The Post (2017)

The foundation of a democracy is a free press.  The government needs to be held accountable and the way to do this is to have an independent group reporting on not only current issues but on what the government is doing.  It’s understandable that a government would want to hold secrets, especially when it’s at war, but sometimes, those secrets need to be exposed.

Vietnam wasn’t some minor indiscretion.  American involvement was spread out over three presidential administrations.  There was all manner of documentation generated by the United States Government admitting that it may have made a mistake.

Enter Daniel Ellsberg, a former analyst who copies what would become known as The Pentagon Papers.  He passes them on to The New York Times.  When The Times is bared from publishing them, The Washington Post decides to pick up the torch.  When the lawyers are called in, they promptly express fear that the same thing might happen to The Post.  The decision is eventually made to run with the story.

The decision takes The Post to the Supreme Court right next to The Times.  Being that this is history, I don’t imagine that any of this is a surprise.  It should also come as no surprise that both newspapers are exonerated.  It was decided that both papers had done exactly what they were supposed to have done, which was to report the truth to the American people.

The decision ultimately rested on Kay Graham, who took over the paper when her husband died.  The movie has her in the middle of an IPO.  She’s worried about the exact asking price, as more money would mean a secure payroll for quality reporters.  The movie initially has her shown as somewhat weak, often unsure of herself.

I don’t imagine that this was an easy time for her. It’s bad enough having to plan for a major change to the paper, but to have to add an unexpected twist?  Publishing could mean arrests and, possibly, the end of The Washington Post.  She has to balance the business of the newspaper against the ethics of journalism.  The First Amendment is the first one for a reason.  That doesn’t matter, though, if there’s no one there to report the issues.

One thing I found a little odd was that the price of the stock was mentioned in dollars and cents.  Stock prices converted to decimal on April 9, 2001.  Before that, stock prices were listed in fractions of a dollar.  $42.50 would have been shown on a ticker as $42½.  It’s possible that people still said forty-two dollars and fifty cents, but it stuck out to me because I‘m old enough to remember it the old way.

The movie ends with the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, which ended Nixon’s presidency.  (At least he got to keep the dog.  Right?)   The release of the movie during the current presidential administration might be somewhat coincidental, but the message is still clear:  We need journalists to keep us informed.  The movie wasn’t preachy about it.  It wasn’t necessarily edge-of-your-seat material, either, but it was entertaining.  I would recommend seeing the movie.

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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Alien movies tend to go in two directions.  You have movies where aliens invade Earth, either forcefully or subtly.  Then, there are movies like Alien Nation, with the aliens generally being peaceful.  (Don’t even get me started on Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.)  A few, like Contact, deal strictly with first contact.  We don’t get to see much of the aliens, if anything at all.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is closest to Contact.   What we see of the aliens is mostly their ships.  One of them seems to take notice of Roy Neary’s truck before moving on.  After that encounter, Roy becomes increasingly obsessed with something.  He doesn’t know exactly what, but the vision is getting clearer.  It gets to the point where his wife takes the kids to her sister’s house.

Roy eventually gets a clear picture of what he learns is Devils Tower in Wyoming.  Along the way, he catches up with Jillian Guiler, who is also headed to Devils Tower.  Her son was abducted by the aliens and, in the process, she apparently got the same message as Roy.

It’s not going to be easy for them.  The government has also received coordinates for Devil’s Tower and subsequently quarantined the surrounding area.  Roy, Jillian and a few others do manage to make it most of the way, but are stopped by the government.  Claude Lacombe, who’s running the show for the government, realizes that they were invited by the aliens, but that doesn’t make things easier for those who were invited.

The thing that I’ve always wondered, and I know I’m not the first to do so, is why we tend towards the extremes.  If we’re to assume that aliens invade, we would have to ask why.  What does this planet have that’s so valuable that it would be worth going through all the effort of wiping us out.  You‘d think they‘d be able to get it by some other means.  On the other hand, would a peaceful race even want anything to do with us?  I’ve often thought that any civilization capable of crossing vast interstellar distances would probably have a look at us and be scared.  Look at what we do to our own species.  Do you think we’d treat them any better?

What would first contact actually look like?  I mean, what would actually happen if aliens came down and asked to meet our leaders?  Would it be a simple message like The Day the Earth Stood Still?  Would it be obvious like all of the invasion movies or would it be more subtle like They Live?

The close encounters for Roy and Jillian are a bit bumpy.  When the aliens visit Jillian’s house, all of her electronics seem to turn on.  Radios start blaring.  Toys start moving around.  Roy’s experience is similar.  Nearby signs and mailboxes start rattling.  Is it the aliens intent to scare them?  It could just be a byproduct of their technology.

There is an assumption that aliens would look like us.  It’s easier to have a human actor play the alien, hence the proliferation of humanoid aliens on TV and in movies.  However, there’s no reason to think that we’d have a common form or language for that matter.  The use of music in Close Encounters of the Third Kind makes sense, at least, as would the use of hand gestures.  It stands to reason that if they’ve studied us, they would be able to find some way to at least attempt communication.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is relatively well known.  I remember watching Jeopardy! once.  The final clue referenced the five-note tune repeated throughout the movie.  I remember not only getting it instantly, but wondering why my parents didn’t.  It was one of those clues that if you had seen the movie, the response was obvious.  There are definitely worse ways to spend a few hours of your life.

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The Terminal (2004)

Note  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski. Viktor Navorski is a man without a country. He’s en route to New York City when his country’s government is overthrown. With no officially recognized country, Viktor has no legitimate passport. That’s when Viktor meets Frank Dixon. Dixon is a bureaucrat who’s on the verge of being promoted. With this promotion comes a lot of power. Dixon doesn’t want this promotion to get screwed up. Thus, Dixon has to play by the rules. Dixon also realizes that he has a problem, and that problem is named Viktor Navorski.

According to the rules, Viktor is to stay in the airport. He can’t legally go into New York City. Dixon gives Viktor some food vouchers and tells Viktor to figure something out. Viktor soon realizes that he’s going to be in for a long stay. He loses his food vouchers, but finds possible salvation in those push carts that most airports have. He can return three carts and get three quarters, which is enough for a Burger King hamburger. (Anyone who’s ever had to buy food at an airport knows that this is a bargain.) Pretty soon, Viktor is racking up the quarters, which prompts Dixon to create a special position within the airport to stop Viktor from getting those precious quarters. So begins Dixon’s war.

Navorski’s English is very limited, but he’s a quick study. He tries to apply to several of the stores within the airport, but to no avail. On a whim, he fixes up a wall in a closed-off area of the airport. This catches the attention of the crew that’s repairing that section of the airport. Not only does Viktor get a job, he gets a job that pays more that Dixon earns.

There are several other side stories. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Amelia, a flight attendant who has a boyfriend who’s married to another woman. She knows it’s wrong (and even encourages him to stay with his wife) but just can’t tear herself away from him. She and Viktor manage to hit it off and Viktor tries to get a relationship going, but she has some very serious trust issues.

There’s also Gupta, a janitor who takes amusement in watching people slip on a wet floor. The reason it’s so amusing is that he has several of those big yellow signs very visibly positioned around the recently mopped area. People are usually too careless about their surroundings to take notice of something that obvious.

The most interesting story is the story of why Viktor is there. All anyone knows is that he carries this Planter’s Peanuts container. At first, no one asks what the container contains. Eventually, Amelia takes the initiative. Viktor reveals that his father was trying to gather signatures. I don’t recall the reason whole story behind it, but it has to do with a group of jazz musicians. It was very important to Viktor’s father. He managed to get all but one of the signatures.

Viktor is in New York City trying to get that one last signature. That’s why it’s so important that Viktor also play by the rules. Dixon wants Viktor to leave figuring that Viktor will become someone else’s problem. If Viktor is caught, he becomes the problem of the federal government. If Viktor is not caught, then he simply wanders NYC like any other undocumented immigrant. Little does Dixon know that Viktor wants to return home, even if it means waiting the nine months that Viktor eventually has to stay.

WARNING: Anyone who doesn’t want to know how the movie ends should stop here. If you continue, don’t blame me for ruining the movie for you. You were warned.

Amelia gets Viktor a one-day visa so that he can go to where the remaining musician is. Unfortunately, things don’t work out between them. She goes back to her married boyfriend. However, Viktor does get his autograph. Upon entering a cab, he tells the driver that he’s going home.

END SPOILER

I didn’t feel like there was any sense of completion with the story. (At least not in the sense that I would have expected.) It seemed like a short story that was interrupted and put on hold for nine months. It was absolutely not what I expected, but that’s not to say that the movie was bad. Viktor was a man that had everything taken away from him and Tom Hanks was able to portray him in such a way that I could say that I would have done the same thing in his position. (Several other people also told me that I probably would have done the same thing.)

There’s a lot of product placement. Notice the prominent use of Burger King that I mentioned before. Those that are observant will also notice Starbucks and Baja Fresh. (For those that don’t know, Baja Fresh is a fast-food restaurant that sells tacos. I’ll be writing a review of it shortly. I’ll be placing links for Starbucks and Burger King below.) It wasn’t too distracting and in some cases, such as Viktor’s job search, can be excused.

The movie was definitely different. I wish that there were more movies like this one. There were no amazing action scenes. The movie didn’t try to awe people with its amazing special effects. So there was some slapstick here and there, but the bulk of the movie was driven by the story. Fortunately, it had a very good story.

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Minority Report (2002)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Before I start, I should warn you that I’m going to be giving away some details that you might not want to hear. Some of them are gross and some of them are plot details. I’ll also be mentioning where the movie’s name comes from. Read on at your own risk.


It’s 2054 and a special program, known as Precrime, has been in existence for six years. Lamar Burgess, played by Max von Sydow, is precrime’s leader. John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, is the lead officer. It’s only a trial run in Washington, D.C., but there’s soon going to be a vote on whether or not to take it national. (This is why a federal agent, played by Colin Farrell, comes in to see how everything works.) The results have been great. Murder was cut by 90% initially, and then eliminated. Since most people know of its success, premeditated murders in the D.C. area are rarely predicted. Precrime gets mostly crimes of passion.

The movie opens with Precrime being shown a vision of a man about to kill two people. Three precogs generate the vision. (I’ll explain what a precog is later.) Each one generates their own image and the three images are worked into a composite. All the police have to work with is this image. With enough of a vision, the police can garner clues like a merry-go-round or the style of houses.

The precogs are the result of pregnancies during which the mothers were addicted to drugs. I’m not sure if it’s the nature of the drug or the nature of the treatment that does it to them, but the result is that they can see murders while they sleep. I have no idea why it’s limited to such a violent crime. It would have been just as likely for them to come up with jaywalking or next weeks Lotto numbers. (It was mentioned that the precogs were known to have these violent dreams, but I don’t know if they were referring to all precogs or just the three used by the police. The details of how it worked weren’t mentioned.)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve mentioned this in any review on time travel and precognitive ability and other reviewers have mentioned this about this movie. How can the precogs predict a murder and thus allow the police to stop it? The movie gives an example. Anderton rolls a ball down a table. It falls off the edge, but the federal agent catches it before it hits the ground. Was the ball really going to hit the ground?

Sometimes, the police catch the people actually attempting the murder. However, there is some doubt in many of the cases. Sometimes, one precog sees alternate future, thus generating what is called a minority report, hence the name of the movie. (One such minority report plays a big role in the movie.)

The action begins when Anderton starts digging into an old vision. Agatha, the ‘lead’ precog, can’t seem to get the image out of her head. Before Anderton can do much about it, a new crime is predicted. John Anderton’s name comes up as that of the criminal’s. He’s supposed to murder a man he hasn’t met yet and he’s supposed to do it in a part of town he has no business in.

Here’s where it gets confusing. (I’m going to have to tell you part of the plot to explain it as clearly as I can.) The murder that Anderton is supposed to commit is actually a setup. By looking into the old murder that Agatha was replaying, he was going to figure something out. However, on its face, it seems that the course of events leading up to the murder is set in motion by the prediction of the murder itself. Had the prediction not come through, there’s no way of telling if Anderton would have known to look for the person. However, if the murder had been set up and was going to occur, that might have been enough to cause the prediction. It seems as though Anderton’s committing the murder is predicated on him being in a position to see the prediction and to do something about it.

Like I said, it’s confusing. All I can say is that you have to pay attention.

The central question seems to be whether or not you can change the future. Like I said, there is room for two futures to be predicted. Also, the police can stop the murder from happening. How certain is the future?

Another thing to consider is that D.C. seems to have found the perfect system. There is no perfect system. There’s always a way to cheat it or to manipulate it to your advantage. This comes up a few times in the movie.

The movie has a 1984 feel to it. There are retinal scanners and customer databases that keep track of your purchases. There’s a ton of product placement. Futuristic billboards advertise Pepsi and Aquafina. Anderton walks into The Gap to get some clothing for Agatha.

It can be an enjoyable movie if you don’t think about it. If you do think about it, you’ll probably want to watch the movie several times.

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