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This movie represents a distinctly older generation of Filipinos who excuse human rights violations and somehow hold a fascistic awe of former President Duterte. To them, patriotism means to cheer on government soldiers who kill their fellow countrymen, and the solution to every problem is to scapegoat different groups and advocate violence against them. Of course, this is all done in "retaliation" to rescue a little girl in trouble, as it always is in the movies. But this kind of drivel is only for the simple minded.

The truth is, the simplistic solutions in this movie did not come close to solving the problems when they were put to the test, as the Duterte administration finished up its term. The issue of muslim insurgency is still there, and the beseiged City of Marawi is still in absolute ruins. So in real life, the great Philippine military did not make life better for the people, in any respect.

Because of other reviewers, I don't have to go into the fact that this movie tries to make heroes out of people trying to kill Houthis who are simply defending their own land. But the movie's depiction of the troops itself is distracting, because the way they fight a war is that they travel in MRAP troop vehicles in inadequate numbers, and if they see the enemy, they try to engage with a robotic gun on the top without ever getting out of the vehicle. So essentially they play the war like it is a video game. Obviously their enemy will just place a few rocks in the road and then attack the stationary vehicle, even by lighting a fire under it, etc. A war movie is supposed to be about heroism, not about soldiers who come to Yemen to murder, who are too scared to step out of their armored vehicles.

Based on a Raymond Carver short story, this story is an exploration of love and death while a patient (always unseen) is in a coma. This short should be in a master class in cinematography, and Radha Mitchell was awesome. I saw on the website that it has won many awards, and I still felt disappointed, because deserves many more and better awards than it has.

This documentary follows an elderly lady who stalks Broadway like a vampire seeking cheap tickets, breaking decorum and proudly rocking the standby line in the name of good theatrical taste. It becomes more intriguing to find that our subject, who sees, in her estimation, 500 shows a year (that's right, more than one a day), is highly educated at Brandeis, Harvard and Oxford. Not bad for a bag lady (literally). The theater staff don't like her, but it's not like anyone would take their side. She is not very likable, but who is going to be sympathetic to theater staff with the obnoxious ticket prices that they charge these days? It's a great testament to living your life following your obsession.

If it has a fault, it is that it is such a beautiful tragedy that it is hard to see it as a comedy. There are some good improv scenes, interspersed with the group's struggles with fame and ambition and how hard it is to be an artist, which are so engrossing and real that your heart really goes out to the characters.

Here is the good and the bad:

The good: This is rewriting the rules of cinematography in that the style comes not from previous narrative movies, nor from documentaries, but from the gaming world, which is how most young people experience their TV screens. They are masterful in their ability to hide the cut and place the viewer in the action.

The bad: This movie is watchable on your TV in a lit room or on a small screen, but it's not watchable in a movie theater. The shaky camera is enough to give you a headache, which is also true of many video games.

Although this movie is groundbreaking, it comes out when many movies have already been more successful making the POV style more watchable, such as Russian Ark, Birdman, and to an extent, Revenant. Those movies did it with a Steadicam operator, which is much heavier equipment, and to be fair, they lack the immediacy and faithfulness to POV of Hardcore Henry. More than those other films, Hardcore Henry shows what is possible in the POV style.

This movie has a lot of rough edges and no decent climax. Kinski as Dracula works well, as does Isabel Adjani as Lucy. But the blocking of the camera is amateurish, the perspective is confused, and worst of all, it's the only vampire movie that doesn't scare anyone. (Oh by the way, if you are on the way to driving a stake into a vampire's heart, don't appear in the next scene with the stake in your hand; you are supposed to leave it in.)

Herzog has said that this movie was an attempt to show the highest values of his own culture. I have no idea whether he succeeded, but as a movie, this is a failure.

Whether it is the masterful editing or the all-around great acting, this movie is vastly underestimated. Since I have seen it several times, I am well aware that the director Josef Rusnak has left some critical loose ends, but the movie was saved by the cinematography of Wedigo Von Shultendorf and editor James Herbert, both of whom have better credits the Rusnak.

There are many loose ends in the plot which lead the viewer nowhere. For example, the superintendent,inspecting a crime scene, draws our gaze by closely examining a shard of glass, but that evidence is completely irrelevant. Later, the protagonist is warned that he is walking into an ambush, walks into it anyway, for no reason.

But the greatness of the movie lies, first, in the flash-forward editing style that was pioneered by Tony Scott in Man on Fire, and second, on the wonderful performances of Wesley Snipes, Eliza Bennet, and Lena Headey. This movie is a jewel in the rough.

Will the remaining mineral resources of the Earth, found in the most remote and beautiful locations, ever be used to benefit the indigenous peoples who live there? That is the question being asked of several very impressive documentaries in recent years, and this is the latest of them. The film begins as a visual odyssey to the Bolivian salt flats, a place of lyrical and hypnotic beauty and silence. It then progresses into a compelling political essay about the consequences of very lucrative lithium mining that is beginning to threaten that natural beauty. Will the Bolivians benefit from the lithium? Is this good for the planet? This movie appeals to both the heart and the mind, to the politics as well as the ethics. It is every bit the equal of Rachel Boynton's Big Men, about the exploitation of Ghana's offshore oil reserves and the political struggles it caused, and continues to cause, in that country.

These documentaries about the indigenous people's struggles over the sovereignty of their mineral resources are much more compelling, and address the same issues, as the less successful activist-centered documentaries about global warming.

In the perpetual quest for ever higher production values, today's mainstream movies are boringly predictable. The power of films in the faux-documentary style such as Sweaty Betty is that they are, if anything, completely unpredictable. This film is pure, raw filmmaking, proudly bearing all its rough edges for all to see. Clearly, the movie has the spirit of Ozu, in that it focuses us on very intimate stories of normal people's lives, without any sentimentality or melodrama. The intentionally low quality of the video introduces the camera-as-character, drawing us further into the story. Having said that, I think that the lack of a tripod was the single most negative factor. The shaky camera work hurts the eyes over the 90 minute run of the film.

It is a fascinating production premise of shooting on a presentational set design (that is, drawing chalk lines and bidding the audience to imagine that the walls are there). This is the stuff of theater, and Lars Von Trier forces the presentational method into that of movies, which are usually representational in design.

But that's the only kudos I can give to this boring, badly written movie with overbearing on-the-nose narration, and awkward lines. Cinematography was distractingly bad as well. I believe that the idea was to simulate the feeling of seeing a stage play, so almost the entire movie is shot with extremely long lenses from 50 feet away, which feels, obviously, like you're watching a movie from fifty feet away.

Now the Flannery O'Connor-like moral allegory in the story is what many people comment on, and regarding that, I would like to give Mr. Von Trier one, no two, very big middle fingers.

The root of all evil is not found in poor and working class white people. I'm sure that there are bad people among regular rednecks. But why pick on them? Because they don't fit into some liberal category for pity?

On the positive, I thought that Nicole Kidman was great.

Movies should draw on real life, but people often simply draw on other movies they have already seen, and this is the case here. In a low budget movie, you can't outspend Hollywood, so maybe have a superior concept, better writing, or unique cinematography, what do you think? Maybe next time.

Something about that the NSA has been hacked and there is only one expert who can save the whole government from crashing down. Essentially it's Red Hat meets an overdrawn bank account.

This poorly shot movie is based on an Islamic terrorist plot that probable comes from a book of movie clichés. I think I have already written too much.

It's difficult for me to dis this perfectly well-meaning guy with committed, if vague, political and religious beliefs. The first five minutes of the movie were the strongest, and yet they also revealed the film's flaw. At the start we learn about the filmmaker's friend, who went to Chiapas to film a peaceful protest and was shot. Afterwards, the foreign journalists all left, and the lone filmmaker, our narrator, stands alone against the stormtroopers. That is when my wife said, "I don't like his voice."

But why not? His voice is perfectly fine. I think it goes to the larger issue, which is that every filmmaker has a voice, just like every writer has a voice. And this voice is a little too centered on the filmmaker. When the filmmaker faced off against the troops, he said "I was scared." That kind of on-the-nose writing is a real buzz-kill.

Because when a stranger tells you "I'm scared," the first thing most people think of is, "You're probably just a wimp." A movie shows, it's not supposed to tell. A horror movie is not a description of a scary event, a horror movie is supposed to scare you, or its not a movie. And anyway, what is the filmmaker, a white American, what business does he have being scared? The people of Chiapas, talk to them and you will hear about how scary it is. After all, you did take a plane to get there.

So that's the problem, in a sense. A self-narrated piece has a dangerous tendency to accidentally portray the narrator as the hero in their own story, and in a documentary where people's lives are at stake, that can seem a little selfish.

Paul Fleschner and William Tanoos wrote, directed and starred in this independent comedy alongside Tom Sizemore and cameos from Jesse Ventura. Hinting at the millennial generation's suspicion of corrupt party politics (we have had a do-nothing congress for almost a decade), the hard-drinking grandson of the great socialist American Eugene Debs decides to continue the family tradition and run for governor of Indiana. The film is located almost entirely in Terra Haute, which is the birthplace of Eugene Debs, and it captures the spirit of a plain- speaking populist politician who sets out to unite people in the American heartland. Fleschner and Tanoos give a nice performance, and Sizemore hits is out of the park. Although I kept wishing that they exploited their material more deeply (both the Terre Haute setting and the Debs legacy), I'm giving these first time filmmaker a thumbs up.

Even if you agree with 9/11 conspiracy theory, you will still be asleep by the end of this movie about two guys in a room. But honestly, are you going to form political opinions based on exposition being spewed out in a scripted drama?

Or perhaps you don't need convincing, and you get a thrill out of seeing your own preexisting belief confirmed on the silver screen. If so, you are not alone. I think everyone does that. But you will still need a strong cup of coffee for this flick. I would rather be water-boarded than have to sit through that again.

For myself, I have read the 9/11 report and seen other films (documentaries) on this subject. One thing the movie gets right is that those theories truly belong in fiction and should stay there.

Click "Yes" below if you are on the side of the rape victims and their family!

It almost happened before.

In September 1996, according to the Philippine Supreme Court decision G.R. Nos. 138874-75, the parents of a girl named Rochelle wrote a letter of complaint against teenager Paco Larranaga, stating that Rochelle was at the side of the road when Larranaga pulled up in a car full of teenage boys, and "grabbed Rochelle by her hand to try to get Rochelle to their vehicle. She resisted and got away from him. Sensing some people were watching what they were doing, they hurriedly sped away." Nevertheless, nothing was done because Larranaga was the son of a wealthy connected family, and the children of the rich usually get their way in the Philippines.

A few months later, Larranaga and seven of his friends raped and killed two girls, by abducting them in a van they had rented for the occasion. In an extended trial in which both sides presented hours of testimony, and numerous appeals, the Philippine courts found Paco and his friends guilty of kidnapping, rape and murder.

Although the Larranaga family lost in court, they are winners at the film festivals. Take away the exciting musical score and fast cutting, and the film boils down to this: the Philippines justice system is corrupt, and therefore Larranaga didn't rape anybody.

I am a lawyer who has often stood up for the wrongly accused. Even before I checked out the evidence for myself, I suspected that he was guilty, just from watching the movie and tuning out the hype. I think what the film goers should remember is that two innocent women were raped and killed, and they are as vulnerable to the arbitrariness of the Phil justice system as Larranaga. Several witnesses placed Larranaga in the van with the other rapists, and I think that the rich kid's army of alibi witnesses don't count for much when you check their testimony. (By the way, I am not anti-rich. My family owns a lot of land in the Philippines.)

Incredibly insulting was the conscious effort of the producers to portray Larranaga's family members as disinterested and victimized by the government, while vilifying the mother and father of the real victims to be liars who desperately want the wrong man to go to prison, based on what I thought was a nonsensical theory. The theory is that the Chiong family wants to frame Paco to prevent police from discovering that the daughters were killed by criminals who their father was doing business with.

What the gullible international audience doesn't understand is that there is no reason for a person to deflect attention in a murder investigation, because in the Philippines, most murders go unsolved. And besides, the Larranagas are claiming that a father would rather continue to do business with criminals after they raped and killed BOTH of his daughters!

I would say that this is insulting the public's intelligence, but based on the reviews, most of the public bought it. Perhaps it is just a prejudice that no one believes that the Philippine government could ever get anything right (I find it hard to believe too, but it is true in this case.) But the one place where this film was not well received was in Cebu, where the events took place. Filipinos know their system is corrupt, but they also know that their daughters are safer with the rapists in jail.

This is a very good case study for the successful use of unethical pseudo-journalistic practices in documentary filmmaking. To top it off, one of the producers is part of Larranaga's wealthy clan, and I think it would have been fairer to disclose that at the beginning, not the end, of the movie.

JC Chandor has hit it out of the park before, with Margin Call and with All Is Lost. Inside Llewyn Davis was also a beautiful effort. So I guess that means that he gets the benefit of the doubt for any of his future work. He'll need it for this.

This movie falls into the laudable sub-trend in Hollywood to try to depart from their lockstep story-driven editing and formula-driven writing. That's what the movie is not. What it is, isn't much.

The movie is about an honest business owner in a syndicate-controlled industry being tempted into criminal acts to protect his business, and to make matters worse, he has the same hairstylist as Al Pacino in the first Godfather. So after this setup for the protagonist who is inexorably driven into a life of crime, this movie breaks that cliché, and instead of giving into temptation, the guy just passively allows stuff to happen. Even the idea of waiting for the cops to pick up the gangster who has been harassing his business, instead of allowing him to escape, is too much of an active role for our protagonist.

The moral of the story is that non-proactive nice guys win in the end. As for the movie, I don't think that everyone will be awake by the end.

Jacco Groen has created a film that addresses, point blank, the heartbreaking story of a small girl facing sexual exploitation. He rejects all the standard Hollywood cliché of portraying the children as helpless objects of our pity, to be rescued by a male hero like Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise does appear in this movie, but only as an image torn from a magazine. Lilet is on her own.

Sandy Talag is probably the most natural, dynamic, and beautiful child actor since Peter Bartholomew or recently, Dakota Fanning. Your heart aches for this fragile girl in this terrible, ugly environment. And yet Lilet has not an ounce of self pity. A real child in a broken, abusive environment has no time for tears. Children adapt quickly to any environment, and learn their own ways of surviving.

The entire cast and crew worked together in this indy film to show Lilet as someone who, at an early age, refuses to follow the adults And when you meet the adults in her life, you will understand. But Lilet cannot differentiate between her saviors and her captors, refusing even those who would help. No matter what, she is determined to make her own choices, even the wrong ones. And that spirit is one of the most inspiring things to capture on film this year.