front lines, bayonets fixed, ready to charge into no man’s land! As I watched the drama unfold, another movie came to mind; Wonder Woman (2017) charging the German lines. How do the two movies compare? Uhh… different would be putting it mildly. Yet, despite being so different, they go hand in hand. They offer insights on their own, but when put side by side, create a whole picture. Wonder Woman and Battalion are polar opposites and teach opposite lessons. But they both serve the same purpose; to overwrite a dark moment in history, replacing it with a fantasy that’s both inspirational and comforting.