The Samuel Project (2018)

There are many movies about the Holocaust.  Some, like Schindler’s List, treat the topic seriously.  Others, like Life is Beautiful, have a more comedic tone.  The Samuel Project isn’t quite either, although it tends more towards the serious.  It takes place in the present with Eli being given an animation project for his media class in high school.  It’s going to be a big project, so it has to be something important.

Shortly after being given the assignment, Robert, Eli’s father, drops Eli off at the apartment of Samuel, Eli’s grandfather.  When Samuel gets a phone call, grandfather and grandson are off on a road trip to visit a dying friend of Samuel’s.

Actually, she’s more than a friend, although Samuel won’t say much about it.  It takes some prying on Eli’s part, but it turns out that this mysterious friend helped Samuel survive Nazi Germany and get out of the country.  Samuel has found the topic for his project.

The movie doesn’t focus on the Holocaust.  In fact, Samuel is reserved with details.  For survivors, it’s not the kind of thing most people want to talk about.  It was a difficult time for many who survived and carries with it a lot of emotion.

Instead, the movie focuses on Eli trying to put the project together and his attempts to get Samuel to open up about it.  Eli is able to use his phone to record his grandfather and animate scenes around that.  He even enlists the aid of classmate Kasim, who plays the guitar.  The two bond over family.  Eli wants to go into art, but Robert would have him get a stable job.  Kasim is trying to fend off his father’s attempts to get him to take over as a butcher.  They realize that both have fathers that don’t really know them that well.

I don’t see a lot of people rushing to the theater to see this or rent it on DVD.  It seems like the kind of movie you might watch streaming.  I’m not exactly sure where to place it.  It’s definitely not a major blockbuster, but it’s not exactly a Hallmark movie, either.  It’s the kind of thing that could be shown to get people thinking hot just about the Holocaust, but those who lived through it, as well.

IMDb page

Time Changer (2002)

Note:  This is a repost from my Epinions account

Normally, bad reviews don't deter me. In fact, I usually see them as a dare. I want to see the movie that much more just to see how bad it really is. This is one of those cases where I should have read the reviews first. Yes, the movie was that bad and I really would have known not to rent it from NetFlix.

The basic plot is simple. It's 1890 and professor Russell Carlisle has written a book called The Changing Times and he wants the endorsement of the Grace Bible Seminary, where he works. The thing is that it requires a unanimous vote of the board. Dr. Anderson is the sole holdout, having found one line in particular objectionable. Carlisle claims in his book that it's important to be a moral person, even if you don't go to Church. Anderson feels that people need to go to Church, or they will go to hell. It's also necessary to believe, or you'll go to hell.

To prove his point, Anderson sends Carlisle 100+ years into their future, where Carlisle sees a religiously apathetic populace. He finds one person who's moral, yet only attends church on Easter and Christmas. He also finds a little girl that steals his hot dog, but pretends like it's no big deal. When Carlisle confronts her about what she's done, he states that it's wrong to steal. She comes back with, "Says who?"

Here's where the opinions will differ. The problem that I had with the movie was that it had a very strong religious theme, and when I say "very strong," I mean as in having it shoved down your throat. The basic theme of the movie is that you have to believe in Jesus Christ as your savior, or you'll rot in hell for all of eternity. There's absolutely no room for interpretation. In fact, Carlisle says to his students that the only good science is the kind of science that backs up the Bible.

Add to that some marginal (and outright bad) acting and you have a must-miss movie. It actually got so bad that my brother and I couldn't finish watching it. Before I turned it off, I skipped ahead to the ending. Dr. Anderson believed that the End of Days was near. He used his time machine to go ahead in time past our year, but the machine didn't work. It was as if to say that the Earth wasn't around, thus implying that the end was near.

Now, I like the concept of time travel as much as the next guy, but this movie blew chunks, if you'll pardon the expression. The only real problem I had was the religious aspect. I can tolerate some bad acting. I could even tolerate an underlying religious theme, but Time Changer overdid it. In that respect, it's a lot like Fahrenheit 9/11. If you already believe what the movie presents, it's going to be a great movie. If you don't believe what the movie presents, then you probably won't be able to bear it.

This is a one-star movie. I really can't see myself recommending this movie. I really don't know anyone that I think would like it.