DVD Collectors Online

Slacker uprising, a review by Rich

3rd November

Slacker uprising



Michael Moore's new film is strategically timed to mobilize voters in anticipation of the 2008 United States presidential election.

Slacker Uprising takes us back to the 2004 election, when the polling margin between candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry could have tipped either way. Framed like a concert film, it captures Moore's activities as he set out on a campaign trip almost as rigorous and far-reaching as the candidates' own. He targeted young people as the demographic that could make the most difference, visiting sixty-two cities in forty-five days, and holding large rallies on college campuses. He dubbed it the Slacker Uprising Tour.

This documentary of his journey is made in the feisty spirit of independent media, budgeted at a tiny fraction of Moore's recent films. It acts like a time machine, returning us to the weeks prior to the November 2, 2004, election, when campuses across the country were exhilarated by a sense of hope and urgency. Moore masterfully foments this energy, speaking to audiences as large as fifteen thousand. He riles up the crowd with his hilarious improvisation, riffing off the day's headlines or responding to hecklers. He also brings a star-studded lineup of friends - we see appearances and performances by Roseanne Barr, Eddie Vedder, Viggo Mortensen, Steve Earle and Joan Baez, among others. His political opponents certainly take notice, lobbying schools to ban him from campus, sometimes successfully.

Although the election didn't go Moore's way, this film is a cure for the hangover that followed, and a reminder that a new political force emerged on those campuses. Young voters turned out in record numbers in 2004, reversing a trend of decline since 1972 (after the voting age lowered to eighteen). The youth vote increased even more in the following mid-term elections. If you want to understand the future of American politics, Slacker Uprising is a great place to start, showcasing what the filmmaker calls "the birth of a new political generation

As always with Moore films this is entertaining, stage managed, skilfully edited, and enlightening to a European. I'm not sure if he is a patriot or just a troublemaker, but he certainly whips up a fervour on every subject he undertakes.
Good timing for this release, it is important to note the influence of this venture did not keep the war criminal Bush from taking office for a further 4 years.
Biggest downside for me as the viewer were the many musical interludes, it kept stalling the flow of the feature IMO
 

(From November Alphabet Marathon - Discussion/Review Thread on November 3rd, 2008)

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, a review by Dragonfire

I did get a review posted on Epinions.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

(From Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs on September 26th, 2009)

Smallville Marathon #2, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: A girl hypnotizes Clark and he subsequently breaks up with Lana. He (unwillingly) reveals all his abilities to her and does whatever she wants. What he doesn't know is, that she was hired by Lex, but luckily for Clark she double-crosses Lex and doesn't expose him to Lex but instead tries to kill him (Lex). But Lex has other things on his mind, too. He's located Milton Fine in Honduras and he believes that Milton is a government agent.

My Opinion: Spike Milton is a hard-to-kill kind of guy. It's good that he's back, that means that the Krypton arc is back in the game.
I am sorry and relieved at the same time that the relation of Lana and Clark is over. Sorry for obvious reasons and relieved because that entire hide-and-seek was getting tiresome. Of course it won't completely stop but the amount of lies can go down to normal Clark-level.

Synopsis: With the help of a Kryptonite drug, Lana dies and comes back from the dead. But while she's dead she can talk to her parents. The problem is that one can only die so many times before one stays that way. Both Clark and Lex try to help her and get killed in the process.

My Opinion: This is my third attempt to write this paragraph. I don't know why, but somehow it didn't felt right. I've never been religious, yet I've never had any problem with the concept of an afterlife in a fantasy show. Xena has been to several places for the dead (the Elysian Fields, Tartaros, the Amazon afterworld), Buffy was in Heaven and there were several hell dimensions and still I didn't like the idea that Clark could talk to his dead father and that he could give his son a warning. Sorry, I can't really explain why, but that's how I feel.

Synopsis: Maddie is the foster daughter of Martha's chief of staff. Then her foster mother gets killed and she lives at the Kents's until new foster parents can be found. But Maddie is special, she can control glass with her mind. Has she killed her foster mother?

My Opinion: The actress of Maddie (Emily Hirst) strongly reminded me of Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) in the first Harry Potter movie. I also found it interesting how they managed to make her the prime suspect just to reveal that her father (Callum Keith Rennie, Leoben in Battlestar Galactica) has the same abilities. The concept of second generation meteor freaks has been mentioned before but it was still interesting.

Synopsis: Lionel nearly gets killed when his limo is rammed by a train. But this was no accident, someone has made a game out of the attempts to kill Lionel. But soon it's not only Lionel's life that is endangered, it's Martha's as well.

My Opinion: Everytime I watch that episode, I am sure that Ian Tracey has had a previous appearance on the show, that I've seen him there before. But IMDb tells me, that he hasn't.
While I found the tasks to be interesting I nonetheless recognized the obvious television/movies errors, such as a train that doesn't even stop after it has hit a car or Clark catching a falling elevator without hurting the occupants, even though they've just fallen several hundred feets.

(From Smallville Marathon #2 on June 14th, 2008)